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Old 10-18-2005, 07:15 AM  
volante
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: LAX Immigration
Posts: 2,940
Secret Code in Color Printers Lets Government Track You

Quote:
San Francisco - A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.

The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the 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.
http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_10.php#004063

Throw away your tinfoil hats - they probably have RFID chips in them...
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