I don't believe I am reading this!!

[soapbox]/
I wouldn't consider myself a Luddite by any measure, and yet I keep finding myself thinking over and over that the more advanced our microtechnology, the more intrusive it becomes in its gradual, piece-meal erosion of those basic human rights many of our forefathers fought to obtain - that pain-in-the-ass- just-won't-go-away-stuff - those much maligned "civil liberties". The "war on terror" has become the pretext for untold degrees of encroachment onto the domain of civil liberties both here in the UK and the US, and in many other parts of the world as well. The pretext is that these devices are for our own good, of course. And only a fool would intentionally not want to be protected in this way, surely. So, we collectively shrug our shoulders, and say "hmmm - good argument. Can't see what harm it'll do". On its own, the measure, the device, the step, won't make too much difference usually. But accummulatively - suddenly the walls do start getting much closer and more complexly interconnected.
Unfortunately, just like in all those cool spy and sci-fi movies we love, the world is permeated with computers as well we know (and celebrate!!). As enthusiasts of ICT would we consider it wise to just pause for a second? Let's pause for a second and consider our own complicity in helping to advance technology (specifically, computing technology) to the same capacity as that which now slowly eviscerates our hard-won rights to a range of freedoms, even the freedom to entertain the illusions we are actually living in a democracy.

At what point does security become spying and intrusion? In a company mainframe you'd expect it to some degree, but too much and it begins to feel quite creepy always been watched and monitored and recorded and evaluated and this goes on from day in to day out. This is bad enough, but when that employer is actually the government, and actually - in a democracy at least - the rules of order are very clear: in the US, for example, it is a government of the people by the people for the people. One has to ask, sooner or later: who really are the people in this scenario?
Using the threat of terrorism keeps us herded around like sheep and cows - and the meat eaters among you all knows what happens to them (vegans block your ears!!): they get slaughtered at the abattoir.
OK - so we're smart cows, and if they show us enough crap on TV and seduce us with more ways and things to buy and make us work longer and keep us scared ... we'll be happy, fat, scared little cattle, but feeling so grateful for being protected.
Ugh!!!!

Anyway, let me turn up my Normaliser again so I don't lose the plot As computer enthusiasts, I'd cast my vote that we have an ethical duty to not allow our passion, and enjoyment, and medium of productivity and creativity to be an instrument by which we are rendered cattle. Doesn't it sort of fall to us wherever and whenever we can to not allow ourselves to be caught up like that? If it isn't us, then who is it going to be? Who does your family call when the family PC has pulled a spasm? Exactly. I mean, really ... who else is going to?
/[soapbox]

Let the flaming begin ...

I think this has been around for a while. It helps the feds to know details of a printer in the case of kidnapping and other such things. Terrorist notes and the like.

Still sucks though.

For every good idea or technology out there, there's always going to be two or three bad uses for that idea or product. It's unfortunate that certain agencies tend to use those ideas or technologies for something other than what is was designed to do...

stick to dot-matrix line-printers.

You are, unfortunately, all too correct. Sound and reasonable arguments have always been used to slowly erode our liberties and our freedoms. I remember back in the 70's the whole discussion about implementing drug testing. The example given was an on-deck collision between F-14s on a carrier. Autopsy of the pilots killed in the crash revealed THC in their systems. Bear in mind, it only revealed the presence of THC in their bodies at the time of death, not whether or not they were actually stoned. They may very well have had a joint on the beach in Hawaii two weeks before. Whatever, this incident was used as the basis to begin mandatory drug testing of military pilots. But it was only going to be for those "in mission critical positions and where life and limb were directly at stake." Today, you can't get a job scrubbing toilets without peeing in a bottle first. The fact that this 1) pre-supposes guilt and forces you to prove your innocence, 2) forces you to give evidence against yourself, and 3) is a search and seizure of evidence without due process - doesn't seem to matter.

Unfortunately 00bid00b you may have fallen victim to just another internet 'urban legend'. This one has been circulating for quite a while now. There is no secret code imbedded in your laser jet printer or any other average printer for that matter.

Laser jet printers do have encoded ID's but they are not secret. They are used to identify a printer for such things as serial number, make and model, manufacture date, defect tracking, repair issues and to identify them if they are stolen, things like that.

While printers used in secure areas where highly classified information is at risk of compromise may have some sort of imbedded security encription, it is usually used as a method of acessing a particular machine, with a password or ID card or the like. It is highly unlikely that you or I would ever come into contact with one of these printers or even a document printed on one. The CIA, FBI and the like do not hold 'yard sales' on sensitive obsolete equipment because much of the equipment has been used to either record or print or save sensitive information. These agencies treat this equipment as if it were a highly classified document and they are totally and secretly destroyed and burned or dissolved in acid when they reach obsolete or end-of-life status to prevent extraction of 'latent' information.

For the 'average Joe printer' this type of tracking would be nothing short of ludicrous given that the government wouldn't have the resources to keep tabs on the thousands of laser jet printers that pass through the publics hands every year. Not to mention the fact that they would have to track this 'encription trail' from manufacturer through to the customer. This would basically mean having a government agent in every manufacturers facility from the chip level all the way to the printer manufacturer. Most of them are overseas (if you live in the US). It might not go over too well with the PRC if you try to put a US CIA agent in a printer or chip manufacturing plant in Beijing! They would also need a clerk with a secret clearance keeping track of and recording every laser jet printer sale in every store that sold laser jet printers. They would have to do this to insure they knew where each printer ended up in order to track it. You would have to call the 'laser jet printer registration administration' just to register the sale of your old printer to another individual so the 'encription trail' was maintained.

In short...I think we are fairly safe from Big Brother here.....ONWARD PARANOIA!!!!

Just thought I should add this tidbit from the article you referenced:

FYI...The Secret Service has little if anything to do with the public in matters of counterfeiting, espionage and civil crime. The Secret Service is, loosely defined, the Executive Police Department, who's main responsibility is to protect government officials at the executive level. Primarily the President, Vice President, in session members of the House of Representitives and Senate, and so on. Counterfeiting and federal crimes fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI.

The Secret Service is not into the Big Brother gig!

I hate to disagree with anyone, especially in what has turned out to be such a friendly forum. But I'm afraid you're wrong on two counts.

1) It's not an urban legend, a myth, or rampant paranoia. Many of today's highest quality laser printers and copiers DO embed microscopic identifiers into printed output. This has been reported many times over in reliable media. I became aware of this through "60 Minutes" (or, with the number of commercials now shown, "43 Minutes"). I hate to do your googling for you, but you don't even need to leave the forum (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=374856)

2) The Secret Service is part of the Treasury Department and as such, their primary responsibility is to protect the nation's currency. First and foremost, the Secret Service goes after counterfeiters. The Treasury Department's own educational pages on their website state that the Secret Service "was established for the express purpose of stopping counterfeiting operations..." (http://www.treasury.gov/education/du...tservice.shtml)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...90_code19.html

nice of the US gov. and all of those banks and printer manufactures to spy on EVERYONE...


/rude, so when is the hack going to come out to stop those little yellow dots?

and for those who do not like to clicky the linky:

What about google:http://www.google-watch.org/

Would it be all right to ask a moderator to combine this thread with "My Printer Holds a Secret?" - since they're really the same topic.

that is really shocking, i had no idea they were doing that. it's hard to believe they can get away with it without any disclosure to the consumer -- they've implemented it under the guise of "anti-terrorism measures," i imagine. and if they're doing that with printers, i can only imagine what's been put in windoze that no one knows about.

to thwart counterfeiters. Not that I agree with it, but that was one of the primary justifications for doing this. FYI, this pre-dates 9-11 so has nothing to do with the DHS.

Dragineez, You are right about the Secret Service being under the Department of the Treasury, part of it anyway, and yes, they do investigate conterfeiters and the like...I stand corrected. But in my own defense counterfeiting is not their primary responsiblity. They investigate the validity of a violation, prosecute the case then refer it to the FBI. The FBI does the follow-up and arrests. BTW - In 2002 part of the Secret Service was placed under the jurisdiction of The Department of Homeland Security...I think this may have changed the rules a little. In any case, they most likely do not develop clandestine coded chips to track the general population in a fishing attempt to maybe track down a possible counterfeiter. That's more CIA-ish than anything.

Here is their Mission Statement:

....The keyword here is 'investigates'.

If the Secret Service is indeed in possession of this 'secret code' and is not making it available to secure companies who could manufacture scanners to use it, it is pretty much useless information, isn't it?

As far as the urban legend goes...Google the subject and you will probably find several 'mythbuster' sites that will back up what I said. There is one thing that is true about the dot issue though now that I think about it. I remember hearing about this too. Copy machine and printer manufacturers are salting their printer and copier outputs with off color, offset or missing dots in an effort to thwart conterfeiting. This has been going on for some time now. Anyone with the right equipment can distinguish a fake bill from a real bill in this way, and probably even be able to trace the bill back to the make and model of the printer or copier it was made on. But it would be next to impossible to trace the source back to the original counterfeiter through a secret code of some type. No Big Brother tracking going on.

The idea of the original post was, as I read it, that the government has invented some sort of secret traceable 'code' that can pin down who made a particular copy, the exact machine that was used, and go out and arrest the owner of the printer for making phoney $50.00 bills. In essence, the government would know exactly who owns every specific printer made...That's just downright paranoid bull!

What seems to have happened is that a simple tech story got out of hand. Printer and copier manufacturers are working toward an effective method of thwarting conterfeiters by making it easier to spot a counterfeit bill made on their machines without making it obvious to the legitimate user. I think I remember something about retail scanning equipment that would be able to scan the ink, not just the inks dot pattern but also its chemical makeup, to determine a bills authenticity, as well as being able to read the hidden info and magnetic ink on legitimate bills. This is a far cry from being able to pin down a particular printer and link it to a particular individual as the poster suggested.

As I said in my original post, trying to keep track of every printer owned by every person is ludicrous not to mention impossible.

For now, I'll just keep a close watch on my printers and if I suspect any sort of illegal activity I'll call the Secret Service....Then a printer repair shop.

Who cares? All these conspiracy theories are fun, really they are. Unless you have something to hide, I really can't see the problem in the secret forces of evil looking into my life, as for the Xerox yellow brick road, I don't have a printer connected to my computer.