[THIN] OT: Watch what you print!
- From: "Jim Kenzig http://Kenzig.com" <jkenzig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, windows2000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:15:00 -0700 (PDT)
Big brother really is watching! Watch what you print!
JKhttp://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/19/eff-decodes-printertrackingdots/Electronic
Frontier Foundation decodes printer tracking dotsBy Humphrey Cheung
Published Wednesday 19th October 2005 14:59 GMT
The next time you use the office printer, you may be printing up a lot more
than sales figures or quarterly reports. Many color laser printers are secretly
embedding tracking dots, minute and almost invisible yellow specks, on
documents. While many have speculated on the meaning of the dots, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) appears to have decrypted the code.
For the better part of the last year, computer experts have known about the
existence of printer tracking technology. Last November, PC World published the
article, Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents
(http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118664,00.asp), which discussed the
existence of printer tracking dots. Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the EFF,
told us that the PC World article spurred EFF to investigate further. Initially
Schoen, like PC World, speculated that the dots would only contain the
printer's serial and model number, but now it is confirmed that there is much
more information included. "As it turned out, there is also the date and time,
which is accurate to the minute. We didn't expect that," says Shoen.
Schoen says that these tracking dots are "all over" every page printed from
many printer models. The dots are almost invisible, but can be seen by shining
a simple blue LED light on the page. The blue light increases the contrast of
the yellow dots and causes them to appear black against the paper background.
In the case of one particular printer, the Xerox DocuColor, the dots appear as
an eight by fifteen grid that is repeated throughout the page.
Schoen told us that he and four other people decoded the dots. Two volunteers,
Patrick Murphy and Joel Alwen, and summer intern Robert Lee did much of the
work. Andrew Huang, author of "Hacking the Xbox" helped out by modifying a
scanner to shine extra blue light on the printouts. To gather enough data, EFF
asked volunteers from around the world to send in printouts from as many
printers as possible. "We got several hundred sets from about 100 different
models and the documents are still arriving," says Schoen.
Initially the team had to look at every printout by hand, but Murphy and Alwen
started transcribing the dots into text files. This made it easier to compare
dot patterns without destroying the team members' eyesight. The team also
repeatedly printed the same page on one printer and Shoen told us that he
started noticing that the rightmost part of the grid would stay the same, while
other parts would "incrementally change".
The team discovered that the dot pattern contains the serial number of the
printer along with the date and time that the paper was printed. The dots are
either on or off and represent a binary 1 or 0. Each column of dots adds up
into a decimal equivalent and there are even parity dots on each row and column
for error correction. Schoen says, "If you brought me two pages, I can tell you
if they came from the same printer and which one was printed earlier than the
other."
So far, EFF has only decoded the tracking dots on the Xerox DocuColor line of
printers/copiers. The DocuColor is an expensive high-volume printer used in
many major print shops such as Kinko's, but Schoen warns that the tracking dots
are also produced on more down to Earth printers. "The tracking dots appear in
all models from low end to high end. We've seen them on some Dell printers
costing as little as $299," says Schoen.
Schoen encourages everyone to try this out saying, "People don't have to take
our word for it. Go down to Kinko's yourself. They will see that the tracking
dots are all over the page and probably has been done for at least a decade."
Of course, we were curious ourselves and went to a nearby Kinko's in Thousand
Oaks, California. With EFF's list of printers that print tracking dots
(http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php) , we walked up to an unused
Xerox DocuColor 12 and ironically made two copies of EFF's document.
Afterwards, we bought a keychain sized blue LED light from Radio Shack and
headed back to the office.
The dot pattern created by a
Xerox DocuColor 12 printer
At first we couldn't see the dots, but after turning off the overhead
fluorescent lights we saw what appeared to be small, almost microscopic dots
throughout the page. The dots look like toner dust, but unlike random stray
toner, they arranged in a definite pattern throughout the page. We managed to
take a photo and made the dots stand out by playing around with the histogram.
Schoen told us that they photographed the dots using a $60 children's
microscope.
Decoding the pattern was neither hard nor expensive for the EFF team. Schoen
estimates that EFF spent less than $1000 investigating and decoding the
tracking dots. After receiving the printouts, it took the team about one week
to solve the puzzle and Schoen adds, "computer experts like to solve puzzles".
Related stories:
Electronic Frontier Foundation's DocuColor Tracking Dot Guide
(http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/index.php)
List of printers that print tracking dots
(http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php)
Other related posts:
- » [THIN] OT: Watch what you print!
