Every page you print has your printers serial number

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SkateBoard

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Thought this was interesting. Guy at work heard about this and tried it out. He printed a page with just the word Hi on it. Then he scanned it in high res. Brought it up in Paint Shop Pro and did a flood fill. Low and behold, there was coded dots. When we looked online almost all printer manufacturers have been doing this for years and years. Has your make, model and serial number coded in dots that you can't see.

So, if your thinking of sending a hate letter to someone think twice.
 
SkateBoard said:
all printer manufacturers have been doing this for years and years. Has your make, model and serial number coded in dots that you can't see.

Apparently it's just laser printers, but wow. Time to break out the old dot matrix
 
Sun2Retire said:
Apparently it's just laser printers, but wow. Time to break out the old dot matrix

Oh! I didn't realize it was just color laser printers. That's all we have at the lab. I thought it was my inkjet at home also
 
With modern investigative tools.. Best not to send hate letters at all.. Or make statements like "Perhaps some 2nd amendment types can take care of her" or.. Well I could go on but.. You get the idea.
 
I haven't done it or know anyone but I've heard if you send an email and lets say every 5th word actually makes up another story with keywords like president, assassinate, gun and so on you will get a visit.
 
  For a minute there you had me looking at my printer, then I read it is only on laser jets.

    We used to send messages on autocad 3d by zooming in on a created layer, then printing the message on the z axis. Very hard to find unless you know the coordinates then rotate until the z axis is visible. or erase everything visible on the layer so the message was the only thing left. We coded the coordinates in the test of the drawings.

 
catblaster said:
  For a minute there you had me looking at my printer, then I read it is only on laser jets.

    We used to send messages on autocad 3d by zooming in on a created layer, then printing the message on the z axis. Very hard to find unless you know the coordinates then rotate until the z axis is visible. or erase everything visible on the layer so the message was the only thing left. We coded the coordinates in the test of the drawings.

That ones pretty cool
 
and every photo you take with your phone has geo /time/date stamp on it.

 
Still a non-issue unless you print from work, where they have recorded their serial numbers of all their purchases.  I can go buy a laser printer with cash tomorrow and print whatever.  The serial number in no way links to me in any way.
 
SkateBoard said:
Thought this was interesting. Guy at work heard about this and tried it out. He printed a page with just the word Hi on it. Then he scanned it in high res. Brought it up in Paint Shop Pro and did a flood fill. Low and behold, there was coded dots. When we looked online almost all printer manufacturers have been doing this for years and years. Has your make, model and serial number coded in dots that you can't see.

So, if your thinking of sending a hate letter to someone think twice.

Oh shucks.  Now I need to figure out a different way to write to the IRS.............LOL

Bill
 
SeilerBird said:
It is very easy to strip EXIF data from a photo.
not after it's posted on Facebook,  low end criminals are not the brightest.

and high end criminals are all politicians.... ;D
 
TonyDtorch said:
not after it's posted on Facebook,  low end criminals are not the brightest.

and high end criminals are all politicians.... ;D

Actually, Facebook and other sites have been stripping EXIF data for a very long time (at least since 5 years ago last I checked).  They started recompressing images and stripping out that data when uploaded to save storage space (imagine how many billions of images are on facebook...) and for privacy concerns.  I just tried uploading an image with lots of EXIF data, and when I re-downloaded it from my profile, it was all gone.
 
does Instagram, Pinterest and Utube and all the email servers do that ?

I think McAfee was found that way ?
 
TonyDtorch said:
does Instagram, Pinterest and Utube and all the email servers do that ?

I think McAfee was found that way ?

Yes they all strip the data.  McAfee was found because VICE Magazine published images on their own website which still had the data in the image itself.  The image was taken by their own photographer in secrecy and e-mail to the publisher who just posted it in an article.  Since they store images themselves on their own servers, they probably never thought of that extra data within image files.  I'm willing to bet that they strip the data as it's stored on their servers now.

I've been in the computer security gig for a while, and I've been to the McAfee HQ in Slough (Just outside of London England).  Literally got the t-shirt and everything :p
 
oh...that makes sense. 

the guys over at VICE magazine were probably working in a very smokey office,  and never even thought about it.... 8) 
 
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