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Hidden Codes in Printers Cracked
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."
Its a good thing that I can't print. [warning: experimental music made from printer noises]
Anyone have a printer friendly version? On second thought.... nevermind. //Tin foil hat on
Before anyone has a conniption, consider this: do you really think that "they" have a database they could reference to find out what printer serial number goes to what citizen? I don't. I know they could, but I choose to believe (most likely for good reason) that they don't.
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.
As it stands at the moment I can not see a problem with it, though the fact they did not tell anyone is worrying, it seems a reasonable idea. The fact is they could easily change the information printed, and no one would be any the wiser. Be sure to look out for your height, weight, eye color and political view point all on your next assignment!
For those interested in a quick summary, the docucolor example is the best place to look. (it has pictures!)
More information can be found on the EFF's printer-privacy webpage.
Also interesting is Andrew Bunnie's flat bed page scanner mod 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.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I wonder if ink jet manufacturers are doing this or will do this soon? Anyone in the know?
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
Printing porn should be the least of anyone's worries /puts on tin foil hat
"If you can read this, you are about to be busted"
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
I bet most people's printers will print "Jan-01 1980 12:00" in little blinking dots.
I love conspiracy math: Lets see, conservative estimate of 400 million printers in North America alone, and no method of tracking serial number to location or owner past the original purchase, assuming cash was not used. So, hmmmm a data base with 400 million records, tied to dubious information... yeah, that's useful, but on second thought, it would allow police to figure out if the printer that counterfit documents were created with was in North America or Europe... that would be helpful, but not really worth putting on the tin foil hats.
:)
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?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Great, now I have to create tin foil covers for my printers. RJR must love me.
In Soviet Russia, anyone who owned a typewriter was required to send a sample page to the government.
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.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
now what? Would there be any way to fake it? Until that's not possible - I have mixed feelings about this - we could be worse off with these findings. As long as this system is out-there we can check who printed smth ourselfs if we really want to... Isn't that a more serious privacy issue? Ok - shouldn't have been there in the first place but as long as there's no way to stop this...
It took a long time, but Caxton's invention has finally been tamed.
Is it just me, or is this sort of collusion between corporations and the secret police a little disturbing (more so than ID cards and CCTV cameras)?
It's not because they cannot link it directly to you that it doesn't have value (maybe they can, if you registered your printer). They can still determine that two pages are printed by the same printer. They can determine that they were print on the same day, or that one page was printed earlier than the other. If they raid the house and find the printer they have evidence. They can check the clock and tell on what day the pages where printed. All that sort of stuff.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
You'd think it would be easier to...
:)
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
Great. Now I know what data is in the dots. It includes as expected serial numbers and dates, but not what I had for breakfast, nor the color of my underwear!
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 number is useless in reality. If I steal the printer from someone's home in Boston, and transport it Houston, where I print my subversive literature for global distribution, the only thing the SS can tell from the dots is "Yep.. It was printed on printer 3437938 at 10am on a friday three months ago"
Now if it had GPS coordinates included, that would be a little more scary..
Just send in the little round yellow guy to eat some of the dots and confuse the feds. No more paranoia!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
hehe seen the paranoia already. I feel that your looking at this all wrong.
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 they know they are dealing with the same person. if there are codes from 2 or 3 differnt printers. then it could be a ring of people.
I think this is a exelent aid for the autotities and feel that the only people that have things to worry about are the people doing wrong out there.
just my 2 pence worth. Fuas.
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.
That's pretty disgustingly low behaviour. Makes you wonder what other identifying information might be written into seemingly random data.
Improve, or something else....? TCP timestamps too. Just use the LSB, and by making it a 1, or a 0, and you can transmit infomation hiddenly..
Get your own free personal location tracker
Instead of sereptitiously putting in tracking codes in customer's documents, maybe the government should investigate the price gouging practice that ink cartridge manufacturers use to boost their profits?
r idge_Price_Fixing.htm
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.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
They say the date and time is encoded besides the printer serial number. What I can't grasp, how should a color laser printer know the exact time? It is simply a peripheral and not necessarily network attached.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Do you know anything baout barcodes? Barcodes do not have serial numbers encoded on them. Every printer of the same brand and model has the same barcode. Any other system would increase the cost of printing boxes tenfold.
The best they could do is identify which store the item was shipped to. And really, even that is a stretch. In all likelihood a company has no idea which stores got products with which serial numbers. They probably know which serial numbers went to which regional distribution centre, but thats it.
If you honestly think that companies have the time and money to track things to that ability, you are crazy. It would cost them *millions*, and benefit them zero. They would be fighting tooth and nail against any request by the government to do that.
The thing serial numbers are used for is to identify the date and batch of the item (so they can track it back to the plant and workers if there are an unusually high number of defects in a batch), and also to track warrantys. That is it. Unless you file a warranty claim a company has no way to correltate that back to you, and really, they have no reason to waste money on that either.
Once the code is cracked, anyone can add a pattern of yellow dots that say anything. Assuming someone can tweeze the overlapping codes, they would discover that the document was printed 10/10/05 by printer 2721272 or 5/8/05 by printer 8798798 or 11/2/05 by printer 9813982, etc. If one can get the alignment right, one could even fill-in the printer's native dot pattern so that all pages are printed on FF/FF/FF by printer FFFFFFF.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Given all the tin foil hat activity lately, I see this as CBS' next spinoff.
I'm all for it. Especially if you get that MILF Marg Helgenberger. Woohooo!!!
Tracking to the home would be difficult but tracking to an area is more realistic. If there is a serial # embedded in to the code, the manufacturer can track that # to a particular store or warehouse. While this isn't enough to catch anyone alone, it could be used as supporting evidence in an ongoing case. Ofcourse, if a conterfeiter is stupid enough to actually register the printer (like the other 1% of the population) then they deserve to be cought in the first place.
Can't you just remove the yellow ink or something? Or am I missing something important here?
Yes but that's because Digg has self (so: no) moderation, which lowers the quality of the overal articles displayed. So, shut your mouth fanboi and stay on topic.
Obviously, the government cannot possibly be maintaining a list of printer serial numbers to match their owners with, since printers change hands as easily as bank notes. This would only be useful in a criminal investigation where the Secret Service has already confiscated the printers of suspected counterfeiters and then compare the watermark on the counterfeits to the printers. In other words, it's no big deal. I doubt that it will do the average citizen any harm and it does help with criminal investigations.
So counterfeiting == "subversive content"? Sorry, but counterfeiting money never has been a right of yours. That has always been a crime.
Or do you really think the Secret Service will be using these codes to also track down people who write "Bush sucks!!" essays. Get over yourselves.
You can legitimately criticize this scheme, but to equate it with Communist Russia and Big Brother is just lazy and without foundation. That's why you people are such jokes.
Here's my suggestion: get newspaper or magazine (with big letters preferrably), glue, scissors and some paper. Cut letters of liking, assemble and paste to paper. Oh and wear gloves.
here a guy opened up his HP printer and looked at the chips involved. It appears that all the printers with hidden codes use the Canon print engine board. Changing the pattern might be as easy as reflashing an eeprom.
I know not about all manufacturers, but I know HP keeps this information.
Not more than a couple months ago I had to contact them about a repair on an HP color laserjet, and all they needed was the serial number, and they knew purchase date, who the company was, everything. This was, of course purchased from a major supplier, by a company - so you could get around this by paying cash and wearing a baseball cap (don't look directly at those security cameras!) when you purchase it.
legal. fun. profitable. pick two.
Ok, so they might not be able to track you with this. But, if they find you, and raid you, and seize your printer, they can prove that a document was printed by your printer. So they can more easily tie you to the counterfeit money, cooked accounting sheets, or whatever it is that you printed that is evidence against you.
Let's assume you purchase your color laser printer with cash.
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.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
So they broke the code that allows the govt. to match up a document with a printer. Lets say a counterfeiter or a stalker/rapist or a kidnapper prints out some fake money or a ransom note or etc... Then they become a suspect and the feds can now say Hey this guy has a printer in his house or in a library nearby lets see if the code on the paper matches with what the person has in their home or nearby their home and possibly get more usable evidence or less evidence if nothing is found... Sometimes we worry about the "coulds" way too much in this country. Oh my god they "could" track everything we do with this technology, or red light cameras could be used to keep track of people or could this and could that. Not everything is an invasion of privacy and/or invasive in general. There are not always hidden agendas. All we have done here is help to disable something that would be useful in not only catching, but sometimes admonishing criminals as well...
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
If you're printing out your ransom demands on a color laser printer, send a photocopy of the printout instead.
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 if not millions in dealing with the distribution & maintenance channels.
My Toshiba laptop box not only had the serial number on the box, but when it went in for service the Tohiba rep knew which retailer it was sold through...
feel free to mod this down (-1 mod angry).
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
What if you simply print on legal sized paper, and simply chopped off the offending marks after printing?
But seriously, the next time I go shopping for a colour printer, I will get a sample printout and bring along my keychain with a blue LED to find one that doesn't have the yellow dot pattern.
My rights don't need management.
Of course, cracking these printers could allow a number of nefarious uses. eg, sending terrorist threats to the FBI and making the dots fit the printer belonging to someone you don't like...
;)
Oh wait, I've just received a letter from Alan Ralsky. Oh wait, he's already been done...
Does anyone remember that controversy about the George Bush military documents being authentic or forged and the whole Dan Rather controversy? If not, go here and get up to speed. In any case, there was concern that these documents were fabricated using something like Microsoft Word......so why don't we check out the secret code in the printout, eh? Actually, on second thought, if this has the potential to give any credibility to the joke of a president we have, then scratch that. Go here instead.
Euro 357 for a HP 1500L and prices are dropping steadily for a while now. So not really expensive anymore.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Site seems slow already, the story is also covered here: http://p2pnet.net/story/6620
[alk]
Print all subversive documents in yellow, or black with a solid yellow background.
And with your donation, you can claim the same.
https://secure.eff.org/
Just $25 can make a big difference when hundreds of people donate. If the site is busy (and it is at time of posting) just try back later. You will make a difference.
Checkout scanners don't read the serial # off the barcode, just the 10-digit UPC label.
Ever scan the "wrong" barcode with a self-checkout system? Sometimes retailers add the UPC label on the box after the fact with a built-in theft-deterrent device.
In any case, when you checkout, the POS system doesn't know the serial. The only time the serial "enters the system" is when you try to get service, register your warranty... or if you bought your equipment online from the vendor directly, or something like that.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Print the yellow dots on yellow paper. End of problem!
does that mean the grid is relative to the size of the paper, or is it repeated for larger A3 etc?
http://www.eff.org.nyud.net:8090/news/archives/200 5_10.php#004063
Okay, mighty slashdot. Now in your refusal to implement coral cache, you're impeding EFF from garnering donations. When will you be sated?
To answer your question, (And from the TFA) http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php
Yes, there are many on that list.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
I'd pass on registering my product.
I'd take my chances that when it breaks, I'll somehow manage to find enough money to pay for the repair or replacement. Somehow.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
I'm sure anoto would have something to say about this, using nearly-invisible dots on a page to identify its attributes. :-)
I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but this is hardly new. When I worked for kinko's in the early mid-nineties, all of our color copiers embedded time/date and the copiers serial in every image.
I thought this information would be common knowledge by now.
To get the date and time, I'd think that most consumer printers would need to be sent the information through a printer driver (although I'm sure more expensive printers, which these dots are probably printed on, would have a built-in clock). It would be interesting if someone had a cheaper printer with no-built in clock experienced these yellow dots, and if cheaper printers do have them, to find out what else the print driver is sending besides the document.
if they find a suspect with a printer, they can prove that printer was the one in question. sure, it'd be nice for them (and i expect invasive for us) if they could automagically call up the buyer of printer x from the manufacturer's records, but i doubt this is the main aim.
Consider this: you buy a printer, register it, use it for a year or two, donate it to a school (or something), they use it for a few more years, then they sell it/donate it to somebody else, etc. Only the initial person is likely to have registered it and the other transactions probably aren't tracked/recorded in any meaningful way...unless there's something slippery going on at the driver level keeping the printer companies up-to-date on who has what printer? *shrugs* Just food for thought...
Are you sure you're safe, publishing an opinion like that on the internet for everyone to see? Aren't you worried the Gestapo is on the way now to break your kneecaps and crush your testicles for not having correct thoughts?
Dissent is being crushed as we speak! No one is allowed to think outside set NeoCon boundaries! 1984 is here!
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I have worked for a couple years in a sister company of a copier distro and have actually had several discussions about this with the techs.. Yea, there is a hidden code embedded in the ones we sell. (of course we sell commercial color machines), and according to the guys who rip them apart on a daily basis, there is a way around it (i haven't verified this tho). For each one of the printers, there is a "US" driver and an "Other" driver. From what I understand, all you do is switch the driver to the non US version and the printers no longer identify. (I would love eff to test this theory, as I already run all mine w the "generic" drivers.
Use Yellow Paper. Become a Yellow Journalist!
If you are running Microsoft Windows and have automatic updates turned on then you are in the central database. Remember it was discovered recently that all sorts of information is sent to Redmond without your knowledge (or concent). Does this include the printer serial number (given by the printer driver)? Hmm...
Bear in mind that the average Xerox Docucolor costs well into the five figures, and usually comes with an account rep and a service contract. On that scale, it would take about 10 minutes to find the legitimate owner of the printer... but the owner is a billion-dollar corporation where you have to backtrack who the offending user is. These machines have both the quality and speed to be decent counterfitting operations if used properly, so that's where tracking pays off.
I'll start worrying when they start doing this to $400 QMS Magicolor printers... and if I feel really paranoid, I'll run something through the copier at the gas station for 10 generations.
Yes sir! And let me apologise on behalf of some /. user with mod points who modded you down when you were really trying to do something good on behalf of the /. community.
do you really think that "they" have a database they could reference to find out what printer serial number goes to what citizen?
Yup.
Someone dropped off an old washing machine next to my company's dumpster. Since it costs a bundle to have it hauled off (like over $100), we reported it to the police - who will take the serial number, look up the original buyer, and trace ownership to whoever dumped its disposal cost on us.
Since "they" DO have a database they can reference to find out what WASHING MACHINE goes to what citizen, I wouldn't be surprised if they have the same (or better) lists of who owns which forgery/counterfiting tools.
Lesson: yes, they know. Pay cash.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
When i get home im calling minolta and complaining about my printer doing undisclosed tracking.
I'm speechless. Don't they realize that this is an absolute gift for criminals?
The most obvious direct application of these hidden markings is to frame somebody else for your crimes (ransom notes, etc), or to keep the authorities off your scent through misdirection.
Organized crime must absolutely love this.
A lot of innocent people are going to find their homes raided, while the actual perpetrators sip their dry martinis on the Cote d'Azur. Another "brilliant" idea by the morons in power.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Just about every 'large' printer is network attached. Most networks are linked to the interweb. It's nice of you to fill in that little card and register the printer, but the printers has already registered for you (in Soviet America...).
While we're adding this feature to printers, maybe we should go talk to the guy making networking chips. We could hide a little code in there too. If the hardware changes, report to base - it's not too intrusive, but it would help us catch the bad guys. Wadayathink?
Of course, this might actually prove useful in the future for historians analyzing our garbage for dating our documents. Assuming, of course, that these tiny dots can survive for a useful amount of time.
Disfavor hidden features secretly bundled by world's most powerful militaristic government increasingly abusing it's powers in all fields? The best way to express your disapproval (to both private corporations and governments) is to avoid buying printers/other vulnerable hi-tech products manufactured in US or by US companies.
Buy South Korean, Japanese or European tech. Europe might be the best bet, because it's relatively highly unlikely that companies in the most developed EU countries (except UK) could be bribed to include secret chips, so prefer German/Scandinavian/etc tech next time you go shopping.
I browse at -1 becuase Slashdot moderation is broken and abused. Good posts get modded down all the time, mostly because the state an opinion or fact that violates the groupthink here. Shitty posts get modded up if they repeat some sort of groupthink.
Don't you find it ironic that your post was moderated down?
No wonder the yellow always runs out first!
Having recently been shopping for a laser printer, I can attest that they aren't expensive any more. You can buy a laser printer for about Can$150 and up. That makes them barely more expensive than an inkjet. You get reamed when you replace the cartridge but still it works out cheaper per page than buying new inks for a inkjet.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
(This is intented as (a poorly crafted attempt at) humor, mods, not a flamebait.)
My printer's secret dots spell out:
SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE
While I don't much like the idea of the printer's serial number being encoded in the watermark, I could see some genuine uses for the timestamp.
Suppose you have a contract whose watermark says it was printed after the date it was signed...
If the printer's internal clock is factory set and can't be changed, then it can be used both for proving a document was printed before another (think prior art, or even just handling plagiarism), and for invalidating forged documents and contracts.
Of course, the fact that the watermarking is secret indicates that such uses weren't intended.
...unlikely conspiracy that turned out to be true. Or do you know of any even more unlikely but true comspiracies?
2. Sell your printer on eBay
3. Call FBI and report buyer
4. Collect reward and PROFIT
Sorry, it's 4 steps, not the usual three.
Best Buy can have you arrested
So counterfeiting == "subversive content"? Sorry, but counterfeiting money never has been a right of yours. That has always been a crime
In China or USSR, criticizing the government is not a right either. That always has been a crime under those governments.
Or do you really think the Secret Service will be using these codes to also track down people who write "Bush sucks!!" essays. Get over yourselves.
Um.. How many people have have been arrested and questioned by the Secret Service, at their workplace or home, because they criticized Bush? Quite a few.
You can legitimately criticize this scheme, but to equate it with Communist Russia and Big Brother is just lazy and without foundation. That's why you people are such jokes.
You're a joke because you're trying to whitewash something that obviously is Big Brother. You also whitewash what is actually happening in America to people who criticize the President.
Drat! Now I have to buy a Samsung printer to create all of my dead tree archives. I sure hope they have improved in the ten years since I used them ....
Ok - so they can track the printing to a serial number on the printer.
How do they connect the serial number to the user?
They only way I can think of is warranty registrations - which are typically bullshit marketing tools anyway.
Now I have two reasons not to fill those out.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Is it legal to do what the EEF did (I do agree with doing it, I might add). IIRC there are a ton of generic laws prohibiting such activities since it could technically be viewed as a threat to national security (knowing such info could aid terrorists communications, etc. etc... your dog wants secure printing).
I wonder what the Feds next step will be... I doubt they will just sit.
All of this technology, but they still can't make it plug-and-play.
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 customer data) with a product serial, but the CC# should be next to impossible to retrieve.
Best practices, and all that.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
The "if you have nothing to hide" apologists for elimination of freedoms is a slippery slope to totalitarianism. Orwell would snicker!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
"The same grid is printed repeatedly over the entire page,"
Great. Not only do I pay extra for this feature (i.e. it's cost is added to the printer price), but I also get worse picture quality.
Thank you, FBI.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The main thing to remember about spook agencies like the NSA:
1) Assume they can read anything they want to (encrypted or not)
2) Assume they cannot read _everything_ (there are just too many petabytes per second to actually pay attention to them all).
If they focus on you, they'll find out what they want to. They'll just take your copier and all your papers and analyze from there.
While they may have a database of the printer signatures, they don't really need one to achieve their objectives.
There are 3 types of counterfeit artists:
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.
If you know the format of the code, you can embed your own yellow dot graphics in your printout which distorts the code. Depending on the sophistication of the code (I cannot RTFA, it's slashdotted), it will either make the code unreadable or you could change it to point to someone else's printer.
the time is easy, it is found as a side effect of the Waas-corrected GPS coordinate, which incidentally are also encoded.
If someone were arrested and tried on the basis of this information, wouldn't the government have to provide to the defense the details of how it was done? If I were the defense attorney, I'd be demanding the details of how the information was encoded, what information was there, and how they traced it to my client. Once that's out in the trial, it's a short step to putting it on the web.
God bless the PATRIOT Act,
Don't forget the 1994 Crime Bill and 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act.
Oh wait. Do forget those. They can't be blamed on Bush, and this is Slashdot.
HP clips the gamut of greens so you can't print money with it. This has been known for many years now.
In the UK the immediate assumption would be that the quid pro quo for the printer manufacturers would be the contracts to supply to government agencies, so the next time an inconvenient government document was leaked to the press they could be straight on to where it leaked from.
Jerry
I'll be right over to dig through your cupboards and drawers...just to be on the safe side. You aren't hiding anything, are you? If not, you have no reason to complain.
quotes within quotes equals single quotes
Is there potential to sue the printer mfgs (esp. outside the US) because the printer is not doing its best to produce a faithful printout (i.e. adding extra information to the page not intended by the user, irrespective of the fact that it's hard to make out). I mean, people who wear blue Beatles specs must be driven nuts :)
That being said, if all the printer problems I had were a few yellow dots I'd be doing well...
Some CD/DVD writers burn the serial of the CD/DVD-writer on the disk.
Do you really think they are going to waste their time trying to find out?
Yes, as it will cost around $150 to have it hauled off, and (at least around here) the police get the bill for now. Even if they don't trace the dumper, they can get the original owner. A washing machine ended up on a major freeway around here, and in that case the police DID hunt down prior owner(s).
But we digress. The point is that there IS a database of purchasers of printers, and even washing machines, linking serial numbers to owners - which is downright scary. A parent post questioned whether such databases exist, and I countered that no only do they exist for printers (potential forgery/counterfiting devices), but they exist for something as freaking mundane as washing machines.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Actually, most intelligent people know that the Democrats and Republicans are all cut from the same pile of shit, and have been for ages. They're not there to help out any regular American citizen. They're out to represent and aide their various business interests, be them the entertainment industry or the petroleum industry.
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. Companies can get away with this, and then others can get away with abusing such information. Were true conservatives or liberals in power, then this would never be allowed to happen, and the companies that did participate in this activity would be punished. Why is that? Because true conservatives and true liberals care about individual rights.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
In which way are they relevant to the parent's post? He didn't say he approved them. And no matter what he thinks about them, his post says something about the PATRIOT-Act, *not* the others you mentioned. They are not important in this case, because he isn't arguing about them, but about something else. All he was talking about was the PATRIOT-Act, so please stop beginning to talk about something different, and stay on the subject.
Also, he didn't once mention Bush, and his argumentation wasn't built around him. Just because you judge people's actions (in this case laws) by how you like the person in question, doesn't mean others do it.
Is it possible the same technoly is used in digital camera's and scanners?
Maybe every digital picture can be traced back to its maker...
One of the best way to hide things is to claim that you do not have certain capabilities and then spend money on trying to do such a thing via inferior companies/groups.
After all, why would a gov. spend money on doing something that they already have, or perhaps could not make in the first place.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So much for my plans to print and distribute Dubya toilet paper.
My 4500n is on the list and I see Ricoh too, though they don't list my AP3800c. But I wouldn't be surprised if it does it too..
It's good to have a list of companies that are mixed up with totalitarian ideology / fascists, so that we can avoid buying anything from them.
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.
And here I always thought this ploy was to help Frank and Joe Hardy keep up with the times. Now, instead of tracking down a criminal via typewriters, they use the yellow dots of laser printer output to nail the bad guy.
From there it will branch to Nancy Drew, the Boxcar Children, the Bobsy Twins and others.
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.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Now my life is getting more and more complicated.
I have to 1) wipe down any fingerprints 2) make sure there is no hair or fiber evidence 4) make sure there is no audio or video surveillance 5) wipe the serial numbers off of any guns I use 4) wipe the serial numbers off of the printers I use 6) make sure there are no witnesses.
Did I miss anything?
And I don't care how many they've caught or didn't catch. I didn't consent this when I bought my printer, and it pisses me off. Why is law enforcement so damned eager to turn the U.S. into the U.S.S.R?
National Security Letters -- already abused.
Torture? WTF are you serious, now we're torturing people and we don't even care???? WAKE UP
I need to do a criminal background check on the eBay users bidding on my laser printer. I sent in the registration card and all roads lead to me!
Where is the list of printers involved?
There seem to be a lot of people who confuse *freedom* with *freedom to do antisocial stuff and remain anonymous*. These are not the same things.
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.
What is "personally identifying" about time, date, and printer serial number?
So you'd be perfectly happy for a kidnapper to print out his ransom note containing a forged hidden dot code identifying your personal printer and the time and date of an occasion when you were proveably at home. Correct?
Far from being just "a little irritating" as you put it, this is a gift from the gods for framing innocent people.
...when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Because true conservatives and true liberals care about individual rights.
I hope you get modded up "insightful" for that. I totally agree but have never seen it put so succinctly. Thanks!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Has anybody tried some other detection methods, such as brushing on lemon juice or coffee, lightly burning with a lighter, etc.?
I posted a link to this story several months ago and was rejected w/ no reason given. What gives?
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
Ok, so anyone have a list of which manufacturers and printer models are part of this "selected" set?
WOW... You're nuts!
It's a good thing you don't speak for me or anybody else but yourself for that matter. You need to do a bunch of growing up, sonny. While I'm certainly not a flower child of the sixties, at least I recognize that history is littered with corpses of people who think just like you.
Just a little food for thought, assuming you have any brain at all: The US founding fathers depended on anonymous pamphleteering. They were guilty of capital treason under the regime of the time.
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php/
Gee, why not just dab a black felt-tip pen on the dot? You get one more piece of random printer scuz on your doc, oh well, which your recipient hardly notices -- even if it's fake $20 bill, probably -- and your identity is secure enough.
So, where does the printer get the date and time? My printers don't have an internal clock (to the best of my knoledge.) The print driver must be supplying that information which leaves open the possibility of the date and time beeing spoofed in any number of ways.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Imagine that! Placing your printer's serial number, secretly, on every document you print. This makes me feel great that I always throw out my registration cards. 1 year of support, where some highschool drop out continues to insist that I reinstall the drivers from the CD, or make sure the USB cable is plugged in, is not worth the violations of my privacy.
To a noob, root is like a gay bar...and he's wearing assless chaps
I bought an expensive item. I broke it. I buy the same item from another retailer and immediately after receiving the item send them adn email:"Look: your item is broken! I want my money back!" Then you send back the item you broke.
How do I know this is an issue? I saw negative review for one of the online retailers. Customer complained they sent him broken CPU and refused to refund his money. The response of the retailer was that returned CPU had different serial number from the one sold by this retailer.
"There seem to be a lot of people who confuse *freedom* with *freedom to do antisocial stuff and remain anonymous*."
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.
I guess the advocates of this behavior will say, "Yes, it serves society's interests over the individual's. Society is more important than people," and then they'll start quoting Spock's communist mantra from Star Trek II, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one." Fine, just remember that, when society decides to implant a sex-monitoring chip in your hand. Maybe we'll let you choose which hand.
My dollars already tend to vote against buying software that doesn't give absolute priority to the users' interests. Now printers will join software, DVD players, etc, in being scrutinized in this manner. A market force is created.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Thanks to the patriot act, every single credit card you own is registered with the government.
Yeah, right.
Ah, but you see this only eliminates the anonymity of color desktop publishing. So, you'll have to write your revolutionary manifestos in B&W. Big deal. I'll give up anonymous color printing in order to have my money be worth something (at least until our impending inflation crisis hits), thanks.
This post is protected by Slashdot dot encoding.
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Rirelobql xabjf gung EBG-13 vf gur yrnfg frpher rapelcgvba rire, ohg jbhyq lbh jnfgr lbhe gvzr npghnyyl qrpelcgvat vg???
What happens when parties to a civil suit start subpoenaing this info to establish authorship in civil cases? What if one of the parties is the U.S. government? Is there any chance this could backfire?
The US constitution has no right to vote listed in it.
See Wikipedia and here.
This may not be a bad thing(tm).
I like to build things and wire stuff together.
I call for an audit of all existing open source OS code.
If the NSA is sneaking tracking info into our printers, what's to stop them from hacking into a few servers here and there and dropping a few extra lines into the latest release?
Call me paranoid. Go ahead. Just remember that if you're laughing at me now, you probably would have laughed at me if I told you that the NSA secrely slipped "tracking dots" into the color documents of every american in the country.
I know the dots are small, but what about the whole pattern? If the pattern is larger than, say, a $20 bill, what use is it in deterring counterfiting? As opposed to someting like dissent?
Ah yes, because the government is soooo good at defending against counterfeiters and unauthorized money.
Enjoy your freedom (when the U.S. Army starts quoting Trotsky, be afraid. Very afraid.)
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
I saw that on TV and thought to myself how ironic it was that this guy was able to get away for those murders for decades but got caught cuz he was a computer noob... how ironic.
reminds me of another story i saw on the same program where a guy sent cops a small map where a body was located. the cops determined that the map was a printout from an online map service like mapquest. the cops then went to all (like all 7 of them) and determined it came from MSN maps. MS then found that only one person requested that location and gave them the IP. the guy got caught because he was too stupid to draw some lines on a sheet of paper instead of mailing them the actual printout...... noobs.
So you argue against anti-counterfeiting measures by demonstrating that current efforts are insufficient? Thanks for proving my point! Anyway, sophisticated counterfeiting like the Iranians buying actual engraving equipment, and issues with personnel within the bureau of engraving are completely different problems from small-time counterfeiters using home printing equipment, which these measures are intended to address.
In any case, as I stated originally, this in no way limits your freedom other than the freedom to print high-quality color documents anonymously, and only tinfoil hat-types would seriously think this is going to be used for anything other than linking counterfeiters to their product. And maybe you should read up on Trotsky. Just because he was a communist doesn't mean he was a bad guy. In fact, most of the evil people associate with communism stems from Stalin, whom Trotsky opposed so vehemently and was seen as such a threat to as to get him deported and eventually assassinated.
I guess you would be ok with the government installing cameras in your home, just to protect you from criminals that might break into your house.
How about if they install them secretly without your knowledge?
How about if they do it to make sure you arn't breaking any laws?
That's basicly what they have done here. They put in a way to monitor who prints any document, secretly, to make sure they can catch you if you break a law.
That's not Freedom. Anyone that can't see why that is wrong is stupid and naive.
You completely missed my point. The point being that the government is generally fairly ineffectual and that corruption internal to the government is endemic. This combination almost assures that this tracking ability will be misused by government agents. Just do a little research on how many of the crimes persecuted (spelling in context) under the PATRIOT act actually have anything to do with terrorism for an example. In addition, the forced, and generally secret, tracking of all color laser printed documents is so completly out of proportion to the extremely limited impact that small-time counterfeiters have on the economy versus the major impact to the ability to publish anonymously that the trade off is far too dear to be taken lightly. Be assured that the large scale counterfeiters aren't doing it on Xerox machines.
Having read Trotsky, he was unabashedly in favor of strong central government "taking care" of the people. Yes, he and Stalin were opposed, mainly because Stalin was a typical dictator and only marginally followed the ideals of Communism.
And, no, the evils associated with communism aren't due to Stalin. The evils associated with communism (the economic theory, not the political theory) are that Marx assigns all value to the raw materials of production and little to no value on the process and craftsmanship involved in production. Thus a highly skilled and dedicated craftsman has the same value (in Marxist communism as well as Skinnerian communism/socialism) as an unskilled, unmotivated laborer. This failure to recognize the difference in the relative value to the economy and society of two very different workers, and that their compensation should be different in relation to their individual contributions, is why pure communism can not succeed any more than pure capitalism. When you only recompense workers for their efforts based on their needs, and craftsmen see themselves getting no more than laborers, they will fail to produce at the level they could with proper incentive. Thus, if the central agency's goal is to maximize economic capacity to provide the highest quality of life for all of its citizens, then the agency must provide that incentive, either by adjusting the compensation, which comes perilously (for political Communists) close to capitalism, or you provide incentive via threats and punishment which devolves into Dictatorship.
Well, there's my Offtopic mod for the day.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
Well that's the stupidest thing I've heard today. That's even dumber than the stuff I say. You "know some cops?" Holy crap.
Quick summary: all printer manufacturers, give or take a couple. Gotta love that free market capitalism!
fish and pipes
poorer countries are scared of high quality color printing. It makes it easy to counterfeit money, and they have a hard time telling the difference. Therefore, printing companies came up with a solution: encode tracking information, similar to digital watermarks, into every printout. This gave these countries relief: if they were worried about some money being counterfeit, then they could simply scan it for the printer's codes. Now they have a technique to tell the difference between genuine cache and counterfeit printed from a color printer.
Everyone knows this is to stop counterfeiting. For terrorism everyone uses newspapers and magazines, cut out the letters; glue them on paper; do this with rubber gloves. Then they copy it on a very old copymachine and distribute those secret documents among them others. It's ancient, everyone knows anyone with bad intentions does it.
Hey, there seems to be heavy traffic outside, lots of black cars and people with sunglasses and headphones outside and someone is ringing my doorbell, wonder if something happened?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I can't believe it has taken 9 years for this to make it to the public...
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.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
I have a lovely 600 dpi PS-Laser from Hp. Couple of years old, perfectly sufficient for anything I do. Found it in a second-hand store, paid in cash. Untracable.
Yes, okay, it's not a color-printer, but in a few years you'll find these color-lasers for equally cheap prices in second-hand shops...
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
can obtain the information from them when they need it (say, when they find a fake twenty with the dot pattern embedded)
Dots representing a pattern. Do you hear any bells ringing? Try SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. That's right. What we've got is a totally new definition of SETI@Home, only they're out there and they're trying to communicate. So, what's our response?
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
It would be difficult, but not impossible, to fake. I suspect, however, that the main reason the US gubbernment wanted it put in is to make counterfeits easier to spot and track down. Adding more dots might make the tracking down harder, but would only make counterfeit recognition easier.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Don't forget, that old dot matrix printer in the back of your wardrobe will quite happily print on a Gestetner stencil, if you take out the ribbon. It used to be done like that back in the days of punk fanzines. That's if you can get hold of such a machine and a supply of stencils, of course.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Actually according to different court ruleings including USSC, US Supreme Court, rulings anonymous speech is included in the First Amendment's free speech. "In Talley v. California the Court struck down an ordinance which banned all handbills that did not carry the name and address of the author, printer, and sponsor; conviction for violating the ordinance was set aside on behalf of one distributing leaflets urging boycotts against certain merchants because of their employment discrimination. The basis of the decision is not readily ascertainable. On the one hand, the Court celebrated anonymity. ''Anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, brochures and even books have played an important role in the progress of mankind." More court rulings can be found on Findlaw. Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There is no constitutional right to privacy in the United States - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, but no right to privacy - Go read the docs - It ain't in there
Ah but there is the USSC, US Supreme Court has ruled the First Amendment's Freedom of Speech includes the right to privacy.
FalconShould there be a Law?
You may give up your rights but don't ask others to follow in your foot steps I'm sure if you're confortable in a fascist or othe authoritarian, totalitarian state you can find one instead of turning the US into one.
FalconShould there be a Law?
My local Best Buy/Circuit City/Costco don't do that.
I don't shop at Walmart, so I can't comment on that.
My point is that it's a seperate step at POS, and apparently optional.
Mail order is a different story.
Let's hope it doesn't continue too far down that slippery slope.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
And it seemd you're ready to do whatever the authorities say, er allow them to decide what you can do and how you do it. Fact is this won't stop conterfitting but it will make it easy the the authorities to track political speech. You may not remember J Edgar Hoover and how he collected intel on people he considered a threat like John Lennon. I'm sure he would of loved this, as would the Gestapo and the KGB.
Simply I don't believe government should have more power than absolutely necessary and this isn't necessary. Protecting liberty, regulating interstate and international commerce, conducting foreign affairs, and defending the country, that's the job of the federal government. For a compleat list of the powers of government I refer you to the USA Constitution. And be sure to refer to the X Amendment, and how it says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
FalconShould there be a Law?
Where does it fit? Under what? This isn't regulating the value of money, of foreign Coin, or fix the Standard of Weights and Measures. Nor does it "provide for the Punishment".
You suggest that this will be used to track political speech. Pray tell, what kind of political speech requires the use of a color laser printer?
Where do you draw the line then, all printer? How about books, pamphets, radio and tv, the internet? Where? They can all including colour laser printers, be used for political speech. To deny one of them is to abridge speech:
abridge
Falconverb: reduce in scope while retaining essential elements
Should there be a Law?
As far as punishment goes, it enables law enforcement officials to link the counterfiter with his product, and thus punish the counterfeiter. What's so hard to understand about that? Nobody's freedom of speech is being abridged, it's just their anonymity in doing it. Nowhere in the constitution are you explicitly or implicitly guaranteed anonymous speech. Nor is anonymous speech requisite for political discourse. The first amendment (at least theoretically) guarantees that your speech cannot be held against you, but consider that our founding fathers didn't publish the Declaration of Independence anonymously, and for them it was risking their lives to do so. But get over it. It's not going to get used to track down color-printing dissidents. Really, it's not. And how do you propose a prosecutor make a case against a counterfeiter who uses a color laser printer if there is no way to link the phony money to the tools used to make it?
Nobody's freedom of speech is being abridged, it's just their anonymity in doing it.
And anonymity is part of free speech. As early as the early 1800s the USSC, US Supreme Court, has ruled that part of free speech is anonymity. A more recent case is from 2002 when Supremes OK Anonymous Free Speech. Here's EPIC's webpage on Anonymity. I found this page from MIT also on USSC upholding anonymity in political speech. And this is EFF's page. Fact is is that the "Federalist Papers" written under the pseudonym "Publius" was written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John James, all Founding Fathers of the USA. They knew how important anonymous political speech was. You enjoy your freedom because they fought for those rights. If you live in the USA that is, but I don't know this. Thomas Jefferson, who did write the DOI, Declaration of Independence, also write pseudonymously
Here's a search of Findlaw on court ruling on privacy anonymous "free speech" "supreme court". Fact is is there's a long history of anonymous political speech in the USA with some of the Founding Fathers exercising it.
FalconShould there be a Law?