<story><title>List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots</title><url>https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>schoen</author><text>I wrote this article&amp;#x2F;originally created this list, and I would like to emphasize that there is a second generation of this technology that probably uses dithering parameters or something of that sort, and that does not produce visible dots but still creates a tracking code. We don&amp;#x27;t know the details but we do know that some companies told governments that they were going to do this, and that some newer printers from companies that the government agencies said were onboard with forensic marking no longer print yellow dots.&lt;p&gt;That makes me think that it may have been a mistake to create this list in the first place, because the main practical use of the list would be to help people buy color laser printers that don&amp;#x27;t do forensic tracking, yet it&amp;#x27;s not clear that any such printers are actually commercially available.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kefka</author><text>Well, that being said, it sounds like there needs to be a more rigorous way of detecting these new codes.&lt;p&gt;One way I can think of, is to record data on the CMYK pins on the inkjet head itself. IIRC, they activate between 17v and 22v, and pulse per high.&lt;p&gt;The goal here is to make the printer think its printing, while recording all the data of the pulse operations. We would get a lengthy file out.&lt;p&gt;Ideally, the pulse coding should be consistent if printing the same image. &amp;quot;Printing&amp;quot; the same thing over multiple times could show time&amp;#x2F;date codes embedded.&lt;p&gt;I should also be able to compare underlying system internals too, with multiple clones of VMs with small config details different. They should be the same data. If they aren&amp;#x27;t, we know its encoding system stuffs.&lt;p&gt;But yeah, there &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; a way to attack this, and that&amp;#x27;s by going lower in the stack and treating the printers as a black box. It&amp;#x27;s not the best way, but a way I&amp;#x27;ve thought of that could at least detect this new technique.</text></comment>
<story><title>List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots</title><url>https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>schoen</author><text>I wrote this article&amp;#x2F;originally created this list, and I would like to emphasize that there is a second generation of this technology that probably uses dithering parameters or something of that sort, and that does not produce visible dots but still creates a tracking code. We don&amp;#x27;t know the details but we do know that some companies told governments that they were going to do this, and that some newer printers from companies that the government agencies said were onboard with forensic marking no longer print yellow dots.&lt;p&gt;That makes me think that it may have been a mistake to create this list in the first place, because the main practical use of the list would be to help people buy color laser printers that don&amp;#x27;t do forensic tracking, yet it&amp;#x27;s not clear that any such printers are actually commercially available.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RachelF</author><text>What is annoying is that the user pays for this. How much more yellow toner do I need to buy because my print outs are covered in yellow dots?&lt;p&gt;I wonder how many million extra gallons of yellow toner and ink are wasted every year printing these tracker dots?</text></comment>