Gov uses coding in color lasers to track printouts

[Core]

It's an older article, but I only just learned about this and wondered if this is still going on:

October 16th, 2005 Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You

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?"

Link

 

[Nibiru2012]

This is simply another reason why the people of this country need to take it back from the puppets and puppeteers who control and pull the strings. Gather them up, put them on a desolate island in the middle of the Pacific. Tell them that if they try to flee or escape that 50 Megaton Hydrogen Bomb (Tzar Bomba) will be activated and vaporize them all!

I am so sick of this crap is just really p****** me off!

 

[Fire cat]

Nice bomb...

I agree. What's with all these people tracking your every move? To all US members, don't take this badly, but the US has to be the most paranoid country ever.

 

[clifford_cooley]

don't take this badly, but the US has to be the most paranoid country ever.

Paranoid people are usually the ones that have reason to be paranoid. I'm paranoid because I can't protect myself from the guy at the top, all I can do at best is try to ignore the situation. After all is that not what the guy at the top wants, everyone under them to ignore what they are doing.

Here is a slightly off topic discussion about how our government is failing us.
Scary new discovery about planet Earth

 

[Fire cat]

Here is a slightly off topic discussion about how our government is failing us.
Scary new discovery about planet Earth

LOL I remeber watching that vid a few years ago when my sucky english teacher (who couldn't actually speak english) had to present something random

 

[Nibiru2012]

After all is that not what the guy at the top wants, everyone under them to ignore what they are doing.

Cliff - very precise and to the point! Americans would rather watch American Idol or what the Kardashian whores are doing rather than truly understand what the government and shadow governments are REALLY doing!

 

[TrainableMan]

When Michelle Obama is as hot as Kim K. then I'll pay attention

 

[Nibiru2012]

When Michelle Obama is as hot as Kim K. then I'll pay attention

My point was just made! Sad state of the American populace!

 

[Core]

I wonder how the rest of the world sees the embarrassment that is the so-called Tea Party...

 

[Fire cat]

I wonder how the rest of the world sees the embarrassment that is the so-called Tea Party...

They probably don't care a tiny bit. I mean - why would some guy lost in the alps care that two hundred years ago, there was a rebellion thousands of kilometres away, and that tons of tea were spoiled.

Then again - it all depends of the country.

 

[Core]

They probably don't care a tiny bit. I mean - why would some guy lost in the alps care that two hundred years ago, there was a rebellion thousands of kilometres away, and that tons of tea were spoiled.

Then again - it all depends of the country.

Naw, I am referring to the group of morons gathering to shout unintelligibly, protesting anything from health care to doorknobs. It's kind of a fringe group of the Republican party.

 

[TrainableMan]

They probably don't care a tiny bit. I mean - why would some guy lost in the alps care that two hundred years ago, there was a rebellion thousands of kilometres away, and that tons of tea were spoiled.

Based on FCs comment, I would say they haven't even heard about it :lol:.

FC it is a New Tea Party - people running for election today offering change (as if every non-incumbent candidate didn't automatically offer change as their platform)

And Nibs, It's not like I watch her stupid reality show or anything but looking at her IS something I can control; voting one way and have two other idiots vote another isn't.

 

[Nibiru2012]

They probably don't care a tiny bit. I mean - why would some guy lost in the alps care that two hundred years ago, there was a rebellion thousands of kilometres away, and that tons of tea were spoiled.

Then again - it all depends of the country.

The original Boston Tea Party was done by the "Sons Of Liberty". They were protesting the additional taxes on tea imposed by the British Crown through the influence and bitching of the East India Company.