So, how does this work with duplication equipment? Can I print an original and color-copy it?
Edit: Or just add yellow dots to the document I'm printing?
Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
71–80 of 109 posts
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know. Apparently a lot of the people here are master criminals, because they seem to be awfully paranoid about the idea that police detectives can, if sufficiently motivated, deduce some information about their activities. (These sorts of folks must really hate Sherlock Holmes stories.) Personally, as a law-abiding citizen, I'm really not too concerned about being the target of a police investigation, and if…
You assume that the police care if you are guilty or not. They don't. The quality metric that police work towards is not finding the actual perpetrator, it is finding someone who can be convicted, or, even better, strongarmed into confessing and/or accepting a plea bargain. As a (mostly) law-abiding citizen myself I wish it were otherwise. But it isn't. See e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Seriously, this kind of conspiracy theory "fuck the pigs man" stuff doesn't belong here. Reddit is that-a-way.
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
You assume that the over three quarters of a million US law enforcement officers act uniformly. What's the statistical significance of a youtube video? (Edit: The question's phrasing is for effect; I'm well aware there are egregious abuses documented in number greater than one. But I'm still not convinced that with the non-uniformity of the LEO population between different jurisdictions, etc, as well as the non-rando…
> You assume that the over three quarters of a million US law enforcement officers act uniformly. No, I don't. It only takes one less-than-perfectly-honest cop or prosecutor to totally destroy your life. Just ask Troy Davis. (Oh, wait, you can't. He's dead. He was recently executed for a crime he (almost certainly) did not commit.) Being convicted of a crime you didn't commit may be a risk you're willing to take, but…
It's a possibility, but probably a lot smaller than your chance of being killed by, say, lightning. Or a bee.
I don't know why some people vastly overweight certain low probabilities.
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well-known indeed (at least, I followed it with keen interest when it came out), but I think it's good that this resurfaces as I really don't think it got enough attention the first time around. Personally I think the most worrying bits of data are first the time stamp, and second the printer serial number. I say serial number is second because in a criminal investigation phorensics can also get a "fingerprint" of th…
"I say serial number is second because in a criminal investigation phorensics can also get a "fingerprint" of the printer by tracking imperfections in the way it's printed." I know they used to be able to do that with typewriters, but can they do it with printers as well? I would suspect the imperfections of being too chaotic, or at least easy enough to change by changing the cartridge.
I think it was a Purdue group that documented fingerprinting techniques on scanners and printers. Seems that stepper motors have fairly unique characteristics among models and even individual devices (though, with less accuracy).
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I say serial number is second because in a criminal investigation phorensics can also get a "fingerprint" of the printer by tracking imperfections in the way it's printed." I know they used to be able to do that with typewriters, but can they do it with printers as well? I would suspect the imperfections of being too chaotic, or at least easy enough to change by changing the cartridge.
I think it was a Purdue group that documented fingerprinting techniques on scanners and printers. Seems that stepper motors have fairly unique characteristics among models and even individual devices (though, with less accuracy).
Anything helps. Even if you can say it was printed on a Cannon over a HP can potentially narrow things down.
I personally don't see what the huge deal is. I mean we're not going to get hauled off for disseminating communist literature and I don't think anyone plans on printing currency.
So I don't know where the huge privacy concern whatever comes from, because unless you regularly forge time stamps on documents then I really don't know what the issue is.
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
You assume that the police care if you are guilty or not. They don't. The quality metric that police work towards is not finding the actual perpetrator, it is finding someone who can be convicted, or, even better, strongarmed into confessing and/or accepting a plea bargain. As a (mostly) law-abiding citizen myself I wish it were otherwise. But it isn't. See e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Seriously, this kind of conspiracy theory "fuck the pigs man" stuff doesn't belong here. Reddit is that-a-way.
Because conspiracy theories are never true? Or just this "kind" of conspiracy theory? You object to the idea that a democracy can't turn into a place where the government is dangerous to its citizens? Have you heard about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution?
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
As long as there's older-style currency in circulation, a forger only has replicate those bills and not the new hotness... currency only tends to last a few years in active circulation (at most) but I'd assume that many people will still accept a bill from a style printed 10 or 20 years ago.
Generally when there is a major change to a currency (such as the move to polymer banknotes [an awesome Australian invention] in Australia 15 years ago) the old style bills only remain in circulation for a short period, perhaps a year or so. Within a couple of years, the old style notes become so exceptionally rare in everyday transactions that the presence of one raises eyebrows, and is inspected carefully. While ou…
In America retailers will accept older bills without question.
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You assume that the over three quarters of a million US law enforcement officers act uniformly. No, I don't. It only takes one less-than-perfectly-honest cop or prosecutor to totally destroy your life. Just ask Troy Davis. (Oh, wait, you can't. He's dead. He was recently executed for a crime he (almost certainly) did not commit.) Being convicted of a crime you didn't commit may be a risk you're willing to take, but…
It's a possibility, but probably a lot smaller than your chance of being killed by, say, lightning. Or a bee. I don't know why some people vastly overweight certain low probabilities.
First, it is widely considered prudent to take precautions against both lightning and bees precisely because they are not negligible risks. Some people even consider it prudent to avoid, say, sharks despite the fact that the number of people killed by sharks is smaller than either lightning or bees. Personally, I have gone scuba diving with sharks, but I can certainly understand that this is not for everyone. I've also gone bungee jumping and flown small single-engine airplanes in bad weather. Some people smoke. I don't. Everyone's risk posture is different.
Second, it is far from clear that your chances of wrongful conviction in the U.S. are smaller than being struck by lightning. The Innocence Project has exonerated 280 people. That's 5-10 years worth of lightning deaths in the U.S., and those are just the ones that they have been able to prove were innocent using DNA testing and limited resources. The actual number of wrongly convicted people behind bars is surely much higher, but reliable numbers are understandably hard to come by.
And third, the U.S. has a lamentable track record of using criminal prosecution to silence various forms of dissent. c.f. Bradley Manning, Aaron Swartz, and all the people being arrested and pepper sprayed at the OWS protests.
All of these things can factor into one's personal decisions on how to interact with law enforcement. A certain level of skepticism about the integrity of the legal system is (alas) a defensible position.
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Generally when there is a major change to a currency (such as the move to polymer banknotes [an awesome Australian invention] in Australia 15 years ago) the old style bills only remain in circulation for a short period, perhaps a year or so. Within a couple of years, the old style notes become so exceptionally rare in everyday transactions that the presence of one raises eyebrows, and is inspected carefully. While ou…
In America retailers will accept older bills without question.
In Britain they won't. Our bank notes are officially withdrawn a few years after they are replaced with a new design at which point they can only be exchanged for new ones at banks. Even then I think there is a cut off point of ten years or so where you have to take your notes to the Bank of England if you want them exchanged for legal tender.
Re: Most laser printer printed pages have tracking watermark
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
In America retailers will accept older bills without question.
In Britain they won't. Our bank notes are officially withdrawn a few years after they are replaced with a new design at which point they can only be exchanged for new ones at banks. Even then I think there is a cut off point of ten years or so where you have to take your notes to the Bank of England if you want them exchanged for legal tender.
Wow. In the USA, every once in a while you can even find a silver certificate, that someone probably put in the money supply unknowingly. The fact that our money is all the same size and color doesn't help much, I suppose...