Color Laser Printers Tracking Everything You Print

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.'"

Comments

Re:Countermeasures?

[keraneuology]

I'm curious to know how you arrived at a universal human right of anonymity

Please refer to:

TALLEY v. CALIFORNIA, 362 U.S. 60 (1960)

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n (93-986), 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Very relevant is the quote from McIntyre:

"The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. ... Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation -- and their ideas from suppression -- at the hand of an intolerant society."

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.