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EFF Requests Help to Identify "Evil" Printers

jason writes "In preparation for a possible legal challenge, The Electronic Frontiers Foundation is requesting your help in identifying which printers are embedding traceable information in the documents they produce. Printer manufactures added this technology under persuasion from the government inorder to help combat counterfeiting operations, however this technology defeats the presumed anonymity most people expect from the documents they print."

18 of 770 comments (clear)

  1. "Evil" Printers? by goldspider · · Score: 4, Funny

    Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

    (I got it first!!!)

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  2. I understand now! by ErikTheRed · · Score: 4, Funny

    This explains all of the random pin-misfires I'm having on my dot-matrix printer! Thank God that it's just my government protecting me from terrorists^H^H^H counterfeiters.

    --

    Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
  3. Here's one by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Funny

    My old Epson LX: printouts are so atrocious you just know they come from an LX: they embed the printer model in the form of smears and distortion in the text.

    Then again, I just use it to print listings, it's not exactly photo-quality...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. Finding Evil Printers by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 4, Funny

    Finding Evil Printers should be easy. Just test for the Evil Bit.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  5. Dead giveaways by winkydink · · Score: 4, Funny

    The print heads rotate 360 degrees while ejecting green ink at great force and saying, "your mother svcks cocks in hell".

    --

    "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

  6. Do an exchange... by tktk · · Score: 5, Funny
    If you think you've done something illegal or just don't want to be tracked, I'll take the fall for you.

    Send your current model color laser printer to me. I'll even send you a 7 year old inkjet that I currently use as a footrest.

  7. Re:Getting the word out by Shadez666 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Turning AOL'ers into thinking beings would require one mother of a donation!

  8. Re:This might help out my business... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    It reminds me of the old joke (or was it true?):

    Some amateur counterfeiter was driving around the Appalachians to find some hillbillies to swindle. He found a couple of dumb-looking guys sitting on their front porch, stopped the car and said, waving a freshly printed note: "any of you guys have change for a $18 bill?". One of the guys reach in his pocket and says: "sure, d'ya want 2 nines or 3 sixes?"

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  9. Re:Snakeoil? by Pxtl · · Score: 4, Funny

    If it's behind the laser window, you're screwed. Optics are touchy to a level that can only be described as premenstrual.

  10. If you print a single line of text in notepad... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's prints "Page 1" at the bottom, dumb ass.

  11. anonymous coward by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Funny
    Nice to see the anonymous coward option existed way back then too!

    I wonder if they used their karma bonus though?

    Personally I'm guessing they did it so the British or anyone else didn't mod them '-1 DEAD!'

  12. Re:As they should by aslate · · Score: 3, Funny

    A time for Yes Minister quotage i think:

    Sir Humphrey: "Bernard, the Official Secrets Act was not put in place to protect the secrets, it's there to protect the officials."

    And

    Sir Humphrey: "In the spirit of "Open Government", one should always make public anything that can easily be discovered by some other way."

  13. Re:Greenpeace? by radish · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dude, I think you got lost on that last inter-dimensional jump. This is the dimension where the earth is round, the sky is blue and Greenpeace is a charity that saves Whales & Dolphins. I think you want the one where they blew up the twin towers and Al Quaeda run a Gorilla sanctuary. I think it's the third on the left.

    --

    ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

  14. Yeah, I can see it. by troon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Each dot can uniquely identify the device by it's serial number

    I can see the extra dot added, between the "t" and "s" of "its".

    I thought they were meant to be yellow?

    --
    Ydco co ,df C erb-y go. a Ekrpat t.fxrapev
  15. Re:Yellow by DeathElk · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hmmm, you'll probably find one of your workmates had an affinity for printing documents with large areas of skin tone ;)

  16. Re:I work for a manufacturer by Abreu · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thank you for telling us...

    "Honey? Im going to Walmart, you want anything?"

    --
    No sig for the moment.
  17. Counterfeiting? At /these/ prices? by jesdynf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Have you seen what color ink is going for lately? Be lucky to break even if you printed anything smaller than 20s.

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    Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
  18. Re:I work for a manufacturer by flacco · · Score: 3, Funny
    Anyone who would accept a thirty-dollar bill would probably be fooled by a counterfeit done with a crayon.

    walmart employees probably have never seen large, exotic bills like the $30 in their paychecks.

    --
    pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.