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586 points prawn | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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schoen ◴[] No.14502425[source]
I wrote this article/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'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.

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't do forensic tracking, yet it's not clear that any such printers are actually commercially available.

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1. lazyjones ◴[] No.14505064[source]
Isn't this mostly a driver issue, i.e. something that could change for any model at any time should the vendor decide to add tracking to a driver update?
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2. helb ◴[] No.14505081[source]
I'm afraid it's probably built into the printer firmware, not drivers in OS.
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3. lazyjones ◴[] No.14505546[source]
Driver updates can usually modify the firmware in modern devices. I don't see a real dichotomy here...