A few weeks ago, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation made a press release regarding small yellow dots that appear on paper that has been printed on most American computer printers.
Quite a few people dismissed this as a tinfoil hat exercise, or nothing more than a printer error. Sadly, those people were wrong.
EFF has analyzed the dots, and they do provide a lot of information.
"We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen.
Granted, the EFF and their associated researchers have only decoded Xerox printers, but:
The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers
The press release mentions that even though the Secret Service states that the information is for forgery tracking, there are no laws regarding providing the information to other departments in the government. Being able to track printed documents in this manner disturbs me greatly, and should be disturbing to anyone. Though the reasons behind the tracking seem innocuous, consider all of the other legal loopholes that this administration has used to weaken our protections, and specifically the attacks on our right to privacy. This tracking mechanicism basically prevents total anonymity unless you use a black and white printer or make photcopies of the print, which should not be necessary.
This press release makes me wonder what other tracking systems are in place that the federal government and corporate entities have agreed upon without the knowledge of public. I hate being a tin-foil hat person, but I am troubled by these revelations.
Here is the EFF discussion into the coding and decoding and a small app that can decode Xerox prints online.