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German Researchers Defeat Printer-Tracking Yellow Dots

posted by martyb on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:28PM   
from the measures-and-countermeasures dept.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Register reports

Beating the unique identifiers that printers can add to documents for security purposes is possible: you just need to add extra dots beyond those that security tools already add. The trick is knowing where to add them.

[...] researchers from the Technical University of Dresden [...] Timo Richter, Stephan Escher, Dagmar Schönfeld, and Thorsten Strufe reckon they've cracked the challenge of knowing how to anonymise printed documents, and presented their work to the Association of Computer Machinery's 6th ACM Workshop on Information Hiding and Multimedia Security in Innsbruck, Austria [the week of June 22].

In this paper, the TU Dresden researchers explain that they tested 1,286 documents printed on machines from 18 manufacturers, creating an extraction algorithm to identify well-known dot-patterns--and at the same time, discovering four previously undiscovered patterns coding at 48, 64, 69, and 98 bits.

Identifying new patterns is important, from a privacy point of view, since as the authors points out, an activist in a dictatorship could easily be unmasked by their printer (unless they happen to use a Brother, Samsung, or Tektronix printer, none of which seemed to carry tracking codes, the researchers said).

[...] The group has published [a] toolkit that automates the obfuscation workflow, here.

Previous: "Printer Dot Sanitisation" Software Seeks to Cleanse Yellow-Dot Watermarks

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Original Submission

• Re:Easier foolproof solution Re:Easier foolproof solution (Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Thursday June 28 2018, @08:39PM (4 children)

  by martyb (76) on Thursday June 28 2018, @08:39PM (#699968) Journal

  Since your "solution" doesn't actually work, I'll present two easier solutions:
  1. Use a printer made by Brother, Samsung, or Tektronix.
  2. Use a B&W printer.

  I'll do you one better... I use a B&W Brother printer!

  ;)

  Actually, I really do! It's a laser printer, prints quickly (20+ ppm), and I've never had a problem with it. Highly recommended.

  --
  Wit is intellect, dancing.

  Parent

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• Re:Easier foolproof solution (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @08:59PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @08:59PM (#699974)

  Me too, though it was largely because I could get a laser printer for under $30.

  That's less than the ink I'd have needed for the other printer.

  Parent

• Re:Easier foolproof solution Re:Easier foolproof solution (Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:29PM (2 children)

  by frojack (1554) on Thursday June 28 2018, @09:29PM (#699991) Journal

  I use a B&W Brother printer!

  And you get light grey dots.

  --
  No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

  Parent

  • Re:Easier foolproof solution Re:Easier foolproof solution (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @01:30AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @01:30AM (#700056)

    link?

    Parent

    • Re:Easier foolproof solution (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @04:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @04:33AM (#700123)

      <sarcasm>Why don't you try</sarcasm>

      "Pics or it didn't happen"
      or
      ^{[citation needed]}
      or
      {{Citation needed|reason=Your explanation sucked|date=June 2018}}

      Parent