Your Printer May Be Spying On You

Yes, I know, that sounds very far fetched – but not really.

For almost ten years it has been proven true that some laser printers do in fact print things on paper not seen by the human eye. They show up as yellow dots and are in code, so even when seen, you don’t know what they say.

Should you freak out about this? It depends how you print.

For home users this is not too big of a deal, because even if you have a printer that outputs secret code like this, it won’t do any damage to you personally or fiscally.

However there are other instances where you really have to watch yourself. It basically involves anything to do with the government where you’re trying to stay anonymous.

Here are two examples:

Government contracted offices

If you work in a government contracted office, and are printing anything that could get you in trouble with The Powers That Be, such as being a whistleblower, organizing a union or anything of the sort where management would go nuts if they found out you were doing it, don’t use the office printer.

An example of a government contracted office that would have the ability to scan the secret machine code and interpret it is one contracted by the Department of Defense.

Then again, if you work for a DoD contracted office, you already know not to print out anything that would, say, get you fired.

Anonymous letters to the mayor, governor, state representative, etc.

Periodically people will send anonymous letters to the government. This is not done with any intent to threaten or harm, but rather just to voice concerns without revealing identity. For as long as there has been government, people have done this, simply addressing themselves a "A Concerned Citizen".

Here’s the problem: If you send an anonymous letter one week, but then send another letter with your personal information the next week, the secret machine code will match up between the documents, and you just lost your anonymity.

If you’re going to send anonymous letters as A Concerned Citizen to a government body, don’t use your home printer. Use FedEx Kinko’s, UPS Store or your local library instead.

Will a printer’s documentation tell me if it outputs this code or not?

Never. You’ll have to find out for yourself by printing a document, photograph the sheet with a digital camera and then editing the image in a graphics editor to see if the dots are there or not.

Aren’t there laws to prevent things like this from happening?

Not a one, and there probably never will be.

The fact it happens is not the bad part. The fact it happens and you didn’t know about it is where the bad comes in.

Now that you are aware of it, if you’re ever in the instance where you need to protect your identity from the documents you print, you know what to do. All it takes is simply printing from safe locations, so it’s easy to accomplish.