Your printer is spying on you

Parent Cafe
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<p>Okay, you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to have qualms about this.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801663.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801663.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Wow… I’m very glad I have an inkjet!</p>

<p>That notwithstanding, the article makes it seem like the dots allow a document to be traced back to a specific printer. Isn’t that already possible? Perhaps I’ve watched too many police shows, but every printer has small imperfections that sometimes translate onto a paper in a unique pattern.</p>

<p>Of course, the really scary part is not that such a program exists, but that the government may have initiated it.</p>

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<p>I remember the “old” days of the early fax machine - when you had to replace the thermal paper and black carbon rolls…you could easily read what was being faxed by anyone by the impressions it left on the black rolls…</p>

<p>it was much simpler then…ah, the good ole’ days.</p>