When 'Tinfoil Hat Stuff' Stuff Isn't

Wait, there are f@#king dots in my printouts that the government can use to track them?? Are you f@#king kidding me?

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.

And THAT is from the bloody WASHINGTON POST!!! First line!

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.

>whew< criminals. Right. Feel better, 'cuz for a second I thought it was for something more insidious...

The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use color printers.

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.

uh, wait... I'm not so sure about that part. Slippery slope?

"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.

Yes, yes it does doesn't it.

Wanna see the dots in action? Sure you do.