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Learn How Your Printer Is Spying on You

FBI reportedly using the technology to keep tabs on people and organizations

Jul 20, 2007 09:04 GMT  ·  By
Dot grid from a Xerox DocuColor 12 page, magnified 10x and photographed by the QX5 microscope under illumination from a Photon blue LED flashlight.
   Dot grid from a Xerox DocuColor 12 page, magnified 10x and photographed by the QX5 microscope under illumination from a Photon blue LED flashlight.

Freedom of speech is a democratic idea stated in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, adopted in 1791, stating that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It seems that this might be a very relative concept, at least in writing. One good example is the fact that a simple printer can spy on you and give out valuable information to law enforcement agencies, which, as we all know, are only trying to protect US citizens from any and all threats.

Actually only the color laser printers can do that, as an interesting technology can tell the FBI, for instance, exactly which printer was used to create a specific document. Whenever you print a document on these devices, a pattern of tiny yellow dots comes up on every page.

The dots are embedded on the pages and are too small to be visible with the naked eye, partly due to the yellow color. Only under a microscope can they be spotted and the pattern is unique to each printer, so that the entire document or parts of it can be traced to the exact owner of the printer.

Since every printer has a serial number and most of them are purchased from very reliable service provides or even directly from the manufacturer, a simple forensic analysis and a sample database can point the federal agents to your door.

The technology was developed as a method to fight money counterfeiters, although no laser printer can print currency bills, since the safety measures in each bill are too small to be accurately replicated by simply scanning and then printing the bills.

Unfortunately, with power comes great responsibility, so abuse is just around the corner, as the FBI was reportedly found to use this tracking technique to pinpoint the origin of some more or less disturbing material, printed by organizations like Greepeace and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union).

Here you can find a list of printers that are known to possess this dot pattern, but as the document warns, if one of the listed models may not include this technique, it doesn't mean that other applications are not incorporated, it just means that no information of this specific capability is currently available.