Most printers are labeled with printed documents microscopic points

Our printers are watching us! - The conclusion arrived American Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the main activity of which is the protection of citizens' rights to privacy from outside interference using high technology. Specialists Fund deciphered yellow dots.



Yellow point - labels that put color printers on each printed page. Points are barely visible to the naked eye, and contain information about the printer's serial number, and date and time of printing. Placement of these points is the kind of steganography. Confirmed the use of this method in printers sold under the trademarks of Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Konica, Kyocera, Lanier, Lexmark, NRG, Panasonic, Ricoh, Savin, Toshiba, Xerox.

The introduction of the measure, according to the comments of the manufacturer, is part of the cooperation with the government, competing manufacturers and a consortium of banks, aimed at combating counterfeiting.

In 2005, people from the Electronic Frontier Foundation cracked the codes used in printers Xerox DocuColor, and published a guide to decoding.

via factroom.ru