Investigating Machine Identification Code Technology in Color Laser Printers http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/wp.php#testsheets
Introduction On Nov. 22, 2004, PC World published an online article stating that "several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters." (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118664,00.asp). According to the article, the high fidelity of outputs from color machines to their original documents suggests that counterfeiters can potentially succeed in creating high-quality counterfeited currency and government documents using these machines. At the request of the United States Secret Service, manufacturers developed mechanisms that print in an encoded form the serial number and the manufacturer's name as indiscernible markings on color documents. The Secret Service and manufacturers would be able to decode these values from the markings and in the event a color machine was used to print a suspected counterfeited document, these values would be used with customer information to discover the identity of the machine's owner. The U.S. government is not the only national government using the marking technology to deter counterfeiting activities. An Oct. 26, 2004, PC World article entitled "Dutch Track Counterfeits Via Printer Serial Numbers" explained that Dutch railway law enforcement officials were employing this same technology to investigate a large-scale railway ticket counterfeiting operation. According to the article, since information about a user is not encoded into the arrangement of markings, law enforcement agencies work with manufacturers to obtain the identities of the persons to whom the printers were sold. In a typical scenario, when distributors sell printers, they obtain information about the purchaser, which is maintained in a database. The purchaser's identity is then associated with the serial number and the manufacturer's name of the machine. A document whose author a governmental agency wants to discover contains only the serial number and the manufacturer's name of the machine on which it was printed, so upon extracting this information from a document, it must consult the distributor responsible for selling the machine. The distributor performs a database query to match the serial number with a purchaser; manufacturers can also do searches if they have access to the database. <snip> Conclusions Our project's work confirms that one form of marking technology is being used in color laser printers. There could certainly be other forms of marking involved. Consumers can easily test whether printers are printing yellow tracking dots on their documents by flashing a blue LED light onto the white parts of their document. If numerous black dots appear (yellow becomes black under a blue LED light) with a semblance of structure, it is likely that the document contains tracking dots. What You Can Do to Help EFF We always appreciate the help of our members and supporters. You can help us make further progress with this project. Ask manufacturers of color laser printers and color photocopiers to disclose information on this technology and to explain why it is not publicized or brought to the consumer's attention at the point of sale. You can also help us through a more hands-on approach. If you own, operate, or have legitimate access to color laser printers or color photocopiers, please print the eight test sheets provided below on each of the machines to which you have access and send them to EFF (see address below). If there are printing stores near where you live or work, please print the eight test sheets there and send them to us. Please also print a configuration page, which will tell us information about the printer. If you cannot obtain a configuration page, please obtain the name of the manufacturer, the model type, and, if you can, the serial number. Unfortunately, EFF cannot reimburse costs incurred in printing these documents. In the event that all eight test sheets cannot be printed, please try to print as many as you can. Please print or request printing of these test sheets on normal laser printer paper and in consecutive order based on their filenames' numbering. If you plan to send us more than one machine's test sheets, please keep them separated (preferably in folders) to prevent data mixing. Send test sheets to: Electronic Frontier Foundation Machine Identification Code Technology Project 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110-1914 U.S.A. You are a subscribed member of the infowarrior list. Visit www.infowarrior.org for list information or to unsubscribe. This message may be redistributed freely in its entirety. Any and all copyrights appearing in list messages are maintained by their respective owners.
