• some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        30
        ·
        7 months ago

        Wow, I had no idea. I thought the joke was needing full ink in an unrelated color. I didn’t know about tracking. I’m sadly unsurprised.

        • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          31
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          It’s for the purpose of serialization for counterfeit purposes. Also, high end copiers have a device installed called the BDU (Bill Detection Unit) that all scans pass through before being post processed. If the BDU detects a bill being scanned it can error and shut down the whole device until the manufacturer can send someone out to fix it. I used to be one of those people resetting BDUs at schools where a teacher thought it was a good idea to copy images of money for teaching students.

          • DaGeek247@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            7 months ago

            That, and tracking down anyone else the government doesn’t like, apparently.

            • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              Or their corporate masters! Its not always just the government, you paranoid conspiracy nut! Take your meticulously cited sources and century of baroque acid fueled clandestine horror and go home!

      • then_three_more@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        31
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        7 months ago

        feature originally intended as a deterrent to counterfeiting currency with laser printers.

        Honestly, the USA is something special. So they do this, instead of putting modern anticounterfit (like polimer notes with transparencies) measures onto their notes.

      • hedgehog@ttrpg.network
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        7 months ago

        consumers will not notice any difference in the performance or effectiveness of products equipped with this technology.

        I believe they missed this part of the memo

        • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          7 months ago

          It’s obvious, more ink used = more profit. The government get the tracking they want, the printer company is slightly more profitable due to extra ink usage, and the customers got fucked. Win-win!

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        16
        ·
        7 months ago

        Hold up… Was “Reality Winner” the name of an individual or a business? Like, I was stunned by the fact the yellow dots thing is a thing, but then it starts talking about “Reality Winner” and I can’t move on until I know what’s up with that name. lol

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        7 months ago

        I can’t find the article I read, but if I recall correctly, they use patterns of minute variations in the power of the laser to cause a machine-detectable pattern to appear in the final printed output.

      • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        They also use microscopic yellow dot patterns. Black and white only prints use a microscopic grey print pattern at the print boundary. The technique is a form of steganography. They aren’t tracking you btw. It gets used primarily to investigate fraud. Printer companies do it primarily because if they don’t, their brand will become associated with print related crimes. There are lists of printers that do not do steganographic serialization but those machines are almost entirely too poor quality to produce any convincing counterfeits anyways.

        • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 months ago

          That’s how it always starts though.

          People use any device or service they want. It’s a mix of crooks, tinkerers, journalists, etc.

          A company or government makes some moral panic and pushes some privacy or civil rights erosion in the name of “security”. The actual security benefit may or may not exist.

          Then other companies do the same to keep up.

          Then there’s only a handful of companies not doing the thing, so anyone who doesn’t want their privacy or civil rights eroded uses that, including crooks.

          Then politicians and the other companies point to the holdouts as “PROOF!” their changes were good, because look how many crooks use that stuff! (The number of crooks hasn’t changed, they’ve just been concentrated to a single location.) The moral panic deepens.

          The non-criminal population that cares about their privacy or civil rights speak out, but get accused of secretly being criminals, or some other crap that can be used to dismiss their concerns. “If you have nothing to hide, why are you so upset?” and all that.

          Now laws get passed to force all companies to do the same thing, to stop the criminals! But let’s not worry about anyone else. The tinkerers, journalists, privacy-advocates, etc. They don’t matter.

          The law gets passed, and now all toasters are legally required to record your breakfast conversations, for a silly example.