Laser printers secretly spy on you!

When you print on a color laser printer, it's likely that you are also printing a pattern of invisible yellow dots. These marks exist to allow the printer companies and governments to track and identify you -- presumably as a way to combat money counterfeiting. When one person asked his printer manufacturer about turning off the tracking dots, Secret Service agents showed up at his door several days later.

Upset? You should be!

The only thing worse than tracking dots in people's print outs are tracking dots in their print outs that they don't even know about it.

Seeing Yellow full Article Here

Well I'll be.......

This is a shocking find to say the least, not sure how many of you feel about "big brother" knowing what you print and when.

Try a test.....a blue LED light used in the dark should show any yellow dots on a printed page (I imagine any simple, small, colour pic will suffice).

I don't have an LED, so can't do this now. Let me know if you get any results eh.

So...as a real believer that tracking and surveillance is more "ingrain" than we are led to believe, I just don't know what to trust these days.

Is there still such a thing as privacy and free speech anymore, or is it just another part of the big deception by the man behind the curtain?

It makes me SO mad........

See links below for further revalations and info and pleeeeease, flag this to let others know about this Utter Crime of Privacy Invasion

DocuColor Tracking Dot Decoding Guide
Do forensic printer marks slow down printers?
List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots
Investigating Machine Identification Code Technology in Color Laser Printers



[edit on 13/7/2007 by nerbot]

This must be the most complicated surveillance operation in history. The fact that every laser printer prints a unique code that can be directly linked to the owner of the printer is amazing. Too bad if you sold your printer to someone else and they printed something illegal or if you don't use one. How does the government known if you printed something out? Do they have to have a hard copy? Or does each dot contain GPS system that can be read from space?

The logistics required to keep up with the sale of every printer must be enormous add that keeping "printer" manufacturers in the loop by with some form of hush payments so they can imbed their secret technologies in the printers.

I would prefer to believe that 50% of the people on earth are spying on the other 50%.

Saw it! I have a rainbow light I got from Spenser and it will make a perfect VERY BRIGHT light with a tight group of LED's. I put it on the blue and I had to focus for a second to see it, but sure enough, little black dots all over the page.

I imagine that was designed so that the courts could tell where something was printed by the serial of the printer sold in that area. Assuming someone didn't buy it online or from another state when they made their terrorist letter.

Interesting find, I'll look more into this and post my findings. I am the guy with the microscope ya know!

I have seen this on some CSI type shows(the ones based on real crimes, if i remember correctly,) and they use this mostly(as we know of) on things like ransom notes and suicide notes... but, it could easily be a way for the CIA to track you.

I will probably do some tweaking with my printer... I don't like the idea of me being tracked.

i'd assume is probably a matrix barcode that represents your printers serial number or on the SLIM chance they were going to try and track location the MAC address. I dont think theres an actual central database, but if your a suspect in a case they can scan the picture evidence and then go back and check your printer's matrix against it. Don't be worried that they're gonna come find out unless they have a clue against you first.

example: you print up some fake money and get caut using it... "oh sorry officer, someone gave me this money" they then go back to your house and check to see if the money was printed on your printer. matching the evidence to the printer in question.... bam your busted.

for those of you who dont know what a matrix barcode is it looks like this style and can actually hold more information than a standard 1D barcode including numbers, letters, text, and even bytes of data (such as pictures).

an interesting thing would be to print a couple of pictures and see if its the same exact pattern of dots each time. then try it from another printer of the same make and model and then a different make a model just to see if its by printer model or manufacture or actually individual printer.

its called an electronic finger-print

every time you open PDF you send all the required IDs
theres tons of data mining going on every key-stroke you make


get real, get aware...this ain't Kansas

The EFF site has more info on this:
www.eff.org...

This doesn't surprise me one bit, and I believe it has been going on for a while. It does better explain an incident that happened while I was in Art School (I graduated in the late 90s)

While in college, which was The School of the Art Institue of Chicago, we had a Canon Fiery color printer available for students to use. For those that don't know what this is, it is a very nice, high res (for the time at least) color laser printer the size of a Photocopier. Anyway, the access to the print server was open, and first come first serve, and "part of the tuition". So one Monday morning, the students come in for classes, and access is denied to the Canon Fiery, which was very annoying to the studenst who were counting on it that morning. I believe they had to go to Kinkos, and get prints done at $1.49 a piece! But apparently, the access was denied by federal court order while Agents (Secret Service? Treasury?) came and investigated our machine due to counterfitting.

Apparently, they knew to come to The School because somehow they knew that the counterfit bills were printed on that machine. That there was a code 'embedded' through out the document (3 bills to a sheet, 2 sided?) that brought them there. Unfortunately for their investigation, security around the print server computer had always been lax, but at least it wasn't on the network due to costs of accidental printing. Access to the machine was open to, in theory, anyone who got past the security guards into the building, between the hours of 8am to something like 10 at night. There we no logins or passwords to use the machine either.

So, as far as I know, no one was ever 'caught' for that particular incident. But the days of unlimited color laser prints were over. The School had to change the access to the machine to please the "Agents". So they gave every student a magnetic card that gave you like 20 prints, and you could buy new cards from the bookstore. I am not sure how much this increased the security of knowing who printed what exactly, but it had the added benefits of bringing costs down on printing for the department. I think it also prevented 'evil doers' from printing anything more than $3,000 (10 2 sided prints, 3 bills to a page?) when the amount of prints that brought the Agents in was something like a whole ream of paper, and if I remember it correctly, I think it may have been 20 dollar bills. Either way, a ton of fake money came from that printer, and they knew where to find it.... in like 97...

DocMoreau

I just printed out a picture off of the internet and hooked up a little 5mm blue led up to a 9volt and put it behind the picture and didnt see any of the dots, I really want to see something but I am not. Anyone have any pics besides the website and any info on the size? Thanks.

Is this also going on in inkjet printers? What about dot matrix (ha)?

ah I just went to the page with list of printers with dots and mine isnt on there, I have a hp 1210 psc all-in-one. i really wanted to find something, and that is creepy. how do they know what you are printing?

Originally posted by racerzeke
ah I just went to the page with list of printers with dots and mine isnt on there, I have a hp 1210 psc all-in-one. i really wanted to find something, and that is creepy. how do they know what you are printing?

Bub, they'd only know it if somehow that got their hands on a physical printout.

Originally posted by DocMoreau Either way, a ton of fake money came from that printer, and they knew where to find it.... in like 97...

Dude! You know way to much about printing those bills


So if this really worries you...

1) Never send out anything you don't want coming back to bite you...
2) Shred, then burn all your trash paper work (good idea anyway to stop identity theft...
3) Go to the library to write your ransom notes...
and
4) If your going to print money... but a new machine with cash, give em your enemies address... print several reams to make it worth the effort... then donate the machine to charity

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I would have to say that, to me, this isn't so alarming.

For one, I doubt anyone is going to be "tracking" somebody in this way. As stated before, it would require them to get a hold of the actual print. (Why would you be so important that you would have to be looked after in the first place?) Then, assuming someone did get your printout, it would have to be something either very incriminating, sensitive, or otherwise important for anyone to even bother decoding and trying to find out where it was printed.

Personally, most of the stuff I print off usually has my name on it anyways. And the only place I ever use a color laser printer is at the library. I would venture to say (and I may be wrong) that the overwhelming majority of people use inkjet printers at home.

Just my thoughts on the issue.

I'm sure this is nothing new. I think this story has been doing the rounds since at least the mid-90's....

Originally posted by racerzeke
I just printed out a picture off of the internet and hooked up a little 5mm blue led up to a 9volt and put it behind the picture and didnt see any of the dots, I really want to see something but I am not.

Try using the LED directly towards the page and not from behind. The light cannot pass through the paper to highlight the dots properly.

If your printer is on the list you should get a result.

So on top of the paper at a angle? I will try even though my printer isnt on that list, maybe it's old?

Originally posted by racerzeke
So on top of the paper at a angle? I will try even though my printer isnt on that list, maybe it's old?

As I said, this printer conspiracy has done the rounds for at least a decade....

Don't think it's a bad thing unless you've got something to hide. And if you have, just with the information on this page you've prob got enough to avoid this little problem.

It's nothing compared to the information gained about you from simply being on line. It is interesting tho, later I will scan some photos I printed the other day and run em through photo shop - got a brand new cannon, so if I find the dots they should be on the list.

Originally posted by Now_Then
Don't think it's a bad thing unless you've got something to hide.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Benjamin Franklin

In itself it may not be a bad thing, but its one more in a long and growing list of tings.

We will wake up one day and Homeland security and the NSA will be at the top of the heap...and then it will be too late.