The pages that are printed by your colour laser printer may include tiny dots, almost invisible to the naked eye. The dots form a code that can be read by the US Secret Service, ostensibly to track down counterfeiters. Now, for the first time, the code has been cracked.
The Secret Service has admitted before that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected colour laser printer manufacturers – including Xerox, Canon and many others. If a colour laser printer is used to forge a document and agents get sight of the document, the codes can be read. However, the full nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known.
"We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen.
You can see the dots on colour prints from machines made by Xerox, Canon, and other manufacturers. The dots are yellow, less than one millimetre in diameter, and are typically repeated over each page of a document. In order to see the pattern, you need a blue light, a magnifying glass or a microscope. But once you've cracked the pattern, you may be able to trace the owner of a printer that produced a suspicious document.
Full Story @ The Register
Huh. I guess all those conspiracy theorists have a point after all. -Ed
Posted by Muddy at October 20, 2005 09:48 AM"I've always found the people who most dislike conspiracy theories are conspirators." ~Gore Vidal
Posted by: mooseboy84 at October 20, 2005 01:27 PMsince your in the quoting mood..
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." -William J. Clinton
Posted by: Muddy at October 20, 2005 01:39 PMoh and better yet. :-P
"Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price." -Hillary Clinton
Posted by: Muddy at October 20, 2005 01:40 PM