Wonder if our wide format printers are doing this too

[victor bogdanov]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots





I know my canon colorado and epson printers send job data to the manufacturers, wouldn't be surprised if they're also putting secret identification info on the prints.

Interesting article

 

[Johnny Best]

In Idia they put a dot on the woman’s forehead, must be for identification?

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

As far as I know, the project was long since abandoned since it was made public. Not seen it on printers since around 2006, but I have by no means done definitive testing.

 

[bpp]

Yeah, these tracking dots are still a thing with digital color toner printers. We ran into them years ago when we started sleeking. Foil wouldn’t stick right when printing black in color mode because it wasn’t pure black—it used CMYK toner, and that messed things up. Once we switched to 100% black only, the foil worked fine.

We were told back then that those dots were part of a government system to track printers in case someone tried printing fake money. With wide format printers, I doubt they’d bother including this since that’s not how currency is printed anyway.

 

[JBurton]

Not seen it on printers since around 2006

Yeah right, and Epstein killed himself...
Another interesting thing, try to photocopy money, or even just scan it. We have an old hp and new brother MFC's, the old hp will scan and/or print a $100 bill. The brother tells me 'can't copy, turn off printer'.
Evidently some version of photoshop would only print half of a bill and then print an error, ironically letting you do it partially so you still wasted ink.

 

[netsol]

they have hundreds of types of currency, negotiable securities,, bearer bonds in the security eprom
on many you can print as long as it is not ACTUAL SIZE
one of ours will print 92% but not 95%

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Currency detection systems are a different thing, but yeah, those have been around for a long time. Omron Rings and the like, basically pattern recognition systems for currency.

EURion constellation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Pauly]

As far as I know, the project was long since abandoned since it was made public. Not seen it on printers since around 2006, but I have by no means done definitive testing.

still around, shows up on all our toners.

 

[Eforcer]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots

View attachment 178327



I know my canon colorado and epson printers send job data to the manufacturers, wouldn't be surprised if they're also putting secret identification info on the prints.

Interesting article

Just for reference, this process is still in effect. I believe it should remain. Counterfeiters have come close to reproducing passports & identifications. This process allows for recognizing the culprit, by reaing the machines ID number. Unless of course the machine is relocated from documented premises.

 

[JBurton]

This process allows for recognizing the culprit, by reaing the machines ID number. Unless of course the machine is relocated from documented premises.

I think it's more often used to cross examine a set of known printers, as criminals don't often register printers, and tracking a serial number of a printer from purchase to end location is a far from perfect system. Anymore I'd wager wifi printers would do this without your consent if given an open AP, big brother has to keep us safe somehow.
Though I am all for such a system, I'm less enthused at the potential to install ink tracking software or perform OTA updates to a machine whose base function shouldn't change from day 1 to 1,000.