Ready for a heavy case of the heebie jeebies, boys and girls? According to this article found on BoingBoing, Seeing Yellow, there is a secret code embedded in your color printer that allows the Feds and the printer manufacturers to track copies back to you.
Why, whether, and how they're using it remains a mystery. The presumption is that it's an anti-counterfeiting measure, but -- assuming the story is true -- the threat to anonymous free speech is clear.
It gets better: If you contact your printer manufacturer about turning off the code, the Secret Service pays you a little visit to see what you have to hide. Your tax dollars at work.
The article calls for everyone to contact our printer manufacturers and demand the removal of the tracking system, on the theory that there aren't enough agents to attack all of us. That has Bad Idea written all over it. Alternatively, if you want to print something private it looks like black and white, dot matrix printers are still safe. As far as we know. Maybe.
1 comment:
Big Brother is watching!
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