Text 11327, 63 rader
Skriven 2005-08-01 13:33:18 av Raymond Yates (1:3613/48)
  Kommentar till text 11297 av Ross Cassell (1:123/456)
Ärende: Detective....
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 RC> Hello Raymond!

 RC> 31 Jul 05 18:37, you wrote to Björn Forsström:

 BF>>> Is it really possible to establish that it came from a Dell xx
 BF>>> laptop with a HP printer model xxxx ?

 RY>> I'm not sure about the computer, that sounds marginal. I do know
 RY>> that laser printers do append coding to them, here in the
 RY>> states,at least. The idea behind that was because some people
 RY>> were making colour copies of $20 (USD) bills. I"m not sure if the
 RY>> Secret Service mandated this (their warrant runs to
 RY>> counterfeiting cases) or if it was voluntary, but I can find out
 RY>> if you need to..

 RC> What you describe is relatively recent and manufacturers of these
 RC> laser printers have simply incorporated into the firmware of their
 RC> machines code that when it recognizes a currency note, the resulting
 RC> printout is severely altered to thwart its usage as a note, usually
 RC> with a overlayed watermark.

Here's the article, courtesy of the Register..

Is your printer spying on you?
By John Leyden
Published Friday 29th July 2005 14:37 GMT
Get breaking Reg news straight to your desktop - click here to find out how

Secret codes enbedded into pages printed by some colour laser printers pose a
risk to personal privacy, according to the Electronic Frontier Fundation. The
US privacy group warns the approach - ostensibly only designed to identify
counterfeiters - has become a tool for government surveillance, unchecked by
laws to prevent abuse.

"In the current political climate, it's not hard to imagine the government
using the ability to determine who may have printed what document for purposes
other than identifying counterfeiters," the EFF said. The ACLU recently issued
a report revealing that the FBI has amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents
on the organization since 2001, as well as documents concerning other
non-violent groups, including Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice.

EFF notes that only the privacy policy of your printer manufacturers - rather
than any legislative controls - stop the Secret Service from using printer
codes to secretly trace the origin of non-currency documents. "No law
regulates what sort of documents the Secret Service or any other domestic or
foreign government agency is permitted to request for identification, not to
mention how such a forensics tool could be developed and implemented in
printers in the first place. With no laws on the books, there's nothing to
stop the privacy violations this technology enables," the EFF warns.

All this sounds like the stuff of black helicopter conspiracy theory but the
EFF wants to flesh out its preliminary research by gathering information about
what printers are revealing and how. It's asking consumers to get involved by
sending in test sheets from colour laser printers. In addition to documenting
what printers are revealing, the EFF is filing a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request over the issue. These research efforts are a necessary
precursor to any legal challenge from the EFF and ammunition for possible
lobbying on legislation to protect consumer privacy.

And that's about all I know about it at the moment...<g>

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 * Origin: Ray's Rocket Shop - Out to Launch (1:3613/48)