A while back I mentioned that it’s Time for a new flashlight in response to the discovery of printer-paper tracking technology in modern printers. Well, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has made me proud by cracking the code on the Xerox Docucolor printers. And then the publish the DocuColor Decoding Guide on their website, complete with source code to an application to decode for you.

For those of you who don’t quite understand what the “big deal” is, well just look at what they’re hiding in your documents: The Date & Time of the print (harmless enough), and the Serial Number of the printer. At first glance that seems harmless, until you realize that you probably sent in that warranty card or did an online product registration, which links that serial number (which is unique to that printer) to your Name and Address. Or maybe you bought it from Best Buy, where they have your name and address on file for their targeted advertising. So, with just a little work, someone could pick up any piece of paper off the street and possibly trace it back to the original person who printed it.

Everyone wave good-bye to the anonymity of the printed word.

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