Just when I’m convinced that consumer groups are unnecessarily worried that wireless digital technologies will track our every move, something comes along to cause me to look over my shoulder. Maybe I’m just paranoid.
But an article-which originally appeared last year in PC World magazine and gained renewed interest everywhere else last week-said the government may be able to track you down via your color printer.
It seems that many color laser printers spew yellow dots across the page like a bar code, but they can be viewed only under special blue lights. These dots contain coded information that could help the government better track counterfeiters. What with the great advances made in color printing, one can see where the bad guys would have a pretty easy time making a couple extra $20 bills, and the good guys could use some extra help. This may have been going on for as long as 10 years, according to an article in the Washington Post. It’s going on today.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy group, said it cracked the code for some Xerox printers. And the U.S. Secret Service confirmed the dots are there. A Xerox spokesman said the codes are part of a cooperation with governments, competing manufacturers and some banks, according to the Post.
Perhaps the best way to stop small-time counterfeiters is to get the word out that their fake bills can be traced back to a home printer. (It sounds like a great plot for a teen movie anyway.)
Meanwhile, another privacy watchdog group cried foul over a federal government movement to put RFID tags in drivers’ licenses, essentially saying that the idea is too expensive and the feds will muck it up, leading to more identity theft.
It’s already absurdly easy to track someone’s life, between MasterCard purchases, personal checks, card swipes from Blockbuster, cell-phone calls and telephone numbers taken from the clerk at Toys R Us.
But then I read an article on the yellow dots and another article on companies that sell people the last 100 numbers dialed from a cell phone (a practice that is driving wireless carriers crazy). And I got an e-mail from Ember Corp. announcing a strategic investment and development deal with In-Q-Tel, a private-venture group established by the Central Intelligence Agency to develop wireless sensor, monitoring and control technology. Who knew the CIA got involved in private-venture groups?
These technologies are cool to say the least, but all this talk of Big Brother tracking people makes you want to glance over your shoulder, even if you’re not paranoid. (Not now! Someone may be watching.)
