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DEDA – Tracking Dots Extraction, Decoding and Anonymisation Toolkit

(github.com)
285 points pavel_lishin | 4 comments | 01 Apr 25 21:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.666s | source
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mschuster91 ◴[01 Apr 25 22:00 UTC] No.43551783[source]▶
This gonna be pretty important in the next years... people, if you plan on printing protest flyers and pamphlets, either get them done in a professional print shop (if you know someone you can trust, that is), or at the very least buy the printer in cash, never ever connect it to the Internet, and only connect it via USB to a Linux computer - macOS and Windows both will install printer drivers automatically that might phone back to the mothership and link your printer ID to some sort of identifier.
replies(5): >>43551911 #>>43551974 #>>43552192 #>>43552492 #>>43554869 #
decimalenough ◴[01 Apr 25 22:29 UTC] No.43551974[source]▶
Wouldn't it be way easier to just track the people handing out the flyers?
replies(2): >>43552128 #>>43552256 #
Terr_ ◴[01 Apr 25 22:53 UTC] No.43552128[source]▶
That depends on whether:

1. You're looking for a very specific person.

2. You want to unconstitutionally punish somebody for free speech, and you don't care who, you just want to cheaply find a convenient victim.

In that respect, tracking-dots are an invitation to #2, since they don't really need much in the way of human labor-hours or focus.

replies(1): >>43552497 #
decimalenough ◴[02 Apr 25 00:00 UTC] No.43552497[source]▶
Tracking dots can be used to confirm that a specific printer was used to print a specific page. However, going from only a serial number to finding the name and address of its owner is going to be very difficult to impossible. You might be able to track it down to the retailer, but if you buy your printer in person from a stack at Costco, nobody has any idea which printer has which serial number.
replies(3): >>43552642 #>>43552649 #>>43553737 #
1. mmh0000 ◴[02 Apr 25 00:28 UTC] No.43552649[source]▶
Until you install the windows print driver. Which phones home to the manufacturer with your ip address, other computer details, and the discovered printer’s serial number.
replies(1): >>43554151 #
2. HeatrayEnjoyer ◴[02 Apr 25 06:27 UTC] No.43554151[source]▶
Source?
replies(2): >>43557522 #>>43558005 #
3. mmh0000 ◴[02 Apr 25 15:07 UTC] No.43557522[source]▶
Sure! Here's HP¹. You can look up others on your own:

```

    Product Usage Data – We collect product usage data such as pages printed, print mode, media used, ink or toner brand, file type printed (.pdf, .jpg, etc.), application used for printing (Word, Excel, Adobe Photoshop, etc.), file size, time stamp, and usage and status of other printer supplies. We do not scan or collect the content of any file or information that might be displayed by an application.

    Device Data – We collect information about your computer, printer and/or device such as operating system, firmware, amount of memory, region, language, time zone, model number, first start date, age of device, device manufacture date, browser version, device manufacturer, connection port, warranty status, unique device identifiers, advertising identifiers and additional technical information that varies by product.
```

¹ https://web.archive.org/web/20190828162443/https://www8.hp.c...

4. fsflover ◴[02 Apr 25 15:45 UTC] No.43558005[source]▶
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43557589