Connect the Dots (Government can trace your color printouts back to you)

[atommom]

For years, governments all over the world have secretly been collaborating with the high-end color laser printer industry in order to track the origin of every color copy made. They're doing it by programming the printers to create specific patterns of yellow dots -- not visible to the naked eye -- on every copy. These dot patterns are codes for the serial number, the make of the printer, and possibly even the time and date when the print was made. By cross-checking this information with printer company databases of people who have purchased the printers, federal agents can figure out who made a given color copy (of, say, an antiwar rally flyer) and when.

No, really.

Xerox has openly admitted it shares its customer lists with the US Secret Service if asked. And both the US Secret Service and the Dutch government told PC World in a recent article that they asked printer companies to create the yellow dot patterns to help law enforcement track down counterfeiting suspects. Because color laser copies are so good, counterfeiters frequently use them to create fake money, as well as fake train tickets and other valuable items.

Right now, the system works because most people don't know about it, and you can only see the yellow dots if you look at the paper under a blue light (to highlight the yellow). Generally you need a magnifying glass or a weak microscope too. It also works because color laser printers are high-end enough that most people buy them using credit cards. That's how the laser printer companies generate their lists of purchasers associated with specific printer serial numbers.

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/25165/

[ima_sinnic]

1. bottom line: pay for your printer with cash, like everything else (n/t)

[BlueEyedSon]

2. No hack to suppress the signature?

[atommom]

4. If there isn't one yet, some bright young hacker needs to come up with one

[Goldom]

3. Oh come on..

How would the printer companies even know everyone who buys their things, unless you ordered it from them directly? Not to mention the whole thing sounds absurd. Doesn't seem too hard to test either, someone go get a blue light.

[boise1]

5. This report is pegging my BS meter

I'm working here in laserjet R&D for a major manufacturer, and nobody here has heard of this....

[atommom]

7. If you find out that is IS BS, let us know. But these days,

things that used to be unbelievable are commonplace, so... :shrug:

[MsTryska]

6. well now......

that's the last time i xerox my ass on company time.....

[rosesaylavee]

8. Just don't do it in color n/t

:hide:

[atommom]

9. Even if they could trace Xeroxes, I don't think they have the

technology to trace asses. Yet. :D

[tx_dem41]

10. Did Wayne Madsen write this?

;)

[RageFist]

11. Maybe my definition is wrong, but isn't this fascist? n/t

[atommom]

12. I've been looking for confirmation of this story, and alas,

I found it. (I was sort of hoping it would turn out to be another urban legend...)

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118664,00.asp

WASHINGTON--Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer, shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow dots printed there that could be used to trace the document back to you.

According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.

"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.

The dots' minuscule size, covering less than one-thousandth of the page, along with their color combination of yellow on white, makes them invisible to the naked eye, Crean says. One way to determine if your color laser is applying this tracking process is to shine a blue LED light--say, from a keychain laser flashlight--on your page and use a magnifier.

[atommom]

13. Since it turned out not to be bullshit, I'm giving it a little kick.

:kick:

[Must_B_Free]

14. My best friend is a career copier/printer technician

he told me about something like this. He described it in relation to counterfitting. He said if you try to copy money it will make one print then if you do it again it will disable the machine.

He then goes out and pulls some chip out to send to secret service. He said he had to do it once.

This is more than likely on high volume professional equipment where you would have a service technician, not you generic inkjet...