"Government Tracking You with Secret Code in Color Printers"

[Heidi]

Sorry, everyone, if this is a dupe. (Bold emphasis is my own.)

From www.technologynewsdaily.com :
Government Tracking You with Secret Code in Color Printers

The US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public.

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/).

<snip>

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?"

Full article: http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/1538

Related article (Electronic Freedom Foundation): http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/

Related article: (Electronic Freedom Foundation): http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php

[havocmom]

1. Been a little detail on all those crime investigation TV shows.

Folks, ANYTHING you do, say, or print will be used against you. And you probably don't have to really do anything naughty. If they want to round ya up, they will find a way.

To make a twist on a Dorothy Parker line, You might as well fight.

[Heidi]

2. Thank you, havocmom . . .

That's exactly my concern. I rarely post in GD, but this is just too important to ignore.

[tibbiit]

5. but what if you buy your printer with cash

and dont register it?
How can they know then? I never register stuff anymore myself.
tib

[pitohui]

9. color printers are reportable or usedta be anyways

have to admit i haven't tried to buy one for cash in today's free-wheelling world of low cost color printers but in days gone by you had to reveal your identity & if you were buying the printer for cash of course it would be even more important to get yr name and proof of identity as you'd either be a business (& want the warranty information out there anyway) or part of an organized crime effort

[elehhhhna]

3. can't put colored tracing pellets in bomb-grade fertilizer, tho.

what a world.

[Heidi]

4. Not yet, anyway. (nt)

[jmowreader]

11. I never figured out how taggants would help. Can you enlighten me?

Okay, I can kinda understand the concept: every explosives manufacturer and every maker of ammonium nitrate would put a unique combination of chemicals into his product. This way, you know the manufacturer of the agents used.

But if Joe Terrorist comes up with some Gulf explosives and blows up a school with them, what do you know? That Gulf explosives blew up the school. Which is something a well-equipped bomb squad could figure out without any taggants.

[Heidi]

6. Lunchtime kick (CST, anyway). (nt)

[FreedomAngel82]

7. Ugh!

What are they going to do next? Put scanners in my tv?! Thank goodness my printer hasn't done this...yet anyways.

[pitohui]

8. hasn't this always been the case?

usa dept. of the treasury has been concerned w. the tracking of color printers since at least the 1980s & probably earlier

otherwise counterfeiters do v. well for themselves & it isn't quite fair to those of us who work for a living

[ucmike]

10. see the ads on the right of the article?

color printers for sale on the web.
(fade out to x-files music.....)

[applegrove]

12. How is the government supposed to track terrorists if they cannot

look at anybody's emails?

Fact is according to the patriot act - any American corporation has to hand over the Web files of any person around the world who the government asks for. That's right - I am in Canada and my computer has Microsoft on it - along with the Canadian Bell account (which is linked to msm) so anything I write can be turned over to the US government by the American corporations who are asked for it. And by law, the corporations cannot talk about it.

Just the way it is. And personally - I would not want one freaking al Qaeda in Canada to get away with doing any terrorism anywhere.

Big deal.