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DEDA – Tracking Dots Extraction, Decoding and Anonymisation Toolkit

(github.com)
285 points pavel_lishin | 1 comments | 01 Apr 25 21:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.928s | source
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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?

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

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1. Doxin ◴[02 Apr 25 20:19 UTC] No.43561056[source]▶
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