Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology To Track Documents
Author: Jason Tuohey, Medill News Service Source: Yahoo
Title: GOVERNMENT USES COLOR LASER PRINTER TECHNOLOGY TO TRACK DOCUMENTS
Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer, shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow dots printer there that could be used to trace the document back to you.
According to experts, 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.
Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.
"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.
Submitted by and Thanks to: Meg Options: [Read Full Story]
From witchvox.com
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[font=arial,helvetica]Color Laser Printers Tracking Everything You Print[/font]
Posted by timothy on Monday November 22, @06:26PM
from the welcome-to-the-present-day dept.
It's not new, but it's getting noticed: Jordan writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that several printer manufacturers are now and have been for some time embedding (nearly) invisible serial numbers in every document you print with their color laser printers, allowing law enforcement to track any such document back to the printer which printed it. The technology, ostensibly created to track down money counterfeiters, was created by Xerox about 20 years ago. A Xerox researcher says that the number-embedding chip lies 'way in the machine, right near the laser' and that 'standard mischief won't get you around it.'"
From Slashdot.org
Author: Jason Tuohey, Medill News Service Source: Yahoo
Title: GOVERNMENT USES COLOR LASER PRINTER TECHNOLOGY TO TRACK DOCUMENTS
According to experts, 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.
Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.
"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.
Submitted by and Thanks to: Meg Options: [Read Full Story]
From witchvox.com
======
[font=arial,helvetica]Color Laser Printers Tracking Everything You Print[/font]
Posted by timothy on Monday November 22, @06:26PM
from the welcome-to-the-present-day dept.
It's not new, but it's getting noticed: Jordan writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that several printer manufacturers are now and have been for some time embedding (nearly) invisible serial numbers in every document you print with their color laser printers, allowing law enforcement to track any such document back to the printer which printed it. The technology, ostensibly created to track down money counterfeiters, was created by Xerox about 20 years ago. A Xerox researcher says that the number-embedding chip lies 'way in the machine, right near the laser' and that 'standard mischief won't get you around it.'"
From Slashdot.org
