Color Laser Printers Tracking Everything You Print 795
It's not new, but it's getting noticed: Jordan writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that several printer manufacturers are now and have been for some time embedding (nearly) invisible serial numbers in every document you print with their color laser printers, allowing law enforcement to track any such document back to the printer which printed it. The technology, ostensibly created to track down money counterfeiters, was created by Xerox about 20 years ago. A Xerox researcher says that the number-embedding chip lies 'way in the machine, right near the laser' and that 'standard mischief won't get you around it.'"
Who didn't know this? (Score:2, Informative)
Epson inkjet printers, for example, supposedly embed serial codes using droplets of yellow ink in black regions. The serial numbers can't be seen by the human eye, but they apparently can be detected somehow.
Engadget (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Just another reason... (Score:2, Informative)
After a quick check of the surveillance camera's, they've got your face (or the person who bought it, if its you) and are coming to raid your house.
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Those rat b--- (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Those rat b--- (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just another reason... (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, you can come to return an item without a reciept and as long as you have a picture ID you can get your money back if you know someone/fight with them/are really cute.
But this assumes that you gave them the proper information in the first place. You don't have to provide them any of that information, but you do forfit your ability to return junk without a reciept and get cash back.
Anyone able to see these Yellow dots on a Xerox? (Score:2, Informative)
-jh
Re:Non free and why it's important (Score:2, Informative)
Don't buy new printers, buy used. Don't buy used from eBay or similar, buy used from swap meets, garage sales, etc. Pay cash. Use a firewall. Use open source software instead of the proprietary drivers to print.
When you install your OS, use all bogus information when filling things out like your user name, host name, etc. Don't use anything that could be traced back to you, like naming your computers after your kids or your dog or whatever. Best case, name your computers "host1" or "cpu1" or something similar.
Don't use retail gear to do your work...buy used, just like the printer. A Pentium 300 laptop is essentially free on the open market. Do a secure wipe on the hard drive, install OpenBSD, hook up your printer and use a generic driver (no fancy fonts, etc) and you are good to go.
Buy a 802.11 card on the open market, also with cash. Use a free WiFi hotspot to publish...never go into the place with the hotspot, sit outside (less chance of cameras, etc). Use privacy services, anonymizers, Publius servers, etc to publish your work.
If you need to make copies, go to any college campus or big city, pick someone off the street, and pay 10 or 20 dollars for them to go in and make the copies for you.
100% anonymity can be done without too much trouble, as long as you pay attention and stay organized. It never ceases to amaze me that they find people who write worms and other malware...in this day and age, releasing malware with 100% anonymity is trivial.
Re:Old News (Score:2, Informative)
Neat. I'm holding an old $5 from 1995 next to a new $5 from 2003. The old $5 has text as the entire outer line, but the newer one only has it for about 1cm of the middle line (there are now three lines) near the name Lincoln.
I learn something every day.
Don't forget that feedback path back to the vendor (Score:3, Informative)
What kind of information do you think is sent back to them?
Unless you can print this using Linux CUPS driver at 4800x4800 (which I've yet to see one).
Re:Just another reason... (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. Only seven states (Alabama, Florid, Iowa, Kentucky, MIssissippi, Nebraska and Virginia) permanently deprive felons of the right to vote, and even these allow felons to petition to regain that right. Such petitions are often granted. Most other states deny felons the right to vote only while they are imprisoned, or on parole. Maine, Utah and Vermont allow felons to vote even while they're still in prison.
Chris Mattern
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:3, Informative)
Common knowledge for those who work on them (Score:3, Informative)
Pay Cash (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Those rat b--- (Score:3, Informative)
Nobody at home, maybe. Commercial printers print with all kinds of ink. If a pamphlet, coupon, or package only needs a few colors in block graphics (no complex shadings), it's more practical to use exactly the colors of ink needed than to uce CYM. Color alignment is simpler, and you use less ink.
Q&D example off my shelves: Dove soap. The package is has only four colors, two for text, one for solid graphics, and one shaded. The printer used four colors: black, deep bluish-green, light bluish-green, and gold.
The hardback editions of The Neverending Story were also printed with a bluish-green ink.
Or think of green-lined ledger pages; you think a printer is going to go to the trouble to line up a cyan and a yellow run when he can do one green run and be done with it?
So it's entirely plausible that an ink manufacturer or a commercial printer had to abandon a particular variety of green ink as being too close to one of the government's protected shades.
Re:PROM??? (Score:3, Informative)
- Thomas;
HS soda hacks (Score:4, Informative)
1. Just grab a drink. This works on some machines,
with some choices of drink, if you have long and
skinny arms.
2. Put two pieces of 2-inch clear packing tape
together, so that the sticky side is in. On one
edge, include 1/8 inch of a bill. So about 98% of
the bill is not taped. Give yourself about two
feet of tape hanging off the bill. Soon after the
bill goes in, yank it out.
Note: only do this if you have permission from
the machine's owner.
Re:very dangerous for all of us (Score:3, Informative)
A froogle search for color laser printer [google.com] pulls up hits under $500. That's roughly a two days wages for me, certainly not freakin' expensive by my definition.
I imagine most people could afford one if they really wanted it. A few months of saving up (hell if you're a smoker, quitting would get you the cash pretty quick), or a simple credit card purchase with making the minimum payments would easily do it for most I think.
Driver is spyware as well... (Score:2, Informative)
When I took HP's indian tech support weenie to task for this, he tried to insist that there was no spyware (acting all nervous and flustered that I'd make such an insinuation).
I said, "Dude, I can see the packets flowing out my ethernet port as the driver is installing, don't try to lie to me."
He replies (in that oh so Indian way of speaking), "Fine, go ahead, jou won't be able to use dee scanner, but jou ken install just dee driver files." (huffing in exasperation)....
And you thought Dale Gribble was paranoid, I'll show you paranoid....
Re:Those rat b--- (Score:3, Informative)
inks..
http://www.dealtime.com/xPC-Canon_Canon_BCI_6_B
Basically any inkjet could be refilled with whatever color you like as long as the properties were compatable with the printhead nozzles.
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:3, Informative)
Obvious solution: use an inkjet or a dye-sub. Both inkjets and dye-sub printers are better for printing in color anyway, unless what you need is top speed at the expense of color accuracy and resolution (which is not likely even for a counterfeiter).
If you're talking copiers, I don't know. Are most copiers laser these days? Still, it seems implausible that any counterfeiter would be using a consumer copying machine to commit his or her crime (simply because the results would be pretty obviously awful), so I'm not sure why this technology would even be necessary.
But the obvious solution for yourself in that case is to do what I do to make my copies - buy a flatbed scanner that has a "copy" button on it and use your inkjet printer for the output. I get much better quality that way than using any copy machine I've ever tried anyway, and it's really not much more inconvenient either. My scanner, PC, and printer all have to be on and running, but it's literally a one-button process just like it is on a regular copy machine. If my PC is off, the time it takes to boot is not really much longer (if any) than the time it takes a standard copy machine to "warm up" from a cold start anyway.
For the moment, this seems pretty easy to get around, if what the article says is really accurate. Because what it says is that certain brands of color laser printers use this technology. So, the solution is to not use those brands, or to not use a color laser printer. Seems pretty simple. May not stay that way forever, but it doesn't seem like it's time quite yet to start hoarding pro-level inkjets before they're outlawed.
about 20 billionth's of a second..... (Score:3, Informative)
Combined with the "millimeter sized" dots, I think we have an extreme exaggeration of the facts.... I don't think we can trust the "about every inch" on the page either. More investigation is required.
Re:Just another reason... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:5, Informative)
Please refer to:
TALLEY v. CALIFORNIA, 362 U.S. 60 (1960) [findlaw.com]
McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n (93-986), 514 U.S. 334 (1995) [cornell.edu]
Very relevant is the quote from McIntyre:
While one can reasonably question anonymity as a "universal" right applicable in all times under all conditions, these times should be the exception rather than the rule with the burden falling on those who say that the restriction should apply rather than on those who say not.
Toner/ink different enough from paper.... (Score:1, Informative)
The chemicals give off visual cues that are different than the material that the paper is made
of, not to mention changing the *texture* in that spot.
Rebates! (Score:3, Informative)
Hardly any of us bother to send in any product registration crap. If you have the receipt you've covered for warranty issues.
But, entice you with a bogus $50 rebate ( which you may or may not get 6-8 weeks later ) and many will gladly give their home address, email address, phone number. Cash the rebate check and you give up your banking info too ( all that stuff they print on the back of the check when you deposit it.)
If you plan on doing naughty things with your laser printer you'll have to pay cash (not at Costco ) and blow off the rebate.
Didn't they ID the first World Trade Center bombers when they tried to get the deposit back on the van? Doesnt pay to be greedy.
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:3, Informative)
Resolution describes only the level of precision as to where the center of the dot can be placed, but the dot size might be much larger than 1/2400 inch.
It's like saying that an elephant can crap on a teacup.
Re:Countermeasures? (Score:2, Informative)
The pattern repeats itself across the entire page, whitespace and all. As yellow is the last colour laid on the paper I would expect that they can easily detect the pattern in any area that doesn't have solid yellow.
Interesting - I just checked a couple of prints and it is all across the colour one, but not on the one run in black and white mode even though it uses the same print engine.
Re:bad idea (Score:2, Informative)
You might want to go offline before Lexmark phones home [slashdot.org].