10-20-2005, 10:43 AM
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#1 (permalink)
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Is your printer spying on you?
Is your printer spying on you?
Quote:
Is Your Printer Spying On You?
Consumer Privacy Group Says It Has Broken The Code
POSTED: 2:50 pm MDT October 19, 2005
DENVER -- It sounds like something out of a James Bond novel, but a California group says it's very real and it may be right in the printer next to your computer.
"It" is a secret tracking code that the government has apparently known about for years but the general public is just becoming aware of.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the U.S. government has persuaded color laser printer manufacturers to incorporate a color code into their printers that allows anyone who knows the code to trace where it came from.
At the Secret Service, which helps develop such technologies with other government agencies and industry, spokesman Eric Zahren said the tool is designed "simply to make it more difficult to utilize that equipment for the illegal activity of reproducing genuine U.S. currency."
"They do not in any way track the use of a personal computer or a person's computer's hardware or software," he added, refusing to elaborate on the technologies.
The code consists of tiny yellow dots, visible only under a colored light and only under a magnifying glass or microsope. A researcher for the EFF said he's examined printed papers that are 10 years old that have the code, so it has apparently been around awhile.
In Nov. 2004, PC World published an article stating that "several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters."
The revelation didn't spur much reaction at the time.
Some Canon, Dell, Epson and Xerox color laser printers were found to contain the coded dots, according to the EFF. They released a list of the printers they've checked that do and do not have the code. They also have posted instructions for home users to print sheets to see if their printers contain the coded dots.
The EFF has filed a Freedom of Information Act request in an effort to learn more about the code, how it came to be and how long it has been used in law enforcement.
"Underground democracy movements ... will always need the anonymity of simple paper documents, but this technology makes it easier for governments to find dissenters," said Lee Tien, EFF senior staff attorney. "Even worse, it shows how the government and private industry make backroom deals to weaken our privacy by compromising everyday equipment like printers."
The U.S. government is involved with other countries in a separate anti-counterfeiting program meant to prevent currency from being scanned and printed.
Adobe Systems Inc. has acknowledged quietly adding the government software to its Photoshop software at the request of regulators and international bankers.
But David Skidmore, a spokesman at the Federal Reserve Board, said that the technology, known as the Counterfeit Deterrence System, was aimed mostly at personal computers and ink-jet printers -- not the high-end machines.
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Seems a bit big brotherish to me. Back room deals to put hidden embeded codes so that any printed material could be tracked back to a specific printer and date.
Hyperlinks in the article, itself, list printers that are known to have this embeded and some that are not. I'm happy to see both of my printers listed on the "not" list.
Comments?
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