Printer dots raise privacy concerns

[Bravo Zulu]

Printer dots raise privacy concerns

By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The affordability and growing popularity of color laser printers is raising concerns among civil liberties advocates that your privacy may not be worth the paper you're printing on.

More manufacturers are outfitting greater numbers of laser printers with technology that leaves microscopic yellow dots on each printed page to identify the printer's serial number — and ultimately, you, says the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the leading watchdogs of electronic privacy

The technology has been around for years, but the declining price of laser printers and the increasing number of models with this feature is causing renewed concerns.
The dots, invisible to the naked eye, can be seen using a blue LED light and are used by authorities such as the Secret Service to investigate counterfeit bills made with laser printers, says Lorelei Pagano, director of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group.
Privacy advocates worry that the little-known technology could ensnare political dissidents, whistle-blowers or anyone who prints materials that authorities want to track.

"There's nothing about this technology that limits its application to counterfeit investigations," says Seth Schoen, a computer programmer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Some people who aren't doing anything wrong may have their privacy threatened." Schoen's tests have found the dots produced by 111 color laser printers made by 13 companies including Xerox, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Brother.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2008-07-13-printer_N.htm?se=yahoorefer

[Muttocracy]

1. !

:wow:

[Liberty Belle]

2. So if you print anti-war leaflets, love letters, or whatever,

Uncle Sam now knows who you are.

[grasswire]

3. back to copiers, then

In the USSR, dissidents had to resort to carbon paper because no other kind of duplication was allowed.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. This again?

I remember reading about this maybe three or four years ago.

[Bravo Zulu]

5. The technology has been around for years,

but the declining price of laser printers and the increasing number of models with this feature is causing renewed concerns.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I'm not sure how many counterfeitors send...

in the warranty card. I don't, and I'm not using any of my printers for anything fraudulant or illegal. If they want to stick little dots in graphics to help stop counterfeiting, that seems reasonable.

Now, if the almost invisible little dots took my name from my computer and stuck it in the graphic, I'd be worried just for GP. And if the printers used steganography so I couldn't check the output with my own blue laser, I'd be even more pissed. That's just going a little too far and is not to catch fraudsters.