Secret Printer ID Codes May Be Illegal In the EU 229
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In response to a query from a member of the EU Parliament, an EU commissioner issued an official statement (.DOC) saying that, while they do not violate any laws, secret printer tracking dot codes may violate the human right to privacy guaranteed by the EU's Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. If you don't remember what these are, Slashdot has discussed the issue before. In short, most color printers print small yellow dots on every sheet in a code that identifies the printer and, potentially, its owner. The EFF is running an awareness campaign, and a couple of years back made a start on deciphering the yellow dot code."
Simple enough fix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:5, Interesting)
But that printer is a bit different in that it rotates the toner cartridges into place for every color that is going to go on each page, so a color page has to wait for all 4(CMYK [wikipedia.org]) cartridges to rotate into place, but in black-only mode doesn't rotate anything to be about 5-6x faster.
The reason I chose that printer? Konica-Minolta supplies open-source printer drivers that compiled on my AMD64-Ubuntu box.
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sorry I couldn't resist.......
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:5, Interesting)
Seth
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:5, Informative)
On the bright side, most color lasers do not insert the yellow dots on black and white pages, though a few models from various manufactures DO tag every single page.
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:5, Interesting)
virtual MOD points. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, in theory adding random dots would introduce noise into the signal and potentially degrade it to the points it's no longer useful, but only if you can interfere with the pattern. Put another way, unless you know the location of the dot codes, to reach the level of noise necessary to obscure you'd have to cover the page; there would be so many random yellow dots so as to be perceptible.
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:4, Interesting)
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Hmm, yeah, I did phrase that badly. But, color/grayscale mode is relevant to the page printed, and the printer could put the yellow dots down on an otherwise grayscale page, just that for that specific model it would be much slower.
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Simple enough fix... To add to that... (Score:2)
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If they are only there once, you could remove them.
If they are there once or multiple times, you can over print select dots and mess up the validity of the codes.
Re:Simple enough fix (Score:5, Insightful)
What about digital cameras? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious...
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Re:What about digital cameras? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, EXIF is a pretty open standard and there exist numerous utilities to strip the data out when desired. You very well might not want everyone on Flikr to know the serial number of your camera. There is also a "Maker's section" where the camera manufacturers can place non standard, obfuscated and / or encrypted data.
Both Canon and Nikon use these features to create a system to prove that a given camera actually took a given picture [nikonusa.com]. So it can go both ways depending on how you have your tin foil situated.
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**Here's my one-liner fo
Re:What about digital cameras? (Score:4, Funny)
exif pict7801.jpg
There you have the non-binary exif information.
Re:What about digital cameras? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Watermarking technology for copyright-protection already exists. Canon is simply one of the first to be building it into their cameras.
Given that image plagiarism is a legitimate problem for professional photographers, the feature does make a good bit of sense.
Re:What about digital cameras? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes you can see specifications like "12 Megapixels, 11.1 effective".
These defects are scattered among the surface of the CCD and are statistically unique from one camera to another, even among the same model. While the photos often aren't saved in raw formats, I'd wager if they find a picture of something illegal and wanted to prove your camera took the picture, it'd be trivial to take some pictures with it and match the output files' flaws even with the JPEG encoding by using a control camera of the same shot.
Like how they do ballistic analysis by finding a suspect's gun and fire off a few rounds and compare with rounds found at the scene of a crime.
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These defects are scattered among the surface of the CCD and are statistically unique from one camera to another, even among the same model. While the photos often aren't saved in raw formats, I'd wager if they find a picture of something illegal and wanted to prove your camera took the picture, it'd be trivial to take some pictures with it and match the output files' flaws even with the JPEG encoding by using a control camera of the same shot.
Like how they do ballistic analysis by finding a suspect's gun and fire off a few rounds and compare with rounds found at the scene of a crime.
Hey Applekid, that's a really interesting point... the pattern of hot/cold pixels on an image sensor is almost certainly unique to that camera.
That, however, is not so troubling to me. Tying a "weapon" to a "crime" after the fact is a pretty standard and legitimate technique. What I'm more troubled by is the idea that camera makers would *pre-emptively* record a unique fingerprint of each camera, *in case* it ever gets used to do something illegal, or just to snoop and follow a trail of photographs on th
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That, however, is not so troubling to me. Tying a "weapon" to a "crime" after the fact is a pretty standard and legitimate technique. What I'm more troubled by is the idea that camera makers would *pre-emptively* record a unique fingerprint of each camera, *in case* it ever gets used to do something illegal, or just to snoop and follow a trail of photographs on the web or elsewhere.
And yet when laws were passed required doing exactly that to sell a legal product in California, it was lauded as a wonderful idea.
But firearms don't count, I guess. I am glad in some ways that other's hobbies are now being treated with as much disdain as mine. Maybe in addition to the National Rifle Association we need the National Photography Association.
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I can't pull out my Nikon and hold up a liquor store.
Not unless the clerk is REALLY vain.
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Dark field definition: Take a photo with lens cap on, then observe the image file of what should be black. One will see spots of colors in which the CCD triggers at defective locations. One can apply as a negative filter to all images proceeding the dark-field image so have better appropriate colors.
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Human Rights or European Citizen Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
First topic on the agenda: biometrics for visitors [slashdot.org].
Or was privacy only guaranteed to European Citizens?
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Re:Human Rights or European Citizen Rights? (Score:4, Funny)
Quit your complaining. Didn't the government just raise the chocolate ration by 20 grams?
Re:Human Rights or European Citizen Rights? (Score:5, Informative)
No-one ever gets this right. Including the summary of this article.
The Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is a document of The Council of Europe.
It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the European Union. This is not the same organization, despite having SIMILAR membership, and the word Europe in the title. In fact, not all Council of Europe members are actually European -- Turkey for example.
Prevent your printer from being registered (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Maybe pay cash when buying printer.
3. Do not send in warranty card.
4. Don't let a factory rep or facility service it.
If you can prevent the printer's serial # from being tied to your identity, you should be OK. Of course, some of the very high-end printers can only be bought from the manufacturer or a registered VAR, so don't use those types of printers for nefarious deeds.
I don't know about printers, but apparently with Canon digital cameras they will register the camera serial number with your name if you send it in to Canon for service.
Re:Prevent your printer from being registered (Score:5, Informative)
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If your printer's serial # gets registered with the address on that tax return, and then you print some "illegal" stuff, it would come back to that person, but all they have to say is "I had ray-auch print my tax return", and then a single test-page from your printer would reveal that you printed both documents.
But, if the police don't care that much, then yeah, your plan would work.
At any rate, it would cause problems for the other
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Re:Prevent your printer from being registered (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Every color laser printer made in the last 10 years from every manufacturer that I have ever encountered uses the "yellow dots" tagging.
2. You have 300-12k hanging around in cash? Go for it.
3. You're not going to take advantage of the "get out of jail free" card the absolves you from a 300-1000 dollar repair for one year. Other than that, this may prevent your identiy from being tied to your shiney new printer.
4. Goooooood luck. When it breaks, you need someone to fix it or you will be dumping a ton of cash out fairly often for new machines.
I'd like to know why this is such a big deal to individual people first off. This system has been in place for more than a decade in most machines and no one has ever said anything before, nor, I believe, has it ever been used to screw someone over OR catch a criminal...
Am I saying I agree with the practice of tagging every page? Heck NO! I've never liked the idea since they introduced it originally, I believe, to prevent people from using high end laser printers to counterfiet money and if they did, to trace it back to the one(s) responsible.
To my knowledge, it's never been used as such. I implore someone to prove me wrong if I am.
The only ones that should be even overly concerned (aside from wasted toner and unneeded wear and tear on printing components) is large companies or government institutions.
This whole issue is not a major one. It's more of an annoyance that would be nice if it was removed.
P.S. - If you can get some, print a color page on black paper (preferably semi-gloss), the dots stand out really well... failing that if you have a large high volume printer available with a transfer belt easily veiwable, start a 4 page print job and pop the cover halfway through to force it to jam, the dots are sometimes (depends on the model and stage of the imaging process) very visible on the belt.
TRAITOR (Score:4, Interesting)
> I'd like to know why this is such a big deal to individual people first off.
Because some of us actually organise against the machinations of the state, perhaps you've heard of extraordinary rendition the US govt. has been doing or the 30,000 Argentines [desaparecidos.org] who were disappeared between 1976 and 1978 for opposing their govt.
It is extraordinarily naive of you to think that having previously secret (thanks in part to YOU) invisible identifying marks on every document printed from your printer isn't a cause for concern.
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Re:Prevent your printer from being registered (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm glad that your primary concern is large companies and government institutions. As I wrote in the EFF Deeplink, our concern includes dissidents working in authoritarian regimes who remain ignorant about this feature of the technology they use to spread their work, and the authoritarian governments intent on tracing and suppressing their citizen's literature and information sources -- who are not so ignorant.
Do you think the printer companies would proudly mention if their tracking technology was used to catch these undesirables?
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Easy solution (Score:2)
2) steal one. Social engineering at a firm to get a copy of printer order. Or just plain pay somebody to give you a copy.
3) watch the wrong guy land in prison and laugh all the way to your money laundering place of choice
Alternatively : 1) plan to counterfeit money with a nice color printer
2) Pay an underpaid tech to switch this off (if possible)
3) watch the wrong guy land in prison and laugh all the way to your money laundering place of choice
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Don't the high-end printers/copiers freak out when they recognized that you're trying to print currency, anyway?
Blue Light Special (Score:4, Informative)
They stand out just fine on white paper under blue light, as one of the EFF pages [eff.org] illustrates.
1. Every color laser printer made in the last 10 years from every manufacturer that I have ever encountered uses the "yellow dots" tagging.
Then I guess you haven't encountered HP 4500 or HP 8500 series printers (maybe they don't need to be repaired as much?). One of the other EFF pages lists a number of other printer models that don't use yellow dots (which isn't to say that they don't use some other kind of tagging).
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For the very same reasons it was a big deal (to some) and not such a big deal (to others) that the communist government here in Poland, up until late 1980s, had every single typewriter registered, with a typed page on file. I imagine the same went on in other countries of the Soviet bloc.
You said yourself the dot patterns were not being used to fight crime, I guess that's your answer right there.
I guess the rule of the thumb is s
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Where did the GP get that price from CVS? The cheapest price I could find was 19 cents per photo, and I suspect that's for 4x5 size.
In any case, that's not a particularly good price. $30 for 200 pages at 5% coverage comes to $0.15 per color page, but only at 5% coverage... I hope that's 5% per color. The standard coverage for a color page used by all the printer manufacturers is 20% coverage per page. 5% total coverage is pretty much black text printing with maybe a color logo in the corner.... Norma
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The needs are different. My point, and it's a little orthogonal since it mostly applies to inkjet color printers, is that the local drugstore can give you photo print which ar
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find the dots (Score:4, Interesting)
"human right to privacy" (Score:4, Insightful)
however, in today's terror-terrorized (is that a new expression?) world, there IS no more 'right to privacy'.
I wish there was! but even in europe, there really is not a right to privacy.
even in the US constitution, is there ANY real clauses that talk about right to privacy? other than illegal search and seizure (which has been bastardized into 'we can invade your house and do a sneek-and-peek anytime we SAY so') - there is no right to privacy.
it should be added as a fundamental right, but I don't expect it anytime soon. too much power is gotton by violating your privacy. power is addicting and so the gov won't ever give THAT one back. horse has long left the barn..
Re:"human right to privacy" (Score:5, Informative)
Please see Amendment 4, Amendment 5, Amendment 9 and Amendment 10.
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how about having to open our suitcases at airports? that, to me, fully violates my right to privacy.
what about cops insisting that they see our photos if they 'suspect' us of doing some 'bad' photography, even while out on public streets?
sorry - but all I see in this country convinces me that any 'paper rights' have long since been invalided IN PRACTICE.
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I agree. The "why" is because the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper" in the minds of our elected representatives^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hleaders for quite some time now.
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other than illegal search and seizure (which has been bastardized into 'we can invade your house and do a sneek-and-peek anytime we SAY so') - there is no right to privacy.
Well, the 4th Amendment does specifically cite "papers and effects" as things that can't be seized without a proper warrant. I don't know what would motivate that if not a right to privacy. Back then, "papers and effects" encompassed just about all forms of nonvolatile communication. Strict constructionists may point to the failure of the framers to explicitly cite electronic signals and magnetic storage, but in my experience that degree of literal-mindedness is usually a sign of idiocy or worse.
Tag badsummary. (Score:5, Informative)
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AFAIK, it has to do with the DPI of the printer. I think only laser printers have those resolutions, however. The idea is to prevent someone from printing $100 bills/IDs/etc on their printer.
Re:Tag badsummary. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes but that doesn't mean that it could not be used by, say an agency that wishes to monitor who is distributing political leaflets for example. Looking at the US from the outside, freedom of speech and the press are wonderful - it seems that your government is accessing more and more ways to check how you are using those freedoms.
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That's true.. I just was trying to explain the laser printer/inkjet divide, not justify whether the tracking is reasonable. There is a legitimate anti-forgery concern, but that
Re:inkjets might (Score:2)
With an inkjet, it'd be pretty obvious if it was "phantom" printing all over a page that was just supposed to have B/W text up top. Something linear at the beginning of a page wouldn't draw as much attention. Unf
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Ha! Suckers! (Score:2, Funny)
Confusing the code (Score:2)
Re:Confusing the code (Score:4, Interesting)
Good way to frame someone?
"This must have come from your printer, the serial number is embedded in the page"
regardless... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like to think the above paragraph is a joke. But it's not. Night is falling on the UK.
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sorry what privacy? (Score:2)
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But I suppose you could silkscreen it after printing it.
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That's a mighty big presumption.
It could be a jealous cop tracking down a note sent to his girlfriend.
Or it could be some politician pushing willing cops to track down the source of some otherwise anonymous flyers opposing that politician or his policies.
No doubt the telcos that are currently desperately seeking immunity from certain lawsuits just presumed something illegal was going on or the feds wouldn't be involved in a
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EFF Code Cracking Guide (Score:5, Informative)
I was printing this story out (Score:2, Funny)
Nobody noticed... (Score:4, Insightful)
What's worse is that we're so inured to this sort of thing, nobody even noticed!
Fenestrae delendae sunt.
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Well, then you'd have had to pay the damn phone company. And those teachers that taught you to read.
How about you mail them a letter? Then you have to pay them directly for access to it!
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Naw, you can just look at it in Openoffice or whatever. Hell, even Microsoft has free Word viewers floating around. And if you really object that much to even touching a .doc, you can mail it to one of those fancy document-converters [labnol.org] and have it turned into a pdf...
Hate Microsoft (or the EU) all you want, but this is rather stupid as a reason.
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Why on earth would you have to pay money to Microsoft to read
Microsoft themselves have free (as in no money) viewers available for download, and dozens of other packages (both free and not free, in either money or libre sense) will view
If you don't want to install software, there are also dozens of online conversion services (some of which are free) that support
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No big deal (Score:5, Funny)
wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
And they are concerned whether printed paper contains a code that is not even tied to a person but merely a print engine? Don't make me laugh.
Similar technology in scanners/copiers... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Similar technology in scanners/copiers... (Score:4, Informative)
Canada? (Score:2)
What if yellow doesn't print? (Score:2)
I am now wondering if this is a result of the yellow print head getting worn out by all the excess yellow printing in the past. Oh well. I mostly only print in black and white anyway. The printer pr
From the summary.. (Score:2)
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They are all color laser printers. In my color laser [newegg.com] printer, even the "freebie" toner cartridges that came with the printer last for 1,500 pages, and then I replaced them after 2,000 pages with high-capacity cartridges that last for 4,500 pages each.
Also, I am pretty sure all of them use 4 colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, so that your "order confirmation" printing would only use the color toner that was needed.
only laser printers do this (Score:2)
The article suggests it's only a problem with laser printers, so no ink, only toner
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Benjamin Franklin
Threatening note, call in the cyber-squad! (Score:2)
I'd feel that the police must be idiots if the only way they can think of to catch the perp is by using secret printer codes. It's a good thing people never use handwriting for threatening notes (or the letters cut out of magazines that always seem to be used for ransom notes on TV).
Re:Privacy is over-rated. (Score:5, Informative)
a)The license plates are clearly visible, while the printer code is intended to be unnoticeable by the user. I.e, most users don't even know they are being tracked.
b)When you drive your car you are using public infrastructure, such as the roads. In many countries there is no obligation to have license plates on a car you only use in a private space.
c) The license plate identifies one particular car, not [necessarily] the factory that made it. The printer code identifies the printer, not the paper it is on.
I'm sure there is more, but clearly the parent post is just another example that car analogies suck.
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Car analogies are like cars.
If you take them too far, they stop working
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Go read about the horrific things the intelligence community did during the Cold War even here in the US. Then tell me privacy is overrated when you make it to a government watch list for a "crime" that is only defined in secret laws.
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Privacy isn't the only problem, it affects business and profits too. We were counterfeiting $20 bills and had to switch our whole operation over to engraved plates and old printing presses. Overhead has gone through the roof.
Now with Clinton and Obama talking about mandatory health insurance and unionization, we could be out of business next January.
I wish the government would just leave me alone and quit watchin