From: "Antti Kurenniemi" 

I hear of this a few years ago, about the time when color laser printers
started to become available (price-wise). I think it's an ok idea, though a
bit uncomfortable because it makes me wonder where else could stuff like
that be in use that I don't know of...


Antti Kurenniemi
(though if the dots cover the full page, what if you print one bill on one
page and cut it off - would that leave enough "dots" out to make
the bill unidentifiable? Have to try that some day )

"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:41a2d3cb$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> Serial number embedded in color laser printout?
>
>
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&u=/pcworld/118664&printer=1
>
> WASHINGTON--Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer,
> shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a
> magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow
> dots printer there that could be used to trace the document back to you.
>
> According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial
> number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color
> copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including
> the United States, already use the hidden markings to track
> counterfeiters.
>
>
> Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser
> printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre
> Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow
> dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch
> on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.
>
>
> "It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.
>
>
> The dots' minuscule size, covering less than one-thousandth of the page,
> along with their color combination of yellow on white, makes them
> invisible to the naked eye, Crean says. One way to determine if your color
> laser is applying this tracking process is to shine a blue LED light--say,
> from a keychain laser flashlight--on your page and use a magnifier.
>
>

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