Onece upon a time we reported a discovery of mysterious dot markings found on pages printed with color leaser printer.

A European Union commissioner issued an official statement about the legality of printer tracking dot systems last month in response to a query from a member of the European Parliament. The commissioner states that no laws presently address the issue, but notes that it could possibly constitute a violation of the right to privacy guaranteed by the European Union’s Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Privacy advocates have been aware for years that many color printers and photocopiers sold in the United States use patterns of nearly-invisible yellow dots to encode identifying information about the originating printer in every printed page. Although few details are available regarding the ultimate function of the watermark or the manner in which the information is used, it is generally characterized as a means through which law enforcement agencies can identify counterfeiters. There is no way to know, however, whether the government’s use of the watermarks extends beyond that function.

The watermark could easily be used by the government to perform identification without any kind of judicial oversight. Some believe that the information could be potentially be used to identify and harass political dissidents. Critics argue that the system threatens to undermine the practice of anonymous pamphleteering—a time-honored vehicle for political dissent that has been used in America since before the Revolutionary War.

“The Commission is not aware of any specific laws either at national or at Community level governing tracking mechanisms in colour laser printers and photocopiers,” wrote Commissioner Franco Frattini in an official statement. “To the extent that individuals may be identified through material printed or copied using certain equipment, such processing may give rise to the violation of fundamental human rights, namely the right to privacy and private life. It also might violate the right to protection of personal data.”

In the United States, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is leading a campaign to increase awareness of potential abuses associated with the watermarking. The organization hopes to eventually amass enough information about it to be able to challenge the practice in court. If the European Union decides to pursue the matter itself, it could potentially pressure U.S. printer manufacturers into providing more specific details that illuminate the extent to which watermarking threatens individual privacy.

via Ars Technica

Once upon a time, printers were printing devices no different from a typewriter in terms of security. As years lapsed, time printers have become more sophisticated, network-enabled devices with hard drives and even operating systems. Pretty much like personal computer. And people keep on taking printers for what they actually are – devices that produce images and texts.

However, modern printers, especially if incorporated into organization’s computer network, can compromise the network security. Printers became as dangerous as computers – they, too, are vulnerable to hackers attacks from inside and outside, and are good place for viruses and other malware to reside. This is what many security expert say and few printer users realize.

In an afford to addressed this issue, Hewlett Packard announced Secure Print Advantage – a new printing security system. According to the company, Secure Print Advantage is the industry’s first hardware-based security solution to minimize business risk.

“HP Secure Print Advantage automates traditionally manual processes and delivers an industry first: consistent, comprehensive and enforceable security policy for the print infrastructure,” said Chris Whitener, chief strategist, Secure Advantage, HP. “This solution provides the necessary automation and simplification of security tasks, like key management, to reduce the costs and burdens generally associated with them.”

Secure Print Advantage a actually a set of devices that encrypt and decrypt data transferred between the workstation and the printer using government-grade FIPS 140-2 Level 4 encryption, maximum level of security encryption. The system consists of modules installed in the user’s desktop or laptop, Secure Printing Modules and the Secure Document Server.

Module of the user’s workstation encrypts the outgoing data and sends it to the Secure Document Server. The server then scans the document for malware, re-encrypts it and either sends it to a Secure Printing Module or to another user. The Secure Printing Module, in turn, decrypts the information and transfers it to the printer. The printing module can also be equipped with a keypad or card-reader to ensure that only an authorized user prints the document.

The system will be available on the market in February, 2008. HP didn’t announce the price yet, but the system is said to be expensive, thus affordable only to those companies where high level of security is vital.

If you considered yourself a happy owner of a color laser printer, you probably won’t be so happy any longer.

In 2005 Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization supporting customers’ freedoms in the world of electronics, made a discovery that didn’t have much publicity. Every document printed on most color laser printers includes a set of yellow dots used to identify the printer. These dots are invisible to naked eye, but can be clearly seen under microscope or intense blue light.

The dots make up a pattern unique to each printer, so it’s possible to identify the serial number, make and model of printer. Given that most of color laser printers sell directly from the manufacturer or through well-documented service providers, it becomes easy to track the owner of printer. So, everything you print can, and pretty much will, be used against you.

Why on earth, something like this would happen? One of the reasons why might be an agreement of US government and most printer manufacturers to help track down currency counterfeiters. Technological advancement of printing and photocopying devices made it easier to forge money, and with the yellow marks the counterfeit can be tracked back to its origin.

On the other hand, the same technique may be used to track any other printed materials, including those you considered personal. No law requires printer manufacturers to use that kind of embedded markings. No law prevents government services from tracking and collecting the information using these markings.

However, there is something you can do about this. Remember that color laser printers don’t make hidden dots, if printing in black-and-white mode. Monochrome laser printer, as well as inkjet and dot-matrix printers are also dots-free. The Electronic Frontier Foundation maintains and regularly updates a list of printers that do and don’t have the tracking dots. Just check it out to see if your printer is spying on you or not.