Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents

[sleipnir214]

This PCWorld article describes how color laser printer manufacturers are encoding the machine's serial number on every document the printer produces.

This is the first time I've come across this and I'm of two minds about it.

Does anyone have comments on the ethics of this? Are there potential abuses?

 

[skiflyer]

And what if you'd like to do any of the following in an anonymous manner.

[ul]
[li]
Print an underground newspaper.
[/li]
[li]
Disseminate information which casts the FBI or Whitehouse in a negative light.
[/li]
[li]
Whistleblow on one of your suppliers to the national media.
[/li]
[li]
Employ any other method of anonymous free speech.
[/li]
[/ul]

Any of these examples become less likely and more dangerous if the speaker is concerned about being caught. And these are all valid forms of free speech, in which the speaker should have the right to communicate anonymously.

 

[willir]

skiflyer

Your points are quite valid. Which is why I qualified my comment with "personally". Printing a zillion copies with an ink jet printer might be a bit much;-)

I suspect the whistle blower could use a phone or print on an ink jet without much of a problem. Ditto on comments about police or government provided it is a small distribution.

But distributing "free speach" material to a larger audience anonymously would be problematic.

I just thought that the micro-encoding was a reasonable compromise. Perhaps I am wrong. I just feel the "line" has to be drawn somewhere. Where do we find the balance? We do have a problem and while the lack of restrictions benefits our society one way, it hinders us in other ways.