this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
1019 points (99.0% liked)

Memes

45729 readers
751 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 165 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Wikipedia has a good article on it, including photos of what the marks look like. They're practically invisible to the naked eye, getting them to show up usually requires additional steps like taking high quality scans and running them through some color filters, or using a UV light.

From the EFF coverage of it, it sounds like every laser printer probably prints these marks now. I'm not sure if inkjets or other printer types do or not.

[–] intrepid@lemmy.ca 26 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They probably started with the inkjets. More so, considering that inkjets have turned into a money grabbing scam. You're better off with a laser printer if you need only B&W.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Those probably have their own way of tracking

[–] intrepid@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 months ago

Sure they do. I'm just saying that laser printers are the lesser evil.

[–] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago

From the wiki they mention researchers created a tool to check the identification code yourself, or to anonymize documents you're printing: https://github.com/dfd-tud/deda

Clearly a pain in the ass and not user friendly for the general public though.

[–] perishthethought@lemm.ee 9 points 8 months ago

From the EFF coverage of it, it sounds like every laser printer probably prints these marks now.

  • every color laser printer

Ftfy