Hey together,
having read the articles online regarding the yellow dots on printed pages, I can only say one thing:
[spoiler=Warning: Swearing]THE F*CKING US-GOVERNMENT SUCKS WITH ITS CONTROL-FREAKING AND SPYING! >:([/spoiler]
They read out mails, record our traffic, spy with satellites, track our mobiles, record our calls and they track our printed pages!
But I think this whole thing just goes to far!
These dots contain a unique signature of the printer (serial number, date of manufacture, maybe the date of first use too). Also do they maybe contain the date and time of the print. They are arranged in a binary format which is probably encrypted. Also Xerox has stated that these dots are real.
I could prove, that these dots are real by printing out a text document and you can actually spot these tiny yellow dots near the edges of the black text (in the white areas). They are aligned and they don't look like they are a bug in the firmware or a defect. (Although I deem this whole thing a defect).
What do you think about total surveillance?
Here's an image of the dots:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Printermarkrp.jpg/440px-Printermarkrp.jpg)
Here are some interesting links:
https://www.eff.org/wp/investigating-machine-identification-code-technology-color-laser-printers (https://www.eff.org/wp/investigating-machine-identification-code-technology-color-laser-printers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography)
I can assure you it's not ony the US govt. They are the only oned unprofessional enough to get caught
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on April 28, 2015, 11:06:48 PM
I can assure you it's not ony the US govt. They are the only oned unprofessional enough to get caught
Yeah, I know. But what makes me angry is that even here in germany I am not safe from their spying!
Not that I have anything to hide, but I hate surveillance!
Personally i don't mind the govt getting all our personal details... But i do expect them to not be thrown around every street corner <_<
Sadly we can't do much about it and I fear that in a decade or so, while most countries will probably still allow everyone to browse every website, we will be heavily watched and more than we do now. I don't care if the government gets my personal details because they already have them for when I do my taxes, but I certainly don't want them to land in the hands of every government employee and stuff like that, even less so in what I print or save.
The worst part IMHO is how the US government does it without our consent, same for other governments. If they start doing this, then what else will they start doing in the future? Will we have the police knock on our door 30 minutes after we downloaded a NES ROM? I know that we should not do illegal stuff and some people will argue that if we don't want to be spied on then we have something to hide, but the fact they are doing it like this is alarming for our future.
You're so right, @DJ Omnimaga
Also they're breaking their own basic law with it. At least here in Germany...
Apparently they passed a law a few weeks ago that would have the NSA stop listening to calls, but I am betting they did it just so we don't worry about our privacy as much, only to start spying again after gaining people's trust.
Next it will be calculators if not so already O.O
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 16, 2015, 05:46:52 PM
Apparently they passed a law a few weeks ago that would have the NSA stop listening to calls, but I am betting they did it just so we don't worry about our privacy as much, only to start spying again after gaining people's trust.
Hopefully the PATRIOT Act won't get renewed either. It's hard to spy without funding.
Go Rand Paul! He's planning to filibuster the vote at least. "Rand Paul 2016: Not as crazy as Ron Paul."
Quote from: bb010g on May 16, 2015, 11:01:05 PM
Go Rand Paul! He's planning to filibuster the vote at least. "Rand Paul 2016: Not as crazy as Ron Paul."
Not what I want because as much as I don't think Hillary will do a good job I've heard he's a nut.
Quote from: alexgt on May 16, 2015, 10:27:58 PM
Next it will be calculators if not so already O.O
I wouldn't be surprised if this was attempted, but again would companies be willing to spend extra money for the hardware required for keylogging and transmitting info to US government? Unless of course the govt themselves provided the money for it.
The closest I think to this that will happen with calcs is attempts at controlling what we can put on them and what calc we can use, such as in France starting in 2018.
Well with software that links your calc to your computer they could even see what you put on it if they could see into your stuff *creeped out*
Quote from: CKH4 on May 17, 2015, 12:04:28 AM
Quote from: bb010g on May 16, 2015, 11:01:05 PM
Go Rand Paul! He's planning to filibuster the vote at least. "Rand Paul 2016: Not as crazy as Ron Paul."
Not what I want because as much as I don't think Hillary will do a good job I've heard he's a nut.
Less of a nut than others IMHO. He seems to understand net neutrality at least, which is unfortunately rare in politics. I think most politicians have been called nuts many times throughout their careers. ;)
I tend to not get my hopes up with governments regardless of who gets elected. The Quebec government we got now held their promise of cleaning up finances, but the problem is that they are still letting some public employees getting overpaid and getting insane resignation bonuses (often more than three times the prime minister salary) and they are cutting services too much. Then because of this I bet they won't be elected again and then the new government will mess everything up again, like usual, only to be replaced a few years later.
Yay politics? ???
I don't get them either.
Quote from: DarkestEx on April 28, 2015, 11:04:49 PM
Here's an image of the dots:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Printermarkrp.jpg/440px-Printermarkrp.jpg)
I closely examined a page I just printed, and there doesn't seem to be anything similar on it, unless it's so faint that it's indistinguishable from the grain of the paper or from the tiny 'outflowings' of ink at the edges of text.
Yeah, I couldn't see anything either... O.O
On the picture you can see the grains on the paper so it was probably under a microscope.
Yeah, these dots are really tiny. They are atleast on every page printed by an HP, Xerox, or one of many other color printers from the larger companies.
They are mostly near black surfaces and only on white background. Using a bright flashlight and a strong magnifying glass, I was able to see them.
A good test is to print out a white page with an image and some text. Then check near the borders of the text for the dots. This algorithm is made so that you don't notice them in normal use.
That isn't creepy at all. I wonder if it does the same stuff when you scan something O.O.
Could it be a German-only thing?
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 20, 2015, 01:35:40 PM
Could it be a German-only thing?
Not sure. I'm not the only one, who's concerned about this. I know some members at Cemetech, who are from other countries and are concerned too.
But yeah, many people in Germany, including me, are really angry about the US Government
BREAKING OUR BASIC LAWS (Deutsches Grundgesetz) and spying on us.
Breaking peoples basic rights is a NO GO! Feel free to read our law here: https://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/aufgaben/rechtsgrundlagen/grundgesetz/gg_01/245122 (https://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/aufgaben/rechtsgrundlagen/grundgesetz/gg_01/245122) (Use Google Translate).
TL;DR: (Basic, fundamantal rights of German citicens) ยง1, Art. 10.1 says: "(1) Das Briefgeheimnis sowie das Post- und Fernmeldegeheimnis sind unverletzlich." which translates into English as such: "(1) The privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications shall be inviolable."
These basic rights are NOT changeable, NOT removable and COMPLETLY OBLIGATORY.
I hope this clears things up.
We all know the US govt only cares about them selves, unless a country has oil <_<
I think WW3 will be a cyber war involving crippling each other's networks rather than a physical fight. Unless of course WW3 is actually against ISIS.
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on May 20, 2015, 01:58:00 PM
We all know the US govt only cares about them selves, unless a country has oil <_<
Even if it has oil still that is all they want <_<
Yeah. America is really overrated
Well it is the only place I have lived so... I couldn't tell :P
Something I wonder is if starting a new underground internet protocol as alternative to HTTP that cannot be accessed by government would be feasible? That idea was brought up before. My worry, though, is that it could end up in the wrong hands, for example used by terrorists, then intervention from authorities would be required before it gets out of control.
Yeah that's the whole reason the nsa wants to know all data transfers
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 20, 2015, 09:41:28 PM
Something I wonder is if starting a new underground internet protocol as alternative to HTTP that cannot be accessed by government would be feasible? That idea was brought up before. My worry, though, is that it could end up in the wrong hands, for example used by terrorists, then intervention from authorities would be required before it gets out of control.
It's called https. But knowing them they probably have a cload of backdoors in ssl. :P
The British government is the one that collects all the intrusive data. It just let's the NSA have full access. And all them drones that watch and kill- all ported at America's airbase in Germany with full concent from German government. It's not America so much as NATO that's the problem.
I thought that the main problem with the British government was censoring many websites, China-style, or at least warez sites and the like? Or did that end up being scrapped?
Quote from: Streetwalrus on May 22, 2015, 09:11:50 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 20, 2015, 09:41:28 PM
Something I wonder is if starting a new underground internet protocol as alternative to HTTP that cannot be accessed by government would be feasible? That idea was brought up before. My worry, though, is that it could end up in the wrong hands, for example used by terrorists, then intervention from authorities would be required before it gets out of control.
It's called https. But knowing them they probably have a cload of backdoors in ssl. :P
Yeah I meant something else for that specific reason.
That's probably going to have a lot of backdoors too.
btw the closest thing to security programming i've done is made a mod to chat via ssl in minecraft. The messages get encrypted and a few keys get send via text, after that you can chat like normal but everyone else just sees "random" text
Yeah my worry is that by the time a new secure protocol becomes a thing, the government will send spies into the unsuspecting development team to report how it's done and how it could be circumvented. Same for terrorist groups. The only thing we can do is protest, but most of the time governments are either not listening or they're mismanaged so much that they would take years to do anything.
And if people manage to get a bill blocked or to make the government stop spying, they just find another way to sneak in.
The trick is to make something where you can see the inner workings, but you still can't break it. Like the asymmetric encryption used in ssl
This isn't related to printers, but rather iPhones. There are rumors that Apple was ordered or asked to open a backdoor in their devices to allow the FBI to spy on people to find terrorists. This is Apple's response (for now): http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/
Wow O.o good thing I use android ;)
Though the gov will probably force them too <_<
They were asked to do this by the FBI. It appeared on BBC yesterday; there was a terrorist attack and the 2 culprits were killed, but the man's iPhone was recovered. The FBI has been at it for 2 months; they can't break into it.
Yeah, saw that too, in short Apple is concerned that if the gov't have a backdoor to break open that phone, security would be compromised.
Also saw John McAfee, as the badass guy he is, claims he can break the encryption open in 3 weeks.
Apple is scared of being sliced- the backdoor software they might have to make could be easily adapted and used for almost all of iOS, which is probably not a good thing. Also, if it was known that it was possible to break into their tech, their sales in the iPhone market might decrease even more, despite their attempts to fix their "Bigger is Better" phase by releasing a future smaller model.
The issue is if Apple tells them how to break into that particular iPhone, then the FBI will know how to do it with other people's phones and then it can escalate into a full-scale surveillance.
Also from what I heard in the news, yes Apple was ordered to do it and the letter they posted is not a final decision: Basically they refused for now, but there is still no guarantees that they will win against the FBI.
Also if they're doing it with the iPhone they're also gonna do it with Windows phones and Android devices.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on February 19, 2016, 06:35:50 AM
The issue is if Apple tells them how to break into that particular iPhone, then the FBI will know how to do it with other people's phones and then it can escalate into a full-scale surveillance.
Also from what I heard in the news, yes Apple was ordered to do it and the letter they posted is not a final decision: Basically they refused for now, but there is still no guarantees that they will win against the FBI.
Also if they're doing it with the iPhone they're also gonna do it with Windows phones and Android devices.
They can't do it on Android devices, because Android is open-source. A backdoor would immediately stand out, and be removed by the community (at least in 3rd party Android versions like Cyanogenmod)
Backdoors - or at least, involuntary bugs which can be abused as such - can be surprisingly easy to introduce, and pretty persistent. Witness e.g. Heartbleed, whose author wasn't even trying to be underhanded.
Various Android phones have had their share of silly holes, e.g. a protection-less version of /dev/mem used for debugging and left in production for some Samsung phones. The iP* had its share of blunders too, though none stands on my mind.
Proper FLOSS is consistently proving to be the best protection against bad code: Coverity and their competitors repeatedly state that on average, FLOSS programs have significantly fewer defects than proprietary programs. However, it's far from being foolproof...
I didn't say you can't introduce a security hole in android, I did however say that it's not possible to demand a backdoor be put in there.
Could the government modify the constitution to make encryption and patching such security exploits illegal and send anyone who gets caught trying to hide their data from the NSA to jail?
They probably can but then they'd have to send almost half the country to jail.
Breaking news guys! Apple REFUSED to help the FBI! That's one tough fruit. :walrii:
Quote from: Dudeman313 on February 25, 2016, 11:38:47 PM
Breaking news guys! Apple REFUSED to help the FBI! That's one tough fruit. :walrii:
You're a couple days late ;)
That's indeed not very breaking anymore 9_9 Still I agree its a tough move.
They formally refused today. I just watched Tim Cook on BBC.
What a PR motivated move. Secretly they are probably going to help anyways.
Maybe. Maybe not. The way Apple's CEO explained it, it sounded as if they were worried about a possible decrease in sales because of the public becoming vulnerable.
Quote from: Ivoah on February 25, 2016, 11:39:21 PM
Quote from: Dudeman313 on February 25, 2016, 11:38:47 PM
Breaking news guys! Apple REFUSED to help the FBI! That's one tough fruit. :walrii:
You're a couple days late ;)
Also another thing to note is that "refused" doesn't mean the FBI won't appeal. Plus maybe the FBI or NSA will find ways (such as $$$$$$) to make Apple cave in.
Multiple 0-day vendors have made public statements along the lines of "hey FBI, buy some 0-day exploits from us and you'll have what you want".
The business model of stockpiling on vulnerabilities and reselling to the highest bidder (I'm oversimplifying a bit, but not so much) is despicable and dangerous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RNKtwAGvqc
Seems like they didn't even need Apple to unlock the iPhone, after all:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/technology/apple-iphone-fbi-justice-department-case.html
But given poor transparency records from companies in the world in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple were bribed to secretely help them...
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on March 30, 2016, 07:32:34 PM
Seems like they didn't even need Apple to unlock the iPhone, after all:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/technology/apple-iphone-fbi-justice-department-case.html
But given poor transparency records from companies in the world in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple were bribed to secretely help them...
I don't think Apple were bribed, the fbi doesn't even need to, as apple isn't doing exactly a great job at protecting users.
(except to prevent jailbreaks, that is)
Farook most likely had a weak password and the FBI probably found a way to brute-force it.
They have yet to reveal what was inside the phone... Farook probably became a terrorist after playing Angry Birds too much :p
If you actually value your privacy, yuo should use a Linux distro or BSDs and encrypt it.
That's possible, but we will never know the full story.
Unless someone pulls another Edward Snowden. :P
Yeah true. Now that reminds me, could USA have attacked Russia in order to retrieve Snowden when he was there? It would have been a stupid move that could backfire, but I am curious if that could have been considered? And what if a second person pulled a Snowden and hid there?
I know Trump would do it. :P
I don't follow US politics much but do you have anything to backup your claim about that? I don't know his stance about privacy and the NSA.
Not really, except Trump's totally for dissing our allies. Some feel that if he became president, we'd have no allies, and he wouldn't care.
Do you mean allies as in other countries?
Yes, and it seems like Trump has already insulted most of them.
Ah, right. That said, it's not like America's allies are always that good. For example, Canada and USA still supports Saoudi Arabia despite the fact they are persecuting their people. But that would be for a different topic.