Posted on 02/26/2008 12:09:15 PM PST by BGHater
European Union justice watchdogs are concerned that "Big Brother" computer printer technology that allows security agencies to track printed documents might breach privacy laws.
Most consumers are unaware that many popular colour laser printers, including those made by Brother, Cannon, Xerox and HP, embed almost invisible tracking dots onto documents, uniquely identifying the machine that printed them.
Franco Frattini, European Commissioner for Justice and Security, has launched an investigation after receiving official complaints from Euro-MPs.
"To the extent that individuals may be identified through material printed or copied using certain equipment, such processing may give rise to the violation of fundamental human rights, namely the right to privacy and private life," he said.
"It also might violate the right to protection of personal data."
Satu Hari, a Finnish Euro-MP, has taken up the issue of "forensic tracking mechanisms" after consumers "unsuccessfully asked manufacturers to disable this function".
She has highlighted research by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) finding that technology originally designed to prevent currency counterfeiting might end up as catch-all tool for general surveillance.
Danny O'Brien, a spokesman for the EFF, an organisation that defends "digital rights", believes the technology could be used by authoritarian regimes, such as the Chinese, to repress dissent.
"If you widen this out to authoritarian regimes, this becomes a far more pernicious threat," he told The Register.
"If you're running off some leaflets that the Chinese government doesn't like the look of, the fact that they can trace you to a particular suburb or printer shop is a far more damaging result."
I wonder if those embedded marks transfer with photocopying?
Do I want my neighbor knowing how much I spend on liquor? No. It's none of his business.
Do I want my co-workers to know how much I'm paid? No. That's private.
Do I want the government to track phone calls to known terrorists in Iran? Yes.
If the FBI finds documents containing military secrets, do I want them to know where the documents were printed? I sure do.
Overall, I think our society leans heavily toward "That's none of your darn business". And I think we might be better off if we went a little the other way. Despite what some say, I don't see a Constitutional right to privacy. Of course, I don't know where to draw the line. The issue of privacy is not simple.
>may give rise to the violation of fundamental human rights, namely the right to privacy and private life,”
which the EU does every second by the nature of its very existence.
That would require China to register every serial number for every color laser printer so they can match the dots from a particular document to a particular printer; an unlikely scenario. That’s all this technology does - little tiny yellow dots that when you decode the pattern tells you the serial number and make of printer.
There is no freedom of speech component - one can choose not to use a color laser to print their documents - can’t imagine some shoestring protest movement using it.
It’s a pattern of tiny yellow dots - you can show it with a blue light at an angle across the page, plus a fair magnifying glass. It would take one heck of a good color scanner, scanning at the highest resolution, and a color printer to reproduce the dot pattern, a combination that is very unlikely and never going to happen in a color copying situation, and will not transfer to a black and white copy, at all.
Wonder if they can track me by the tiny bubbles in my wine?
Uh. That's not that unlikely of a scenario in China. Products like printers are tracked by their serial number all the way until the point they are sold (and past if you register them) unless the buyer pays cash.
It’s probably worth noting that the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) ain’t all sweetness and light. EFF lawyers are siding with the domestic terrorist group C.A.I.R. in their legal battle with talk show host Michael Savage.
I believe the this machine ID program was initiated in USA by Treasury Dept on first color copiers, to be able to trace counterfeit currency back to its source.
I’m safe, then. I’m too cheap to use color 99% of the time anyway. :)
No. Actually they can send a copy to a manufacturer and the manufacturer then tells them who the machine was sold to. It’s a very plausible scenario. However as you said, you don’t need to use a color laser printer or copier. Ink jets and black and white copiers are lower quality but work quite well enough for spreading sedition.
Another tool that a fascist government can use to silence dissidents. After they seize our guns, we won’t even be able to say what we think.
The Constitution doesn't enumerate rights, it enumerates government powers; additionally
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Oh, the big-gov types have a fix! We just have to interpret the Commerce Clause and the (un)Necessary-and-(im)proper clause (Article One, section 8, clause 18 of the United States Constitution) so vaguely as to be meaningless, so sweeping as to be all comprehensive. Just replace the entire US Constitution with Article One, section 8, clause 18 and you have the blueprint for the dream government of millions of Americans.
I haven’t heard of copying machines with the same characteristics, but they are generally made by the same companies.
I’m more worried about the messages in my alphabits.
THINK a minute.. EU and privacy do not necessarily belong in the same sentences. Their socialism utopia is successful, who needs privacy... unless of course, to counterfeit some US dollars
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