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Shop: North Spore Cultivation Supplies   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You * 1
    #4820165 -

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?"

EFF is still working on cracking the codes from other printers and we need the public's help. Find out how you can make your own test pages to be included in our research at http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/wp.php#testsheets.


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America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

Barack Obama

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4820206 -

I don't know about you guys, but I feel safer knowing our government is monitoring these types of things.


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...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge.  It is an indellible experience; it is forever known.  I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.

Smith, P.  Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.

...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.

Osmond, H.  Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: badchad]
    #4820520 -

how sweet.


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All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4820648 -

This is why leaked documents get retyped, rather than copied.

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4820762 -

BTW this is not a new idea, printer drivers in offices have for years been able to subtly alter the kerning pairs (the distance between letters) in a typeset to uniquely identify the source.

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4820823 -

it should be required that they disclose that on the packaging.


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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: wilshire]
    #4820856 -

Why? Does it impair the performance of the product?

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: psilomonkey]
    #4820876 -

if i sold a bookshelf that had a secret hidden camera in it, would that impair the performance of the product?


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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: wilshire]
    #4820912 -

No, but should it have a label?

Since you are on the subject what about RFID tags? Unique radio bar-codes to replace the optical ones we have now, but each one is unique one code to a chip. They will soon be in every product, including your book on the shelf.

If by credit card, store card, biometrics or otherwise matched at checkout, that device is now associated with you, if it passes within range a reader it can be located an associated with you.

Not quite a camera, but every bit as useful.

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: psilomonkey]
    #4820949 -

"However, there are no laws to prevent the government from abusing this information."

this needs to change.


--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

Barack Obama

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4820961 -

what would entail abuse of that information and what laws would prevent it?


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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: wilshire]
    #4821013 -

For Example:

If I wrote a nasty (anonymous) letter about hillary clinton. IMO hillary needs to get a warrant before she finds out who wrote the letter.


Question: would the gov need to give the shroomery a warrant to find out our IP address?


--------------------
America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure"

We have "reckless fiscal policies"

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better

Barack Obama

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4821017 -

OTOH..its easy to understand why a printer manufacturer wouldnt want someone to..say..purchase one of their printers with a credit card..and then pay back the credit card with couterfeit money manufactured with the said printer...the dots are a necessary evil..but what is needed is legislation to restrict their use to catching counterfeiters...

furthermore..neither is the identification of the printer alone even sufficient information to catch the counterfeiter..but the dots are useful in determining whether or not a dollar bill is a counterfeit...


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"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: wilshire]
    #4821069 -

wilshire said:
what would entail abuse of that information



I would think a good way would be to include a reader with a mobile phone, ticket barrier, bank terminal, road side/street reader and as many other good spots of identifying person, time, location.

Since the tags would be in everything even your cloths, and are powered by the reader, they can keep on chirping. The potential to extract data on almost every aspect of people lives, who, where, when what with, is immense. Someone will find a use for that, especially as this is not about 'lets watch him' its 'let warehouse the all data a google it later :smile:'


The abuse of IT is the greatest threat to civil liberties today.

Quote:
and what laws would prevent it?


This is where we need to get smart, its not about the technology itself its what is done with the data and how it is shared.

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: psilomonkey]
    #4821120 -

The abuse of IT is the greatest threat to civil liberties today.

i agree.

there is always going to be some mix of privacy and security in a society. total privacy would make it impossible for the perpetrators of a crime to be caught. for example, if there were complete anonymity on the internet, child pornographers could openly sell their wares without fear of prosecution. there are places where the need for security is so high that privacy is almost non existent. think airplanes.

but privacy is also essential for liberty. that's why it's allowed at all.

the level of potential surveillance is limited by the technology at hand. we are reaching a point where the technology will soon be able to deliver complete and total surveillance where it is deemed necessary. privacy can be reduced to zero.

what is rather troubling is that this technology is coming of age in a time where the public is hysterical about the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, and the war on crime. to what lengths will they be willing to go to buy the security the sensationalist media is telling them they need?


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Edited by wilshire (10/18/05 03:12 PM)

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Re: Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You [Re: lonestar2004]
    #4823778 -

What the EFF is doing:

http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_10.php#004063

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