I asked the store manager if there were refillable cartridges I could just buy online, instead of being forced to pay for like 3 different products! (Not Cheap!) She said that the companies sometimes make printers go error if you use unauthorized ink…

Absolutely pointless production that fuels climate change 🙄. Get me out of here! I’m stuck in 2D!

    • bleepingblorp@lemmygrad.ml
      81·
      2 years ago

      The cheaper models don’t do this fortunately. The method printers use to encode steganography is by using micro shifts in the pixels of a document, and the cheaper printer models have too much tolerance in the printer head movement and just cheap electronics.

      The steganography is used in more powerful printers in order to combat currency counterfeiting since those are the printers capable of producing convincing currency.

      On a side note, if you are worried someone will hardcore look at agitprop you are posting around town or something, highly unlikely. The time and resources required to forensically analyze documents is too high for a government to waste resources trying to chase every anarchist, socialist, radlib, etc., posting flyers around town. There are more cost effective ways for triple letter agencies or even local police to attack their political enemies.

      • Arthur Besse@lemmy.ml
        9·
        2 years ago

        The cheaper models don’t do this fortunately

        The EFF writes “Some of the documents that we previously received through FOIA suggested that all major manufacturers of color laser printers entered a secret agreement with governments to ensure that the output of those printers is forensically traceable” … so “it is probably safest to assume that all modern color laser printers do include some form of tracking information that associates documents with the printer’s serial number”.

        The time and resources required to forensically analyze documents is too high

        Bullshit. Obviously they aren’t tracking down the source of every single flyer around town but anyone who is engaged in any type of political activity that the FBI could conceivably decide to investigate should be aware that this technology exists and is used. It isn’t remotely difficult to decode the dots; some of the researchers who revealed this tech actually do it painstakingly by hand with a magnifying glass but of course it is a fully automated process when the FBI does it.