mdoneil writes “Color printer manufacturers are encoding the serial number of the printer onto each document you print.
When I worked for an unnamed big blue company they were doing some work on steganography such as (but much more stealthy) than this.
Why do I have to pay for the ink for the government to spy on me. Let them do it on their (well our really) dime.
More on this nonsense in this article“
Why the surprise?
Why did this take anyone by surprise? I saw it coming when anti-virus manufacturers decided to crawl in bed with the government and deny their customers the ability to scan for government grade programmes like Carnivore or Magic Lantern.
I figured this would happen as soon as TV manufacturers bowed to the broadcast flag.
W and his cabinet are hell bent on the destruction of privacy in America. It is clear that their policies embrace the philosophy of “suspect until proven guilty.” But don’t worry, the administration is fair. I’m sure they worked out some kind of tax deal or monetary break for copier and printer manufacturers.
Re:Why the surprise?
This started well before Presdident GW Bush’s term. Perhaps you could go to the Clinton library and ask them.
There is no vast conspiracy, I would have signed on.
Re:Why the surprise?
Why is this surprising? Why is it creepy?
This applies to laser printers not inkjet. There are very simple ways of getting around this if your goal is privacy.
Advanced technology is as much a detriment to society as it is a benefit, this is simply a safeguard to minimize the former.
Re:Why the surprise?
There was a time, not so long ago, when conservatives did not have to ask why the government prying into every single aspect of our private business, without prior probable cause to believe there’s a crime in progress, was creepy, bad, and not to be tolerated in a free society.
Unfortunately, that was in the good old days, when we had real conservatives in America, rather than today’s frustrated Stalinists.
And, yes, some of this did start under Clinton. The Clinton administration was largely indifferent to civil liberties, a matter of some frustration to both real liberals and real conservatives. Sadly, the W. Bush administration is not indifferent to civil liberties; it’s actively hostile to civil liberties.
Re:Why the surprise?
The government isn’t prying its making people responisble for their actions. Are you for guns that can only be used by the people who bought them? Then you should be for this.
And before the nitpickers come out, no, counterfeit docs don’t kill people but they can destroy your life awfully quick.
Re:Why the surprise?
The Soviets thought it was important to keep track of who had typewriters, too, for exactly these “security” reasons. It did not make the Soviet system any more secure, or preserve its life past the active lifetime of the generation that remembered the tsars and WWI.
Police cameras and microphones inside private homes and businesses would prevent a lot of crime, too, or make the culprits remarkably easy to catch, but most Americans, like most citizens of any democracy, would find it objectionable. We don’t exist for the convenience of the government, and preventing crime is not so overwhelming a value that it trumps any and all other values.
Re:Why the surprise?
Soviet typewriters vs handgun recoginition
Yeah, there’s a reason why there isn’t world peace.