Code in color printers enables government tracking

bornkiller

Basically documents printed on certain model colour printers have a dot code embedded into them that identify date, time, and the printers serial number. Why would they do this? Because it's a great way to fuck over counterfeiters. (and other criminal uses)

A research team led by the EFF recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.

The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known.

More: http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=18995

Here! give it a go: https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/index.php#program

Dfg

I think this was known for a while but good to know.

Gen_Why

I think this is the first I heard of that particular angle but it's been common knowledge for a while that printers, at least they used to, save all of the images printed somewhere on them somehow

bornkiller

It was known for a while but I don't think it was really public knowledge what info the code held and how to decipher it.
"The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known."