Printer dots raise privacy concerns | Hacker News Reader

Printer dots raise privacy concerns

usatoday.com

16 pointstimr13 comments

This isn't really new, it's been around/known for several years now. I haven't kept up with the yellow-dots, but this quote in the article piqued my interest:

"The Secret Service is the only U.S. body that has the ability to decode the information,"

Last time I read about this in depth, the yellow dots were basically a printed "braille", and decoding the information they represented was trivially simple.

The EFF managed to fully decode the code for Xerox DocuColor tracking dots, but there are many other printers whose code is unknown:

http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/

Thanks, that was one of the links I remembered reading before.

There's an entrepreneurial venture for someone. Decode the dots, and sell your services to private investigators and document companies. I'm sure a lot of companies would be interested to know who printed something. Then that article would read, "The Secret Service and YOU are the only U.S. body that has the ability to decode the information..."

The information is really only valuable if you have the power of law enforcement behind you. What can you do with a printer serial number? You'd need to subpoena Xerox records which would lead you to Staples, then Staples records to find out which credit card had bought the printer and at which store.

Good point, however, if you own the printer, the information is still valuable. If you have the printer serial number, and own the printer in question, you can find out who may have printed it. Or who in an opposing organization may have printed it, if you're in a legal environment and can request discovery. But you're right, if the printer in question is owned by an unknown third party, you would need the help of law enforcement or Xerox, etc. However, even this would lead to entrepreneurial gain. Without being able to decode the dots, a person in possession of the originals would still not know who printed them. Knowing what printer they were manufactured on and the serial number, a company can now initiate legal action on a manufacturer to get the required information, just like law enforcement does. Today, no one has the codes, but if you did, people would want what you have, no doubt about it.

Problem with the little yellow dots:

I pay cash for a printer and fill out the warranty card with someone else's information that I don't like.

I send the warranty info back to the printer company; they now have a record of my neighbor owning the printer in question.

Next, start printing out all sorts of illegal stuffs, distribute, and let the good times roll!

In summary: Using those little yellow dots to track things or people is just a horrible, horrible idea.

That only works if you know the little yellow dots can track you. Which nobody knew before it leaked (which was a while ago). But more importantly, its unlikely a counterfeiter fills out warranty cards in the first place. More likely, the Secret Service uses the information to track down who the printer was sold to from the manufacturer, who that person sold it to, and so on down the line, until they get a name or description. When you're dealing with counterfeiting of U.S. currency, its a start, which they wouldn't have unless they had the little yellow dots. And since it's almost impossible to get rid of the dots, counterfeiters have to work a lot harder disguising where they got their printers.

Just buy your printer while you're on a road trip, and pay cash. Wear a hat.

And place it in a Faraday cage.

and don't print the "Pelican Brief" on it

It's not just printers. Scanners, copiers, and image manipulation software like Photoshop have all had anti-counterfeiting measures quietly added:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

I'd like to see an open source project to do this. Might raise awareness.

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