"True, but most aren't given public IP addresses (any many aren't even given access out the firewall to try and figure out the public address)"
You work for a printer company and dont realize that a nat does not nessecarily stop outbound communication from a device on your network, so called "phoning home". Wow.
Actually, yes, I do realise that, but since it's not what I said, your point is hardly relevant Mr "M4dSki11z" (your "mad skills" appear to exclude reading comprehension, spelling and grammar sadly).
I was referring to a firewall, which can and does block outbound traffic. I also primarily work with MFP devices and so admittedly am often guilty of considering corporate networks more than home ones I'll admit. However if your home network isn't blocking random outbound traffic, you've only got yourself to blame.
It's the slippery slope problem. If they are willing to spy on you without a court order then what's to stop their printer driver from scanning your computer for copyrighted documents? (RIAA) What's to stop them from emailing a copy of all documents printed to the NSA for distribution to American corporations? (Industrial espionage) Remember these companies ship their products world wide, it's not just an "American" issue.
Not living in America, I'm well aware it's not just an American issue. As far as the print driver goes: Do you really think we could get away with letting the driver communicate back to the outside world with that much data and not have it all over the news?
I can give you a personal guarantee that our drivers don't do that, and they day they do, I'll quit my job in protest. Not that my word means much, being a relatively anonymous person on Slashdot, but hey - take it or leave it.
Who are the fucktards who came up with an idea that this should be under an NDA?! What THE FUCK has changed that this stuff cannot be included in at least the electronic version of the printer manual? It used to be that printers came with manuals that had the full command language laid out in the back. Of course todays' printers are more complex; it'd be probably a waste of paper and money to include it in whatever physical documentation that's coming with the printer. Alas, there's nothing at all barring you from just documenting your FINE product in the first place.
Sorry, this irrational behavior on the part of printer vendors just gets me all upset. Because it's stupid. Fuck if I will buy Konica/Minolta, even HP has freely available technical documentation for their mainstream printing languages, even for "esoteric" stuff like PJL.
Woah, angry much?
PJL is hardly esoteric, although it is often fairly vendor specific (beyond the basic commands that are standard across almost all manufacturers).
The reason this stuff is behind an NDA is mostly that we've got a LOT of other stuff on our Developer Support Portal other than just this. If we didn't have such a portal, we'd probably (although not certainly) make it open to the public. That said however, you can determine a lot about a device by HOW standard things are implemented and it is at least somewhat prudent to protect the implementation.
By the way, HP publishes the standard PCL and PJL command sets, but they don't freely and openly give you the exact implementation of these specs on their devices (it's generally ridiculously easy to assume and figure it out yourself, but that's actually true for any manufacturer's device)
But hey, if you don't want to buy Konica Minolta products, that's fine by me. I don't sell them - I just trust that the software I write for them and the information that I give out as openly as I'm allowed to will encourage others to do so (so that the company does well, I have a long and prosperous career there, and my team can be expanded as I want)
I would wager a bet that the PDL specs DON'T include info on the little tiny dots. No?
Considering they're not controlled by the PDL (Page Description Language); no, no they don't. They also don't include info on how the network interface is configured, what SMTP protocol parts are supported by the device's email functions and so on.
It is a real PITA to print management companies that the manufacturers do not provide the equivalent of a VIN. The serial number read by programs like PrintAudit is not necessarily the same as the brass tag, and HP are known to release evaluation printers with a serial of XXXXXX. We would actually prefer MORE traceability, not to catch dissidents but to reduce theft.
As far as I recall, PrintAudit reads the serial number from the MIB. So yeh, on Konica Minolta devices at least (and probably almost every other manufacturer) this'd be the electronically programmed one. I don't know of any manufacturers that do provide a hardware tag of any kind. The MAC address of the NIC would be reasonable in a lot of cases, but still isn't 100% reliable.
Of course, if I were interested in stealing devices, I'd definitely monitor network traffic and if I saw the S/N was being read by something like PrintAudit, I'd just spoof some replies to mess things up for a while before taking the machine (and maybe even leave behind a small box running somewhere giving MIB replies as if the device was still there just to make pinpointing the moment of theft more difficult when it was discovered).
SNMP is way too insecure to consider PrintAudit or similar useful as theft prevention. It's a GREAT tool for reporting on device usage and determining optimisations, but I'd be doubtful about using it (or any tool that works in a similar way (which is all of them AFAIK)) beyond these core tasks.
Mr Konica Minolta employee, is the article submitter being quite a dick when they say "less than a millimeter each"? A millimeter is not particularly small; while I'm sure the dots are less than a mm, it's about as good as saying they're smaller than the size of the page.
Both links have been slashdotted, so I'm genuinely curious how small the dots are; surely not larger than 0.1 mm.
Others have already answered, but you asked me, so I'll give the best answer I can. Yes, the others are correct that it's WAY smaller than a millimeter, since that'd be pretty pointless if they were that large. The exact size depends on the device in question due to the way that this is embedded at a "lower layer" than simply manipulating the image data coming in (it's done at the actual physical print layer), but it can be up to around a half a millimeter on really cruddy devices or as small as 0.05mm on really good devices. There is no standardised size.
Your company (and the American government) ought to understand this, and allow non-identifiable printers to be sold abroad
That would be nice, but a business is a business and why spend money when it doesn't benefit us directly (i.e. have one version for the US and one version for elsewhere)? Evil, yes, but that's business. (to clarify very clearly: No I do not agree with or condone this policy, but I'm a software dev, not a policy maker)
or at least have a means of printing banknotes that always have flaws without the personal identifiers.
That's already in. You can't copy or print any major world currency on the vast majority of colour devices out there. You'll get distorted images, or black squares, or whatever. (note: even attempting to do so is actually a crime in a lot of places, so don't try it unless you're willing to break the law even knowing that it won't work)
Go down to the guys in the driver dept, and hand out a few swift kicks to the balls.
Oh, I would SO love to... Sadly, the main driver devs are sitting in Japan and our guys here in Europe only do customisations and localisation - they don't deserve the kick.
On the plus side, if you're located in Europe and have a company (even just a one-person company) with a non-"freemail" email address, sign up (for free, but with NDA agreement) to our Developer Support Portal and you can get all our PDL (PJL, PCL, PS) specs to make your own driver. Wait a few months and there may be some even cooler stuff there for doing your own drivers much more easily (sorry, can't confirm that definitely right now).
Any questions, post on the forums there and I'll answer as best I can! (or pay for a developer support contract and get guaranteed full technical answers to questions as well as a lot more cool resources)
And for all we know there is already a database out there that just links yellow dots to names and it only takes a few calls to know who leaked the incriminating data.
If there was, the following conversation would not have taken place:
My phone rings...
Me: Hello, Yttrium Oxide* speaking (not my real name)
Person: Hi, this is Joe Bloggs* from Government Security Agency* (not real name or agency)
Person: Are you the person to talk to about determining who a device was sent to by its microdot pattern?
Me: Hmmm, sorry, not my area. You seem to have been transferred to the wrong department. I'll transfer you to the right person.
That's only happened once, around 6 or 7 years ago. Same current employer, different country. It may be that such a database exists in the US for example, but I've never worked there so couldn't say. It definitely doesn't exist in Australia where I used to work otherwise they wouldn't have called asking that question.
I just take issue with your claim that the printer has no time or location data. The printer is constantly connected to things that have time and location data.
True, but the devices are simply not that smart to make use of it. Trust me, the firmware developers in the printer industry aren't exactly the best and brightest in the software development world. They use the time as determined by the machine. They use the serial number that is programmed in to them. There is no location data of any use (specifically, I can tell you that the "location" variable on Konica Minolta devices in Europe is "Europe" - hardly an accurate location statement)
Note that when I talk about these firmware developers, I am referring to colleagues of mine. They're not "dumb", they're just a different kind of software person to the likes of myself and many here on slashdot. They have a different mindset and think about different kinds of things and different concerns than I would. I wouldn't be any good at their job (e.g. figuring out how to get the best user experience in a real-time OS controlling both the operation panel and the print processing) and they wouldn't be any good at mine (writing userland software for complex networked environments to interact with the devices (including keeping security on my side of the fence as a priority)).
OK, so you don't agree with them. That's good, you seemed to be coming across as a sock puppet for the company. Why these are a Good Thing.
I definitely didn't intend to come across that way, but reading my original post from a neutral standpoint, I think you're right. I should be more careful with my wording in the future.
My concerns aren't just about domestic abuse. What if a person in, say Saudi Arabia, began writing things critical of the monarchy or religion?
I still stick by the concept that these people should be able to circumvent the problem fairly easily. And if they don't, well, yes - it will be used against them - and that is indeed a bad thing. I would contend that the bigger problem is that they live somewhere where they can get in trouble for writing criticisms of the monarchy or religion. It's not their fault, but they've got bigger concerns than the inconvenience of having to mask their prints in some way.
I know "What Ifs" are just speculation, but if this behaviour was indeed benign and of no use, they would likely have abandoned it years ago.
Sadly, that's just the bureaucracy of big companies. I would imagine the only reason we added the feature to begin with on our machines was that it was less hassle to do so than not to do so. I don't defend the person who made that decision, but I somewhat understand it. Getting rid of it would take active effort (remove the code that does so) whereas leaving it there requires no change. No change is easier than change.
It's trivial to geolocate with IP and most printers are networked these days.
True, but most aren't given public IP addresses (any many aren't even given access out the firewall to try and figure out the public address)
Changing the serial doesn't mean the "real" burned in one isn't printed as well.
Note the bit where I said I work for Konica Minolta... I know what I'm talking about here. The serial number written in the microdots is ABSOLUTELY the one that is programmed in electronically by the service-person and NOT some kind of hard-coded value.
Seriously, what benefit is there to the consumer for this behaviour? None.
You'll get no argument from me there. I never said I was in favour of these microdots, just that they're REALLY ineffective and therefore you can generally happily ignore the attempted invasion of privacy and it's no big deal.
Stop being an apologist for your employer.
My employer (right up to senior management at our parent company) knows when I agree with them and when I disagree. I'm secure enough in my position there that I know I don't need to kiss arse to keep my job.
The are LOTS of flaws in your agument. Prehaps the easiest to explain is what happens if the is a revolution in your country and previous 'free-expression' suddenly lands you in jail?
Let's imagine I have a home printer that prints these microdots. I use it for printing birthday cards, kids' homework, letters to my bank, and other miscellany. If there's a revolution and any of these things become illegal, I've got bigger problems than being tracked by my printer.
As a further note, right now there's no way to trace that serial number to me. Generally speaking, tracing a serial number will get it to the store that sold it to me and not much further. For larger office devices (the stuff I work with in my day job) there's no way a home user would have it, but we could track it to the end user (customer) in theory. That however would only give us the company, not the individual user (unless that company themselves had a tracking system for their users, and then how is that OUR fault?)
Yeh, I'd prefer it if these microdots didn't exist, but I've yet to see a convincing argument of their actual danger.
Firstly, what's the big deal with the document having these microdots? They identify the machine by serial number, and the time (assuming the machine's clock is set correctly - in my experience, many aren't). The "location" isn't really identified since these devices have no way of knowing their location, so what's being described here isn't actually possible.
If you're going to be printing stuff you don't want identified, don't use one of these machines, sure. But for day to day normal printing, it's not exactly going to affect you.
I'm aware this argument sounds a lot like "if you've got nothing to hide, you don't need security" or whatever, but really it's not. If you DO want to hide that the job was printed on your device, change the serial number (on most devices, this just requires knowing how to get to the "Service Mode" of the machine - which, while no company will tell you how, is trivially easy to find on Google).
It's not like we actively keep it a secret that our machines do this.
And just as a minor nitpick: "Konica" and "Minolta" haven't been two separate companies in a long time. (Full disclosure: I work for Konica Minolta)
Most major tech centers (India, UK, Germany, and many other European countries) have visa requirements that are at least as strict as the US.
I'm a non-German citizen living and working in Germany for the last five years. To move over here, I just needed a letter from the company saying they wanted to hire me. I took that to the German embassy where I was living (Australia) who provided me with a work visa. Once that ran out, I just turned up at the appropriate govt dept, gave them evidence I am still working and they renewed it. No fuss, no big questions, all very easy and straightforward.
Right now, our company is going through the same procedure to hire a friend of mine from back in Australia and bring him over here. Doesn't seem to be any more difficult for him now than it was for me then.
From what I've heard about the US, it's significantly more difficult and complex (although I don't have any first hand experience); so I'm not really sure I'd agree with your statement.
I can't think of another country where such a relatively low income can buy such a relatively high lifestyle.
Depends what you mean by "lifestyle". It's certainly true that in the US you can have a much bigger house than almost every other "modern" nation in the world for the same money. And taking "road trips" is a lot more affordable due to cheaper petrol and much cheaper motels. So, if you value those things highly, then perhaps your statement may indeed be true. However, for prices of:
- Going out to a cafe for coffee with friends;
- Going out to a pub for beer with other friends;
- High quality food at the supermarket;
- High speed uncapped internet access;
- and many other things;
I find Germany (and indeed much of Europe) to be far more "bang for your buck" than the US. Since I value the items on the above list much more than I value having an overly large house or going on road trips, I'd dispute the claim that the quality of life is higher with a "relatively low income" ($100k USD was your figure - not actually all that low given that US median income is just below half that) in the US.
Note that with regards to housing, I moved from NZ to AU to DE. NZ and AU both typically have much larger residences than DE and while the pricing difference between NZ and AU was astronomical, the quality/standard/size was around the same. Here in DE, I haven't even bothered looking for a free-standing house of the size I had in NZ or AU - I instead live in a smaller apartment (but still plenty large enough for myself, my wife and my baby - including having a home office set up) that is MUCH more modern and "kitted out" than anything I would've thought about elsewhere. Having visited the US on several occasions and visited people's homes, I compare the housing quality/standard/size there to NZ and AU (significantly cheaper than AU; and a similar price to NZ, although US people usually earn more than Kiwis making it more affordable in general).
And, note that with regards to road trips, here in Europe we don't have to drive as far to see something most of the time. This somewhat negates the petrol price differences, and also if we're lucky we can get there and back in a day to avoid the expensive overnight costs here. I have however made larger road trips (Hannover to Salzburg for example) that was a day there and a day back, and one night in Salzburg wasn't TOO expensive. I certainly do understand though that this is nothing compared to the kind of "week long drive there and week long drive back" that constitutes a big road trip from a US perspective.
The cost of living in Australia is easily twice as high as the USA (probably closer to 3x if you're comparing somewhere cheap in the US to, say, Sydney).
I failed to notice how astronomically expensive Sydney was until I left. I moved there from NZ, but hadn't held a "real job" before going and so once I was working, I didn't really think too much about my cost of living. I assumed it was pretty normal that to have a "reasonable lifestyle", I should be paying just over 50% of my income in rent, then another 15% or so on top for my normal bills.
5 years ago, I left Sydney and moved to Hannover, Germany. For similar work to what I did there, my pay went up about 150% (exchange rate accounted for), and my cost of living in terns of rent, food and standard bills went down about 50% for equivalent quality*. I felt so amazingly rich here for the first couple of years and then realised that pretty much everyone here is like that. Combined with a way more attractive city, public transport that actually runs on time and takes me where I want to go, and traffic that doesn't crawl 24/7 on every major highway, I really can't say I miss Sydney at all.
* Note that I now pay about the same as what I paid in Sydney for lifestyle, but I'm now married, have a daughter and the necessary larger apartment, more food and higher bill costs that go along with that.
It is funny someone want no eat french cheese because rainbow warrior (the act of somes assholes) and advises to eat german cheese instead;)
Actually, I advised DUTCH cheese (from the Netherlands) and German Leberwurst. But anyway, during MY lifetime the Germans have been much less a problem for the world than the French have.
As a New Zealander, I grew up with news reports of what should be considered an act of war against New Zealand by France, and consequently find it somewhat difficult to support France's economy by buying their stuff (especially when the alternatives are often significantly better).
I've done some fencing, and what always bothered me about that scene was their failure to keep their points on their opponents.
You should keep the point stable and move the wrist/arm to create a cone of defense.
Perhaps when using the blade to attack instead of the point, as in sabre, the technique is closer to the PB fight?
Absolutely... fencing is fairly different to other forms of swordplay. While I'm fairly good with a sword, I've never quite got the hang of fencing.
It's not just that the blade attacks, but it also defends. A skilled swordfighter will only strike for two reasons:
1) An attempt to make the other fighter move his sword to a disadvantageous position or body to a disadvantageous stance
2) An attempt to hit the opponent
The rest of the time, the sword is used to block the strikes of the opponent, while seeking to keep yourself protected and not in a disadvantageous position/stance. And for this, you really want the whole blade available and not just the point. Keeping the point stable would be pretty counterproductive to this and the larger the blade (and therefore heavier and slower), the less inclined towards the opponent you generally hold it (i.e. a rapier will be held fairly much pointing towards the opponent whereas a broadsword you keep closer to the body and more or less diagonal across yourself)
The Princess Bride has absolutely some of the best swordplay I've ever seen on screen. Obviously the "famous duel" between Inigo and Westley gets a bit silly, but it's intended to be so (and is still really good anyway).
For reference, I'm pretty handy with a sword myself, so I do know what I'm looking for in "realism" when watching films - most do pretty woefully.
Pavement is the material itself, such as asphalt, concrete, etc. The word "pave" means to cover a surface.
Sidewalk, road, driveway, and such refer to the use of the paved area.
You don't typically call your house "bricks" or "wood" or whatever it may be constructed from, so why call a sidewalk "pavement".
Personally I use the word "footpath" for the path that I walk on beside the road. "Sidewalk" sounds foreign, but I don't consider it bad at all. "Pavement" I'd agree to me sounds like a reference to the material (that with which it is paved).
For reference, New Zealand English is my native variant, but I've spent over half of my life in other countries, so I may have been influenced somewhat in various directions.
doesn't stick it to organised religion which is probably barely even aware of the whole thing
Organised religion as a whole, possibly not. However, a friend of mine in New Zealand did tell me of one minister in the Church who, after the 2001 census (with high "Jedi" results), took the time to examine his faith, realised it was all built on self delusion and promptly went off to do something useful with his life instead.
Personally, I call that enough of a success to keep going.
Why even bother studying Religion? It's the complete antithesis of science. A Theologist should have no more respect that someone who studies the writings of any other work of fiction. It's on a par with the study of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll. Theology has no practical value except one; it's a useful tool for the Clergy to separate fools from their money and to keep them in line.
Actually, I'd consider it useful as a small part of psychology and anthropology. It can be useful for psychologists and anthropologists to have an idea of what it is that people believe, the reasons why, and some of the history around it. I do think it's a bit much to take it to the level of a whole field unto itself, but that seems to happen a lot in academia anyway.
I agree that most people that study it do NOT do so from a psychological or anthropological standpoint. They do it to further their understanding of the fairy-tales that they believe in (which I fully agree is completely useless) and in some cases "cash in" on it.
As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.
As Einstein also put it: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
Please don't try and paint him as a believer in any particular religion. There's been no end of debates on his religious views, but can't we just agree he was a great man and a great thinker without trying to infuse any beliefs in to it one way or the other?
Slashdot Mirror
You work for a printer company and dont realize that a nat does not nessecarily stop outbound communication from a device on your network, so called "phoning home". Wow.
Actually, yes, I do realise that, but since it's not what I said, your point is hardly relevant Mr "M4dSki11z" (your "mad skills" appear to exclude reading comprehension, spelling and grammar sadly).
I was referring to a firewall, which can and does block outbound traffic. I also primarily work with MFP devices and so admittedly am often guilty of considering corporate networks more than home ones I'll admit. However if your home network isn't blocking random outbound traffic, you've only got yourself to blame.
It's the slippery slope problem. If they are willing to spy on you without a court order then what's to stop their printer driver from scanning your computer for copyrighted documents? (RIAA) What's to stop them from emailing a copy of all documents printed to the NSA for distribution to American corporations? (Industrial espionage) Remember these companies ship their products world wide, it's not just an "American" issue.
Not living in America, I'm well aware it's not just an American issue. As far as the print driver goes: Do you really think we could get away with letting the driver communicate back to the outside world with that much data and not have it all over the news?
I can give you a personal guarantee that our drivers don't do that, and they day they do, I'll quit my job in protest. Not that my word means much, being a relatively anonymous person on Slashdot, but hey - take it or leave it.
Who are the fucktards who came up with an idea that this should be under an NDA?! What THE FUCK has changed that this stuff cannot be included in at least the electronic version of the printer manual? It used to be that printers came with manuals that had the full command language laid out in the back. Of course todays' printers are more complex; it'd be probably a waste of paper and money to include it in whatever physical documentation that's coming with the printer. Alas, there's nothing at all barring you from just documenting your FINE product in the first place.
Sorry, this irrational behavior on the part of printer vendors just gets me all upset. Because it's stupid. Fuck if I will buy Konica/Minolta, even HP has freely available technical documentation for their mainstream printing languages, even for "esoteric" stuff like PJL.
Woah, angry much?
PJL is hardly esoteric, although it is often fairly vendor specific (beyond the basic commands that are standard across almost all manufacturers).
The reason this stuff is behind an NDA is mostly that we've got a LOT of other stuff on our Developer Support Portal other than just this. If we didn't have such a portal, we'd probably (although not certainly) make it open to the public. That said however, you can determine a lot about a device by HOW standard things are implemented and it is at least somewhat prudent to protect the implementation.
By the way, HP publishes the standard PCL and PJL command sets, but they don't freely and openly give you the exact implementation of these specs on their devices (it's generally ridiculously easy to assume and figure it out yourself, but that's actually true for any manufacturer's device)
But hey, if you don't want to buy Konica Minolta products, that's fine by me. I don't sell them - I just trust that the software I write for them and the information that I give out as openly as I'm allowed to will encourage others to do so (so that the company does well, I have a long and prosperous career there, and my team can be expanded as I want)
I would wager a bet that the PDL specs DON'T include info on the little tiny dots. No?
Considering they're not controlled by the PDL (Page Description Language); no, no they don't. They also don't include info on how the network interface is configured, what SMTP protocol parts are supported by the device's email functions and so on.
It is a real PITA to print management companies that the manufacturers do not provide the equivalent of a VIN. The serial number read by programs like PrintAudit is not necessarily the same as the brass tag, and HP are known to release evaluation printers with a serial of XXXXXX. We would actually prefer MORE traceability, not to catch dissidents but to reduce theft.
As far as I recall, PrintAudit reads the serial number from the MIB. So yeh, on Konica Minolta devices at least (and probably almost every other manufacturer) this'd be the electronically programmed one. I don't know of any manufacturers that do provide a hardware tag of any kind. The MAC address of the NIC would be reasonable in a lot of cases, but still isn't 100% reliable.
Of course, if I were interested in stealing devices, I'd definitely monitor network traffic and if I saw the S/N was being read by something like PrintAudit, I'd just spoof some replies to mess things up for a while before taking the machine (and maybe even leave behind a small box running somewhere giving MIB replies as if the device was still there just to make pinpointing the moment of theft more difficult when it was discovered).
SNMP is way too insecure to consider PrintAudit or similar useful as theft prevention. It's a GREAT tool for reporting on device usage and determining optimisations, but I'd be doubtful about using it (or any tool that works in a similar way (which is all of them AFAIK)) beyond these core tasks.
Mr Konica Minolta employee, is the article submitter being quite a dick when they say "less than a millimeter each"? A millimeter is not particularly small; while I'm sure the dots are less than a mm, it's about as good as saying they're smaller than the size of the page.
Both links have been slashdotted, so I'm genuinely curious how small the dots are; surely not larger than 0.1 mm.
Others have already answered, but you asked me, so I'll give the best answer I can. Yes, the others are correct that it's WAY smaller than a millimeter, since that'd be pretty pointless if they were that large. The exact size depends on the device in question due to the way that this is embedded at a "lower layer" than simply manipulating the image data coming in (it's done at the actual physical print layer), but it can be up to around a half a millimeter on really cruddy devices or as small as 0.05mm on really good devices. There is no standardised size.
Your company (and the American government) ought to understand this, and allow non-identifiable printers to be sold abroad
That would be nice, but a business is a business and why spend money when it doesn't benefit us directly (i.e. have one version for the US and one version for elsewhere)? Evil, yes, but that's business. (to clarify very clearly: No I do not agree with or condone this policy, but I'm a software dev, not a policy maker)
or at least have a means of printing banknotes that always have flaws without the personal identifiers.
That's already in. You can't copy or print any major world currency on the vast majority of colour devices out there. You'll get distorted images, or black squares, or whatever. (note: even attempting to do so is actually a crime in a lot of places, so don't try it unless you're willing to break the law even knowing that it won't work)
Do me a favor.
Go down to the guys in the driver dept, and hand out a few swift kicks to the balls.
Oh, I would SO love to... Sadly, the main driver devs are sitting in Japan and our guys here in Europe only do customisations and localisation - they don't deserve the kick.
On the plus side, if you're located in Europe and have a company (even just a one-person company) with a non-"freemail" email address, sign up (for free, but with NDA agreement) to our Developer Support Portal and you can get all our PDL (PJL, PCL, PS) specs to make your own driver. Wait a few months and there may be some even cooler stuff there for doing your own drivers much more easily (sorry, can't confirm that definitely right now).
Any questions, post on the forums there and I'll answer as best I can! (or pay for a developer support contract and get guaranteed full technical answers to questions as well as a lot more cool resources)
And for all we know there is already a database out there that just links yellow dots to names and it only takes a few calls to know who leaked the incriminating data.
If there was, the following conversation would not have taken place:
That's only happened once, around 6 or 7 years ago. Same current employer, different country. It may be that such a database exists in the US for example, but I've never worked there so couldn't say. It definitely doesn't exist in Australia where I used to work otherwise they wouldn't have called asking that question.
I just take issue with your claim that the printer has no time or location data. The printer is constantly connected to things that have time and location data.
True, but the devices are simply not that smart to make use of it. Trust me, the firmware developers in the printer industry aren't exactly the best and brightest in the software development world. They use the time as determined by the machine. They use the serial number that is programmed in to them. There is no location data of any use (specifically, I can tell you that the "location" variable on Konica Minolta devices in Europe is "Europe" - hardly an accurate location statement)
Note that when I talk about these firmware developers, I am referring to colleagues of mine. They're not "dumb", they're just a different kind of software person to the likes of myself and many here on slashdot. They have a different mindset and think about different kinds of things and different concerns than I would. I wouldn't be any good at their job (e.g. figuring out how to get the best user experience in a real-time OS controlling both the operation panel and the print processing) and they wouldn't be any good at mine (writing userland software for complex networked environments to interact with the devices (including keeping security on my side of the fence as a priority)).
OK, so you don't agree with them. That's good, you seemed to be coming across as a sock puppet for the company. Why these are a Good Thing.
I definitely didn't intend to come across that way, but reading my original post from a neutral standpoint, I think you're right. I should be more careful with my wording in the future.
My concerns aren't just about domestic abuse. What if a person in, say Saudi Arabia, began writing things critical of the monarchy or religion?
I still stick by the concept that these people should be able to circumvent the problem fairly easily. And if they don't, well, yes - it will be used against them - and that is indeed a bad thing. I would contend that the bigger problem is that they live somewhere where they can get in trouble for writing criticisms of the monarchy or religion. It's not their fault, but they've got bigger concerns than the inconvenience of having to mask their prints in some way.
I know "What Ifs" are just speculation, but if this behaviour was indeed benign and of no use, they would likely have abandoned it years ago.
Sadly, that's just the bureaucracy of big companies. I would imagine the only reason we added the feature to begin with on our machines was that it was less hassle to do so than not to do so. I don't defend the person who made that decision, but I somewhat understand it. Getting rid of it would take active effort (remove the code that does so) whereas leaving it there requires no change. No change is easier than change.
It's trivial to geolocate with IP and most printers are networked these days.
True, but most aren't given public IP addresses (any many aren't even given access out the firewall to try and figure out the public address)
Changing the serial doesn't mean the "real" burned in one isn't printed as well.
Note the bit where I said I work for Konica Minolta... I know what I'm talking about here. The serial number written in the microdots is ABSOLUTELY the one that is programmed in electronically by the service-person and NOT some kind of hard-coded value.
Seriously, what benefit is there to the consumer for this behaviour? None.
You'll get no argument from me there. I never said I was in favour of these microdots, just that they're REALLY ineffective and therefore you can generally happily ignore the attempted invasion of privacy and it's no big deal.
Stop being an apologist for your employer.
My employer (right up to senior management at our parent company) knows when I agree with them and when I disagree. I'm secure enough in my position there that I know I don't need to kiss arse to keep my job.
The are LOTS of flaws in your agument. Prehaps the easiest to explain is what happens if the is a revolution in your country and previous 'free-expression' suddenly lands you in jail?
Let's imagine I have a home printer that prints these microdots. I use it for printing birthday cards, kids' homework, letters to my bank, and other miscellany. If there's a revolution and any of these things become illegal, I've got bigger problems than being tracked by my printer.
As a further note, right now there's no way to trace that serial number to me. Generally speaking, tracing a serial number will get it to the store that sold it to me and not much further. For larger office devices (the stuff I work with in my day job) there's no way a home user would have it, but we could track it to the end user (customer) in theory. That however would only give us the company, not the individual user (unless that company themselves had a tracking system for their users, and then how is that OUR fault?)
Yeh, I'd prefer it if these microdots didn't exist, but I've yet to see a convincing argument of their actual danger.
Firstly, what's the big deal with the document having these microdots? They identify the machine by serial number, and the time (assuming the machine's clock is set correctly - in my experience, many aren't). The "location" isn't really identified since these devices have no way of knowing their location, so what's being described here isn't actually possible.
If you're going to be printing stuff you don't want identified, don't use one of these machines, sure. But for day to day normal printing, it's not exactly going to affect you.
I'm aware this argument sounds a lot like "if you've got nothing to hide, you don't need security" or whatever, but really it's not. If you DO want to hide that the job was printed on your device, change the serial number (on most devices, this just requires knowing how to get to the "Service Mode" of the machine - which, while no company will tell you how, is trivially easy to find on Google).
It's not like we actively keep it a secret that our machines do this.
And just as a minor nitpick: "Konica" and "Minolta" haven't been two separate companies in a long time. (Full disclosure: I work for Konica Minolta)
Most major tech centers (India, UK, Germany, and many other European countries) have visa requirements that are at least as strict as the US.
I'm a non-German citizen living and working in Germany for the last five years. To move over here, I just needed a letter from the company saying they wanted to hire me. I took that to the German embassy where I was living (Australia) who provided me with a work visa. Once that ran out, I just turned up at the appropriate govt dept, gave them evidence I am still working and they renewed it. No fuss, no big questions, all very easy and straightforward.
Right now, our company is going through the same procedure to hire a friend of mine from back in Australia and bring him over here. Doesn't seem to be any more difficult for him now than it was for me then.
From what I've heard about the US, it's significantly more difficult and complex (although I don't have any first hand experience); so I'm not really sure I'd agree with your statement.
I can't think of another country where such a relatively low income can buy such a relatively high lifestyle.
Depends what you mean by "lifestyle". It's certainly true that in the US you can have a much bigger house than almost every other "modern" nation in the world for the same money. And taking "road trips" is a lot more affordable due to cheaper petrol and much cheaper motels. So, if you value those things highly, then perhaps your statement may indeed be true. However, for prices of:
- Going out to a cafe for coffee with friends;
- Going out to a pub for beer with other friends;
- High quality food at the supermarket;
- High speed uncapped internet access;
- and many other things;
I find Germany (and indeed much of Europe) to be far more "bang for your buck" than the US. Since I value the items on the above list much more than I value having an overly large house or going on road trips, I'd dispute the claim that the quality of life is higher with a "relatively low income" ($100k USD was your figure - not actually all that low given that US median income is just below half that) in the US.
Note that with regards to housing, I moved from NZ to AU to DE. NZ and AU both typically have much larger residences than DE and while the pricing difference between NZ and AU was astronomical, the quality/standard/size was around the same. Here in DE, I haven't even bothered looking for a free-standing house of the size I had in NZ or AU - I instead live in a smaller apartment (but still plenty large enough for myself, my wife and my baby - including having a home office set up) that is MUCH more modern and "kitted out" than anything I would've thought about elsewhere. Having visited the US on several occasions and visited people's homes, I compare the housing quality/standard/size there to NZ and AU (significantly cheaper than AU; and a similar price to NZ, although US people usually earn more than Kiwis making it more affordable in general).
And, note that with regards to road trips, here in Europe we don't have to drive as far to see something most of the time. This somewhat negates the petrol price differences, and also if we're lucky we can get there and back in a day to avoid the expensive overnight costs here. I have however made larger road trips (Hannover to Salzburg for example) that was a day there and a day back, and one night in Salzburg wasn't TOO expensive. I certainly do understand though that this is nothing compared to the kind of "week long drive there and week long drive back" that constitutes a big road trip from a US perspective.
The cost of living in Australia is easily twice as high as the USA (probably closer to 3x if you're comparing somewhere cheap in the US to, say, Sydney).
I failed to notice how astronomically expensive Sydney was until I left. I moved there from NZ, but hadn't held a "real job" before going and so once I was working, I didn't really think too much about my cost of living. I assumed it was pretty normal that to have a "reasonable lifestyle", I should be paying just over 50% of my income in rent, then another 15% or so on top for my normal bills.
5 years ago, I left Sydney and moved to Hannover, Germany. For similar work to what I did there, my pay went up about 150% (exchange rate accounted for), and my cost of living in terns of rent, food and standard bills went down about 50% for equivalent quality*. I felt so amazingly rich here for the first couple of years and then realised that pretty much everyone here is like that. Combined with a way more attractive city, public transport that actually runs on time and takes me where I want to go, and traffic that doesn't crawl 24/7 on every major highway, I really can't say I miss Sydney at all.
* Note that I now pay about the same as what I paid in Sydney for lifestyle, but I'm now married, have a daughter and the necessary larger apartment, more food and higher bill costs that go along with that.
It is funny someone want no eat french cheese because rainbow warrior (the act of somes assholes) and advises to eat german cheese instead ;)
Actually, I advised DUTCH cheese (from the Netherlands) and German Leberwurst. But anyway, during MY lifetime the Germans have been much less a problem for the world than the French have.
They are really lucky I like Bordeaux wines and French cheese and pate de campagne.
May I suggest Australian Hunter Valley red wines, New Zealand Marlborough white wines, Dutch cheese, and German (spreadable) Leberwurst as alternatives?
As a New Zealander, I grew up with news reports of what should be considered an act of war against New Zealand by France, and consequently find it somewhat difficult to support France's economy by buying their stuff (especially when the alternatives are often significantly better).
I've done some fencing, and what always bothered me about that scene was their failure to keep their points on their opponents.
You should keep the point stable and move the wrist/arm to create a cone of defense.
Perhaps when using the blade to attack instead of the point, as in sabre, the technique is closer to the PB fight?
Absolutely... fencing is fairly different to other forms of swordplay. While I'm fairly good with a sword, I've never quite got the hang of fencing.
It's not just that the blade attacks, but it also defends. A skilled swordfighter will only strike for two reasons:
1) An attempt to make the other fighter move his sword to a disadvantageous position or body to a disadvantageous stance
2) An attempt to hit the opponent
The rest of the time, the sword is used to block the strikes of the opponent, while seeking to keep yourself protected and not in a disadvantageous position/stance. And for this, you really want the whole blade available and not just the point. Keeping the point stable would be pretty counterproductive to this and the larger the blade (and therefore heavier and slower), the less inclined towards the opponent you generally hold it (i.e. a rapier will be held fairly much pointing towards the opponent whereas a broadsword you keep closer to the body and more or less diagonal across yourself)
The Princess Bride has absolutely some of the best swordplay I've ever seen on screen. Obviously the "famous duel" between Inigo and Westley gets a bit silly, but it's intended to be so (and is still really good anyway).
For reference, I'm pretty handy with a sword myself, so I do know what I'm looking for in "realism" when watching films - most do pretty woefully.
Pavement is the material itself, such as asphalt, concrete, etc. The word "pave" means to cover a surface.
Sidewalk, road, driveway, and such refer to the use of the paved area.
You don't typically call your house "bricks" or "wood" or whatever it may be constructed from, so why call a sidewalk "pavement".
Personally I use the word "footpath" for the path that I walk on beside the road. "Sidewalk" sounds foreign, but I don't consider it bad at all. "Pavement" I'd agree to me sounds like a reference to the material (that with which it is paved).
For reference, New Zealand English is my native variant, but I've spent over half of my life in other countries, so I may have been influenced somewhat in various directions.
doesn't stick it to organised religion which is probably barely even aware of the whole thing
Organised religion as a whole, possibly not. However, a friend of mine in New Zealand did tell me of one minister in the Church who, after the 2001 census (with high "Jedi" results), took the time to examine his faith, realised it was all built on self delusion and promptly went off to do something useful with his life instead.
Personally, I call that enough of a success to keep going.
Why even bother studying Religion? It's the complete antithesis of science. A Theologist should have no more respect that someone who studies the writings of any other work of fiction. It's on a par with the study of the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll. Theology has no practical value except one; it's a useful tool for the Clergy to separate fools from their money and to keep them in line.
Actually, I'd consider it useful as a small part of psychology and anthropology. It can be useful for psychologists and anthropologists to have an idea of what it is that people believe, the reasons why, and some of the history around it. I do think it's a bit much to take it to the level of a whole field unto itself, but that seems to happen a lot in academia anyway.
I agree that most people that study it do NOT do so from a psychological or anthropological standpoint. They do it to further their understanding of the fairy-tales that they believe in (which I fully agree is completely useless) and in some cases "cash in" on it.
As Einstein put it, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Claims to the contrary demand extraordinary proof.
As Einstein also put it: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."
Please don't try and paint him as a believer in any particular religion. There's been no end of debates on his religious views, but can't we just agree he was a great man and a great thinker without trying to infuse any beliefs in to it one way or the other?