Should Printer Companies Tell You Your Printer Leaves Secret Identifying Info?
from the disclosure-seems-appropriate dept
Every few years or so, the press picks up on the story that laser printers leave some dots that are invisible to the naked eye on every print. These dots are included for the purpose of anti-counterfeiting efforts. Each printer leaves a unique mark that can be read with special blue LED light, and interpreted with a decoding system that only the printers and the secret service are supposed to have. The story is getting some press again as the EFF is pointing out that laser printers have become cheap enough that many people have them and it's possible that the identification dots could be used for other purposes, meaning that people who print stuff out on the assumption that the documents would be anonymous, may be wrong. Officials in the article scoff at the idea that the codes would be used for anything other than anti-counterfeiting efforts. And, indeed, it does seem unlikely that the codes could be used for very much (not only would you need to interpret them, you'd also need the means of tracking down who owns a specific printer). But there is a good point in all of this: why shouldn't the printer providers be forced to at least disclose that their printers mark every document with a unique identifier?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: counterfeiting, disclosure, identification, laser printers, printers
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possible
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Re: possible
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Re: Re: possible
Premature optimization is the root of all evil.
Beside that, I do think 300 MB of bloatware is outrageous. I cannot imagine that you require that much code for something like a printer.
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Re: Re: possible
Good point but a printer driver for a laser printer is not quite the same as for your old dot matrix. There is a lot to consider when printing to them, especially in color. For example, my Lexmark has duplexing, finishing, collating and a gazillion other fun features as well as dithering, smoothing, media-type selection, etc.; the driver is around 50meg.
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Re: Re: possible
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two words
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A few articles ago, you brought up the inability of Google to anonymise its log data. Replacing the IP address with a unique token is insufficient.
The same applies here. Being unable to find the printer to which a document was printed doesn't make it anonymous when one is able to able to uniquely identify the source of documents.
Where Google's and the printer identifier cases differ is in what they can readily de-anonymise. Since Google has everyone's search queries, it can more readily de-anonymise arbitrary people.
In the printer identifier case, the documents you are able to compare are those you have previously collected and those of the person you suspect of having printed the document.
This leads to different attacks, but it doesn't prevent attacks from being possible as you say.
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Force them to disclose?
Is there some sort of law for laser printer manufacturers only? There are some high end inkjets that can pull off a counterfeit to an unsuspecting person quite well.
And, yes, I trust the government that this "tracking" technology is secure from public investigator access and not used for nefarious warrantless papertapping. (Hope your sarcasm meter is turned on.)
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not only would you need to interpret them...
I have in the past seen/read sites explaining exactly how to interpret the patterns and the hash patterns they make... I am sure they could be found again with a bit of searching
now the part about tracking to a person... All I can offer is only buy used printers with cash and destroy any printers you bought as new :)
Big Brother is watching... I am thinking of sending a copy of the book 1984 to all the Congress people in Washington.
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Think About This
If you register it on line that have the info you send them too.
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Full disclosure is required!
If there is a worry about 'micro dots' on printed sheets why is it that few seem to be worried about the fact that CAD software developers are not prepared to 'fully disclose' details of data they can and are removing from our systems?
http://miletter.blogspot.com details a specific example.
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Re: Full disclosure is required!
After 1 week, his Inventor application stopped loading completely.
The reseller's tech support?
Open up the Internet for the guy. (the reason he didn't have it anymore is cause he was caught looking at nudie pics...duh...)
*knocks on heads*
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Easy enough, buy used
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Re: Easy enough, buy used
This works if you are happy to buy a different printer every time you want to make an anonymous print. Other things you have printed with the same printer could lead people back to you because they would all have the same markings. Or at least they would be able to tell which anonymous prints all came from the same printer.
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Re: Re: Easy enough, buy used
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Could the markings be faked?
I think they should disclose. Imagine if a whistle-blower was tracked down and killed because their company's security department intercepted a letter that was supposed to be anonymous.
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Printer Leaves Secret Identifying Info
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Old technology
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Because it forces us to buy more ink
Good luck if its an HP.
Your printer will announce that it will NOT print until the other inks are replaced.
I've watched my yellow reservoir get sucked dry printing only gray scale images. So, I have to buy another yellow plugin regularly just to print B&W.
It's so dishonest I'm hoping some greedy lawyer hits 'em with a class action lawsuit.
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Re: Because it forces us to buy more ink
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Re: Because it forces us to buy more ink
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Re: Because it forces us to buy more ink
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Easy
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pdf
My printer is only good for its scanning now, and I will have to live with screen versions of documents.
Or no !! I have an idea, time to drag out my dot matrix printer from the garage!!!
Solved......
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Re: pdf
The same techniques that enable forensic scientists to identify individual tires or typewriters is perfectly capable of identifying the microscopic anomolies in print that result from the unique differences in every single print head produced.
I remember one case where the zip ties used in a rape/murder were traced to the exact machine they were produced on AND they were able to identify the exact lot they came from, which helped prove a man guilty because they had found a matching one of these old zip ties in his car. Sounds straightforward until you realize this factory (in Mexico) produced 100's of millions of these things and had no preconcieved plan for doing this kind of identification in the field. This was done by analysing the wear patterns of the blades that cut the zip ties in production (among other things).
You can't hide.
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Easy to solve, just add a few more dots!
Seems pretty obvious to me.
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This is hardly new
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Run your page through a few times?
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Go Old school.
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Re: Go Old school.
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The real issue
This is not Russia (with apologies to my Ukrainian friend)... tv does not watch you.
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Laser Printer ID
Remember the BTK Serial Killer capture in Wichita, KS in 2005? They found him only because he used a laser printer at his church to print the letter to the police.
The FBI and police used the laser printer ID method to determine who owned the printer, then determined who had access to and used the church printer.
So, I'd say the EFF has a very valid point. The printers should come with a warning label that privacy is compromised when using it.
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used photocopiers
i.e. Copying multiple files or simply one gigantic file to a cd or dvd where the files or file will not "fit" on one disk.
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I'd always heard that the printer was foolish since it printed black with a mix of all three colors. Excuses/reasons I've heard for this range from it makes the black seem better to it's a nasty money-grab that they're hoping the sheep don't notice. I must admit, though, that I am a fan of polaroid printer for iPhone. Sometimes I absolutely need to print something and it's fine if the colors are a little off because I ran out of cyan ink, but not this time! You will not be admitted!
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