Hidden Codes in Printers Cracked 562
r84x writes "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."
Maybe its not a weakness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe its not a weakness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe its not a weakness (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Maybe its not a weakness (Score:4, Funny)
Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Funny)
=Smidge=
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is true in an uncorrupted system. The question remains what would happen if someone did use their power like J. Edgar Hoover did, and others in history that have got away with abuse of power in such a manner.
And there is the case of just because something is illegal, that doesn't mean that something is a wrong thing to do.
My country right or wrong is WRONG (Score:5, Insightful)
The "if you have nothing to hide" apologists for elimination of freedoms is a slippery slope to totalitarianism. Orwell would snicker!
Re:Technology and Law (Score:3, Interesting)
Since every government deployment of new technology for law enforcement is supposed to net these awesome reductions in [insert targeted criminal act here], I'd like to see statistics on just how many counterfeiters have been caught using this method of tagging printed documents.
Freedom does not mean lack of accountability (Score:3, Insightful)
Free speech is not free *anonymous* speech.
We all want cheap color printers. Fine. We don't want the world flooded with forged documents -- so we take some barely perceptable measures to curb that. Deal with it.
Re:Freedom does not mean lack of accountability (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you figure? If I'm free to speak, but free to get hounded by the FBI/fired/audited by the IRS if I say something that the authorities don't like, that's a pretty thin kind of freedom.
"We don't want the world flooded with forged documents"
Says you. I don't really think that it's as much of a problem as you do.
"Deal with it."
Ah. That must be in the hidden text in the 10th Amendment. You know, the one written in invisible yellow dots.
Re:Freedom DOES mean PRIVACY (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahh. Spoken like a true facist. You are taking the right of free expression in a democratic society and chaining it to the dungeon wall with the use of another as yet to be defined term, "antisocial stuff". Would that be "antisocial" as defined by the ruling political party, whichever religious sect is currently in vogue, or perhaps as determined by a public poll?
"Free speech is not free *anonymous* speech."
What a crock! One of the basic rights any citizen of a democracy has is the right to vote, PRIVATELY. No other person, group of persons, or government entity is granted the right to know how an individual votes -- without such privacy protections the entire foundation of democracy is open to the social, political or financial pressure to vote a particular way.
And only in a democracy falling to the continued pressures of fascist stateism would the government redefine the ephemeral and undefined term "free press" only as persons engaged in journalistic activities employed by corporate media moguls.
I would suggest that you spend a few years in the "new and improved" fascist USSR, being run by an ex-KGB general, and experience the fruits of your specious argument firsthand.
Re:My country right or wrong is WRONG (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Insightful)
The people that do not want their houses randomly searched must be hiding something, after all, why would they not want searched? I know, point taken to the extreme but where do you draw the line?
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know but after thinking about it for half a second a good place to start might be that this printer system causes no inconvenience to the user (AFAIK) whereas a house search would.
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or even worse...you buy and register a printer, and six months later sell it to some registered sex offender. It's a cash deal with no records. Six months and one day later that printer is used for some kidnapping randsom note or some shit. Who would believe it wasn't you? Your mom?
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's great that finally, we will be able to frame people we don't like with the greatest of ease. Just user their printer to print something illegal, or burn a CD on their PC!
A new crime, anyone? "Breaking And Entering With Intent To Print"
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:3, Informative)
So it could be argued that this is simply taking us back to the good old days of Miss Marple and Columbo
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't even need to use some's printer to frame them. All you need is to scan anything that they have printed and copy the hidden code on the page and then use image software to overlay that code onto your own page image and print it using a printer that doesn't embed its own code (or hack your printer to change it's serial nomber to match the target's serial number).
You can do the same with a CD, but you'll probably need to patch your CD drive's software to embed the target's CD drive number.
-
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:4, Funny)
Create multiple layers in photoshop, each with its own secret code. Be sure to title each layer with a name so you don't send Nancy down when it was Joe who looked at you funny that morning last week.
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wait until you get your ass hauled-in by an overzealous cop while you were doing something perfectly innocent or legal (like photographing old buses at a busy intersection - I know, it happenned to me. Two hours of vacation down the drain because some shit-brained bitch thought I was a terrorist - no, don't ask what happenned in her sorry neurons to think that).
Cops think they are above normal civilians and do not hesitate to abuse their powers. For them, making a lowly civilian life hell is just what swatting a fly for you.
The easier it is to abuse their power (like finding out where one photocopy was made), the more likely they will do it.
Now that the EFF has published the "secret" code, everyone can do it, including that jealous spouse, screwey boss or suspicious business associate.).
Cops think they are above normal civilians and do not hesitate to abuse their powers. For them, making a lowly civilian life hell is just what swatting a fly for you.
The easier it is to abuse their power (like finding out where one photocopy was made), the more likely they will do it.
Now that the EFF has published the "secret" code, everyone can do it, including that jealous spouse, screwey boss or suspicious business associate.
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:5, Insightful)
or acting indignent because they got pulled over for speeding;
Or driving while black. Or a personal favorite, driving on the wrong side of the road - On a lineless back road barely wide enough for a single car (the sort where you literally stop and one car pulls totally off the road if you meet another car coming the opposite way).
or drunk and screaming obscenities in public places;
Or ordered to step outside a bar, given a sobriety test, and charged with public drunkenness.
or involved in horrible accidents and shootings.
You mean like when a cop panics over a 2YO kid with a cap gun, and ventilates him? Or when they zealously chase a gas station drive-off at 110mph leading to three deaths over $30 in fuel?
It's even more unlikely that the government is going to use this against you, unless you do something to draw the attention of say, the FBI.
You mean like anonymously distributing a (legal) pamphlet critical of the wrong politician, who wants revenge and has convenient connections?
I appreciate what police do. They keep a bunch of unruly domesticated primates from killing one another.
But don't glorify them - They chose that job because they get to act the most like unruly domesticated primates, and justify it as part of the job. Politicians chose their job because they like power (or money, or both). WE all need to do our part to keep the police, and the government in general, in check.
Re:Printer Friendly Version? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't care. It's none of their business.
"I certainly would be very suspicious of someone carrying one on to a flight. In fact, I would be sleeping with one eye open."
You sleep however you want. Your sleep habits are none of my business.
"remotely linked to something that people are paranoid about at the time"
I shouldn't have to keep track of the things that you're paranoid about. You,
Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just realize that 99.9% of the world doesn't give a shit about anything you do, and all that paranoia just slips away. That's what I did.
Re:Before... (Score:5, Informative)
Most laser printers are rather expensive items. If you paid with a credit card, then yes, they have it in a database. (All stores record the serial number of high-ticket items they sell. I've actually gotten recall notices this way, so I know the store shares it with the manufactorer.) Even if you paid in cash, if you filled in the warranty card, they have it. Got a mail-in rebate? On file. Ever had to have it serviced? You're on file.
Re:Before... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you paid with a credit card, then yes, they have it in a database.
The retailer or manufacturer may have it in a database, but whatever shadowy organisations the parent was alluding to probably doesn't. Government agencies have enough trouble keeping track of where people live without having to track their posessions too.
Re:Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's to say what it takes for them to obtain this information and how they use it? I'm personally not satisfied to just think "they'll only obtain it when they need it, and they will only use it for a Good Cause". It's not paranoia, it's like Murphy's law: if it can be abused, it probably will be.
Re:Before... (Score:3, Interesting)
It really is a question of where you draw the line. The problem is, no one can ever agree where the line should be drawn. Maybe we crossed it already. If so, how long ago? A year? A decade? Two decades? Half a century? It depends on who you ask.
Some would sa
Re:Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not, but identifying the purchaser of the printer significantly narrows the search for the person who used that printer to generate the document in question. If it's owned by a business, they may be able to identify the specific user through print server logs (obtained via subpeona or simply "in connection with an ongoing investigation related to terroris
Re:Before... (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear the argument over and over again that "just because they're allowed to, the government doesn't have time to spy on little old you, so quit being paranoid". This is true, and the government realizes it, which is why they are striving for "Total Information Awareness". The idea is that all the information the feds could ever desire is already collected in outrageous detail by private organizations like the phone company, ISPs, bookstores, etc. - so why not just pass laws granting the Feds unrestricted, secret access to this info? That way, the government doesn't have to have been spying on you your whole life. The moment you get caught up in some "suspicious" incident like looking around too much on the subway or criticizing the American government while in an American airport, your whole history is at the government's fingertips (including, now, what documents you printed!), and believe me, they'll find reasons for suspicion.
God bless the PATRIOT Act, my friend.
Re:Before... (the Patriot Act) (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, that's one of the reasons that most sane people are so fearful of technology such as this. Your system itself is flawed, in that nobody is truly representing you, as a citizen.
Re:Before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Used to be like this:
<print>
</print>
Official 1: Who printed this?! Track him down now!
Official 2: Sir, it's just an ordinary printout. There is nothing we can do.
Official 1: Damn!
But now, welcome to the brave new world:
<print GUID="......">
Re:Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, they must, otherwise this tracking information is useless, right? They can't be that dumb. And most high-end color printers are sold to businesses and often have service contracts. It's not that hard. How many people buy a printer for cash?
And many networked printers "phone home" to the manufacturer via email or web. My Xerox phaser 7750 (great printer, btw) tries to send an email every month to Xerox. They're blocked now.
Just realize that 99.9% of the world doesn't give a shit about anything you do, and all that paranoia just slips away.
I know that. But I prefer that my printer doesn't track what I print.
Re:Before... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know that the lack of a database would make the information useless. It may work like running ballistics tests on a shell casing found at a crime scene and matching it to a weapon seized from a suspect.
Even if there ability to find a suspect is limited, they may have the ability to prove, within a court of law, that a document came from the printer in your basement.
Re:Before... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Buy a printer and fail to send the warranty card in and there is no entry in any list.
The reason they have this stuff is so that they can match the printer to the document in the courtroom after they catch you. It's not a tracking system.
Re:Er, huh? (Score:4, Informative)
And yes, stores can be required to scan those S/Ns if the feds so desire, and it can be made to stick. Bank tellers don't get paid all that much more than Best Buy clerks, but the threat of 20 years in the federal pen gives them a bit of incentive to follow the money-laundering reporting procedures. Heck, I heard a discussion between two entry-level postal clerks the other day about how much fun they had spotting drug dealers and reporting them.
sPh
Re:Er, huh? (Score:5, Informative)
This is also true of the mid-range color laser printers you purchase at your local Best Buy or Micro Center. In fact, if you open your eyes at the checkout and actually pay attention, you would notice that after they scan the bar-code, their register prompts them to either scan the serial number bar-code, or hand-key in the serial number. Now, they may not be required to record your name and address, but they most certainly can trace it back to your credit card.
The whole point of this is to catch counterfeiters. It's useless to know the serial-number of a device if you don't know where it was sold.
Re:Er, huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The companies don't have the time or money, but the government definately does. Any company I've worked for, if asked by a semi-anonymous "federal" agency for information, rolls over like a scared puppy. The government has (like Spiegel) nothing but time
Re:Before...what? (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks largely to the invention of this nifty thing called a microprocessor adding the serial number on a sticker on each box costs tenths of pennies, not millions, and saves thousands
Re:Checkout scanners... (Score:5, Informative)
If they track it, everyone does. Everything I mail order has the barcode scanned and printed on the packing slip.
Get a clue.
Re:Checkout scanners... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Before... (Score:2)
of course that means that you have to look at security on your color laser printers, since you don't want john q. public posssible printing anything 'bad'...
eric
It has it's values.. (Score:2)
Re:Before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Modern asset tracking systems use the serial number of each big-ticket item to track it (if it is serialised - most expensive kit is). The asset, whatever it is, is tracked from entry to the system through to exit - with an EPOS transaction being recorded against it as it leaves if sold.
It is pretty damn easy for a database coder to write a bit of SQL to say 'give me the credit card number that bought this item'. I could do it in minutes.
Provided the Feds wanted to track a given machine, and it had been bought with plastic, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to find that info very easily, given the cooperation of the vendors. Your last para relies on you not being someone the Feds are interested in - and that relies on you assuming they won't be interested in people who haven't broken the law. I hope you are right, but recent events suggest otherwise to me...
Justin.
odd (Score:3, Insightful)
They have since changed that practice, I believe. (there was an enhancement request logged almost 5 years ago to take care of it)
The more robust CRM/Order Management systems that have serialization tracking would allow you to associate a customer number (and consequently all
Re:odd (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted, it's not easy. But it's also not wildly difficult to use the constrained keyspace of a credit card to generate a dictionary of all possible hashes for valid credit cards (remember, the key space is even further constrained by check digits implicit in the numbers), and store that on a simple lookup table on more or more Blu-Ray DVDs.
I just had this convo w/a client (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a trade-off.
It's a tough call for the end-user oriented sites; if you're selling books and it takes a bunch of hoops to make a purchase. . . chances are they'll shift to a more user-friendly site such as Amazon. (the security minded, perhaps not. But that's probably not your customer base except in niche markets).
Big trade-off to make.
Re:Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then along came Senator Joseph McCarthy...
Re:Before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, so there's only 0.1% of the world who is interested in what I'm doing?
I'm glad it works out for you, but 6 million people snooping around in my private life doesn't make my paranoia go away.
more links (Score:5, Informative)
More information can be found on the EFF's printer-privacy webpage. [eff.org]
Also interesting is Andrew Bunnie's flat bed page scanner mod [bunniestudios.com] to use blue light instead of white. This made the yellow tracking dots easier to see, and the whole page could be seen at once to determine the pattern they made.
Blue light scanner mod ? (Score:5, Funny)
A1. scan as normal
A2. separate the channels into CMYK in Photoshop/whathaveyou
A3. inspect the Yellow channel.
B1. scan as normal
B2. separate the channels into RGB in GIMP/whathaveyou
B3. do a difference matte between the channels
B4. inspect the result
C1. replace the yellow toner cartridge with a black one
C2a. stock the other holders with empty cartridges
C2b. or if that causes a printer error/warning, block the cartridges' output
C3. print
D1. get a sheet of blue filter plastic
D2. scan through that
But I guess the array of blue LEDs with soldering involved is a lot more geeky
Re:Blue light scanner mod ? (Score:3, Interesting)
For A and B, the contrast/resolution may not be enough to detect the smallest droplets of yellow ink.
I also thought of C, but that's an expensive process - I'm sure that you would get many messed-up pages afterwards while the new toner feeds through. Or, maybe not - depends on how the toner is fed in. This would be hard to do when you're testing Kinko's printer, though.
D is a good idea, but the idea is to also make it monochromatic light - the blue plastic might let in too man
Re:Blue light scanner mod ? (Score:3, Informative)
With a 600DPI scanner, those work just fine.
Personally, I used the following steps, and ended up with glaringly obvious black dots (~10-30 pixels) on a white background:
1) Print a supplies status page (or anything with a lot of empty space)
2) Scan at 1200DPI (but 600 works, just takes more care in doing the next few steps)
3) Drop the red and green channels to nothing (you can probably stop here, but
Re:more links (Score:5, Funny)
Right. So now, in order to ensure that we remain safe from terrorists, paedophiles, and liberals, we need to compel scanner manufacturers to make sure their products will refuse to show the secret codes we already compelled the printer manufacturers to install.
Don't worry, citizen. We have it all under control.
Ink Jet? (Score:3, Interesting)
Message decoded (Score:4, Funny)
Date and time? (Score:5, Funny)
Conspiracy math (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, so the government requires each printer manufacturer to maintain a database of all printers sold, so that if needed, they can subpeona the records? No wonder printer ink costs so much
I'm thinking that this would only go so far, and not be much more useful than a database of gun rifling marks?
Re:Conspiracy math (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Conspiracy math (Score:5, Informative)
Even if all the database can tell them reliably is that HP ColorLaserJet Model 55 Serial Number 89928798734 was distributed to a certain Best Buy store, that goes a long way. When the Secret Service finds counterfeit bills, they know from the serial what store it was originally purchased in. Chances are it didn't move far, and chances are that Best Buy's records can lead to a very short list of potential buyers. Even if it was resold by one of them, the investigation becomes fairly trivial at that point.
But perhaps more importantly, even if you can't use it (embedded serial numbers in documents) as a primary method of tracking down the counterfeiter, you can certainly use it as court evidence once you do catch them by other means. It's pretty damning evidence if they can show that they seized a printer with serial number 89928798734 at your home address, and they can also show conterfiet currency or documents with the same serial number embedded that showed up elsewhere.
Quit being clueless. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's assume you take that home and hook it up to your Windows XP Home Edition printer.
Now, that printer is installed and it requests you "Register" the printer. You decline to do so.
During the normal course of use, a little dialog box pops up stating that there is an update to download from your color laser printer manufacturer's website and the printer application will be more then happy to do so.
How does your application know that it needs to be updated? Well, it checked with a central server.
If that application checks with a central server, would it be difficult to imagine that the central server would be able to obtain the following?
IP Address, Printer Serial number, timestamp of communication.
With just the timestamp and the IP Address your PC used to communicate with the central server, you can be easily traced. It's easier if you are on broadband, slightly more difficult if you are on a service like AOL or MSN.
I am not being a tinfoil hat wearer here. I am just pointing out that it is actually easier to track down a user of a particular printer then you believe it to be.
The only way to be more anonymous with such a cash paid color laser printer purchase would be to never connect it to a PC that has Internet Access.
Re:Quit being clueless. (Score:3, Insightful)
For what it's worth, AOL maintains extensive logs and readily cooperates with law enforcement. I suspect that MSN does as well. I briefly assisted in a fraud investigation (purchasing stuff via our website with stolen credit cards) and the perpetuator was dialing in from an AOL acc
Re:Conspiracy math (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, I think that the customer should at least be warned about it in the manual. And the data should be easily decoded, by anyone, not just the FBI and the printer manufactorer. I think it is quite usefull to be able to know whe
Old Communist ploy gets updated (Score:5, Interesting)
The theory of course being that they would use it to try and track down any subversive content.
And now the US government has made it quick, easy and automated to do the same.
I want to know who the bastards are that are adding this technology to their printers so I can avoid them like the plague.
Yes, I know I could just not send in the registration card, but what if the government decided to crack down on those who critisize the war? Suddenly when they confiscate my printer, they can find out if any of the documents they've declared subversive came from my printer.
This is too Big Brother for my tastes.
Re:Old Communist ploy gets updated (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Old Communist ploy gets updated (Score:5, Informative)
That's in the article:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php [eff.org]
Re:Old Communist ploy gets updated (Score:3, Funny)
And now the US government has made it quick, easy and automated to do the same.
*sigh*
but the US is good and the commies are bad!
God Bless America!
So they "cracked" it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So they "cracked" it... (Score:3, Funny)
1. Mail local politician and ask for something, get nice letter in reply.
2. Decode info hidden in letter.
3. Create Communist, Satanist and other anti-government propaganda with fake, hidden info.
4.???
5. Profit!
Who cares... (Score:2, Interesting)
What would be interesting is info on how to keep the printers from putting the dots in at all. If it's not possible, then don't buy one of those printers if you care about it that much. There is a list of manufacturers that put *some* info in your printed docs, so why not just avoid those? Do you really care if the date/time is on it? Even the serial n
Re:Who cares... (Score:4, Insightful)
To me that's perhaps the biggest issue. At one point this was supposed to be a democracy, now it seems we're sliding into acceptance of secret laws and practices, and a general acceptance that "they" are watching (without even knowing who "they" are). We used to deride "conspiracy theorists" for thinking this kind of stuff was happening. Now we know it is happening, so we just deride the conspiracy theorists for caring.
Re:Who cares... (Score:3, Interesting)
Where I come from (Germany) people have been executed because their anonymous printings could be traced back to them.
Eg: Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_rose [wikipedia.org]
Now imagine how easy this would have been if they used one of these laser-printers for the leaflets and for their homework.
If you give away your personal freedom to this regime a future fascist regime isn't likely to give it back to you.
k2r
pacman to the rescue (Score:5, Funny)
Codes (Score:2, Interesting)
instead of using a large database to hold every printers details. the authorities will use this information after they have caught a criminal to aid in the conviction. with the evedience of the printer and some sample counterfit examples. it would be very easy to tie that person to the crime.
the other example I can think is to find out how many counterfitters there could be. if they get 10 examples and the codes all match. then
How much is in the driver? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can only imagine the time and date are passed from the host PC - most printers don't know what time/date it is - at least on those I jsut glanced at I can't set it myself. Of course the network attached ones could have an NTP client but that'd be easily blocked at the firewall.
At least if you can make every printout say it happened three decades ago you don't need to worry about proving you were not in the office at the time the printout was made.
Re:How much is in the driver? (Score:5, Informative)
My bet is on the rasterizer.
-molo
Re:How much is in the driver? (Score:4, Informative)
If that is true, then no amount of dirver manipulation will help, with the possible exception of a driver that "adds" extra dots to make the message meaningless. In theory, you could add extra dots, but in practice it would be ineffective unless you could gurantee perfect alignment (or the extra dots would be easy to filter out). Since some dots would come from software, and others come from hardware control programs, it's not a simple task to gurantee alignment.
Re:How much is in the driver? (Score:5, Informative)
The basic conclusion is that many of the watermarked printers share a Canon print engine -- he suspects it is this engine that is doing the watermarking. The US Government just had to convince the critical-equipment supplier to add the tracking - not all the printer companies. He also notes that the Tek Phaser printers don't have this because they were developed before the Canon engine. (Oh, how I longed for a phaser back in the day!)
Disgusting. (Score:3, Insightful)
Improve, or something else [microsoft.com]....? TCP timestamps too. Just use the LSB, and by making it a 1, or a 0, and you can transmit infomation hiddenly..
Investigate printer ink price-gouging instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
I want my money back for the ID dots that were printed without my knowledge or consent. A sum of $3000.00 will be sufficient to cover all past and future ink cartridge costs.
From http://www.atlascopy.com/newsletters/Printer_Cart
CNET.com analyzed the cost for inkjet printing and reported that the costs ranged from 14 cents to $1.32 per page. If it costs 21 cents per page and you print only an average of two pages per day, the annual cost of ink would be more than the cost of the printer.
The ink cartridge for a low end HP printer, containing only one tiny ounce of ink, costs a mind boggling $30.00! That's price gouging, and all printer manufacturers are doing it. That's called PRICE FIXING and it's illegal. To add to the rip-off, some of them put all the colors into one cartridge. Then you have to buy a new cartridge when only one color runs out, wasting the remaining ink.
Re:Investigate printer ink price-gouging instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
Printers have RTC and CMOS battery? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Printers have RTC and CMOS battery? (Score:5, Informative)
The DocuColor printers in question are very high end printer/copiers that are installed and maintained by trained technicians known by Xerox as Customer Service Engineers or CSEs. When it breaks or needs parts, you call your CSE. Think "on-site support" but on steroids. You pay a ton for this.
The system clock is set by the installer CSE and possibly updated as needed on subsequent service calls, and there are MANY of those as DocuColors require frequent maintenance and upkeep. It is not uncommon to have service once a week for some models. Or worse. They can be touchy beasts. The machines, I mean. The CSEs can be your pal or your worst nightmare. I like the ones my bosses hate. Go fig.
So what is the clock for? Among other things, time stamps are used by the printshop for tracking when every single print was made including which operator made it. So no more late night "free copies" for your pals. Xerox also uses the logs for all sorts of legit reasons. Nothing evil there.
So what about resetting the clock? First you'd have to get the machine open. This is not like a computer with handy access panels and common PCBs, er, that's PWBs in Xerox-speak. You'd have to know the machine inside-out, have the tools and the skill to take it apart (God help you), and hope that the battery is resettable rather that buried inside a chip. Xerox is very, very aware of people trying to cheat the machine meters to make free copies so stuff like counters and clocks are already armored and protected from prying hands.
Assuming you managed to do all those things and got the machine back together, then it has to be recalibrated because taking it apart will have wrecked the system setup. So you have to call your CSE, who resets the clock straight away, probably by pushing the keys with the bones he removed from your hands for messing with his machine. If you're still alive at this point, you are right back where you started!
Side notes: the vast majority of DocuColors are leased out by Xerox rather than sold, so the machine is normally Xerox property from assembly to reman to reman to reman to junkyard. Why? Some of them can cost half a million and up for new, less for used, but either way these are not something people "buy" when they can simply lease. GE Credit is happy to finance the leases and end users find it much cheaper and they don't end up stuck with obsolete machines.
Many of the older machines can and do end up on the sale market and it is possible to buy one and own it, but it will still require service (lots for an old machine), toner, supplies, parts, and preventive maintenance. Xerox controls almost all the DocuColor parts, supplies, ink, and most of the trained CSEs so you pretty much have no choice but to sign on for a Xerox service contract even when you own the thing free and clear.
Yes, there ARE trained key operators who can get in and do SOME maintenance chores but only Xerox can get parts and has the technical knowledge to use them.
Welcome to life in 21st century United States (Score:2, Insightful)
-Eric
Watermark with extra random patterns (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Watermark with extra random patterns (Score:5, Funny)
The hardware involved... (Score:4, Informative)
Unexpected historical benefit (Score:4, Insightful)
The REAL counterfeit artists (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The casual home counterfeiter. A guy with an inkjet who is 'having fun.' These guys get caught quickly by the secret service.
2. The black market Wal*Mart, a.k.a. the Mob. They reconstitute $1 bills into pulp, reform the cotton into large sheets, and silkscreen new 'old style' $100 bills. By using the real paper and near-perfect ink in the old style bills, they get past the verification pens and bank scanners. Funny thing is, this style of counterfeit is almost dead as credit card fraud is much more lucrative and far safer. Bank draft fraud and money order fraud is easier, too.
3. The Federal Reserve. Yes, Alan Greenspan and friends is actually the #1 counterfeit organization in the world. Because our currency is no longer backed by hard metal, the FRB is allowed to counterfeit billions of new dollars annually. The is legal by acts of Congress, and is not only the biggest reason for inflation, it is also the cause of the stock market bubble and the housing bubble. It also allows the government to finance off budget programs by introducing new currency into circulation.
Incorporating these security dots only helps catch common criminals, not large scale organizations. And the worst violator, the FRB, counterfeits legally.
This is so old... (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for Xerox, we actually tell customers about this as a security feature of the machines. The article mentions that Xerox devices are more common in offices rather than homes (true) but company suits want to know that their employees aren't going to be making copies of currency (or stamps, bonds, etc.) on office equipment, thereby making them liable in some way, shape or form.
If you try to copy a US $ bill on a Xerox, you get a smudgy black blob anyway. It works with a few currencies, but it has the security dots on it (invisible to the naked eye) all over the page. We have been asked to identify the source a few times, and it is usually guys working in pay-for-print copy stores that get busted for conterfieting.
Other than that, there is no way we can track anything other than the time and place of the copy. So quit stressing.
Re:Another Terrible Invasion of Nothing! (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all: there is an intrusion, a loss of freedom, even when the power is not abused. In the 60s, your average hippy could pretty much buy a car using cash and drive to San Franciscoi - now you need a ton of paperwork, legal docs, and so on. You can no longer buy a car using cash - not a new car anyway. Another example: in the 1960s the government did not know what I spent my money on. Now it does. That represents a serious loss of freedom even if the government does not curremtly abuse that new power. These losses of freedom may or may not be necessary, but they need robust discussion and debate before they happen.
The second point: these powers DO get abused. An example. During German occupation in WW2, the Dutch sent more Jews to the concentration camps, as a percentage of the population, than any other nation save Germany. Why? They had a very efficient tracking system that from birth to grave tracked everyone's address, race, relatives' addresses, and so on. Guess what - at the first opportunity, the new people in power abused that power and traced all Jews and sent them to their deaths. Interestingly, in the years leading up to WW2, the Dutch had a debate much like this one, and the consensus was that "if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear".
Examples abound: when you give away your freedoms you (a) lose those freedoms (and the freedom to buy a printer anomymously may not seem such a big deal to you - but it IS a freedom!), and (b) over time, they sometimes get abused: you can count on a certain percentage of this happening.
Michael
Re:Caxton (Score:3, Interesting)
No, guns are meant to direct a projectile in a given direction. Not unlike a golf club, actually. And of course, you can kill people with a gun, or with a golf club. And, "qualified"? What do you mean? The only qualification you need in most states, especially for shotguns and rifles, is to not be a criminal. At least we still have that relative freedom.
I use guns all the time, and have never killed anybody