http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801663.html
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.
“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.”
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.
“It seems like someone in the government has managed to have a lot of influence in printing technology,” he said.
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.
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.
“It’s disturbing that something on this scale, with so many privacy implications, happened with such a tiny amount of publicity,” Schoen said.
I’m not having much luck finding when this was first noticed, but laser printers laying out a unique set of yellow dots is old news, actually.
From what I can dig up so far, laser printers and copiers have been doing this for 10 years, since the indroduction of the Canon CLC-700 color copier.
Old news actually.
Xerox developed the technology about 20 years ago. It’s just taken until now for color lasers to become popular mass-market items, and for someone to reverse-engineer the coding.
Cite
Also being discussed in GQ.