Given how we’re ever so concerned with our digital footprints, it’s paradoxical how we overlook that every page we print carries fingerprints of its own. In 2004, after dismantling a counterfeiting ring in the Netherlands, Dutch authorities and a Canon PR representative thanked printer tracking dots, a technology at the time unknown to the public and initially developed by the US Secret Services, for aiding in their operation. These small yellow tracking dots can be found on a printed page and represent the serial number of the printer as well as the date and time of the print. But what’s the situation with them today, and can you protect your privacy?
It is, for two reasons:1) on color printers, the "black" ink cartridge is more accurately a "gray" ink cartridge, used to darken the other 3 subtractive colors, and "black" requires all 4 inks;2) as others noted, the printer needs yellow ink to print the invisible dots the FBI uses to track you
Understanding the dots
Counterfeit money is not the only thing that can be printed. Every document and image can now be tracked back to the printer and, by extension, the user. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was able to decode the dots on printers of the Xerox DocuColor series just a year after they became public, proving what is tracked while providing an automated program so users could do the same. They continued to catalog and test printers that use printer tracking dots until 2017. However, they announced that they would stop updating the list since likely all recent printers use some form of tracking, though not necessarily with dots.
Finally, researchers at TU Dresden developed a printer anonymization technique called Dots Extraction, Decoding, and Anonymisation (DEDA) in 2018 and released the program publicly on GitHub. DEDA allows you to decode tracking and provides the tools to obfuscate it. While it has been debated whether some alternative systems can be anonymized with it, this should work for most printers.
Did you know that almost every modern laser printer is assumed to be printing nearly invisible tracking dots on every page? Have you ever wondered why your printer drivers make you log into the internet to print a page on a printer physically attached to your computer?You do now!
— Left✊ to Our Own Devices (@lefttoourowndevices.blog) 2024-11-25T22:04:33.923Z
Conclusion
This raises the question of utility. If prints can be anonymized, it follows that most advanced illegal operations can also be anonymized. While some less tech-savvy criminals may try counterfeiting money, is it worth putting this burden on so many ordinary people? This is especially true since small and under-planned illegal activities are likely trackable by simpler methods than tracking every page printed anywhere in the world.
It’s been over two decades since the information on decoding the dots went public, and this type of tracking was never ruled illegal. It is strange how we employ a double standard about tracking digital data and tracking printed data. Technology-enabled tracking also provides solutions to avoid it, like DEDA. In this case, technology is what we make of it. And I still believe we will ultimately use it for good.
YouTube: Yellow Dots of Mystery: Is Your Printer Spying on You?
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Photo Credit: The feature image is symbolic and has been taken by Timi Keszthelyi.
Sources: Wilbert de Vries (WebWereld Netherlands) / Electronic Frontier Foundation / TU Dresden
