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.
Ping.
lol
Hope you didn't use your credit card when you bought it, or weren't recognizable through the security cameras.
that does raise an interesting question regarding FR though... i wonder if they do track IP addresses of posts? that is the one connecting piece of information that is used to trace and 'anonymous' id back to a user's ISP which, along with time based recording, can identify the computer from which the post was made.
ping
your VIN doesn't tell the gov what you did with your car. granted that technology is there too with the black boxes, but it isn't your VIN. and today's black boxes have limited information.
when the gov and car manufacturors collude to have GPS tracking built in to all cars and then only provide the gov with first hand knowledge of how to track the cars, then you have a comparable.
I designed an 8-bit (plus carry) binary calculator using a breadboard, transistors, LEDs and switches from Radio Shack. God, I was a geek.
This is also true with ballpoint pens to some extent. At regular intervals, an inert chemical marker in the inks of the major manufacturers is changed. If someone signs a document with a new pen, and the document was supposed to be signed 10 years prior (i.e. a will), a test of the ink formulation reveals the age of the pen.
"nor your new gps equipped car, "
Shhhh! That is how I am going to find out Batman's real identity.
Really, that is one reason I rode a motorcycle, and will again soon, Lord willing. I don't do anything wrong, but I am the guy that when I hear a serious crime reported on the news, I am anxious to hear the description. Not because I do bad things, but with my luck, I fit the description of the perp to a T. "Oh, he's oriental. Whew!"
"Mark my words. First it is this and then there will be other stuff"
Mark MY words. This is hardly "first". We have all been "trackable" in so many ways, for so long, that this is really inconsequential, in the grand scheme.
Driver's licenses, license plates, PHONE BOOKS, finger prints, DNA, facial recognition software, cameras on the street, handwriting, plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog-smelling prints, 8x10 color glossy pictures.... (sorry, I digressed). Well anyway, the point is that if the government wants to track you, they will, period.
I don't believe in the "if you aren't doing anything wrong..." argument either. But what we need to concentrate on is not these little details, but in keeping government "honest" to begin with. That's what the constitution is about - if we insist on its being followed, we will be safe from "big brother".
"Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act "with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves..." Republican Contract with America -
...On the first day of the 104th Congress, the new Republican majority will immediately pass the following major reforms, aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American people in their government:
* FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
* SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse; * THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut committee staff by one-third;
* FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
* FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
* SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
* SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a tax increase;
* EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.
That is a good question we should ask of Jim Robinson. How long does he keep his raw http logs (that store your IP), does the application log posts (tie IP to posting, more reliable than trying to match http log times with posting times), and what is his policy for revealing a poster's email address?
FR could be a giant Democrat conspiracy to collect information on us all in order to crush us! All about us will be revealed when Hillary runs for President.
If you think the government would give a second glance to people like me, you are not being realistic.
In my driveway, I have ten cars from the 80's, and early 90's. I maintain them well... I love my 90 Town Car. It is the last to use the 5.0's.
I have a dash mounted gps which talks to me, and keeps going in the right direction. It has all the addresses currently available, and can take me to your door...
I use a debit card to pay for things. I use no credit, these days. I pay cash as often as I can. I can put a lot of 000's on checks. I have only one personal checking account.
I don't use American Express.
I have to use my new improved Passport. Soon, I guess we'll get a tatt!
A very Pollyannaish attitude.
On the border control issue - I am one of those upset about both. I consider this very consistent. The enormous influx of illegals has been the excuse for many measures, such as the printer signatures, such as having to "prove" legal status to get a job, such as firearms registration, etc, which do restrict the freedoms of legitimate, law-abiding citizens and other legal residents. Closing and controlling the borders would take away this excuse. And it would not take 500,000 border guards. Fences, cameras, and seismic sensors could be placed along the border to detect illegal incursions, at a far lower cost than would be incurred by allowing the invasion to continue.
Hate document??????????? You mean something along the lines of the Federalist Papers? Or maybe Common Sense? Or maybe a favorite recipe?
These are expensive color laser printers, not cheapo disposable inkjets.
Neither my printer nor any dots it prints have anything to do with my freedom.
You and people like you will be the downfall of rights and freedom.
I know illegal things going on in the school district where my wife works and write the local paper. Some clerk can now trace who I am.
I write a note to the editor about my congressman and include some documents.
Business notes and ideas can be tracked.
The list of legal things that can be misused is endless.
My point was, if you're saying and advocating the kinds of things that are going to make you some serious political enemies, those aren't the kind of things you're going to 100% limit to documents you print at home; that stuff is going to pop up in yuor public speech, as well, and that includes your posts here.
As a man thinketh, so is he. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. What's inside is going to come out. All that is needed is a little bit of time and you will unmask yourself.
Ask yourself what percentage -- roughly -- of the positions you hold that might be viewed as highly controversial have you NOT discussed openly on-line? How much of the subject matter of what you consider your private thoughts have you really kept 100% to yourself?
I'm pretty sure that, unless you're quite atypical, you've already put enough data out there that anyone who took a serious exception to you could damn you on your public speech alone; without any need to delve into your private archives in your home.
That is the gist of what I was trying to say.
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