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"For years, commercial printers have quietly inserted yellow dots into their
output for the purpose of tracking which printer was used to create any
document. The purpose of the ``yellowdot'' software is simply to bring
attention to the issue, and to thwart amateur attempts to use these yellow
dots to breach privacy.

This software will create a PNG containing yellow dots that can then be
overlaid onto existing printer output. These dots are randomly distributed
across the image, and are therefore not useful for securely obfuscating the
identity that is encoded within the printer's generated dot pattern.
However, ``yellowdot'' raises the amount of resources that must be expended
to successfully identify the printer that generated a given document. It is
hoped that ``yellowdot'' can be used to thwart amateur attempts to breach
privacy, such as could conceivably be practiced in an office environment.

The commercial printer yellow dot initiative has been endorsed in some
capacity by the United States Secret Service for the purpose of thwarting
currency counterfeiting. As of October 2008, there is no law that requires
printers to generate yellow dots for any purpose, including identification
purposes. This software is not intended to be used for committing fraud, and
it is the belief of the author that this software, in fact, cannot be used
for such purposes. By analyzing a sufficient sample of printer output, the
``noise'' that is generated by this program can be eliminated, and the
original printer source can be reconstructed."
I am eager to hear feedback about this project!

Sincerely,
Ian Dennis Miller

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Greetings printers list!<br><br>I am happy to announce &quot;yellowdot,&quot; a simple utility I created as a response to the recent EFF Instructables video entitled &quot;<a id="title_t3_78zon" onmousedown="setClick(this, &#39;title&#39;)" class="title loggedin" href="http://rtfa.net/2008/10/23/youtube-yellow-dots-of-mystery-is-your-printer-spying-on-you/">Yellow Dot Mystery or Is Your Printer Being Used to Spy You?</a>&quot;<br>
<br>From <a href="http://iandennismiller.com/software/yellowdot/">http://iandennismiller.com/software/yellowdot/</a><br><p>&quot;For years, commercial printers have quietly inserted yellow dots
into their output for the purpose of tracking which printer
was used to create any document.  The purpose of the ``yellowdot&#39;&#39; 
software is simply to bring attention to the issue, and to thwart
amateur attempts to use these yellow dots to breach privacy.</p>
<p>This software will create a PNG containing yellow dots that can 
then be overlaid onto existing printer output.  These dots are 
randomly distributed across the image, and are therefore not 
useful for securely obfuscating the identity that is encoded 
within the printer&#39;s generated dot pattern.  However, ``yellowdot&#39;&#39;
raises the amount of resources that must be expended to 
successfully identify the printer that generated a given document.
It is hoped that ``yellowdot&#39;&#39; can be used to thwart amateur 
attempts to breach privacy, such as could conceivably be 
practiced in an office environment.</p>
<p>The commercial printer yellow dot initiative has been endorsed 
in some capacity by the United States Secret Service for the 
purpose of thwarting currency counterfeiting.  As of October 2008, 
there is no law that requires printers to generate yellow dots for
any purpose, including identification purposes.  This software is 
not intended to be used for committing fraud, and it is the belief 
of the author that this software, in fact, cannot be used for such
purposes.  By analyzing a sufficient sample of printer output, the
``noise&#39;&#39; that is generated by this program can be eliminated, and 
the original printer source can be reconstructed.&quot;</p>I am eager to hear feedback about this project!<br><br>Sincerely,<br>Ian Dennis Miller<br>

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