A Secret code imbedded in your printed documents

[Bill, KD0HG]

I guess the Nazis won after all.
I'm getting tired of this stuff..
b
--------------------------------------------

Sleuths Crack Tracking Code Discovered in Color Printers

By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer

It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. The pages coming out of your color printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track you down if you ever cross the U.S. government.

Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from many color laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page, viewable only with a special kind of flashlight. The article quoted a senior researcher at Xerox Corp. as saying the dots contain information useful to law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital "license tag" for tracking down criminals.
   
Privacy

An entire industry has mushroomed during the past decade because of the ability of companies to gather and make sense of public records, criminal histories and other electronic details. What are they doing with it?

The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use color printers.

Now, the secret is out.

Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer privacy group, said it had cracked the code used in a widely used line of Xerox printers, an invisible bar code of sorts that contains the serial number of the printer as well as the date and time a document was printed.

With the Xerox printers, the information appears as a pattern of yellow dots, each only a millimeter wide and visible only with a magnifying glass and a blue light.

The EFF said it has identified similar coding on pages printed from nearly every major printer manufacturer, including Hewlett-Packard Co., though its team has so far cracked the codes for only one type of Xerox printer.

The U.S. Secret Service acknowledged yesterday that the markings, which are not visible to the human eye, are there, but it played down the use for invading privacy.

"It's strictly a countermeasure to prevent illegal activity specific to counterfeiting," agency spokesman Eric Zahren said. "It's to protect our currency and to protect people's hard-earned money."

It's unclear whether the yellow-dot codes have ever been used to make an arrest. And no one would say how long the codes have been in use. But Seth Schoen, the EFF technologist who led the organization's research, said he had seen the coding on documents produced by printers that were at least 10 years old.

"It seems like someone in the government has managed to have a lot of influence in printing technology," he said.

Xerox spokesman Bill McKee confirmed the existence of the hidden codes, but he said the company was simply assisting an agency that asked for help. McKee said the program was part of a cooperation with government agencies, competing manufacturers and a "consortium of banks," but would not provide further details. HP said in a statement that it is involved in anti-counterfeiting measures and supports the cooperation between the printer industry and those who are working to reduce counterfeiting.

Schoen said that the existence of the encoded information could be a threat to people who live in repressive governments or those who have a legitimate need for privacy. It reminds him, he said, of a program the Soviet Union once had in place to record sample typewriter printouts in hopes of tracking the origins of underground, self-published literature.

"It's disturbing that something on this scale, with so many privacy implications, happened with such a tiny amount of publicity," Schoen said.

And it's not as if the information is encrypted in a highly secure fashion, Schoen said. The EFF spent months collecting samples from printers around the world and then handed them off to an intern, who came back with the results in about a week.

"We were able to break this code very rapidly," Schoen said.

[WA1GFZ]

older than dirt news

[Bill, KD0HG]

Not to me.
And if it's a well-known fact to counterfeiters, why are they still using the technology?
And why no mention of it in a printer's instruction manual?

[Bill, KD0HG]

Yup, too bad the technology didn't exist back then to help the King identify Ben Franklin, printer, and the other traitors that were anonymously rabble-rousing.

Not to mention those annoying whistle-blowers that might report a corrupt police department or politician. Or the residents of totalitarian countries trying to anonymously get the news out.

[WBear2GCR]

They probably have some sort of similar deal in B&W printers and copiers too...

Ever notice how they say they are/were looking at some printed page to find out who/where it came from on the news?? I have... Seems to me they did the same bit with typewriters.

And those dots best be much smaller than a millimeter! Probably a micron is more like it.
I'll be turnin' on the ol' blacklight and gittin out the Sherlock Holmes magnifier soon! 

                  _-_-bear

[WA3VJB]

That's it, I'm going back to my IBM Selectric.

But wait, didn't law enforcement typically seize the ribbon cartridges?

Looking at the letters and knowing the sequence the typing ball struck allowed them to recreate the messages that had been typed.

That's it, I'm going back to my ink ribbon Underwood.


Always liked the sound and feel of a good Carriage Return anyway.

[Bill, KD0HG]

They probably have some sort of similar deal in B&W printers and copiers too...

                  _-_-bear

Here's a list of printers that tag you.
(pssst...keep it quiet so the dumb counterfeiters won't know)

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

[KB2WIG]

The fax machines bean doing this since '92 or therabouts..... 

Its expensive to put that thaar IBM selectric into the burn bag .............   klc

[W1RKW]

what about color ink printers.  No mention of ink printers being capable of this.

[W3SLK]

Paul said:

That's it, I'm going back to my ink ribbon Underwood.

Don't do that either Paul. I remember that the old typewriters had a code to them as well. Case in point: One fellow I was in school with decided to type up a bomb threat (using the same Underwood as pictured) during our typing class, (it was mandatory in 9th grade in those days). By examining the type on the note, the police and the school district carved it down to 5 people since that was how many sat at that position during the day. Three were girls, and the other was an honor student. The guy that got busted had a reputation for questionable character. He confessed before they could bring in the spot light and smoke-filled room.

[WA3VJB]

Yeup Mikey you're right.

There was an episode of Hawaii-Five-O where Chay at the lab had a close look at the strike pattern of letters and numbers.

I guess it's back to cutting and pasting the letters out of newspaper headlines, as long as newspapers are still in print.

[ka3zlr]

Most of the time i just print docs off the net, the kids fool around for school stuff...the boy downloads game crackerz...Hey Bust me...This NEED to Know everything...Sheeze..

[WBear2GCR]

cutting and pasting??

Ha!

They've got the cut patterns of sissors cataloged, and the glue is tagged with microglobbules!! 

Why would they bother, the chip they put in you logs everything you do anyhow... I refuse to take off my foil hat. I'll say no more. Word to the wise... <wink wink>

                 _-_-bear

[W3SLK]

Did they get them off of eBay???

[k4kyv]

Print out the document, then take it to one of those quick stop markets where they have a copy machine for public use and run off the copies you want to distribute.  I doubt if a copy machine would pick up those yellow dots.  If you are concerned about someone being able to track down the copier, use the machine in a store located someplace where nobody knows you.

I'm getting tired of this stuff..

Something that PO's me almost as much, is the inevitable response: "What are you afraid of if you have done nothing wrong or have nothing to hide?"


While we are on the topic, as a related story, here are 10 Sci-Fi Predictions that came true; this is the first one:

CCTV – as imagined by George Orwell in ‘1984’ (1949)
 
In one of the most famous dystopian imaginings, George Orwell plunged his character Winston into a world of paranoia and suspicion, watched over by the sinister Big Brother. First published back in 1949, Orwell pictured a life where the populace was watched over by telescreens, with nobody ever sure if they were being watched. CCTV arrived as a means of watching the public in the 1970s, and there are now an estimated four million cameras in the UK alone.

Click here to see the other 9

[Bill, KD0HG]

Don, if the code is embedded in tiny yellow dots, the solution is simple.
Print your document on yellow paper.

[k4kyv]

If this story is really true, I would be surprised if someone hasn't already published instructions over the internet on how to hack the system to alter the code or simply disable it.

[David, K3TUE]

Mail a threatening letter to a politician and you're cooked! I don't really have a problem with the printer being "finger printed" in this manner. 

That's why you fax letters to politicians

[Ed/KB1HYS]

I'm getting tired of this stuff..

Something that PO's me almost as much, is the inevitable response: "What are you afraid of if you have done nothing wrong or have nothing to hide?"

When some one tells me that they have nothing to hide, I usually ask them for their wallet or purse, then dig through it in front of them.  When they object I remind them that they have nothing to hide... 

The right to privacy, just one more of our rights and liberties that are slowly being eroded.
The Grand Republic will fall from internal betrayal of the ideals of Her origin, not from external force.