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Comment by Validark | Hacker News Reader

Does it not strike anyone else as wrong that a printer that you own has to do the bidding of the government instead of you? That you have to pay for it to be forensically watermarked against your own interests? And why have all these companies just taken orders from 3 letter agencies about this? Doesn't anyone have integrity? Isn't there anyone who believes that your own possessions shouldn't be made to conspire against you?

I guess the whole smartphone thing answers that question far better than a printer...

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The origins of Free Software (or at least the GNU and GPL parts of the family tree) lie in this exact domain!

In the late 1970s Richard Stallman wanted to patch a faulty printer given to his by Xerox. They wouldn’t ship the source code though unless he signed an NDA:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt

Oddly, the HN post above this one right now on the front page is about Xerox source code:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42884133

If you have two minutes...

Working on a Printer Paper Jam - Dylan Beattie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhlWSOQ4cC4

Are there any open source printer projects out there? It doesn't seem like it should be too hard of a technology to crack considering we have stuff like the frame.work laptop

My car has limits the government puts on it - it has to shut off it's engine to reduce fuel consumption to hit a government mandate.

My shower doesn't use as much water as I'd like, as the government mandates a flow restrictor.

Why not printers?

Why not toilet control - if you have not enough fiber in your ... the electronic money you have on the bank account won't be able to buy you more meat, suggesting vege instead.

But where is the limit of freedom? Where is the border we should stop before or fight for it somehow?

Every “freedom” has two sides. Positive and negative freedom. You don’t have the freedom to dump nasty chemicals into bodies of water (lack of positive freedom), but I have the freedom to not have carcinogens in my drinking water (negative freedom). Some examples are clear cut, in the sense that we as a society surely all agree on where the line should be between positive and negative, but all examples need to be discussed on an individual basis, because they’re all different in terms of where we draw the line. But you can’t use the slippery slope argument here, because the slope works in the other direction too for any given example, the more positive freedom you have, the less negative freedom you have.

This is a refreshingly balanced take, which seems to frequently get lost in discussions.

The more I think about policy, the more it resembles a multi-objective optimisation problem.

Libertarianism is bunk because of this. It's not about freedom, it's about your freedom and no one else's.

Libertarians say they are anti regulation, but I ask them if I can murder them to steal their property.

Apparently they are all in favor of that regulation.

Similar to anti gun control people. Ok, I'm your neighbor, can I arm myself with chemical and biological weapons? Or a conventional bomb that will definitely destroy the entire block?

Hm, funny, they are in favor of some gun control.

Neither on of those examples are guns. Also a libertarian wouldn't just accept you murdering them, they would obviously attempt to defend themselves. Your arguments are kind of weak.

The second amendment is the right to keep and bear arms allegedly. You know if you're a well regulated militia.

Anyway everything I listed is arms.

If you want to be literalist as to the actual arms of the second amendment, then nobody should be armed with anything but a breech loading musket.

Surely though limiting the government's positive freedom of ubiquitous surveillance, like this example of printers, is something that I'm sure would be resoundingly popular in a democratic society. This seems as clear cut as limiting the freedom to dump toxic chemicals into water supplies.

An adaptation of printers most people never notice and which has been used to help catch criminals? I don't think you'll get the support you're expecting from the general public.

How is it anything like having your water supply poisoned. The printer thing doesn't noticeably affect anyone negatively unless they commit substantial crimes. Indeed it likely reduces costs of tracing the origins of printed material when that's important in a criminal investigation.

> The printer thing doesn't noticeably affect anyone negatively unless they commit substantial crimes

I'm not sure we have as universal agreement on what constitutes "crime" as you imply. Several whistleblowers have been convicted on the basis of printer watermarks - some of us certainly will fall on the side of preferring the existence of said whistleblowers in the federal government.

People generally don't care about making policy based on what is going to affect a whistleblower. The policy is done for the normal case. I'm not sure how much support you'd get on any issue if your argument is "but what about whistleblowers" other than in single-issue niche groups.

25 years ago the “hacker” community was more libertarian and would have been horrified at the idea of devices tracking individuals for some anomalous safety goal.

Some of those same people developed the surveillance state and the generation that followed thinks we should all wear Meta glasses at all times for “safety”. Meanwhile the advertisers and authoritarians behind them are snickering.

It is exceedingly popular in the general case hence why every slime-ball seeking to surveil people so that their pet issue can be enforced with an iron fist reframes it as freedom to dump toxic waste, drive 200mph in a school zone or print counterfeit dollars, etc.

When I was a kid they told us: your freedom ends where somebody’s freedom starts. I still think it is valid and insightful.

> When I was a kid they told us: your freedom ends where somebody’s freedom starts. I still think it is valid and insightful.

When I was younger, I thought this was a good idea. The problem with this rule is that where the boundary between "individual freedom" and "somebody else's freedom" lies varies a lot between different people (and cultures).

I thing the human rights declaration is a good baseline that is universal.

Seems strange to comparing resource saving to spyware? Potato potatoes I guess.

Auto idle shutdown saves on gasoline but comes at the cost of increased starter wear.

Ye I don't like start stop for that reason. I don't trust the manufacturer to make the starter more robust to handle the increased wear.

There is a difference between government limiting what your device can do, versus government monitoring what you use your device to do.

Sure your engine may shut off to save fuel, but once you have finished driving and left your car, it no longer has any power over you. But tracking dots can forever be used to link a piece of document to your printer.

Good luck shredding everything and never let anything you print leave your control.

>> it has to shut off it's engine to reduce fuel consumption to hit a government mandate.

I've not heard of any car where you can't turn this off. There is no switch anywhere to turn off watermarking in your printer.

Is the engine shutoff the government mandate, or is it an implementation by the manufacturer to reduce fuel consumption and thus emissions?

I mean I get the comparison - government requires your car to have a seatbelt and your printer to have identifiable dots and your scanner to be unable to scan money - but in the case of engine shutoff it's more the manufacturer's idea. I don't know who came up with the xerox code though.

>has to shut off it's engine to reduce fuel consumption

Which government, what car feature?

It sounds like idling shutoff that saves you money, reduces pollution, and reduces fuel consumption, eg when you stop to wait for traffic lights?

Every western government pretty much.

You cannot buy a car in Europe without:

- lights permanently on ("safety", definitely not for your ability to get lost in the dark)

- continuously stores logs of speed, brakes, seatbelts, signal, vehicle inclination, GSM connection etc ("safety", called "black box" in Europe, also warns the driver when local speed limit exceeded)

- permanent GSM connection ("safety", definitely not for tracking, pinky promise!)

- continuously monitoring the driver's head/face ("safety", called driver drowsiness warning)

- engine turns off when stationary (the default setting can't be changed by the user, but by a car service with the right tools)

- car brakes on its own ("safety", but it's so bad I turn it off every time I power it on, it brakes when someone nearby but not right in front of you slows down, cannot be disabled permanently)

- signals left/right at least 3 times

- mandatory seat belts

- doors that close and remain closed

- airbags

None of the things you mentioned are particularly an issue with the regulations, they legitimately assist in situations where they are meant to assist. If some feature is mildly inconvenient to you but saves the life of another human being then I feel you can live with the inconvenience.

If you made an argument about subscriptions for heater seating or carplay or some nonsense then you have a valid argument and is in the same line as DRM, mandated actual safety feature not do much.

Let me enable the features that I consider I might need, such as permanent logging of speed, seatbelts, inclination, etc. Let me disable the features I don't want when I don't want them.

Cars sold to the police have the option to not have their lights permanently on, so it is definitely possible / software setting, it's just inaccessible to regular users.

When some dude runs you over and your family can't prove they were speeding without the data you enjoy these things very much. It would've saved me quite a bit of headache for example.

Having the lights on during the day doesn't help.

Having data on every single thing someone does would be handy for all future crimes. Why don't we push for that level of surveillance. Because we are trying to balance with privacy.

having lights on during the day absolutely helps, especially when overcast or foggy.

Maybe, but why not let me turn them off when I want to?

Because it's not always about you. A lot of examples on why these features are useful are about others who exist around you, not for your own convenience. You live in a society.

Don't the police live and work in the same society? Their cars don't run with the lights on all the time.

Lots of cars don't. You've been ranting about several things that aren't universal, as has been explained several times by several people in this thread. Why the breakthrough now?

We're all replying to:

> Does it not strike anyone else as wrong that a printer that you own has to do the bidding of the government instead of you? [...] Isn't there anyone who believes that your own possessions shouldn't be made to conspire against you?

That's the entire point. Our own possessions are made to conspire against us, and my point was "safety" with quotes. And you seem to support possessions conspiring against their owners in the name of "safety", but that's your choice. Most HNers are against this.

Your point is clumsily made, the examples you chose are bad ones if you're trying to demonstrate overreach.

There's also plenty of the overreach of the kind you're trying to demonstrate that doesn't come from the government, again, as has been illustrated multiple times within the thread. In fact, most of your examples do not come down as orders from the government at all, but the corporations, allowing you to vote with your wallet. I believe the free market is also quite popular on HN.

It absolutely helps. It tells everyone that the car is on!

Anecdote: coming from a country where this is mandatory, visiting a country where it's not, I almost got run over because I assumed a car was parked when I glanced left before crossing the road.

Of course, might not prove that one or the other is safer, but it did show me how often I subconsciously use headlights as an indicator of off (=> stationary => safe) vs. on (=> potentially moving => potentially a "threat")

> engine turns off when stationary (the default setting can't be changed by the user, but by a car service with the right tools)

Yes it can.

For cars sold nowadays, users can deactivate that every time they turn the car on, but the default cannot be changed without vendor specific OBD commands.

You should complain to your car manufacturer as it is a cheat to comply with emission regulation. If they meet it without it can be permanently disabled by the user.

Why do you keep putting "safety" in quotes? The only one that isn't actually a proven safety feature is the permanent GSM connection.

How is the black box a safety feature? The word "safety" is used by everyone nowadays when they don't have actual arguments for things they impose on others.

> How is the black box a safety feature?

This is pretty obvious. Having a black box helps better understand what happened and what may need to change to avoid future accidents.

This is clearly different than always transmitting my speed and writing tickets without context.

The black boxes from the American Eagle jet and the black hawk helicopter have been recovered and will be used to figure out what happened, hopefully helping to prevent future tragedies.

Well you see, if I'm driving too fast and I cause a crash - I might lie and claim I wasn't driving too fast.

The black box, by providing evidence to prosecute me, makes the roads safer for other people as while I'm in prison, I can't cause any further accidents. But it doesn't make me all that much safer, prison is a dangerous place.

What a bunch of BS. Are you blind to how the world works?

The only time a black box ever gets used for that stuff is when an agent of the state or corporation with deep pockets to buy power or other "more equal animal" is trying to get one over of one of us peasants.

When speed is a serious factor it is generally obvious from the results of the crash anyway.

Because it's only incidentally about the user(s) or public's safety. That only happens so much at those goals incidentally overlap with keeping the OEMs "safe" from regulators and ambulance chasing lawyers.

> lights permanently on

This is wrong. You can turn them off. Even DRL. If your car cannot you should complain to the manufacturer or live in one of the very few states requiring it.

> engine turns off when stationary

My previous car had a button specifically to disable it and it did so permanently. My current one doesn't need to.

> car brakes on its own

This is a manufacturer choice. Buy another car. Mine can be user disabled permanently.

> signals left/right at least 3 times

Manufacturer choice, usually for the non-flip indicator mechanic, which you likely can configure. If you flip it fully it might only do one, you should try it.

You certainly can still buy a decent car in 2025 but it's gonna have to be <2015 model year. None of my three cars have any of this nonsense.

You can. You just wouldn't be allowed to run it on the public road.

Sure, you save money in gasoline usage but you spend in starter replacement.

What's the environmental impact of the burnt gasoline vs manufacturing and replacement of starters?

The starters used in start/stop vehicles are far more robust than normal ones, and start/stop in hybrids often don't even use the normal starter to turn the engine over. Because vehicles are often kept for quite some time, most start-stop systems will autodisable after a certain number of cycles, so that they only use a given portion of the starter's expected life. (disables the start/stop system, not the starter itself)

Theoretically yes, however: Currently Honda has a recall for ~40K vehicles as their start stop ends with stall.

Kia & Hyundai : 92,000 vehicles because the electronic controller for the Idle Stop & Go oil pump assembly may contain damaged electrical components that can cause the pump controller to overheat.

Chrysler (FCA US LLC) is recalling certain 2017-2019 Pacifica vehicles equipped with engine stop/start systems. A loose battery ground connection may result in an intermittent loss of power steering assist and/or a stall.

You add more complexity and there is more chance for things to break.

Also consider "Value" engineering, I can't find any data but I would be interested to see if the warranty periods for auto idle starters are longer or shorter than for the old style.

We saw this play out with the DEF system for engines, the systems were supposed to be robust and instead you end up with systems that break, harder to diagnose due to lockdown, and premature failure of components. I personal know of one manufacturer where the DEF tanks started failing after 6 months, the ammonia in the DEF was ingress into the sensors. This only started 2 years ago, so well after the systems were introduced.

> Honda has a recall for ~40K vehicles as their start stop ends with stall

Not a Honda, but one time, I accelerated aggressively from engine-off stop and stalled in a way that wouldn't have happened if the engine were idling.

Don't know, only one I've any experience of is Kia's which seems to use some sort of flywheel. I did look into it briefly, but all I found was indications that it saved over the life of the vehicle and wasn't shown to increase replacements (but that might only be that specific tech).

those are limits on squandering community resources. this requires you to use your resources (ink) for no benefit to you. to continue the bathroom theme it would be more like requiring your toilet to add rfid tags to your poops to track them downstream.

The yellow dots requirement means you can't print black and white without yellow ink.

If the government is going to require this, they need to subsidize the yellow ink that I never use, but have to constantly replace.

If you're never doing color prints, get a b&w printer.

Does it? Monochrome printers exist. It must either be the case that it's not viewed as necessary in this case, or there's some other way of encoding this information in black and white that color printers could use when not printing in color.

Printing something onto paper should not be a blanket opt-out of the 4th amendment.

As far as I understand it, the yellow dots thing comes from the US government stepping on the toes of Xerox and getting them to jump. Same thing with Biden getting COVID misinformation removed or Trump getting the entire tech industry to lurch to the far-right overnight. Both of those imperil the 1st Amendment[0], and the yellow dots imperil the 4th.

Now, let's look at the two other examples you provided. Automatic engine shut-offs[1] and water flow restrictors may be annoying, but they do not imperil constitutional rights like the watermarking dots do. If we were talking about the US government mandating tracking chips in every car, then it would be like the watermarking dots.

Of course "government mandated tracking chips" is old news. The stuff of conspiracy theories. You might even be able to sue the government to stop it.

The current meta regarding getting around the 4th amendment is using industry to violate people's privacy for you. Industry will happily violate people's privacy on their own, because there's money in spying on people, so all the US government has to do is buy from private spies[2]. And because this is 'private' action, 4A stays untripped, because our constitution is a joke.

[0] Not nearly to the same extent, of course. Biden bruised 1A's arm, Trump wants to dump gasoline on it and light it on fire.

[1] My mom's Tuscon has this 'feature' and it's genuinely annoying. First thing you do when you use the car is shut it off so that it doesn't get you T-boned trying to save gas.

[2] This knowledge has been public domain since at least 2011: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-media-is-a-tool-of-the-c...

Now try photoshoping money. Just open a high definition picture of a dollar bill on Photoshop and report back. https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/cds.html

Yeah, but anyone using an Adobe project knows they don't own the product and that Adobe owns them.

No, a massive amount of the materials in use are printed, at the same time you can see the persistence of fraud of all types. It’s little things like this that are needed to provide some ground truth. Without the writers observation these items would continue to be sold at high prices, everyone looses except the fraudster, and if they can be connected to a set of fake items in future then even better.

I don't have an answer but it's something that EFF has been aware of.

https://www.eff.org/issues/printers

This seems a particularly harmless (and even beneficial) of hardware serving the interests of a wider society in reducing fraud rather than its owner in perpetrating fraud.

It's no Juicero, let's say.

Sometimes the invisible hand of the free market isn't so invisible and might point a gun at your business

In general you put your name on documents you print. But true that if you are a reporter in some country you might want to print stuff anonymously. How easy it is to modify a printer firmware to scramble those dots?

>In general you put your name on documents you print.

What do you mean? I’m confident that 95%+ of the documents I print do not have my name, or the name of anyone who has ever been in my house, on them.

I mean when I send letters I want people to know it's from me 99.999% of the time, that's all.

I didn't buy a printer to send letters to Uncle Sam

More than 99.999% of all printed pages don't have the name of the person who printed them on them. I can't even come up with examples where the large majority of the material someone printed wasn't belonging to someone else, ie, printing a book, learning material, computer generated pictures, photographs, things like this.

"Printing a letter" is something I doubt anyone is doing in any meaningful percentage that this makes sense. A person printing a single small book they didn't want to buy is printing more pages just that one time than they will ever print with their name on them in their whole life.

If it's not leaving my house who's gonna care for the yellow dots?

> A person printing a single small book they didn't want to buy

Oh btw, you've paid a "tax" to unknown entities for this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy

I believe it is not firmware. Because of many reasons, one would be issuing firmware release for every machine would be impossible. It is probably lying so low in the hardware layer, one cannot simply remove or alter it without desoldering etc.

Ok, next to impossible then. Maybe printing tiny white text on solid black background could help obfuscate the dots. Or using a pen plotter...

What if you print a page with a slightly yellow background? Would it know to use a different color for the tracking dots?

Many microprocessors are capable of having selective updates and it may be the same processor which is fetching the update. You might think of their internals to be more like a crude file system.

> Doesn't anyone have integrity? Isn't there anyone who believes that your own possessions shouldn't be made to conspire against you?

Welcome to the Western Business World. You must be new here.

If you let Fed.Gov pwn your customers, they help you get your product to market.

If (like me) you refuse to help Fed.Gov own your customers, the they shut you down, as they did to me.

Good luck fighting the government.

There's a story here that I would love to hear.

When is it against your own interests ?

When you want to forge something, or send your manifesto after serial killings ?

And what are you paying extra ? 0.01 USD per yellow ink cartridge, that is already wildly overpriced due to profiteering schemes ?

I'd happily pay that 0.00001% if that means a stupid serial killer gets caught once in a while.

I just don't think that serial killers are enough of a problem to mess with printing. Surely there are more effective ways to deter people from this sort of behavior.

I see where you coming from, but similarly I just don't think that a couple of microscopic yellow dots on my prints that carry the date and serial number are not a problem. It's not like I intend to forge anything.

The essay "I've got nothing to hide and other misunderstandings of privacy" is about this idea. The short version is that it's not just about your innocence, but about how your data can be leveraged against you.

I am a proponent of privacy. I do not feel my privacy threatened by the date and serial number on my inkjet prints.

It is not an all or nothing.

Right, it feels like such things as being personally identified and tied to documents could never, when gestated by bureaucratic processes of third parties, possibly involve harm. And it's this kind of casual attitude of indifference which is exactly the mindset that the essay is intended to speak to.

To "catch a serial killer" you'd need each retailer selling printers to track the ID and model number on a receipt, to be submitted to a central government agency and saved in a database. This is not what's happening in your country either, am I correct?

Instead this ordeal makes it possible for the government agencies, who do keep track of their own inventory to follow the tracks of those, who decided to leak documents to the outside world by printing them on printers at work. Like the outing of the whistleblower, courtesy of a journalist at The Intercept.

https://blog.erratasec.com/2017/06/how-intercept-outed-reali...

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