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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If you watched 'Law and Order" this would not be a
surprise to you. I has been used in this quasi-fictional setting to find bad
people and since I am not robbing banks and killing people I don't expect to
have a problem. I do remember that some years ago ALF the animal rights
terrorist group let loose some coyotes from WSU and the papers they left were
traced to Kinko's in Pullman. But, I think they got a call about it they did not
trace it. ALF, ELF and other terrorist groups are only a few of the ones they
are hoping to catch. And they have little to do with the middle
east.</FONT></DIV>
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style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=deco@moscow.com href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">Art Deco</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, October 19, 2005 8:41
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] Big Brother</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>From: <A href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/"><FONT
face=helvetica,arial color=#000000
size=-1><B>washingtonpost.com</B></FONT></A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=5>Sleuths Crack Tracking Code Discovered in Color
Printers<BR></FONT></STRONG>
<P><FONT size=-1>By Mike Musgrove<BR>Washington Post Staff
Writer<BR>Wednesday, October 19, 2005; D01<BR></FONT>
<P><NITF>
<P>It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. The pages coming out of
your color printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track
you down if you ever cross the U.S. government.</P>
<P>Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from
many color laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page,
viewable only with a special kind of flashlight. The article quoted a senior
researcher at Xerox Corp. as saying the dots contain information useful to
law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital "license tag" for tracking down
criminals.</P>
<P>The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available
only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use color printers.</P>
<P>Now, the secret is out.</P>
<P>Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer
privacy group, said it had cracked the code used in a widely used line of
Xerox printers, an invisible bar code of sorts that contains the serial number
of the printer as well as the date and time a document was printed.</P>
<P>With the Xerox printers, the information appears as a pattern of yellow
dots, each only a millimeter wide and visible only with a magnifying glass and
a blue light.</P>
<P>The EFF said it has identified similar coding on pages printed from nearly
every major printer manufacturer, including Hewlett-Packard Co., though its
team has so far cracked the codes for only one type of Xerox printer.</P>
<P>The U.S. Secret Service acknowledged yesterday that the markings, which are
not visible to the human eye, are there, but it played down the use for
invading privacy.</P>
<P>"It's strictly a countermeasure to prevent illegal activity specific to
counterfeiting," agency spokesman Eric Zahren said. "It's to protect our
currency and to protect people's hard-earned money."</P>
<P>It's unclear whether the yellow-dot codes have ever been used to make an
arrest. And no one would say how long the codes have been in use. But Seth
Schoen, the EFF technologist who led the organization's research, said he had
seen the coding on documents produced by printers that were at least 10 years
old.</P>
<P>"It seems like someone in the government has managed to have a lot of
influence in printing technology," he said.</P>
<P>Xerox spokesman Bill McKee confirmed the existence of the hidden codes, but
he said the company was simply assisting an agency that asked for help. McKee
said the program was part of a cooperation with government agencies, competing
manufacturers and a "consortium of banks," but would not provide further
details. HP said in a statement that it is involved in anti-counterfeiting
measures and supports the cooperation between the printer industry and those
who are working to reduce counterfeiting.</P>
<P>Schoen said that the existence of the encoded information could be a threat
to people who live in repressive governments or those who have a legitimate
need for privacy. It reminds him, he said, of a program the Soviet Union once
had in place to record sample typewriter printouts in hopes of tracking the
origins of underground, self-published literature.</P>
<P>"It's disturbing that something on this scale, with so many privacy
implications, happened with such a tiny amount of publicity," Schoen said.</P>
<P>And it's not as if the information is encrypted in a highly secure fashion,
Schoen said. The EFF spent months collecting samples from printers around the
world and then handed them off to an intern, who came back with the results in
about a week.</P>
<P>"We were able to break this code very rapidly," Schoen said.</P></NITF><!-- start the copyright for the articles -->
<DIV id=articleCopyright style="CLEAR: both" align=center>İ 2005 The
Washington Post Company</DIV><!-- end the copyright for the aricles --><!-- start the copyright for the secions --><!-- end the copyright for the secions -->
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