Author Topic: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!  (Read 58599 times)

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Offline BradC

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #75 on: December 01, 2015, 09:12:17 am »
I always buy my lasers second hand and with cash (not for paranoia reasons, but it just works out that way).

Additionally HP printers get the time and date from embedded info sent through the HP printer drivers. Print to them using a generic PCL or Postscript driver and they don't know either. This also works for late model HP inkjets that have expiry dates built into the cartridge. Run them from a printer server or a linux box with a generic driver and your carts never expire. Just don't print to it using a Windows machine using a HP driver.
 

Offline timb

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #76 on: December 01, 2015, 09:49:08 am »

And the problem is what exactly ?
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
if you do : you deserve all that can be thrown at you.

simple. no ?

Because it degrades the print quality for one. Besides, nobody uses a *laser* printer to counterfeit money. A high quality photo inkjet printer, perhaps, but laser? Come on.

Tell you what, next time you design a PCB, send me the files first and let me add random traces to the inner layers. You won't be able to see them on the produced board, so what do you care?

If I print something, I want exactly what I printed. Nothing more. Nothing less. This isn't hard to grasp.


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Online tszaboo

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #77 on: December 01, 2015, 09:56:08 am »
You can't get a mobile SIM card in this country without photo ID.
Last time I was at some airport, they were giving away free some low international call cost sim cards, pre-loaded with money. You just had to ask for it.

 

Offline Fungus

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #78 on: December 01, 2015, 10:14:26 am »
You can't get a mobile SIM card in this country without photo ID.
Last time I was at some airport, they were giving away free some low international call cost sim cards, pre-loaded with money. You just had to ask for it.
You can easily buy prepaid SIM cards on the internet, so... just use those to plan your next heist.
 

Online tszaboo

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #79 on: December 01, 2015, 10:25:49 am »
You can't get a mobile SIM card in this country without photo ID.
Last time I was at some airport, they were giving away free some low international call cost sim cards, pre-loaded with money. You just had to ask for it.
You can easily buy prepaid SIM cards on the internet, so... just use those to plan your next heist.
Yes, I also need a laser printer with fake yellow dots, a tinfoil hat, a pogostick, clown shoes, a sonic screwdriver and a better plan.
Aldi sells sim cards...
 

Offline max666

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #80 on: December 01, 2015, 12:45:28 pm »
And the problem is what exactly ?
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
if you do : you deserve all that can be thrown at you.

simple. no ?

 

Offline GandalfDerGraue

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #81 on: December 01, 2015, 01:18:41 pm »
The problem is exactly: What ever I do print on my printer, it may very well be OK to print banknotes as an sample object, or what ever. As long as I would not bring it "out into the wild" it would never be an issue nor would it be illegal. At least in Germany you could print as much money as you want. It is the will to use it as fake money that counts. That's what you can read here (sorry, exists just in german language http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__146.html

And there were rumours for ages that at least some, if not any printers for example from HP will send events (to the manufacturer?) for exchange toner being inserted and similar. Shame on me I did not check that when I changed my last toner then, must have been in 2005 or something like that. ;-)
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 01:21:47 pm by GandalfDerGraue »
 

Offline Augustus

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #82 on: December 01, 2015, 01:37:16 pm »
And there isn't any legal requirement here to implement these spy dots on laserprinters, yet the manufacturers get away bugging us with them anyway  :--
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 01:43:12 pm by Augustus »
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Offline AF6LJ

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #83 on: December 01, 2015, 02:19:28 pm »
Law enforcement can track a person in several ways already mentioned here (credit cards, cameras, etc.). Regarding cell phones, there is no need for a fancy schmancy GPS turned on (that could easily be "turned off" by means of an actual tinfoil hat over it) - cellphone towers track a device's unique ID.

You can't get a mobile SIM card in this country without photo ID.

Holy Crap, and I thought it was bad here in the US.
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Offline AF6LJ

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #84 on: December 01, 2015, 02:24:53 pm »
And the problem is what exactly ?
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
if you do : you deserve all that can be thrown at you.

simple. no ?

Sorry that doesn't wash on any level.
For one thing you cannot get the paper most currencies are printed on.
For another regarding artwork and printers, even someone as blind as I am can see the difference with a magnifying loop. Even if it is copy of a print.

Sue AF6LJ
 

Offline madires

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #85 on: December 01, 2015, 02:45:57 pm »
Simple solution: hack the serial number.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #86 on: December 01, 2015, 03:41:24 pm »
And the problem is what exactly ?
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
if you do : you deserve all that can be thrown at you.

simple. no ?
As always, it comes down to: quis custodet ipsos custodies? Barely a month goes by without me reading about some failure in that regard.
true, but i think nobody cares if i print a datasheet of a 2n2222 on my printer...
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Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #87 on: December 01, 2015, 03:44:16 pm »
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
No it isn't. Counterfeiters don't use laser printers, you cannot print credible counterfeits with that technology. Every people handling money on a daily basis will immediately see the difference.
huh. some dude got away with fake 25 dollar bills ... he even got change back when paying with em. and they couldn't sue him , since there is no 25 dollar bill it is not counterfeit. Stupidity has no boundaries..
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Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #88 on: December 01, 2015, 03:49:52 pm »
And the problem is what exactly ?
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
if you do : you deserve all that can be thrown at you.

simple. no ?


how about : i don't want to say anything. i am not interested in saying anything. I look at this world we live in and every day i think : i need to win the lottery , buy an island in the south pacific , become a dictator and mandate daily beach parties and sunset barbeques. Screw the rest of the so called 'civilisation'. We're no further than a bunch of baboons throwing sticks at each other , still believing in imaginary superbeings and going to war over some ideology. Worse : the god of abraham ( jews/ christianity ) and mohammed ( islam) is the SAME 'being'. And theses factions call each other 'unbelievers' .. how stupid is that. you all believe in the same thing and you still whack each others heads in ...

if all those who believe their religion is worth killing for would start with themselves... the world would be far better off.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 03:54:13 pm by free_electron »
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Offline madires

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #89 on: December 01, 2015, 04:01:57 pm »
As always, it comes down to: quis custodet ipsos custodies? Barely a month goes by without me reading about some failure in that regard.
true, but i think nobody cares if i print a datasheet of a 2n2222 on my printer...

Have you heard of those FBI lists on how to identify a possible bad guy? A foreigner with interest in electronics is very suspicious ;) That's what the three letter agencies are trying to accomplish with the mass data collection, i.e. get a list of people to watch.

The yellow dots don't make any sense any more with modern paper notes. All those special features can't be printed by any standard color printer. And any bad guy can do research about security and identification features in printing and avoid the "wrong" printers. The yellow dots are old and a lot of printer drivers for office class printers support custom watermarking. We catch only the stupid bad guys that way.
 

Offline dr.diesel

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #90 on: December 01, 2015, 04:04:58 pm »
if all those who believe their religion is worth killing for would start with themselves... the world would be far better off.

Can we generalize this to righteous assholes of any belief or opinion?

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #91 on: December 01, 2015, 04:14:15 pm »
if all those who believe their religion is worth killing for would start with themselves... the world would be far better off.

Can we generalize this to righteous assholes of any belief or opinion?

Well said.

I do resent the yellow dots, if for no other reason than that the cost of the ink is a tax on everyone to try to stop a few jerks who try to game the system.  I suspect that the total system cost has gone up, that we would be better off accepting the cost of the counterfeits.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #92 on: December 01, 2015, 04:30:18 pm »
if all those who believe their religion is worth killing for would start with themselves... the world would be far better off.

Can we generalize this to righteous assholes of any belief or opinion?
then no humans would remain. maybe the planet would be better off.
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Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #93 on: December 01, 2015, 04:54:37 pm »
Her in SA we need to have a valid identity and proof of residence to buy a SIM card.

Or go to the guy in the street and pay a little more to get one already registered. There must be some people with 20 000 registered SIM cards in their name, along with a few bank accounts and some loans as well,  That is why I check my credit score all the time, looking for those additional checks to find out your details to do this.

Sad thing is that the government has a portal where you can check out if some corrupt horror affairs official has "married" you to somebody so they can get a SA passport. No wonder you need a Visa to visit pretty much any country in the world, even fellow Commonwealth members which nominally are visa free.

http://www.dha.gov.za/status/Status.html

Now they want you to send a SMS so as to make this a profit generation centre....................
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #94 on: December 01, 2015, 05:12:46 pm »

huh. some dude got away with fake 25 dollar bills ... he even got change back when paying with em. and they couldn't sue him , since there is no 25 dollar bill it is not counterfeit. Stupidity has no boundaries..
Well, if we want to see how stupid it will be in 500 years, watch the movie
"idiocracy"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
But then .... it will probably NOT take 500 years to stupidity take over the human race.
We are partially there already.

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Offline timb

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #95 on: December 01, 2015, 08:59:00 pm »

And the problem is what exactly ?
This is a measure to block counterfeiting. So if you don't print money, clones of valuable art pieces or IS pamphlets : no problemo.
if you do : you deserve all that can be thrown at you.

simple. no ?


how about : i don't want to say anything. i am not interested in saying anything. I look at this world we live in and every day i think : i need to win the lottery , buy an island in the south pacific , become a dictator and mandate daily beach parties and sunset barbeques. Screw the rest of the so called 'civilisation'. We're no further than a bunch of baboons throwing sticks at each other , still believing in imaginary superbeings and going to war over some ideology. Worse : the god of abraham ( jews/ christianity ) and mohammed ( islam) is the SAME 'being'. And theses factions call each other 'unbelievers' .. how stupid is that. you all believe in the same thing and you still whack each others heads in ...

if all those who believe their religion is worth killing for would start with themselves... the world would be far better off.

For someone so not interested in saying anything, you sure said a lot!

Wasn't your Amp Hour episode one of the longest?

You have very strong opinions (nothing wrong with that) and post all over this forum.

That little thing called freedom of speech allows you to do that. Yellow Dots might not affect *you* because the Internet is your outlet of expression. But it does affect those who print flyers, newsletters or otherwise use printed media to get their message out.

If you support one method of free speech, you have to support all methods.

Plus, it means you have to pay more for toner. Did I mention it degrades print quality too? Because it does.




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Offline VinzC

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #96 on: December 01, 2015, 09:47:08 pm »
I find it pretty selfish in debates over freedom of expression, rights, whatever when someone comes claiming he doesn't care for it. One person not interested in freedom of expression doesn't make it for the whole planet, on which everyone else still has to voice her/his point. As if it were enough to ask one fool in the place of billions of others... That always bugged me.

If you don't care because you've got nothing to hide or say, amen to that. But it only counts for you and you're not necessarily an example to follow.
 

Offline Barny

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #97 on: December 02, 2015, 09:26:34 am »
wow. 120k views  :o
 

Offline miguelvp

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #98 on: December 02, 2015, 09:35:55 am »
wow. 120k views  :o

Probably Reynolds has a marketing campaign pointing to this video ;)

No doubt conspiracy theories facts sell!

We need a tinfoil emoticon btw
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: EEVblog #825 - Your Printer Is Spying On You!
« Reply #99 on: December 02, 2015, 10:15:19 am »
wow. 120k views  :o
For something that has been known for so many years, it is a surprise that this video gets so much attention.
 
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