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Comment by Wolfenstein98k | Hacker News Reader

Welp, that gives a second (and much less cynical) reason for why you can't print in pure black n' white without colour being topped up.

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I think that "because the corporations that make printers have a secret agreement with intelligence agencies to track printed papers, going back decades and based ultimately on coercive threats outside the rule of law" is a more cynical truth than "because the companies that make printers want to sell you more ink."

Why not both?

Heh. I have a b/w Brother Laser that cannot do color. I guess it would have to use the trickier methods described at the end of the post.

As I understand it, the original rationale for the tracking dots was the fear of counterfeiting, which may be less of an issue with black and white laser printers. That doesn't mean that I can say with any consequence that your printer doesn't have any tracking mechanism, but it might not.

Don't confuse reason and excuse

Concern about counterfeiting just served as a usefully palatable justification for introducing the tracking technologies. After that, it's easy. All you have to do is let some small to medium counterfeiters continue to operate so the justification continues to look reasonable. Heck you can even do your more or less best to try to catch them all, since you can be confident you won't ever completely succeed

The worst damage crime does isn't direct. The real damage is the PR cover it provides for government repression

Less cynical?

I'm assuming the more prevalent cynical belief is that it's a money grab to sell more ink

Technically you're not printing in 'black n white', only black, hence monochromatic printer.

The white is, of course, the areas on the paper that you're not printing, assuming you're feeding in white paper.

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