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Old 11-23-2004, 01:26 PM  
Rich
So Fucking Banned
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Posts: 11,486
Don't print that ransom letter on your laser printer, the government can track you.

Interesting shit. They should probably tell customers about this.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...8664&printer=1


Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents

Quote:
WASHINGTON--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.
Who knew. Anyone have an LED light and a magnifying glass handy?
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