BEWARE! Uncle Sam traces ALL your prints!

[Rokcet Scientist]

BEWARE !

Uncle Sam/Big Brother traces ALL your prints!
Every single one of them!

A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF; http://www.eff.org/) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_10.php#004063.

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.

You can see the dots on color prints from machines made by Xerox, Canon, and other manufacturers (for a LIST! of the printers 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/).

Check the list!
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php

Seems to me it is high time for a buyer's strike against those compromised printer brands, don't you think?

Another step towards "1984" . . .
RS

[dbphotos]

I guess as long as I'm not printing money I'm o.k.

[Mr. Pickles]

Does this really bother you? I think they do so much, that this is kind of mild to me. If they were getting copies of every print, that would be different. Slapping dots on there to stop conterfeiting isn't a big deal to me. I'm sure the printer folks slapped an extra few bucks to the price to offset the cost, which kind of stinks.

But cars are the same way. Seat belts and now air bags are mandatory, and the cost of these keeps going up and up, and they keep passing the cost on to us. Now they got air bags for your legs and stuff.

I think it would be nice to educate people on how to drive the right way, and stop driving with one hand, while yappin' on the cell phone, while shaving or make-uping instead.

[mikej]

That must be why all the black helicopters are flying around... they are following the dots.

I wonder if the astronuts in the space station get a copy of the dot positons and spend time connecting the dots?

Mike