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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
(Score: 2) by number11 on Friday June 29 2018, @02:35AM (2 children)
I don't care. I buy my printers at thrift stores or computer salvage places. They don't keep track of serial numbers. Just let somebody try to track a printer that was purchased by an organization 10 years ago and ultimately donated to a charity as a tax writeoff (they probably didn't keep records on who got what S/N, either). And besides, those 10 year old HPs are still damn good printers, they'll run until the rubber bits rot (and then you could find replacement parts, if you wished). Often only have a few thou pages on the clock, and toner is easy to find, and relatively cheap, because so many places use them.
Of course, if they actually grab my printer and do a test print, the ID is there. But for under $50, the far-sighted perp can buy one, use it for his nefarious deeds, and then donate it to a thrift store. And buy a different one.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @09:49AM (1 child)
When you install the drivers they can silently report back to a server the serial number. Now there is a record of your IP+datestamp for that printer which can be used in the future to identify the various locations the printer has been previously seen. Perhaps it's a one-time ping, or maybe it attempts to register periodically (automatic driver updates). Then there is the OS itself to worry about. On Windows or Mac (and even some versions of Linux)? You better believe your hardware is being inventoried and reported, if for no other reason than to know which devices to continue supporting in the future. Keep in mind that yellow dot watermarking is the one we currently know about, I'm sure there are others; or soon will be.
I suppose running VPN at the router and getting your printers second-hand might work but I still wouldn't trust it. I use PIA (a good no-log provider) and there are times when the DNS gets screwed up and leaks, requiring a reconnect. Also, leave your phone at home when you go to buy that printer from the local pawn shop, pay with cash, and be sure to avoid all cameras along the way (good luck).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 07 2018, @04:59AM
They have Free Software drivers depending on which printer it is.