Printing & Copying

Imagine that every time you printed a validate, it automatically included a secret code that could be used to point out the printer - and potentially, the living soul who acclimated to it. Sounds like something from an episode of "Alias," factual?

Unfortunately, the scenario isn't fictional. In a purported effort to identify counterfeiters, the US management has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each number with identifying tidings. That means that without your awareness or authorize, an act you assume is private could become public. A communication gizmo you're using in everyday memoirs could become a tool for government watch. And what's worse, there are no laws to prevent abuse.

The ACLU recently issued a story revealing that the FBI has amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents on the league since 2001, as reasonably as documents referring to other non-violent groups, including Greenpeace and common for Peace and Justice. In the current political climate, it's not knotty to imagine the government using the gift to determine who may have printed what detail for purposes other than identifying counterfeiters.

Yet there are no laws to a close the furtively Service from using printer codes to secretly trace the heritage of non-currency documents; only the confidentiality rule of your printer maker currently protects you (if indeed such a rule exists). And no law regulates what put straight of documents the concealed Service or any other domesticated or foreign government intercession is permitted to request in place of identification, not to mention how such a forensics tool could be developed and implemented in printers in the senior place.

With no laws on the books, there's nothing to stop the privacy violations this technology enables. For this put two, EFF is gathering facts about what printers are revealing and how - a certain below to any rightful challenge or budding legislation to protect your privacy. And we could use your help.

In the research paper linked beneath, we explain what we've observed so far, to sum up explore the monasticism implications, and quiz you to print and send us examination sheets from your color laser printer and/or a color laser printer at your neighbourhood pull a proof pix snitch on. That through, we can watch the watchers and ensure that your confidentiality isn't compromised in ways that harm your essential consitutional rights.

In uniting to documenting what printers are revealing, EFF has filed a disrespect of data Act (FOIA) request, and we last wishes as keep you updated on what we discover. In the meantime, we urge you to participate and pass the word along about this research predict. Thank you for the treatment of your take up the cudgels for!