by lettergram on 8/1/21, 5:19 AM
I noticed all the recent printers from HP required a setup which...
- Required me to install an app
- Required me to enable gps on my device (and allow app to access)
- Printer phoned home after / during setup (as did the app)
They really don’t need the dots any more when they know the gps coordinates and have the ability to send anything they want to and from the device.
I personally spoofed the gps, ran a vpn and blocked the device from phoning home (after setup). Had me saying “what the f**!?” a couple of times.
by mindcrime on 8/1/21, 3:55 AM
by taylorfinley on 8/1/21, 3:39 AM
by m3at on 8/1/21, 8:35 AM
by oldgradstudent on 8/1/21, 8:47 AM
Reminds me of the scene in The Life of Others (2006) where the Stasi has samples from every registered typewriter in East Germany, so they have to smuggle a special typewriter.
by tehwebguy on 8/1/21, 3:46 AM
As if printer companies weren’t already some of the worst offenders of consumer trust
by yosito on 8/1/21, 7:33 AM
I suspect smartphone cameras may add a similar type of tracking mark to photos taken with the phone. I assume the NSA would be able to determine which phone a photo came from based on something like this. I don't have anything more than rumors, but if anyone has a link about this, it would be interesting!
by throwaway81523 on 8/1/21, 7:33 AM
I believe these dots are only printed by color printers, ostensibly to help catch currency counterfeiters. So the simplest countermeasure is use monochrome printers for daily stuff and for anything sensitive. I guess sometimes you'll NEED color, but very often you can probably do without it.
by daenz on 8/1/21, 4:24 AM
I've always wondered if jpeg encoders added something like this to screenshots. Should be possible to add a compression-resilient pattern that encodes the screenshotter's host details.
by garaetjjte on 8/1/21, 1:15 PM
But what's the incentive for printer manufacturers to do it at all? It isn't mandated by any law. Some three letter agency comes to them with offer they can't refuse? Or they give them bazillions of dollars in exchange?
by spoonjim on 8/1/21, 4:11 AM
The NSA did not need these dots to track Reality Winner. Even a ordinarily secured corporate environment will record an audit log of anything written to outputs, on the service side (so the print server will effectively print a second copy to disk with all information about who printed it, mail server will record all outgoing messages even if deleted from user’s Sent folder, etc).
by tgvaughan on 8/1/21, 9:01 AM
First skimmed, then read through the article carefully, but it seems the text doesn't actually explain "why" printers do this. What am I missing?
by downandout on 8/1/21, 4:54 AM
A more foolproof way to track this would be to slightly change the wording of important sections in each copy handed out. This would allow them to track down even copies of confidential documents that were simply transcribed or where the press used excerpts.
by bullen on 8/1/21, 8:58 AM
Tip: Buy an AxiDraw instead, their boards and drivers are open-source and you pick the pen! :D
by cable2600 on 8/1/21, 5:31 AM
When did this start? Maybe you can buy an old printer that does not do it and get a USB adapter for it? The early HP Laserjets were fine.
by qvobilqwnimshme on 8/2/21, 7:16 AM
If you don't know by now, printing has changed. It's no longer just about what happens in the office. Now, people want to print from where they want, when they want. And that means a lot more printing is happening on devices not managed by IT departments. This means printers are more susceptible to malware since their regular security updates aren't coming from IT — they're coming from manufacturers of the printer or operating systems or third party apps used on them.
https://www.braindumps4it.com/braindumps-HP2-I06.htmlby turingcomplet on 8/1/21, 8:51 AM
by egberts on 8/1/21, 11:59 AM
That’s why the end-user should maintain separate firewalled subnet (DMZ) networks for their unique grouping of IoT, cable settops, PC/Mac, mobile devices and in-house servers.
Only problem i’ve had with this setup is during the configuration of IoT where mobile device must be on same subnet as IoT devices, that is all.
by macpete42 on 8/1/21, 1:45 PM
Would it be possible to print out on a piece of yellow paper to make the yellow dots undetectable?
by macpete42 on 8/1/21, 6:16 PM
How about adding custom additional yellow dots to render the hidden information useless?
by chupachup on 8/1/21, 6:05 AM
I remember finding out about printer tracking dots while checking if there is any way police could find me for mildly vandalising a neighbor's business sign.
by dukeofdoom on 8/1/21, 6:17 AM
If printers can do this, then why wasn't it done with ballots? It would make auditing possible to have each paper ballot a unique id.
by FridayoLeary on 8/1/21, 1:32 PM
I've been thinking of a similar idea for the last few weeks. It's interesting that it is apparently already common practice.
by anothernewdude on 8/1/21, 7:27 AM
I've never once been able to detect these dots on any scanned document.
by cosmin800 on 8/1/21, 12:15 PM
This is really old news.
by bsenftner on 8/1/21, 10:45 AM
Printers: a completely destroyed product. I gave up on printers over 20 years ago. They are shitty ruined products I do not waste any time on anymore. It's far easier to just have more screens than deal with the shit show called printers attached to computer networks failing to be a useful utility.
by mark-r on 8/1/21, 4:11 AM
I've known about the yellow dot patterns on color printers for a long time. If you've ever wondered why the yellow ink on your printer goes down faster than you think it should, now you know.
But this article seems to imply that the yellow dots also occur on black-and-white printers. How is that possible?