DEDA – Tracking Dots Extraction, Decoding and Anonymisation Toolkit

1. banku_brougham ◴[01 Apr 25 22:06 UTC] No.43551826[source]▶

Do black and white laser printers produce tracking dots?

Also, what is the meaning of this tracking, must every corner of our lives be tracked just on principle?

replies(5): >>43551864 #>>43552257 #>>43552389 #>>43555344 #>>43557412 #

2. doctoboggan ◴[01 Apr 25 22:11 UTC] No.43551864[source]▶

It's my understanding that the secret service requested (required?) that the printer manufacturers start adding the dots once the printers got good enough to easily recreate paper bills. Because they are primarily a tool for tracking counterfeiters, they are not needed with black a white printers and thus are not included.

replies(2): >>43552442 #>>43553249 #

3. jandrese ◴[01 Apr 25 23:08 UTC] No.43552257[source]▶

>>43551826 (TP) #

I think the idea is that nobody is going to be fooled by a B&W $20 bill, so they don't have to print the dots.

replies(2): >>43552373 #>>43552454 #

4. dylan604 ◴[01 Apr 25 23:29 UTC] No.43552373[source]▶

>>43552257 #

"money be green, fool!" --D'Angelo Barksdale, The Wire

the only people to be fooled by B&W money are most likely drug related, at least, the only ones willing to attempt to fool others with it.

5. rustcleaner ◴[01 Apr 25 23:33 UTC] No.43552389[source]▶

>>43551826 (TP) #

I can't affirm knowledge of steganographic identifiers in B&W printers. I wanted to state I would be surprised if B&W printers did not embed tracking information. There's too much national security value in spamming origination details on everything. There is always, always a safety or security argument to do so, followed with "but what's the harm, you're not doing anything you shouldn't be doing... are you? "

6. krupan ◴[01 Apr 25 23:46 UTC] No.43552442[source]▶

>>43551864 #

The tracking dots aren't for anti-counterfeiting. The secret service has a separate chunk of code in every color printer that detects if you are printing money and prints out a page that says essentially, "you can't do that." (at least that was the case 20 years ago when I worked for HP).

The tracking dots are used by the FBI if someone prints out classified information and passes it around, or other copyrighted/illegal documents.

replies(1): >>43561056 #

7. crtasm ◴[01 Apr 25 23:49 UTC] No.43552454[source]▶

>>43552257 #

Until you colour it in with a crayon.

8. theGeatZhopa ◴[02 Apr 25 02:46 UTC] No.43553249[source]▶

>>43551864 #

mostly, the software in printers/scanners and Adobe's Photoshop alikes is looking out for the "EURion" pattern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

That is not to be confused with (dynamical) and non-visible tracking info on printed sheets, which in fact can have everything coded in. By that, even 1-bit printouts can be identified up to the source. If the printer model and #salt is printed alongside, the prosecution has evidence for the cases the printer involved.

9. tonyedgecombe ◴[02 Apr 25 10:35 UTC] No.43555344[source]▶

>>43551826 (TP) #

No yellow dots on monochrome printers.

Decades ago I worked on some software that would adjust the kerning on characters to hide information. As far as I know the project never went anywhere.

10. axus ◴[02 Apr 25 14:57 UTC] No.43557412[source]▶

>>43551826 (TP) #

https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-d...

List hasn't been updated since 2017, was probably one guy making inferences from FOIA requests. We'll have to wait until the next time a Chinese university publishes some US government secrets.

11. Doxin ◴[02 Apr 25 20:19 UTC] No.43561056{3}[source]▶

>>43552442 #

The EURion constellation[0] is how that detection mostly works as I understand it. Neat bit of tech. It's real obvious on euro bills once you know what to look for. Fun fact: not all printers give a hoot about this pattern, so it's a neat trick to annoy people with if your printer doesn't.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation