research-article

Printer watermark obfuscation

Authors:

Maya Embar,

Louis F. McHugh, IV,

William R. WesselmanAuthors Info & Claims

RIIT '14: Proceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Research in information technology

Pages 15 - 20

https://doi.org/10.1145/2656434.2656437

Published: 13 October 2014 Publication History

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Abstract

Most color laser printers manufactured and sold today add "invisible" information to make it easier to determine when a particular document was printed and exactly which printer was used. Some manufacturers have acknowledged the existence of the tracking information in their documentation while others have not. None of them have explained exactly how it works or the scope of the information that is conveyed. There are no laws or regulations that require printer companies to track printer users this way, and none that prevent them from ceasing this practice or providing customers a means to opt out of being tracked. The tracking information is coded by patterns of yellow dots that the printers add to every page they print. The details of the patterns vary by manufacturer and printer model.

In this document, our team will discuss several obfuscation methods and demonstrate a successful one.

Included in this document is an explanation of the firmware generated yellow dots matrix and answers to the following questions: 1. Which printers produce the dots? 2. How are the dots put on? 3. What is needed for testing? 4. What is the dot size and spacing? 5. Where are the dots located on the page? 6. How can the dots be rendered useless?

References

[1]

Schoen, S. October 16, 2005. Secret code in color printers lets government track you. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved November 3, 2013 from https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2005/10/16

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[2]

EFF. List of printers which do or do not display tracking dots. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved September 22, 2013 from https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots

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EFF. DocuColor Tracking Dot Decoding Guide. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved September 22, 2013 from https://w2.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/

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Neufeld, B. 2008 -- 2012. FOIA request nets list of manufacturers. Brahm's Yellow Dots. Retrieved September 22, 2013 from http://brahmsyellowdots.blogspot.com/

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Prewitt, K. 2012. Freedom of information act appeal -- file no. 20100517. U.S. Department of Homeland Security United States Secret Service. Retrieved September 22, 2013 from http://www.scribd.com/doc/94599181/FOIA-release-names-spy-printers

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Steganographix, 2013--2014. Steganographix Documentation Retrieved May 20, 2014 from https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9ZrovajUPg2NFEtNXZKUi02Tjg&usp=sharing

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Steganographix, 2013--2014. Steganographix Images Retrieved May 20, 2014 from https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B9ZrovajUPg2U3Z2Ul9WSXI0b1U&usp=sharing

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Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 22, 2013 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obfuscation

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Cited By

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Richter TEscher SSchönfeld DStrufe TBöhme RPasquini CBoato GSchöttle P(2018)Forensic Analysis and Anonymisation of Printed DocumentsProceedings of the 6th ACM Workshop on Information Hiding and Multimedia Security10.1145/3206004.3206019(127-138)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3206004.3206019

Index Terms

Printer watermark obfuscation
1. Security and privacy
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Computing / technology policy
    1. Computer crime

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Published In

RIIT '14: Proceedings of the 3rd annual conference on Research in information technology

October 2014

98 pages

ISBN:9781450327114

DOI:10.1145/2656434

General Chairs:
Becky Rutherfoord
Southern Polytechnic State University, USA
,
Lei Li
Southern Polytechnic State University, USA
,
Susan Van de Ven
Southern Polytechnic State University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Amber Settle
DePaul University, USA
,
Terry Steinbach
DePaul University, USA

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 October 2014

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SIGITE/RIIT'14

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SIGITE

SIGITE/RIIT'14: SIGITE/RIIT 2014

October 15 - 18, 2014

Georgia, Atlanta, USA

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RIIT '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 14 of 39 submissions, 36%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 51 of 116 submissions, 44%

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Richter TEscher SSchönfeld DStrufe TBöhme RPasquini CBoato GSchöttle P(2018)Forensic Analysis and Anonymisation of Printed DocumentsProceedings of the 6th ACM Workshop on Information Hiding and Multimedia Security10.1145/3206004.3206019(127-138)Online publication date: 14-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3206004.3206019

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