EFF Requests Help to Identify "Evil" Printers 770
jason writes "In preparation for a possible legal challenge, The Electronic Frontiers Foundation is requesting your help in identifying which printers are embedding traceable information in the documents they produce. Printer manufactures added this technology under persuasion from the government inorder to help combat counterfeiting operations, however this technology defeats the presumed anonymity most people expect from the documents they print."
Tinfoil printouts (Score:4, Interesting)
The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.
Can anyone produce a human-readable example of this?
Perhaps it's time to unfold my tinfoil hat and use it to cover my printouts instead.
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:3, Insightful)
I work for a manufacturer (Score:5, Informative)
I work for a large printer/copier manufacturer in the technical services area (IT related) and can confirm we've been doing this for MANY years in our colour products.
We refer to the technology as "micro dots". Each dot can uniquely identify the device by it's serial number (which is not only printed on a label but also hardcoded in to the machine).
I also happen to live in Australia, where it'd be a cold day in hell before we told anyone who didn't have a court order the serial number of a printer that produced a page or who we sold it to.
The dots are MUCH smaller than 1mm as suggested here, however I can confirm that yellow toner is used. If you have a good magnifying glass (at least 8 times) and a sharp eye you can spot them, but it's really not easy.
Additionally, our machines all have anti-counterfeit technology anyway. If you try to print or copy a banknote from any major world currency, all you'll get is a black square and possibly an error code being displayed on the panel.
In the entire time I've worked for this company, we've never once had to do a micro dot check for the police/government/whatever - I'd know because there's only about 3 or 4 of us in the company that have the knowhow to do it and they all work in my department. (no, the govt doesn't know how to do it themselves and even if they did, they'd still need to ask us where that serial number is now).
I've deliberately avoided mentioning my employers name in this post. I'm pretty sure I haven't broken any confidentiality agreements with this post (all I'm doing is confirming, not supplying new info) but you can't be too careful. Suffice to say, I don't think it matters which major manufacturer, I'd bet my bottom dollar we all do it.
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Interesting)
So...what's the point of having the microdots?
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Insightful)
(In other words, there is no point.)
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the same point as the FBI in the U.S. being able to review your library records even though they'll probably never need to.
It's even more pointless in this case because all you need to do to defeat this "technology" is buy your printers with cash and not send in the warranty card.
Oh shit! I just gave away the secret. How long until printers are as heavily regulated as guns and you need a background check to buy one?
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Insightful)
The kinds of printers that you can buy with cash are definetly no where near capable of producing the kind of print quality you would need too fool someone.
Even with the absolute top of the line for colour laser quality (possibly the DC8000 I mentioned above and operate) would never be able to produce a bank note quality print. Even trying would
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:4, Funny)
walmart employees probably have never seen large, exotic bills like the $30 in their paychecks.
Yeah, I can see it. (Score:5, Funny)
Each dot can uniquely identify the device by it's serial number
I can see the extra dot added, between the "t" and "s" of "its".
I thought they were meant to be yellow?
Countermeasures (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Insert a random scattering of microdots in the document prior to printing
2) Include a yellow background in the document(doesn't really work for counterfeiting)
3) Overprint the same document using multiple identical printers, rendering the pattern of dots undecipherable
Without knowing the technical details of how the microdots are inserted, I see a potential problem: if the microdots are overl
I guess you might know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Conspiracy theory for the day (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so let me be sure I understand this.
You're telling me that your printers always include a dot, printed with yellow toner, visible only with an 8x magnifying glass, in which is encoded enough information for you to identify exactly which printer that you made was responsible for printing that page?
Sorry, but if that's all you've got, I call bullshit. Too much doesn't add up.
Printer manufacturers have high enough resolution to do this, yet only put out 600dpi/1200dpi boxes, where you can easily enough see jaggies with the naked eye?
If the dots are really that small, they could be messed up just by bleed in average quality printer paper.
Alternatively, this isn't a microdot in the classic meaning of the term, but rather the system is supposed to rely on the relative positions of the dots on the page, with dots spaced inches apart? How is that going to help fight conterfeiting? I don't know many bank notes that come in handy US letter or A4 size for counterfeiting convenience.
You say your department has never had to look up a serial number for the authorities, yet strangely according to TFA, the authorities seem to do this all the time with other makers?
Only a tiny number of people in your department know how to do this, it's all so secret that other printer manufacturers cited in TFA wouldn't even comment and you can't tell us how to find the things, yet you're prepared to identify your employer, thus practically waving a flag about who you are and the fact that you're willing to disclose this sort of information?
There's no obligation to register where you buy your printer, nor to notify anyone of selling it on, so there's nothing to connect to the serial number unless someone bothers transferring warranty information (even after the usually pretty naff warranty has expired).
And here's the kicker: governments all over the world use these things. If there were security marks being printed on their documents, they would know about it, not least because they all do it routinely with confidential documents themselves. How am I supposed to believe that government departments are allowed to use these things when anything they print could be traced back to exactly where it comes from by someone who isn't cleared by that government's security people, and works in another country?
Sorry, but this just doesn't ring true. There is absolutely no factual information in either TFA or all your posts to this thread that's good enough to reproduce this effect reliably, and what's more I'm looking at full-page print-outs from two colour printers, following the directions given in TFA, and unable to see anything even remotely resembling what's described.
I'm happy to change my view on this if more information is provided, but I'm very sceptical about this whole story right now.
Re:Conspiracy theory for the day (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Informative)
1. That explains why the yellow toner gets used so fast.
Actually, I'd be utterly shocked if you ever even noticed the amount of yellow toner it's using. If you only ever printed black and white documents with an average 5% coverage or so, you'd go through thousands of black toner cartridges before you used up even one yellow one.
The primary cause of going through lots of yellow toner is that yellow gets used in a LOT of colours that people commonly print (think CMYK mixes, not RGB)
2. It's real
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Insightful)
If you stopped the counterfeiting attempt, no need to do anything else.
And what about false positives, people trying to use that "feature" to break a copy shop's printer, etc?
Even if the gov't asked or ordered that you stop the copy attempt, it is a bit much for them to ask or order you to act as judge, jury, and executioner in requiring the printer to damage itself.
Anyone know the secret codes to unbreak the printers.
Post them here.
The only o
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Interesting)
Turn off printer.
Remove Network Card.
Turn on printer while holding (checkmark), and continue holding button.
When printer says ready (orwhatever), turn it off.
Put the network card back in.
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently things are even more insiduous than you think...the tech told me that each time the currency detection code is triggered, the algorithm adjusts its sensitivity upwards (to thwart folks who try to "experiment" to beat it).
Even worse, every time there's a service call to re-activate a printer that shut down in this manner, a secret service report must be filed, along with a report (or hard copy, preferably) of what exactly what the user was trying to copy. As the tech explained it, it's either 1. Canon reports this data, or 2. The Secret Service comes over directly to ask you about it. The former is certainly a far better option, IMO...
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Insightful)
Conked out as in stopped working? Yikes! Our machines will print the black square, call an error and then continue to work fine unless you do another 5 attempts at the EXACT same document...
Yeah, cos a user would NEVER do that.
honestly, you're wise not to say which company you work for. it's really disappointing to hear that printer manufacturers cripple their products in this way. there are surely legitimate artistic and/or administrative uses that would be blocked by the kinds of safeguard you're
Re:I work for a manufacturer (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:5, Informative)
The Lexmark Optra N I'd used for several years at work turned out to be one of these. VERY faint yellow dots on the white parts of the border (I didn't test it on anything full-bleed though, so no idea what it would look like under those circumstances).
I'd used that printer for light-to-moderate graphics work for a long time, and never noticed. Heck, I barely noticed when I knew what to look for, but it was most certainly there.
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:5, Informative)
The dots' minuscule size, covering less than one-thousandth of the page, along with their color combination of yellow on white, makes them invisible to the naked eye, Crean says. One way to determine if your color laser is applying this tracking process is to shine a blue LED light--say, from a keychain laser flashlight--on your page and use a magnifier.
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:3, Insightful)
Scary stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I suspect that any sufficiently advanced forensic analysis of a document could probably tie it to a printer. However, the fact that these are documented is what bothers me. I.e. the FBI need only ask Xerox which printer produced a specific document and they can tell them.
The USSR used this sort of scheme to censor writers and ensure that if someone spoke out they could be easily traced. What is to prevent any government from making the same requirements of any company?
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:5, Interesting)
(The Slashdot "lameness" filter prevents me from posting the entire diagram.)
Now it seems to me that Open Source has an answer for this. Can we patch Xerox printer drivers so that they automatically print the yellow dot at all 120 locations, making each page bear a fake serial number of "FF FF FF
Or if the drivers aren't open source, can we write proxy printer drivers that add the dots and then forward to the real Xerox print driver?
Who'll take on this challenge? (Preferably a good linux coder who isn't a US citizen or resident.)
Re:Tinfoil printouts (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, the serial number is printed at the hardware level as a partially-filled array of yellow dots:
X_XXX__XX_X_X_X <-- printer "A"'s a binary bit pattern of Xs that gives a serial number of 23765 decimal
X_XXX_X__XXXX_X <-- printer "B"'s a binary bit pattern of Xs gives a serial number of 23869 decimal
I'm suggesting at the software level (in a driver) we direct the printer to fill the whole array. This will make the serial number unreadable, by giving all printers using the driver a completely filled and indistinguishable array:
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX <-- Printer "A"'s pattern with the driver filling in all the dots now gives a fake serial number of 32767
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX <-- Printer "B"'s pattern with the driver filling in all the dots also gives the same fake serial number of 32767
Do as I say, not as I do (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Do as I say, not as I do (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is exactly why it should be REQUIRED for all government offices, and optional for citizens. Remember, "Where the people fear their government, there is tyranny, where the government fears its people, there is Liberty." - T. Jefferson (? sorry, quote's off the top of my head)
Re:Do as I say, not as I do (Score:5, Interesting)
There was an interview on NPR a few weeks ago with Michael Smith, the British journalist who uncovered the "Downing Street Memo." He said that governments already do this: when a classified document is distributed, they often introduce subtle changes in wording from one copy to the next, so that each person receives a very slightly different copy. That way, in theory if the document is leaked, they can figure out who leaked it.
Re:Do as I say, not as I do (Score:3, Interesting)
Each copy is only subtly different, and even if you change yours, youre not going to change BACK any of the changes they made unless youre extremely lucky, to the point of impossible. If they find the copied document, they know all the changes you made because, well, they didnt make them. Thus leaving your original copy intact.
For once that "Soviet Russia" thing applies (Score:4, Interesting)
The US Government has removed the ambiguity from this process, and made it far easier to definitely tie a document to a printer.
Well, except for the fact that I'm sure the government has a couple printers lying around that can add whatever serial number and printer model they want.
Re:For once that "Soviet Russia" thing applies (Score:4, Insightful)
Just this sort of evidence was famously used to convict Alger Hiss [wikipedia.org] of perjury, in connection with his espionage trial, which is very relevant to your last point. While Alger Hiss's actual innocence is somewhat controversial (and maybe unlikely), it is pretty clear that the government fabricated a typewriter to match the type on the documents in question (and went on to introduce the fabricated typewriter as Hiss's during the trial). The mere ability of the government to claim to be able to able to match a document with its source could, perhaps, lend itself to similar abuses in the future.
Re:As they should (Score:4, Funny)
Sir Humphrey: "Bernard, the Official Secrets Act was not put in place to protect the secrets, it's there to protect the officials."
And
Sir Humphrey: "In the spirit of "Open Government", one should always make public anything that can easily be discovered by some other way."
Re:Do as I say, not as I do (Score:3, Interesting)
If a compromising Bush document is printed on a White House colour laser printer then Xerox'd at a local pharmacy before mailing the copy or simply faxing, the exact origin is most likely lost.
Worst case, buy yellow transparent film if you
"Evil" Printers? (Score:5, Funny)
(I got it first!!!)
Re:"Evil" Printers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Evil" Printers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Evil" Printers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't confuse legality and morality; they are unrelated.
Yes, Evil. (Score:5, Interesting)
The EFF is concerned about this technology because they've read their history books. And because some people who participated in writing the history books... had to be very careful about what they printed those books on. And because the systems of government used in the Warsaw Pact countries from 1917-1991 was - to many people, myself included - "evil".
I posted this a few months ago, the last time the topic came up. This is not just about counterfeiting. (And as a guy who likes money, I hate counterfeiters with a passion almost equalled to my hatred of spammers, which is pretty freakin' intense.)
In Soviet Romania [google.com] [google.com], a sample page from every typewriter had to be registered with the police, so that any samizdat produced could be quickly traced back to the typewriter's owner. Use your imagination as to what happened to the owner, or Google for it.
In Soviet Russia [geocities.com] [geocities.com], all photocopiers were registered with the KGB and kept in secure rooms, to which physical access was restricted.
The West is probably still playing catch-up.
I understand now! (Score:5, Funny)
Here's one (Score:4, Funny)
Then again, I just use it to print listings, it's not exactly photo-quality...
Finding Evil Printers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Funny)
Dead giveaways (Score:5, Funny)
Getting the word out (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Getting the word out (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Getting the word out (Score:5, Informative)
And EF Canada *is* still around.
Do an exchange... (Score:5, Funny)
Send your current model color laser printer to me. I'll even send you a 7 year old inkjet that I currently use as a footrest.
Ah, this explains everything (Score:3, Funny)
Without a doubt those Selectric[tm] typewriters circa 1969 all had type balls with tiny imperfections to let them be identified if ever used to leak documents potentially affecting a presidential election. Whereas Microsoft would never stoop to putting personally identifiable information into Word document files, or print to printers that weren't at least as evil as they are.
Epson 1280 photo printer (Score:4, Informative)
If I print anything, even one line of text from notepad, it will print the text, advance the sheet of paper most of the way, print something else you can't really see, then spit out the paper.
I think this is a good test. If you are printing only to the top of the page, and then it appears to spend time printing where you had no text, you've got one of these...
-Joejoejoejoe
Re:Epson 1280 photo printer (Score:3, Informative)
Ink-jet printers are usually very dumb. So any mischief is done in the driver software.
If you print a single line of text in notepad... (Score:5, Funny)
A good protection against this (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A good protection against this (Score:3, Insightful)
Stupid question but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Assume I had the common sense to only use the printer for counterfeiting. What exactly do they do now? Get a warrant for every house within 50 miles of said Office Max, and check the serial number on all the printers?
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps one day, the use of "cash" will be illegal.
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the flip side, apply this to someone who leaks secret yet damaging information about whatever government institution in an anonymous letter to the Washington Post. The Post is forced to give up the original
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Say there are CCTV tapes that still exist; each is checked for the POS timestamp. Each face is added to a 'question' list. You get a knock on your door when someone recognizes you or from your drivers license photo.
Say you left fingerprints on the paper you used to print the bogus green backs.
Say you go to stock up on Green Dye number 5 and trigger an alert clerk to write down your license plate, since the Feds had already passed out flyers stating to be on the lookout for individuals purchasing large quantities of this ink as it was used to finance terrorism (we all want to help, right?). Never mind the cash reward.
Say you buy more quality linen paper reams and someone notes the sale within 200 miles of your OD.
Say they just get damn lucky and lookup your slashdot ID.
There are hundreds of ways to screw up when you've broke the law. They just need one break. You need a perfect record of not making one.
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, Epsons can be cheap, but that's not nearly going to cover ink.
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not an ideal, end all solution, but it does help a little bit in getting a conviction if they have something to tie you to the money which you could otherwise just deny having even seen/printed.
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The main concept is for high yield counterfeiters -- in the past the only way to get a very close copy was to use a 300,000$ machine. This makes tracking simpler for the government, as any machine sold for that amount, is 99% under a service contract. Some machines have ROM built
Re:Stupid question but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop right there... this is the flaw in your argument. Common sense is in fact a fallacy, there is no such thing.
Actually, most of the protection technology that the government mandates for consumer devices is not for catching hardcore criminals. It really is there to keep us mere plebes in check -- if John Q Public blows $500 of his wife's hard earned money at the strip club, he might try to hide it by printing out a sheet of $20 bi
I Wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
And here I was thinking all along that it was just a crappy printer that messed up every inch or so.
Maybe I could add a few more of mine in Photoshop just to make things more interesting.
Better that than suggesting that Xerox (and Canon and HP) should be shot for caving into foreign governments who use this to suppress free speech, all the while not telling us that they're doing it.
Umm... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only time when I can see this being useful to the Government is if I'm doing something wrong. You know, harassing my ex, threatening the President, and that junk.
Like, say, printing flyers for a protest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, in your view, privacy is unimportant unless you have something to hide? In that same vein, if you want privacy, are you automatically a criminal?
Let's say the government wants to put a chip in your car that tracks your movements ("to fight terrrorism"), Do you have anything to hide then? Perhaps you're going to terrorist school... shouldn't the cops know about that? Why not place the chip directly in your arm just to be safe? Why not, then have everyone get permission from the government to move around the country? If they have nothing to hide, why should it be trouble to ask for permission? Why should people protest the actions of the government if they love their country? Perhaps they are criminals too.
The invasion of privacy is something we must always fight, because it's a slippery slope, and we will never get back what we once had. The loss of privacy means the death of democracy.
Evil Printers... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nice to see the EFF trying to stamp out the evil printers. But there's a lot of work to be done.
Ask Publius about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Somebody ask
- Alexander Hamilton (later the first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, the same Treasury that Lorelei Pagano now works for),
- James Madison (later fourth President of The United States), or
- John Jay (later first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court)
why they published the Federalist Papers anonymously under the name "Publius".Ask them if they'd have been able to write the these brilliant arguments that shaped the Constitution of the United States of America if the very paper they'd printed it on could have been used to strip then of their anonymity?
Could they have made their arguments as forcefully, would they have allowed their ideas to have been so revolutionary, if they had known any political opponent could trace those papers back to them, perhaps deny them jobs or political offices because of disagreement with their ideas?
Would we even have the Constitution that we have today if these great men had not been able to use the pen-name "Publius"?
Hamilton and Madison and Jay forged (ahem) our Constitution in anonymity, but counterfeiting specialist Lorelei Pagano tells us that those three silly boys didn't need their anonymity? That in order to be safe from counterfeiters, we have to give up our right to anonymous politically agitation?
How much more security can this country -- this nation conceived in anonymity -- survive?
anonymous coward (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if they used their karma bonus though?
Personally I'm guessing they did it so the British or anyone else didn't mod them '-1 DEAD!'
Re:Ask Publius about this (Score:3, Informative)
How much more security can this country -- this nation conceived in anonymity -- survive?
The Federalist Papers were printed to pursuade states to ratify the Constitution, after it was already written.
The Constitution itself was not written anonymously, everyone knew who wrote it and who was at the convention.
The same goes for The Declaration of Independence.
The country was not conceived in anonymity, but it did manage to ratify its constitution by anonymously convincing some people to vote for it.
Re:Ask Publius about this (Score:3, Insightful)
It's really hard to get the masses to understand that we need these rights and freedoms even if we, at the given moment, aren't actually using them. There will come a day. I don't own a gun but I have the right to bear arms and I love that right. Hope it never goes away.
Defeats the presumed anonymity.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Printed pages are NEVER anonymous. Apart from fingerprints, DNA traces, ink and paper matching, how many people print stuff that they pass out anonymously? Most letters have a sender, books and other prints have a copyright note. And once you distribute any printed materials, others can trace it back.
If you go to the trouble to buy the printed at Best Buy at a best buy 500 miles from your home with cash that you got from a bank while wearing a full body condom and face mask, don't transport it in your car, and keep it in a clean room at an anonymous location, I agree that you probably expect privacy. But at that point, you have probably been arrested as a weirdo somewhere along the way.
I like the bottom of the article (Score:3, Funny)
Would it be possible to find out the yellow colour of the dots and use this as a background for all of your documents? Sure, it would waste ink, but unless they XOR the code, it should work.
My Database is Bigger than Yours (Score:4, Insightful)
Do this, and the EFF will have a larger, more diverse database of printer identifications than any manufacturer. And just where's their Privacy Policy on this?
Missing the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
"They" will never find a counterfeit document and then look for the printer, they will find the printer and then link the documents printed as corroborating evidence. This will be used once a suspect is available and a with a search warrant present and the printer seized, now with the micro-dot encoded serial number they can prove that Document A was definitely printed on Xerox Model X3Y Serial number: sdf78s6d5sdf46s4df98 which resides in the office a Mr. John Q. Public. at 321 Main St. Spingfield, MA; this removes plausibly deniability from the case. No more will a printed document carry any form of anonymity, there will be no reasonable doubt if this is called into evidence at a trial, do you REALLY want an almost iron-clad evidence of every document printed to be available?
Re:Missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, do you really want criminals to get out of a crime because their lawyer can play technical tricks and create false doubts in the juries mind? Do you not want to be able to objectively say, I did not print that with my printer and actually back it up w/ proof? Protecting people from the government tracking them down is one thing... but once evidence is available beign able to link it to another piece of legally obtained evidence should be permitted.
Replace the yellow ink? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Replace the yellow ink? (Score:4, Informative)
Just try a sheet of black, glossy paper (magazine ads are good source). Toner ink has a matte texture, and is slightly opaque - when you hold your printed sheet so that light reflects off it, you'll easily see a dot pattern.
Oh, and make sure your test printout is pretty light, or you'll gum up the printer (toner doesn't fuse well to gloss surfaces)
Ittsy-bittsy-dots... (Score:5, Informative)
Retail photocopiers wont catch the yellow-on-white and the small size of the dot because their resolution is too crappy. The copier does the work of getting rid of your tracks.
Now burn the originals and leak anonymously!! Woohoo.
Re:Ittsy-bittsy-dots... (Score:5, Informative)
Something's wrong with those PDFs... (Score:4, Interesting)
When opening the PDFs, I find that they are made to be printed on a sheet of paper roughly 71 by 92 inches in size...?
What kind of printer do they think I have, anyway?
(and when scaling down to about 11% of original size, the detail of the original document was partly lost in printout... Somebody there obviously hasn't tested these PDFs...)
only color laser printers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Used to convict, used to prove innocents?
these dots could be used to discredit someone claiming to have incriminating documents from you, but only if all the papers they have from you but the documents in question match pages you know are from your printer. Then the counter arguement of you know docs can be traced back to printers and you printer that one somewhere else.
It would be nice if printers that did this were clearly labeled as doing so and the manual contained instructions for the end user to find and verify them.
If someone gave me an old document they claim I gave to them, I'd like to be able to confirm that it was from me. In the unlikely event someone claimed to have a document from you, you could confirm it was from you or at least your printer. Just's just as easy to fake email headers as it is to put someone else's name in the from part of a letter and hit print.
Even if it won't identify you... (Score:3, Insightful)
While the serial ID might be somewhat less-than-useful in tracking down the individual culprit to his/her home, if you start finding a lot of bills with the same serial you could at least determine that they were all produced by the same person/printer (rather than several different printers/counterfeiters). From that, you might gather logistics based on the area-spread wherein the phony bills are used, etc.
Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
At least they're not photographing train stations, public parks, or doing something else equally dangerous to national security, but just think of the intelligence goldmine present in all those test pages being sent to the EFF. A goon...er...security agent could get a promotion out of this!
In Soviet Russia (not a joke) (Score:5, Interesting)
The US will not make the same mistake the USSR did. If another Bulgakov surfaces in Dubya's America, this printer-ID technology will rat him out before that freedom-hating Nobel Prize Committee has a chance to work its evil. Why does the EFF hate America?
Counterfeiting? At /these/ prices? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This might help out my business... (Score:5, Funny)
Some amateur counterfeiter was driving around the Appalachians to find some hillbillies to swindle. He found a couple of dumb-looking guys sitting on their front porch, stopped the car and said, waving a freshly printed note: "any of you guys have change for a $18 bill?". One of the guys reach in his pocket and says: "sure, d'ya want 2 nines or 3 sixes?"
Re:The first thing I think about.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The first thing I think about.... (Score:3, Interesting)
He accidentally loses the paper. Somehow it ends up in the hands of a black hat. Now all the black hat needs is to know WHO printed this list to take adva
Re:The first thing I think about.... (Score:4, Insightful)
You want to stop counterfitters? Design real money, instead of the single-colour, same sized bills that they keep making. Take the mom-and-pop operations out of the picture, then work on the foreign governments, and organized criminals.
Re:You know it's a government operation (Score:3, Interesting)
And there is where they catch you, since photocoiers do this as well. In fact, modern copiers also have "currenty detectors" to prevent money copying, some won't print particular shades like the green of US currency, and many use the same print engines as the printers, so expect this "secret chip" inside them as well.
What I'm wondering is, what is the chance the chip is an EPROM that is burned with the model and
Re:You know it's a government operation (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd just like to point out that if it forces you to make a low-res photocopy of your counterfeit currency, you either aren't going to be able to use it successfully or will be easily caught. Therefore, the system will have worked as it was intended, and you will have destroyed nothing.
Re:Snakeoil? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Not a big deal (Score:3, Insightful)
The Federalists maybe: The Federalist Papers [ou.edu]. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison didn't want the British government to know who was writing them.
I can see where I might want to remain anonymous in a letter to my congress critter accusing him of being brain dead. I'm not advocating anonymous threats, just private dissent.
Enjoy,
Re:Isn't this a good thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, the gun tracking is mostly looking for manufacturing defects that somehow mark up the bullet as it's fired (scraping off pieces of metal as it's shot through the barrel). Gun makers are not intentionally putting tracking data on to the bullets!
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, if you consider civil disobedience to be "criminal eco-terrorism", then I might see where you're coming from.
Re:Greenpeace? (Score:3, Insightful)
You approve of bombing a ship and killing one of it's crew? That's tantamount to condoning state sponsored terrorism. Expect a visit from law enforcement any minute now.