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Even paper glows (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by renzev@lemmy.world to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[-] intrepid@lemmy.ca 223 points 7 months ago

Printers are the text book examples of why device manufacturing shouldn't be left to big companies. You have tracking dots, spyware infestation, subscription for ink/toners, reporting of the cartridge as empty when you still have much left in it, refusal to print when unused color cartridges are empty, intentional bricking if 3rd party cartridges or ink is used, and utterly crappy firmware in general.

Inkjets require precision manufacturing. But assembling it or other types from components should be possible - like how desktops, mechanical keyboards, etc can be. We really need to ditch filthy mass market printers because DIY printers will be much better than anything they offer.

[-] Rinox@feddit.it 63 points 7 months ago

I'm pretty sure this measure was requested either by the government or some big three letter agency.

I doubt that, if all printers were manufactured by a government monopoly, you wouldn't have this shit baked in. It would probably be way worse

[-] intrepid@lemmy.ca 39 points 7 months ago

I'm not at all asking for a government monopoly on making printers, if that wasn't clear.

[-] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 50 points 7 months ago
[-] Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 18 points 7 months ago

Use the 3D printer to make the 2D printer. Finally, we are moving in the right direction.

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[-] franklin@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Honestly, yes. I love open source hardware

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[-] Quexotic@infosec.pub 20 points 7 months ago

It was requested by the secret service as a countermeasure for counterfitting. More frequently it's been used to "catch other criminals", at least that's what they say.

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[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 215 points 7 months ago

It's how Reality Winner got real fucked.

via Wikiedpia:

Both journalists and security experts have suggested that The Intercept's handling of the reporting, which included publishing the documents unredacted and including the printer tracking dots, was used to identify Winner as the leaker. In October 2020, The Intercept's co-founding editor Glenn Greenwald wrote that Winner had sent her documents to The Intercept's New York newsroom with no request that any specific journalist work on them. He called her exposure a "deeply embarrassing newsroom failure" resulting from "speed and recklessness" for which he was publicly blamed "despite having no role in it." He said editor-in-chief Betsy Reed "oversaw, edited and controlled that story." An internal review conducted by The Intercept into its handling of the document provided by Winner found that its "practices fell short of the standards to which we hold ourselves".

[-] renzev@lemmy.world 262 points 7 months ago

A technology that was made To Stop Criminals™ being used against a political whistleblower? Color me surprised! (thanks for sharing the link btw, didn't know about that)

[-] null@slrpnk.net 152 points 7 months ago

Color me surprised!

I can't, I'm out of yellow.

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[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 48 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You're very welcome. It's good to be able to show real-world examples so people are less skeptical. A lot of people won't read a deep technical document describing printer surveillance, but they will read a paragraph excerpt from Wikipedia.

[-] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 30 points 7 months ago

And they will argue that whistleblowing is actually a crime, because, uhm, it's, uhm, yeah it's illegal! And if it's illegal to be a good citizen, then this is totally warranted and no scandal at all, because only bad people do illegal things!

Many people are willing to sacrifice a lot of people for the tiny chance of maybe stopping a criminal once.

[-] renzev@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Actual opinion some people hold: "We need to make end-to-end encryption illegal to stop criminals"

How on earth is that meant to work? Criminals are criminals. They don't care whether or not it's illegal. At this point, just declare all crime illegal and call it a day. At least that won't be a huge infringement on honest people's privacy and security.

[-] Azzu@lemm.ee 17 points 7 months ago

Wait. Crime is not illegal? No wonder all those criminals are doing it.

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[-] ElCanut@jlai.lu 40 points 7 months ago

To be fair Reality Winner sent her emails to the intercept from her government account, so she was fucked anyway and it was just a matter of time

[-] Artyom@lemm.ee 29 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Interesting. I remember reading a news article before 2017 stating that printers used to do this, but the practice has since ended because someone was able to prove they were doing it in the mid-2000s. At the time, I saw some people on Reddit claiming they just switched to a new, harder to detect method, and everyone was saying they were conspiracy theorists.

[-] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

On wikipedia there's some suggestion that methods that involve intensity of toner/ink across a document could be used to uniquely identify a machine but no such methods are currently publicly known (at least as far as the Wikipedia article has been updated)

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[-] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 163 points 7 months ago

Wikipedia has a good article on it, including photos of what the marks look like. They're practically invisible to the naked eye, getting them to show up usually requires additional steps like taking high quality scans and running them through some color filters, or using a UV light.

From the EFF coverage of it, it sounds like every laser printer probably prints these marks now. I'm not sure if inkjets or other printer types do or not.

[-] intrepid@lemmy.ca 26 points 7 months ago

They probably started with the inkjets. More so, considering that inkjets have turned into a money grabbing scam. You're better off with a laser printer if you need only B&W.

[-] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 15 points 7 months ago

Those probably have their own way of tracking

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[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

From the wiki they mention researchers created a tool to check the identification code yourself, or to anonymize documents you're printing: https://github.com/dfd-tud/deda

Clearly a pain in the ass and not user friendly for the general public though.

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[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 142 points 7 months ago

If you're going to do illegal shit, or shit against the owner class, don't use modern technology to do it.

[-] Orbituary@lemmy.world 64 points 7 months ago
[-] UnityDevice@startrek.website 40 points 7 months ago

Then they'll just identify you by the sound of the printer being audible from down the street.

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[-] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 21 points 7 months ago

Typewriter and serial-killer bashed together article clippings are based anti-establishment.

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[-] joel_feila@lemmy.world 114 points 7 months ago

Dear conspiracy theorists

Sorry i called you crack pots. Please pass the foil

[-] renzev@lemmy.world 109 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I find that a large number of conspiracy theories are asking the right questions, just not providing the right answers. Does big tech want to control our minds with 5G towers and microchips hidden in covid vaccines? Probably not. Does big tech want to control our minds with social media and invasive advertising? Absolutely. Is the world controlled by a secret society of lizard people? Probably not. Is the world controlled by a not-so-secret society of billionaires and politicians? To a large extent. Even those awful racist or bigoted conspiracy theories start to sound somewhat ~~palpable~~ palatable if you filter out the racist or bigoted part. Do Jews make life for the rest of us miserable by controlling the economy? No. But replace "Jews" with "the owning class", and suddenly it kind of makes sense.

EDIT: Is the government putting chemicals in the water that turn frogs gay? No. Are corporations putting chemicals in water bottles that turn frogs into hermaphrodites? Literally yes

EDIT PART TWO - ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: Palatable, not palpable. Words are hard.

[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 22 points 7 months ago

As someone who has worked in IT communications, nobody deploying 5G is doing anything differently than for 4G/LTE/3G/2G or even coax/DSL/fiber/whatever. The only functional difference is that it's faster. It may operate with newer tech, faster chips, different frequency bands, different modulation techniques, etc.... But at the end of the day, it's just a means to get data from here to there. Nothing more.

Also, the government (or "the man" or "them" or whatever), already have an almost universal method to track every living person in the country. You willingly carry this tracker with you at all times; to work, to the park, to friends and family locations, etc..... If you haven't guessed yet, it's a cellphone.

A big part of increasing the network speed on commercial wireless networks (cellular provider networks) is reducing cell size, aka, the amount of space each radio covers, and just increasing the number of cells (radios) serving an area. They know exactly which cell(s) your phone is connected to, where those cells are, which direction the antennas are facing and how far you are away from it (by signal strength, or rssi). This can be triangulated with other antennas that can "hear" the same signal, and all of their metrics (location, direction, distance), and that information can be quickly collected and cross referenced into a very accurate location.

This can be done without any software on your device, and very likely without having a valid service plan. As long as you're in range and the cellular radio is on, "they" already know where you are. And you carry your phone with the radio online at all times, willingly. Pretty much once you get to have your own phone as a teenager, they know where you are and "they" have been able to track you since.

Having apps like Facebook and whatever that get your location information from the network and the app relays it to Facebook (or whatever corporate entity), is the equivalent for the corporate overlords. You just need to invite them in by having the application installed, and it can report that data to them.

Most do this entirely willingly and could not give any fewer shits about it.

This is not speculation, this is part of the technical capabilities of the systems. Whether or not the government or any legal entity is using the information for this purpose is up for debate, but the fact that it can be done isn't in question. There are entire companies dedicated to building solutions which correlate connection data to geolocate connected devices with a high degree of accuracy.

A nontrivial part of the reason these systems exist is for e911, which can relay GPS information to emergency services. A system which does not work very well for most counties because their 911 systems are too old and underfunded. If it works correctly, your precise location and altitude (to determine if you're on the ground floor or not), can be accessed by emergency services in the event that it is required. Usually those features are only accessible or activated if you actually dial 911 (or your country's equivalent emergency number), but they're built out and exist regardless of if you need/use it. This was made a requirement by the government since your physical address bound to the number you are calling from, is not necessarily where you are when you make the call. In the olden days of landlines, every phone number would come up with the service address when you called 911. Since the service address was the only location you could use that line from, that worked. Now that we're almost entirely mobile, it's not useful anymore, so this system was devised. Then the government promptly denied sufficient funding to 911 systems to implement their end of the system, while mandating that carriers set it up.

It's stupid. But I digress.

The fact is, you are being tracked. It's being done for your own good (re: emergency services), but it's very easily abused by those who can access it. People like government agencies.

Whether they're abusing it or not, that's a question you'll have to figure out for yourself.

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[-] drathvedro@lemm.ee 14 points 7 months ago

Does big tech want to control our minds with 5G towers and microchips hidden in covid vaccines

Oh they would like that though, it's just not techically feasible.

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[-] arc@lemm.ee 60 points 7 months ago

The EFF has some info about the practice - https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots.

I imagine there are ways and means of obfuscating / anonymizing the dots such as blocking the printer from emitting them (e.g. an empty yellow cartridge that the printer perceives as full), modifying the firmware, using a burner printer, or using a mono laser jet.

As a side issue, most modern bank notes have a bunch of yellow circles integrated into the design on each side. They look random but they're in a recognisable pattern called a constellation that enables devices like copiers / scanners to recognize when people are trying to copy money or other financial instruments like checks.

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[-] Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 46 points 7 months ago

Get a 3D printer, attach a pen to the extruder and use it as a plotter.

[-] Colonel_Panic_@lemm.ee 40 points 7 months ago

Soon: All ballpoint pens have a microscopic tracking code embossed into the ball like a stamp.

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[-] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 45 points 7 months ago

All of this just makes me want an open source printer. Anyone know of a color laser printer which uses open source firmware?

[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 28 points 7 months ago

This is part of the reason I still have an HP 4050DTN and an HP 5000DTN. Plain B&W, but absolutely bulletproof and lacking all tracking, subscription, or DRM bullshit.

Hell, I can still get overstuffed cartridges that can do 20,000 prints at 5% coverage. I’m on my third one in two decades and two degrees with my 4050.

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[-] thorbot@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

How does Mario read that if it’s on the back of the paper? Meme debunked.

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[-] Buttons@programming.dev 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's weird that when it comes to security companies are like "we got too many important things to be doing, like adding this quarters new shiny feature, we don't have time to encrypt user data".

You would think that when it comes to adding obscure tracking codes companies would be like "we don't care what people print, it's not our problem, we aren't going to bother with tracking watermarks". But, no, every company has tracking watermarks while cutting every other corner possible.

I mean, half the companies out there are barely able to get their software to work, meanwhile printer companies have this robust watermark system that never fails. I don't understand these priorities.

Where's my tinfoil hat?

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[-] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago
[-] outer_spec@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 7 months ago

Why, what are you doing, carving your documents into a clay tablet with a reed?

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[-] Vladkar@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

I recently had to fax a document to the government, which meant I had to print the thing, then pay $12 at OfficeMax to send it. Absolute bedlam.

[-] cm0002@lemmy.world 16 points 7 months ago

From time to time I have to sign a form that specifically says "Print and sign, no digital signatures"

I use Adobes "draw a signature" feature to do my squibble, then place it on the signature line taking at least a little care to make it look handwritten (So like a portion of my signature is dipping below the line etc.). Finally I print to PDF (Even if it is already PDF) and email that or use one of those fax apps if fax is absolutely required.

I haven't had any such forms rejected (Well, at least not for "improper signature" or whatever) and I've been doing it on forms for well over a decade now lmao

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[-] LittleBorat2@lemmy.ml 18 points 7 months ago

I am always pissed off when someone sends me a document to print, sign, scan and send back. You are still missing your stupid fax machine, don't you?

I have no printer because it's not worth the upkeep, so I have to walk down the street to a copy shop and print, sign, scan and send back my personal data there.

Thank you, fax machine person.

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this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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