[wplug] Printer tracking dots

[Justin Smith]

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the US government has 
convinced laser printer manufacturers such as Xerox to embed tiny, 
imperceptible tracking dots into every printed page.  

https://www.youtube.com/v/izMGMsIZK4U&hl=en_US&fs=1&[1] 

The EFF sells a blue LED keychain that claims to reveal these dots. I 
bought one, and it arrived yesterday. I tried it out on a test page from one 
of our Xerox multifunction printers at work, and sure enough, the dots 
were there. I then tried to see if there were any dots on pages from the 
Brother inkjet printer I keep in my office, and there were none.

If these laser printers had open source firmware, it would probably be a 
simple matter to remove the offending code. This, to me, shows how 
important it is for /every/ aspect of a technology device to be open source.

There's your interesting thought for the day.


*Justin Smith*
GNU/Linux System Administrator

/"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; 
nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will 
not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is 
full of educated derelicts."/

/-Calvin Coolidge/

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/v/izMGMsIZK4U&hl=en_US&fs=1&