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Printers are the text book examples of why device manufacturing shouldn't be left to big companies. You have tracking dots, spyware infestation, subscription for ink/toners, reporting of the cartridge as empty when you still have much left in it, refusal to print when unused color cartridges are empty, intentional bricking if 3rd party cartridges or ink is used, and utterly crappy firmware in general.
Inkjets require precision manufacturing. But assembling it or other types from components should be possible - like how desktops, mechanical keyboards, etc can be. We really need to ditch filthy mass market printers because DIY printers will be much better than anything they offer.
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I'm pretty sure this measure was requested either by the government or some big three letter agency.
I doubt that, if all printers were manufactured by a government monopoly, you wouldn't have this shit baked in. It would probably be way worse
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It's how Reality Winner got real fucked.
via Wikiedpia:
Both journalists and security experts have suggested that The Intercept's handling of the reporting, which included publishing the documents unredacted and including the printer tracking dots, was used to identify Winner as the leaker. In October 2020, The Intercept's co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald wrote that Winner had sent her documents to The Intercept's New York newsroom with no request that any specific journalist work on them. He called her exposure a "deeply embarrassing newsroom failure" resulting from "speed and recklessness" for which he was publicly blamed "despite having no role in it." He said editor-in-chief Betsy Reed "oversaw, edited and controlled that story." An internal review conducted by The Intercept into its handling of the document provided by Winner found that its "practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves".
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A technology that was made To Stop Criminals™ being used against a political whistleblower? Color me surprised! (thanks for sharing the link btw, didn't know about that)
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To be fair Reality Winner sent her emails to the intercept from her government account, so she was fucked anyway and it was just a matter of time
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Interesting. I remember reading a news article before 2017 stating that printers used to do this, but the practice has since ended because someone was able to prove they were doing it in the mid-2000s. At the time, I saw some people on Reddit claiming they just switched to a new, harder to detect method, and everyone was saying they were conspiracy theorists.
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Those dots are practically invisible if you have the printed copy, they're not going to be visible at all in a photography. Printers and their network leave a lot to logs behind, pretty sure they just check up the printed files of their network, found the document and who send the printer order and done.
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Wikipedia has a good article on it, including photos of what the marks look like. They're practically invisible to the naked eye, getting them to show up usually requires additional steps like taking high quality scans and running them through some color filters, or using a UV light.
From the EFF coverage of it, it sounds like every laser printer probably prints these marks now. I'm not sure if inkjets or other printer types do or not.
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From the wiki they mention researchers created a tool to check the identification code yourself, or to anonymize documents you're printing: https://github.com/dfd-tud/deda
Clearly a pain in the ass and not user friendly for the general public though.
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From the EFF coverage of it, it sounds like every laser printer probably prints these marks now.
- every color laser printer
Ftfy
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If you're going to do illegal shit, or shit against the owner class, don't use modern technology to do it.
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Kind of an an-prim take. Understand the technology you're using. The only thing you should take for granted is that any opportunity tech has to spy on you has already been exploited by multiple outlets. Use your worst possible faith and you'll probably still fall short of what's happening.
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Or do while making sure you 100% know WTF you are doing. Some modern tech, like onion routing and encryption, are still very useful.
But if you're not the kind of person who can convert a 32 bit hex number to decimal in your head or recognize a JTAG port on a device when you see it, then yeah stay away.
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Golden rule: always go for old tech, unless you have a specific reason for going modern.
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Sorry to bring it to you, but printers are mostly retro technology.
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I used to think that until having kids. Constantly have to print stuff off for their school to be signed or turned it.
Also my printer was amazing during Covid. Printed out coloring pages to occupy them.
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Someone should tell Cannon, Pacific Office Automation, and my office that printers are retro then. Because my workplace operates off paper still, not my department, but everyone else.
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Dear conspiracy theorists
Sorry i called you crack pots. Please pass the foil
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I find that a large number of conspiracy theories are asking the right questions, just not providing the right answers. Does big tech want to control our minds with 5G towers and microchips hidden in covid vaccines? Probably not. Does big tech want to control our minds with social media and invasive advertising? Absolutely. Is the world controlled by a secret society of lizard people? Probably not. Is the world controlled by a not-so-secret society of billionaires and politicians? To a large extent. Even those awful racist or bigoted conspiracy theories start to sound somewhat
palpablepalatable if you filter out the racist or bigoted part. Do Jews make life for the rest of us miserable by controlling the economy? No. But replace "Jews" with "the owning class", and suddenly it kind of makes sense.EDIT: Is the government putting chemicals in the water that turn frogs gay? No. Are corporations putting chemicals in water bottles that turn frogs into hermaphrodites? Literally yes
EDIT PART TWO - ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: Palatable, not palpable. Words are hard.
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As someone who has worked in IT communications, nobody deploying 5G is doing anything differently than for 4G/LTE/3G/2G or even coax/DSL/fiber/whatever. The only functional difference is that it's faster. It may operate with newer tech, faster chips, different frequency bands, different modulation techniques, etc.... But at the end of the day, it's just a means to get data from here to there. Nothing more.
Also, the government (or "the man" or "them" or whatever), already have an almost universal method to track every living person in the country. You willingly carry this tracker with you at all times; to work, to the park, to friends and family locations, etc..... If you haven't guessed yet, it's a cellphone.
A big part of increasing the network speed on commercial wireless networks (cellular provider networks) is reducing cell size, aka, the amount of space each radio covers, and just increasing the number of cells (radios) serving an area. They know exactly which cell(s) your phone is connected to, where those cells are, which direction the antennas are facing and how far you are away from it (by signal strength, or rssi). This can be triangulated with other antennas that can "hear" the same signal, and all of their metrics (location, direction, distance), and that information can be quickly collected and cross referenced into a very accurate location.
This can be done without any software on your device, and very likely without having a valid service plan. As long as you're in range and the cellular radio is on, "they" already know where you are. And you carry your phone with the radio online at all times, willingly. Pretty much once you get to have your own phone as a teenager, they know where you are and "they" have been able to track you since.
Having apps like Facebook and whatever that get your location information from the network and the app relays it to Facebook (or whatever corporate entity), is the equivalent for the corporate overlords. You just need to invite them in by having the application installed, and it can report that data to them.
Most do this entirely willingly and could not give any fewer shits about it.
This is not speculation, this is part of the technical capabilities of the systems. Whether or not the government or any legal entity is using the information for this purpose is up for debate, but the fact that it can be done isn't in question. There are entire companies dedicated to building solutions which correlate connection data to geolocate connected devices with a high degree of accuracy.
A nontrivial part of the reason these systems exist is for e911, which can relay GPS information to emergency services. A system which does not work very well for most counties because their 911 systems are too old and underfunded. If it works correctly, your precise location and altitude (to determine if you're on the ground floor or not), can be accessed by emergency services in the event that it is required. Usually those features are only accessible or activated if you actually dial 911 (or your country's equivalent emergency number), but they're built out and exist regardless of if you need/use it. This was made a requirement by the government since your physical address bound to the number you are calling from, is not necessarily where you are when you make the call. In the olden days of landlines, every phone number would come up with the service address when you called 911. Since the service address was the only location you could use that line from, that worked. Now that we're almost entirely mobile, it's not useful anymore, so this system was devised. Then the government promptly denied sufficient funding to 911 systems to implement their end of the system, while mandating that carriers set it up.
It's stupid. But I digress.
The fact is, you are being tracked. It's being done for your own good (re: emergency services), but it's very easily abused by those who can access it. People like government agencies.
Whether they're abusing it or not, that's a question you'll have to figure out for yourself.
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Does big tech want to control our minds with 5G towers and microchips hidden in covid vaccines
Oh they would like that though, it's just not techically feasible.
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The EFF has some info about the practice - https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots.
I imagine there are ways and means of obfuscating / anonymizing the dots such as blocking the printer from emitting them (e.g. an empty yellow cartridge that the printer perceives as full), modifying the firmware, using a burner printer, or using a mono laser jet.
As a side issue, most modern bank notes have a bunch of yellow circles integrated into the design on each side. They look random but they're in a recognisable pattern called a constellation that enables devices like copiers / scanners to recognize when people are trying to copy money or other financial instruments like checks.
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The link you sent has a period at the end so it doesn't work when clicked.
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It's a tracking dot
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All of this just makes me want an open source printer. Anyone know of a color laser printer which uses open source firmware?
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This is part of the reason I still have an HP 4050DTN and an HP 5000DTN. Plain B&W, but absolutely bulletproof and lacking all tracking, subscription, or DRM bullshit.
Hell, I can still get overstuffed cartridges that can do 20,000 prints at 5% coverage. I’m on my third one in two decades and two degrees with my 4050.
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Wait, how old is that? Because on Wikipedia it suggests that Xerox has been working on this at least since the 80s, and while it was only discovered in 2004, apparently everyone had been using these kinds of patterns for decades.
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B&W vs Color
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You cannot print nearly-invisible yellow dots with only black toner, no matter how much you want to.
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Yep. HP P1102W here. I print a bunch for work and myself. Can't even say how long a $20 toner cartridge lasts. I'm surprised when it finally runs low.
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Thanks for name-dropping these. I'm kind of in the market for an old-ass printer after learning about this lol.
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It's weird that when it comes to security companies are like "we got too many important things to be doing, like adding this quarters new shiny feature, we don't have time to encrypt user data".
You would think that when it comes to adding obscure tracking codes companies would be like "we don't care what people print, it's not our problem, we aren't going to bother with tracking watermarks". But, no, every company has tracking watermarks while cutting every other corner possible.
I mean, half the companies out there are barely able to get their software to work, meanwhile printer companies have this robust watermark system that never fails. I don't understand these priorities.
Where's my tinfoil hat?
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Well for starters. Consumers in general have very little rights in the United States.
Meanwhile you don't wanna fuck with either the Secret Service, The IRS, or the Federal Reserve.
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People still use printers?
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Why, what are you doing, carving your documents into a clay tablet with a reed?
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All my documents are digital these days. I think I've actually had to print a document maybe like 5 times in the last 10 years and even then the people who I had to give them to agreed that it was a huge pain in the ass lol
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Me, personally, I'm usually emailing them or reading them on a screen.
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Tax filing and other government stuff is digital here. There's certified services to send legally binding documents, too. Only thing lagging behind is Post with package returns.
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I recently had to fax a document to the government, which meant I had to print the thing, then pay $12 at OfficeMax to send it. Absolute bedlam.
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From time to time I have to sign a form that specifically says "Print and sign, no digital signatures"
I use Adobes "draw a signature" feature to do my squibble, then place it on the signature line taking at least a little care to make it look handwritten (So like a portion of my signature is dipping below the line etc.). Finally I print to PDF (Even if it is already PDF) and email that or use one of those fax apps if fax is absolutely required.
I haven't had any such forms rejected (Well, at least not for "improper signature" or whatever) and I've been doing it on forms for well over a decade now lmao
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Same happened to me two years ago. I signed up for a 30-day trial with one of those e-fax companies and after the doc was sent I cancelled. To be fair, my work had an account with that service so I already knew about it - but I knew I didn't want to pay a buck a page just to pay my taxes... Hopefully you don't need this advice in future but maybe it can come in handy just in case!
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I am always pissed off when someone sends me a document to print, sign, scan and send back. You are still missing your stupid fax machine, don't you?
I have no printer because it's not worth the upkeep, so I have to walk down the street to a copy shop and print, sign, scan and send back my personal data there.
Thank you, fax machine person.
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Across the street, lol. I don't even have a copy shop in my town.
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Is pasting in your signature digitally not an option? That's what I've been doing all my life, but then again the area where I live is quite progressive in terms of technology.
On a related note, someone should make an image filter that makes digital documents look like they've been scanned in. Would save a ton of paper and people's time lol.
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scan and send back.
E-Mail.
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sadly
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I print a lot of study stuff on my job printers. I know is bad, but I can't really study in a screen.
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E-Reader?
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I threw mine of the balcony when it refused to print again.
I'm not even kidding. It felt amazing. (I did clean up the mess tho)
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I dismantled several cheap inkjet printers for parts. There are countless useful parts inside for my future DIY projects. 24-volt power supplies, several motors, pulleys, belts, hundreds of small bolts.
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Yes. I rarely print documents, but as a hobby arts and crafter, I do print of lot of stuff for my projects. Screw inkjets, but they do have a really high resolution in photo mode, which is the only reason I haven't ditched my nightmare printer for a laser yet.
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Sometimes don't have a choice, at least here in AU there are lots of government institutions that still only accept paper copies of certified documents either snail mailed or physically handed in
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At least printers are not people (anymore).
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Not me. If i need something printed once a year, there's copy shops around.
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This isn't necessarily bad. It is made so forgeries can be detected.
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Halfway competent criminals know how to prevent it. But at the same time, I am simply against any and all non-consensual tracking.
I have a similar stance on this as DRM.
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i heard about it almost 20 years ago, so it's basically a common knowledge
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The K in CMYK is grey, not black. The other ink tones are added to make it appear black.
Edit: It seems people don't want to hear that. But sorry, that's how CMYK works. Black is roughly C=75 M=68 Y=67 K=89 in most major colour profiles used for printing. When you tell your printer to print something black, it won't use just Key (around 85-90% grey), and will apply normal CMYK blacks which use value from all 4 inks.
It's been like this for 120 years and is not a "big printer" conspiracy. If you don't like this, don't use a CMYK printer. It's just going to print CMYK values with CMYK inks like you told it to and none of those inks is black.
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That’s not really the case (grey), but it’s what happens by default.
The K does stand for blacK. The four are mixed to create a richer black than the black alone would provide - which conveniently looks better and uses more ink.
The software and printer are more than capable of not using “rich black” outside of images, but even the solid black ink will look muted to people used to seeing the mud from all four colours in their 12 point Times New Roman.
A sad state really that in 2024 we still have an ink racket.
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A little pedantic, but the K stands for Key.
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My color laser printer uses only K to print blacK. It takes four cartridges, and I’ve only had to replace the C, M, and Y cartridges once in the 15 years or so I’ve owned it, because I almost never print pages with color.
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