Secret code in color printers enables government tracking

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by Azure Phoenix, Oct 20, 2015.

  1. Azure Phoenix

    Azure Phoenix Registered Member

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  2. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

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    I should be so upset about this, but in all honesty I am not even surprised. Now that is wrong!!
     
  3. Minimalist

    Minimalist Registered Member

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    I agree. It has all become 'old news' and people are not upset about it any more.
    I guess that this is one of their goal: people will just stop carrying and we will let them take control over our digital life.
     
  4. Palancar

    Palancar Registered Member

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    Even in my own family I have stopped trying. Seriously, they just don't care at all until its too late. I have long suspected that my printer(s) were a "weak spot" in anonymity. I stopped using my family printer execpt for REAL NAME stuff over a year ago. In addition to this thread's theme, I am also concerned about internal "buffers" where stuff on the printer MOBO are secretly stored. I just assume I am good to go for REAL NAME stuff and for the other stuff I treat the printer like a traitor. I really do!! My hobby computer cannot even see the printer device on the network because its completely blocked via IP tables.
     
  5. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    To be fair, this was quite reasonably introduced years ago in order to control banknote forgery.
    The real problem is that, due to the disgraceful over-reach of the security services, no reasonable person trusts any of this stuff anymore, which wastes people's valuable time mitigating against it. Printers are indeed dangerous minicomputers sitting on your internal network - and I also do not trust the drivers and little utilities they want to put on your machine either. They could easily print out a different (and virtually impossible to detect) steganographic coding pattern of your passwords, for example, who knows.
     
  6. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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  7. Keatah

    Keatah Registered Member

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    No mention of the inkjets? They do it too.
     
  8. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Cite?
     
  9. Keatah

    Keatah Registered Member

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    The one article I read I can't seem to locate it. But, a number of other articles say no for inkjets. So.. perhaps they don't?
     
  10. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I dug about that maybe two years ago, and didn't find anything on inkjets. But o_O
     
  11. roger_m

    roger_m Registered Member

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    This only affects laser printers. It's worth noting the warning EFF have added to the article that lists the printers that do not print the code.

     
  12. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    I thought all the manufacturers of color lasers did so for anti-forgery reasons. I don't think injects are that much good at forgery.
    But it's the world we live in, that trust has been eroded in any of them.
     
  13. quietman

    quietman Registered Member

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    It's a modern slant on an old idea.

    In the past , oppressive regimes made it a criminal offense to possess a typewriter that wasn't registered.
    Sample text from the machine had to be submitted to the relevant authorities.
     
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