Posted on 10/18/2005 6:54:07 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
Tiny Dots Show Where and When You Made Your Print
San Francisco - A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.
The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known.
"We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen.
You can see the dots on color prints from machines made by Xerox, Canon, and other manufacturers (for a list of the printers we investigated so far, see: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php). The dots are yellow, less than one millimeter in diameter, and are typically repeated over each page of a document. In order to see the pattern, you need a blue light, a magnifying glass, or a microscope (for instructions on how to see the dots, see: http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/).
EFF and its partners began its project to break the printer code with the Xerox DocuColor line. Researchers Schoen, EFF intern Robert Lee, and volunteers Patrick Murphy and Joel Alwen compared dots from test pages sent in by EFF supporters, noting similarities and differences in their arrangement, and then found a simple way to read the pattern.
"So far, we've only broken the code for Xerox DocuColor printers," said Schoen. "But we believe that other models from other manufacturers include the same personally identifiable information in their tracking dots."
You can decode your own Xerox DocuColor prints using EFF's automated program at http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/index.php#program.
Xerox previously admitted that it provided these tracking dots to the government, but indicated that only the Secret Service had the ability to read the code. The Secret Service maintains that it only uses the information for criminal counterfeit investigations. However, there are no laws to prevent the government from abusing this information.
"Underground democracy movements that produce political or religious pamphlets and flyers, like the Russian samizdat of the 1980s, will always need the anonymity of simple paper documents, but this technology makes it easier for governments to find dissenters," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "Even worse, it shows how the government and private industry make backroom deals to weaken our privacy by compromising everyday equipment like printers. The logical next question is: what other deals have been or are being made to ensure that our technology rats on us?"
EFF is still working on cracking the codes from other printers and we need the public's help. Find out how you can make your own test pages to be included in our research at http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/wp.php#testsheets.
Don't worry! Once we get a Republican majority, this kind of of Orwellian big brother BS will come to an immediate stop!
Thanks for my first laugh this morning.
Are you showing your (technical) age?
It brought this old programmer memories of using the "POKE" and "PEEK" commands in BASIC to insert and read data into/from assembly-language routines (which could then be "CALLed" from BASIC...).
Ah, for the good ol' days -- when you could write your own applications -- on machines that came with a whole 16KB of RAM... (And yes, that is "sixteen KILO bytes"...)
OTOH, I don't miss the thrill of using a Radio Shack audio cassette tape recorder as my "disk drive" for program storage... '-)
Not only that, but the Departments of Educations, Energy, commerce, and a host of other wasted programs are going to be ended... I just can't wait for the Republicans to take control!
Bump and self-ping for later archiving.
Those liberals are sure gonna scream when we cut spending back to a bare minimum and get rid of stupid nanny government once and for all!
I've heard the same kinds of comments used about the I-Pass system here in Illinois - the one where the electronic transmitters automatically subtract your tolls when you pass through.... and oh by the way, the gov't takes a picture of your car every time you pass through too. And let's not forget about some gov'ts already using this information against people in a court of law (like divorce cases where tracking the movements of one's spouse is "important").
you caught me... BUT I WAS JUST A KID, honest.
my uncle introduced me to computers when he had a TRS80 w/audio tape storage. then proceed to teach me electronics, had me wiring up my own gate logic... provided a very good basis for my future in programming.
better check your meds.
Nope, it's gonna happen. Just gotta get that Republican majority!
does that make this a consititutional issue? is the gov and priv industry colluding to violate a right given in the constitution?
i hadn't thought about it in those terms before.
Trotting out an old favorite, eh?
That was scary for a while, but luckily it's gotten better. A poster in New Jersey was criticizing a politician, so the politician sued for slander, got a subpoena and went to get his name. The poster defended himself and recently won his case to not have his real name automatically revealed due to a subpoena. The politician must prove the slander suit would survive on its merits. He also has to convince the court that he's not going to pull a common tactic -- bring the suit to get the name, only to drop the suit once he has it, then take private retribution against the poster. This is the tactic used by the RIAA to find file sharers.
I also like that the decision cited the Federalist Papers in emphasizing the important nature of anonymous political speech.
"Seems to me that you could avoid registering the warranty and remain anonymous."
"Even the government can't be stupid enough to believe that counterfeiters are going to fill out the warranty card on their printers."
Printers high end enough to be used by counterfeiters don't have warranty cards. There aren't that many made. The manufacturers know where each one is.
So?!
Go and buy a printer. Create your hate document. Dispose of the printer.
If you do not register your printer and only use it for one act, they will never find you.
VINs identify actual cars, and tie them to their owner. The equivalent is if your printer gets stolen you can say it's yours when you find it. Lot numbers are for consumer safety, so the manufacturer can trace a bad product.
The one thing none of those others have in common is that they have nothing to do with freedom of anonymous speech.
I just don't see what the big deal is.
Because there are zero privacy protections in place.
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