Big Brother
You know, I've always been pretty wary of conspiracy theories. Most of them strike me as outlandish tales that could never actually happen in the real world. The most bizarre usually deal with secret societies that run the world, or hidden government spy networks in everyday good and services.
However, in the future I won't be so skeptical. It turns out that manufacturers of color printers, such as Xerox, have been placing a secret code on the page of each page printed from one of their printers. This code comes in a series of yellow dots that are printed on the page and only visible under a special blue light. These dots encode the serial number of the printer, as well as the date and time of the printout. In other words, every page you've ever printed on your home printer can be traced back to your machine at a particular date/time. And apparently they've been doing this for years.
Creepy.
The Secret Service claims that it's only used to stop those making counterfeit currency. And I don't doubt that was the original intention and the primary use of this tracking code. However, what distrubs me is that there are no safeguards to make sure this kind of technology is not being abused. Heck, an intern was able to break the code in under a week. It's not exactly reassuring.
It makes you wonder what else out there is being tracked without our knowledge. Can the government scan all your email? Does it do that routinely? Frankly, I would not be surprised, although I find the idea a little abhorrent. What about cell phones? Are those tagged to a person and tracked around the world? Think about it -- everyone nowadays carries one. It's a perfect way to track the movements of any individual around the country.
I could go on, but I won't. Suffice to say that I find this news story wierd, and also slightly offensive. Sometimes I think I'm turning into a libertarian.
PS -- Apologies for the lack of posting recently. I'm now back in force. Feel free to check in regularly for new posts.
You know, I've always been pretty wary of conspiracy theories. Most of them strike me as outlandish tales that could never actually happen in the real world. The most bizarre usually deal with secret societies that run the world, or hidden government spy networks in everyday good and services.
However, in the future I won't be so skeptical. It turns out that manufacturers of color printers, such as Xerox, have been placing a secret code on the page of each page printed from one of their printers. This code comes in a series of yellow dots that are printed on the page and only visible under a special blue light. These dots encode the serial number of the printer, as well as the date and time of the printout. In other words, every page you've ever printed on your home printer can be traced back to your machine at a particular date/time. And apparently they've been doing this for years.
Creepy.
The Secret Service claims that it's only used to stop those making counterfeit currency. And I don't doubt that was the original intention and the primary use of this tracking code. However, what distrubs me is that there are no safeguards to make sure this kind of technology is not being abused. Heck, an intern was able to break the code in under a week. It's not exactly reassuring.
It makes you wonder what else out there is being tracked without our knowledge. Can the government scan all your email? Does it do that routinely? Frankly, I would not be surprised, although I find the idea a little abhorrent. What about cell phones? Are those tagged to a person and tracked around the world? Think about it -- everyone nowadays carries one. It's a perfect way to track the movements of any individual around the country.
I could go on, but I won't. Suffice to say that I find this news story wierd, and also slightly offensive. Sometimes I think I'm turning into a libertarian.
PS -- Apologies for the lack of posting recently. I'm now back in force. Feel free to check in regularly for new posts.
posted by slithytoves at 3:23 PM
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