On 11/2/21 2:52 am, ropers wrote: > Printer steganography is the kind of chain most people will only > notice once they move and start exercising their rights. If you're > only free because you don't dissent, you're not free.
The thing is… the printer is an electro-*mechanical* device. There's backlash, there's timing glitches. Even *without* deliberate "steganography" (are Stegosauruses involved?), your print-out will have unique flaws in it, that will "fingerprint" your printer as having made it. Maybe because the carriage belt has some backlash (or position sensing is a bit off), the printer "staircases" (a problem that can exist in dot-matrix or inkjet printers). Maybe a hammer or jet is dead leading to a dead "pixel" at regular intervals. Maybe the imaging drum on your laser has an imperfection that means it attracts proportionately more or less toner at a certain spot than other areas of the drum. Maybe the MCU controlling the laser is a bit jittery and so doesn't quite hit the target right every time. These are real-world devices, with real-world tolerances, and real-world imperfections. If someone wants to track you, they will, stenography or not. -- Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL) I haven't lost my mind... ...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.
