- Required me to install an app
- Required me to enable gps on my device (and allow app to access)
- Printer phoned home after / during setup (as did the app)
They really don’t need the dots any more when they know the gps coordinates and have the ability to send anything they want to and from the device.
I personally spoofed the gps, ran a vpn and blocked the device from phoning home (after setup). Had me saying “what the f**!?” a couple of times.
There should be a labelling standard for this where the manufacturer must disclose if any registration is required to operate the device to its full potential, if any app or special software is needed other than a system driver, if any phone-home data is being sent, and what data is actually sent, when and why.
"Buyer beware" but most of the time you have no idea what the experience will be like. It's usually not disclosed on the box, reviews rarely mention it and I'd like to have a sure way of being informed before I make my purchase.
It's a similar thing with software, software and apps that require registration for no other reason than add you to their marketing list, but it's particularly egregious with physical items.
"This device certified not to compromise your privacy" could be a good selling point for a printer, especially if half of the printers have it and half don't.
Of course it won't help when you are shopping and looking around in a store for some reason.
It doesn't necessarily mean that the app accessed your GPS location.
Depending on your device, actual access might be shown, I recently installed an Epson printer and while the app needed location permission, it did not access might coordinates, it only scanned for wifi networks.
This is why a wifi scan requires location permission.
"Keep your secrets safe with Printer X".
Or would the state come down hard on any such manufacturer?
Remember what happened to the Quest CEO when he refused to allow his company to spy for NSA?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...
Just one major telecommunications company refused to participate in a legally dubious NSA surveillance program in 2001. A few years later, its CEO was indicted by federal prosecutors. He was convicted, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released this month.our biggest client just wants a offline ios printer driver for bouncing previews to Acrobat via the share option. ios so far off our path.. this client would talk about any OSS driver deal for commercial rates in fact they definitely don't want any unique driver to profile... we're totally lost to find resources we can understand or resources at all. for a business to thrive with critical necessities hobbled I think there's always a central crime like how drugs and spectacles frames prices shown constant price for 30 plus years.. something artificial is happening with pressure applied.
I would really like to know if there's a good printer manufacturer that makes simple, high quality printers that just work, don't require all these needless hoops, and respect the customer. Sounds like there should be a market for that, and yet somehow all printer manufacturers seem to suck.
Solved
There is no way to force the business models to keep printing on a full cartridge that has met its page limit(per reviews on Amazon), and the salesman at a store told me brothers have replaceable parts in them now besides the toner carts that they force you to replace.
They often are not any more, at least on the software side.
Also, of course, if you need to produce really great colors (think 6-color inkjets), or really large printouts (say 3' wide), your choice is narrower.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14501894
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21330718
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17392977
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14509249
Why printers add secret tracking dots (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26526035 - March 2021 (3 comments)
DEDA – Tracking Dots Extraction, Decoding and Anonymisation Toolkit - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17392977 - June 2018 (7 comments)
Why printers add secret tracking dots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14505444 - June 2017 (100 comments)
Printer Tracking Dots Back in the News - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14504833 - June 2017 (1 comment)
List of Printers Which Do or Do Not Display Tracking Dots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14501894 - June 2017 (210 comments)
Secret Dots from Printer Outed NSA Leaker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14494818 - June 2017 (211 comments)
Printer dots raise privacy concerns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=245963 - July 2008 (13 comments)
But then once they realise they are being fooled thats a datapoint in itself.
And who knows, maybe tools like that print microcode inside the microcode. If it does I hope it’s not the full text of gpl licence.
https://www.ownedcore.com/forums/world-of-warcraft/world-of-...
How many government provision contracts has Hewlett-Packard closed?
That's probably enough incentive for most to do it once known or suggested
>The U.S. Government Agency conducted an internal audit to determine who accessed the intelligence reporting since its publication. The U.S. Government Agency determined that six individuals printed this reporting. WINNER was one of these six individuals. A further audit of the six individuals' desk computers revealed that WINNER had e-mail contact with the News Outlet. The audit did not reveal that any of the other individuals had e-mail contact with the News Outlet.
>On June 3, 2017, your affiant spoke to WINNER at her home in Augusta, Georgia. During that conversation, WINNER admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue [...] WINNER further admitted removing the classified intelligence reporting from her office space, retaining it, and mailing it [...] WINNER further acknowledged that she was aware of the contents of the intelligence reporting and that she knew the contents of the reporting could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/971331/downlo...
The Intercept knows all of this, which is why I suspect that for whatever reasons they had, they intentionally threw her to the wolves. The Intercept is not run by dummies.
Not that I necessarily think doing this is a good thing, for the record.
I assume the note needs to have the euro constellation, if its not there the copier/printer would work normally.
Only problem i’ve had with this setup is during the configuration of IoT where mobile device must be on same subnet as IoT devices, that is all.
If we want them to be uniquely identifiable, then we don’t need to hide the identifier. If we don’t want them to be uniquely identifiable, then hiding the identifiable ID becomes a violation of the voters privacy.
Also IANAL but I feel like there must be some law about deception of this kind. Selling a product that does something you don't expect it to, were never told about, and would not reasonably even observe feels somehow like fraud.
Ballots typically do have unique IDs usually on some part that is removed by the voter. The problem is that isn't linked to anything because we don't want it linked to anything. This form of auditing isn't compatible with ballot secrecy. US elections do undergo rigorous process audits but the electorial process presents challenges to results audits.
1. That each paper ballot was only counted once by the tabulating machine.
2. No extra ballots were returned with an id that was not generated.
3. Easily spot copied ballots.
You could probably audit more things. If for example the id corresponded to a county, and so on.
More generally, for ballots you don't need to hide this, you could just have a number on them.
The process should be well known since all it takes to find out is go sit in an election committee.
But this article seems to imply that the yellow dots also occur on black-and-white printers. How is that possible?
Your printer uses 10-100x the ink these dots require just by powering it on when it has to do a flush. These make effectively zero impact.
Source: I am an inkjet print engineer, but also just common sense.
I had no idea my printer used any ink at all during startup.
Then the jury must select the "not guilty" verdict since "has_yellow_dots" evaluated to false.
-HN Legal Reasoning