Printer Tracking Dots

[Roedy Green]

I discovered yet another intrusion on civil liberties by the
Department of Fatherland Security.

see
http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots

Basically many printers now print a hidden code on the page that lets
any image printed by that printer to be tracked back to that
particular printer. So if for example if you print an anonymous
anti-Bush tract on your printer the bad guys can track it back to
your printer and beat you to a pulp.

The page lists which printers have this snooping feature and which do
not. There is a "tracking chip" in the printer that does this, so
this applies to all OSes, including printing done with Java or via PS.

 

[kc.wong.ird]

Basically many printers now print a hidden code on the page that lets
any image printed by that printer to be tracked back to that
particular printer. So if for example if you print an anonymous
anti-Bush tract on your printer the bad guys can track it back to
your printer and beat you to a pulp.

0_o Never heard of that before. What kind of blue light is needed to
see the dots?

In any case I don't own any of those models... I rarely print, and my
printer is an old laser jet, HP LaserJet 5L. I have it disconnected
under my desk, in dust cover, for several years.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

0_o Never heard of that before. What kind of blue light is needed to
see the dots?

In any case I don't own any of those models... I rarely print, and my
printer is an old laser jet, HP LaserJet 5L. I have it disconnected
under my desk, in dust cover, for several years.

I've heard of the technique but don't know how widespread it is.
Actually, I think this was introduced as an anti-forgery measure, rather
than something more McCarthyite.

The description I read said the dots were a pale pastel, e.g. a pale
lemon colour, which implies that the technique only works with a colour
printer. Its easy to defeat: use a monochrome printer.

There are lots of additional benefits if you ditch an inkjet in favour
of a monochrome laser, particularly if you buy an LJ5:
- monochrome lasers are *much* cheaper to run than inkjets.
- LJ5s are built like brick outhouses and run forever.
- Used ones are easy to find and cheap.
- If you're lucky you'll even find one with a network card in it.
- cartridges are easy to find, both new and on eBay.
- HP laserjets from at least the LJ2 to the latest all speak PCL.
- each model added a superset to PCL, so you can send LJ2 PCL to
a current model. It will work fine, but not print the latest
fancy twiddles.
- HP LJ printers are widespread, so you'll already have a suitable
driver if you're running Linux or any Windows later than 3.11.

I replaced an Epson Stylus, which used to use a couple of sets of tiny,
expensive cartridges a year, with a used plane jane LJ5 a couple of
years ago. The cartridge that was in it has shown no sign at all of
getting low in the two years I've had the machine. The only downside is
that Multimap maps are not so clear in b&w, but that's a small price to pay.

 

[RedGrittyBrick]

I discovered yet another intrusion on civil liberties by the
Department of Fatherland Security.

see
http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots

Basically many printers now print a hidden code on the page that lets
any image printed by that printer to be tracked back to that
particular printer.

This is old old news Roedy. It was widely reported in 2004, 2005.
<http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,118664-page,1/article.html>
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801663.html>
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/20/outlaw_printer_dots/>

In other breaking JRE 1.5 has been released!!!

So if for example if you print an anonymous
anti-Bush tract on your printer the bad guys can track it back to
your printer and beat you to a pulp.

The page lists which printers have this snooping feature and which do
not. There is a "tracking chip" in the printer that does this, so
this applies to all OSes, including printing done with Java or via PS.

I know CLJP often wanders far off topic but I'd prefer to get my civil
liberties news elsewhere

Please.

Pretty please?

 

[Roedy Green]

This is old old news Roedy. It was widely reported in 2004, 2005.

It may be old news, but it is perhaps more germane now with so many
repressive regimes in the world cracking down on pro-democracy
movements.

Further, you may be the only one here who caught it first time around,
and you apparently sat on the information.

My printer is not on the list, but I consider what Canon did a major
break of faith. They had no business introducing such a feature
without informing the customers. I wrote them telling them they are
now on my lifetime boycott list.

 

[Roedy Green]

The description I read said the dots were a pale pastel, e.g. a pale
lemon colour, which implies that the technique only works with a colour
printer. Its easy to defeat: use a monochrome printer.

In principle, even if you printed a monochrome page, they could add
some yellow dots to it, if you had a colour printer. Further, in
principle you could add some black dots for the same purpose.

You expect thing like this in cheque blanks, but not in posters.
It a betrayal of trust. It is like discovering your digital cellphone
has a chip to let Nokia tap your financial transactions, or every ball
point pen has a deliberate different ink formulation and all ball
point pen sales are secretly tracked to credit card and debit card
numbers.

Big brother, get STUFFED!

Read up on Herbert Hoover, a fanatical snoop who held the rich and
powerful in terror through his low-tech, high-budget snooping. He was
a very corrupt man. He even tried to force Martin Luther King to
commit suicide.

This power to pry guarantees abuse. It is human nature.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

In principle, even if you printed a monochrome page, they could add
some yellow dots to it, if you had a colour printer. Further, in
principle you could add some black dots for the same purpose.

That is why I said to use a "monochrome printer", not "your colour
printer in greyscale mode".

You expect thing like this in cheque blanks, but not in posters.
It a betrayal of trust.
>

As I said, IIRC it was developed to stop bad guys printing banknotes
with a scanner, Photoshop and a colour printer once scanner and printer
resolutions got good enough resolution to make non-obvious fakes.

Keep up, lad!

Read up on Herbert Hoover, a fanatical snoop who held the rich and
powerful in terror through his low-tech, high-budget snooping. He was
a very corrupt man. He even tried to force Martin Luther King to
commit suicide.

Just as well Hoover and Joe McCarthy never got (metaphorically) into bed
together. Hey, maybe they did and it wasn't metaphoric. After all its
said that ole Herb liked wearing a dress from time to time.

 

[Roedy Green]

I discovered yet another intrusion on civil liberties by the
Department of Fatherland Security.

Canon wrote back when I complained they had betrayed the trust of
their customers.

Thank you for your E-mail inquiry regarding the i450 printer.


The i450 does not pace yellow track dots onto the printed documents at
all. In fact none of our consumer level bubble jet product place
yellow track dots onto the printed page.
The products that are shown on the website are all commercial colour
laser products.
According to the federal government this is a requirement to curd or
prevent copying of documents such as


Paper money


Money orders


Certificates of deposit


Postage stamps (canceled or uncanceled)


Identifying badges or insignias


Selective service or draft papers


Checks or drafts issued by governmental agencies


Motor vehicle licenses and certificates of title

Traveler's checks


Food stamps


Passports


Immigration papers


Internal revenue stamps (canceled or uncanceled)


Bonds or other certificates of indebtedness


Stock certificates


Copyrighted works/works of art without permission of copyright owner



The yellow track dots allow the federal government to identify the
manufacturer of the product that made the copy during an
investigation.




Should you require further assistance, please feel free to email us or
visit our customer support website at http://www.canon.ca








Sincerely,




Jevon T.


Technical Support Representative


Customer Information Centre


Canon Canada Inc.

 

[Roedy Green]

As I said, IIRC it was developed to stop bad guys printing banknotes
with a scanner, Photoshop and a colour printer once scanner and printer
resolutions got good enough resolution to make non-obvious fakes.

Keep up, lad!

It if was simply to scramble counterfeits they would not need to
encode the identity.

If somebody published a phone list of 7 year old girls when they are
home alone, presumably to help babysitters get jobs, they are still
responsible for misuse of that list. Same for Canon's technology.

Further they did this COVERTLY. The covertness suggests their alleged
motivations are not true. Otherwise there would be no need for
secrecy.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Roedy Green wrote:
...

Sincerely,

Jevon T.

Technical Support Representative

Customer Information Centre

Canon Canada Inc.

Well that was a lot more polite than "piss off, ya' loony!".

High points for Jevon T. TSR, from the CIC of Canon Canada (Inc.)!

Oh, and in regard to RGB 'sitting on' the information, that
is simply ludicrous.
1) It was widely discussed at the time. (I can recall hearing
about it - and I do not go looking for that kind of information.)
2) ..in the presss, and on the relevant groups.
3) ..of which, this is not.
4) According to GG profiles, RedGrittyBrick started
posting in May 2005 - I do not know when they began
posting on comp.lang.java.* groups exactly (my vague
impression is 4-6 months) but the first two months of
postings were to completely non java groups. So it
might be surmised that by the time RGB began posting
*here*, the 2004/2005 inclusion of the dots was 'old news'.

Now, please use a monochrome printer* and stop bugging
us about it.

* Or 'save the trees' and do without those damnable devices.

 

[Lew]

* Or 'save the trees' and do without those damnable devices.

I've never understood what's supposed to be so bad about hugging trees.

Hugging trees is good.

"Treehugger" makes about as much sense as an insult as does "peacenik".

 

[Martin Gregorie]

It if was simply to scramble counterfeits they would not need to
encode the identity.

With respect, I think the idea of encoding the printer serial number was
to help track down and arrest the counterfeiters. That makes sense to
me. This use has been confirmed by HP. The encoding is described as a
sort of bar code. My guess is that it would need to be only one or two
matrix lines high to remain hard to see and to occupy as little paper
space as possible.

I agree with you that it would be bad news if some future paranoid
government should use it to track printer users but why would they
bother? The NSA is already monitoring all Internet traffic that crosses
the US. They and the FBI can also access all phone call detail records
and I bet the same applies to GCHQ in this country. As a result they
simply don't need to track the increasingly small amount of printed
material as well.

Further they did this COVERTLY. The covertness suggests their alleged
motivations are not true. Otherwise there would be no need for
secrecy.
>

NSA, CIA, MI5/6, GCHQ all use covert methods whether they need to be
secret or not. I don't think it occurs to then to ask that question.
Besides, they're all spooks; they *like* secrecy.

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Hugging trees is good.

....except when it gets your clothes covered in pine or eucalyptus resin.

"Treehugger" makes about as much sense as an insult as does "peacenik".

True.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

I've never understood what's supposed to be so bad about hugging trees.

Hugging trees is good.

"Treehugger" makes about as much sense as an insult as does "peacenik".

I ..kind of regard myself as a tree-hugging peacenik.

Except when I realise that if loved ones were threatened
by 'invading marauders', I'd fell the tree*, form the trunk
into shafts, make one end pointy, and toss them at the
invaders (pointy end first).

Do I still qualify, or should I hand in my 'tree-hugging
peacenik' card? ;-)

* Failing easy access to better weapons.

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.athompson.info/andrew/

Message posted via JavaKB.com
http://www.javakb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/java-general/200711/1

 

[Andrew Thompson]

...except when it gets your clothes covered in pine or eucalyptus resin.

Forget your clothes! Try applying Eucalyptus resin to any
'sensitive part' of the human body. Boy does it *sting*!

(Defensively: not that I go in for 'naked' tree-hugging, but
Eucalyptus Oil is sold as a medicine in Oz. ..Really!)

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.athompson.info/andrew/

Message posted via JavaKB.com
http://www.javakb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/java-general/200711/1

 

[Roedy Green]

With respect, I think the idea of encoding the printer serial number was
to help track down and arrest the counterfeiters.

Fine, but don't do it surreptitiously. People have likely died or
been tortured to death by keeping that big brother trick secret.

 

[Jeff]

It may be old news, but it is perhaps more germane now with so many
repressive regimes in the world cracking down on pro-democracy
movements.

Further, you may be the only one here who caught it first time around,
and you apparently sat on the information.

My printer is not on the list, but I consider what Canon did a major
break of faith. They had no business introducing such a feature
without informing the customers. I wrote them telling them they are
now on my lifetime boycott list.

And I think you are a total idiot and completely off topic. Herbert
Hoover? You mean the President of the US from 1929 to 1933?? Try J.
Edgar Hoover. Try some Risperdal or Thorazine for your paranoia.

 

[John W. Kennedy]

I've never understood what's supposed to be so bad about hugging trees.

Hugging trees is good.

"Treehugger" makes about as much sense as an insult as does "peacenik".

Well, one of the Shakespeare-denying loonies on
humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare claims to have taken to tree-hugging
in quite the wrong way....

 

[Martin Gregorie]

Fine, but don't do it surreptitiously. People have likely died or
been tortured to death by keeping that big brother trick secret.
>

I don't see how you can avoid keeping it secret. Granted that nasty
Savak-type people can misuse it, but if its not secret than any
counterfeiter with a clue will know about it and use another printer,
which sort of defeats its declared purpose.

 

[Andrew Thompson]

Well, one of the Shakespeare-denying loonies on
humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare claims to have taken to tree-hugging
in quite the wrong way....

Is there such a thing as 'bad touching' with a tree?

I mean, yeah, sure - I can understand if it were a *shrub*..