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List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots

(www.eff.org)
586 points prawn | 2 comments | 06 Jun 17 22:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.433s | source
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kazinator ◴[06 Jun 17 23:34 UTC] No.14502473[source]▶
Paying cash for the printer should mitigate things. At best they can tell something like that the page was printed by something that passed through a BestBuy warehouse in your town in the first quarter of last year, and that's it.

Buy a printer hundreds of miles away from home while on a road trip, pay cash, and then do whatever you want with it: print yourself a hundred million dollars and enjoy your print-irement. :)

Simply the awareness about the possibility of tracking goes a long way.

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1. whoopdedo ◴[07 Jun 17 01:19 UTC] No.14503003[source]▶
That's all they're going to get anyway. I've never heard of a retail store recording the serial number of all their merchandise, much less associating it with a customer's credit card.

The utility to law enforcement is being able to prove a connection between the evidence and a suspect after they've obtained a warrant. Or in this case, it was a NSA owned printer so they already had the serial number without needing a warrant.

And if you are foolish enough to register with the manufacturer, the NSA already has your serial number without needing a warrant.

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2. fao_ ◴[07 Jun 17 09:50 UTC] No.14504872[source]▶
> I've never heard of a retail store recording the serial number of all their merchandise, much less associating it with a customer's credit card.

Isn't that how the caught Chelsea Manning? Serial numbers from CD-RWs. Also, the store itself doesn't need to associate it with the customer, they just need to know where those CDs were distributed, and the investigators can follow up the transaction details.