NSA whistleblower Reality Winner may have been caught thanks to a hidden pattern of dots that color printers bury in every page they print, as an assistance to law enforcement agencies.
The existence of these dots was long-rumored, but it wasn't until 2005, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation broke the code on a Xerox printer's output, that the scope, method and capabilities of this technique came to light.
The Washington Post tells the exciting story of that technological forensic work, which still ripples through today.
Then, in October 2005, about a year after PC World’s story, a research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation cracked the code for one printer, the Xerox DocuColor. A technologist from the advocacy group, along with an intern and two volunteers, compared the dots on a series of test printouts submitted by supporters. They quickly deduced how to read the pattern.
As expected, the dots indicated the datge and time a page was printed, as well as the printer’s serial number. The foundation then installed a decoder program on its website that the public could use, and started publishing running lists of printers that did or did not display the dots.
The Internet Archive, the Digital Public Library of America and Muckrock have released a version of the Mueller Report as an Epub with 747 live footnotes, fully compliant with both Web and EPUB accessibility requirements.
I'm headed back to San Diego for Comic-Con this weekend, and you can catch me on Saturday and Sunday: Saturday, 5PM: Panel: Writing: Craft, Community, and Crossover (with James Killen, Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, and Sarah Gailey), Room 23ABC Sunday, 10AM: Signing and giveaway for Radicalized, Tor Booth, #2701. I hope to […]
Kevin Kelly and I interviewed Boing Boing’s Rob Beschizza for the Cool Tools podcast. Rob is a fascinating person, as you probably already know from the thousands of posts he’s written here. He is an excellent artist, designer, coder, and writer, and has a delightful sense of humor. Rob is also the founder of Txt.fyi, […]
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