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Comment by abakker | Hacker News Reader

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abakker·

Got a source for this claim?

Edit: Specifically, what about printers that only print black and white?

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code

https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2005/10/16

The implication is that only color printers are affected.

"The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters."

People are really using consumer printers in counterfeiting?

No because most will refuse to print anything with the EURion constellation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

Huh. Fascinating.

Same with photoshop. Try to open this in PS:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Obverse_...

People will try anything, and I suspect more "counterfeiting" is prevented by the EURion constellation than we'd expect.

Probably just idiots playing around with the copier rather than dedicated gangs, but if it worked they might be tempted to say "Well ..."

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1s8rl9/i...

This at least massively reduces anti-counterfeiters’ caseload.

IIRC some of the very early dollar bill acceptors on vending machines were perfectly happy with a black and white photocopy.

It is quite well known these days, check the EFF [1] and Wikipedia [2] pages, there's info on the what, how, when and why

[1] https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code but idk about how many printers do this or whether similar techniques are used for black+white printers (i.e. gray-scale modulation)

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