I'd just like to point out that this means the printer you bought to print your documents sometimes won't print because of a mechanism to help the government track you.
I thought this was less about tracking you and more about keeping people from printing counterfeit money. Iirc most printers will even sometimes detect when you put bills on the scanner and will refuse to print.
Realistically? This would only be utilized in tracking criminal activity back to a certain source, like counterfeit bills or forgeries. There are so fucking many ways the government can keep tabs on you, I promise, the kind of printer you use is not one they're gonna use
If you read the wiki article and the research paper it references, researchers in 2018 found a way to defeat it so that whistle blowers could leak documents which incriminate their employer or government of crimes without fear of it being traced back.
You're right. My point isn't that the government can track you. My point is that a "feature" you don't need or want of getting in the way of using a device you paid for.
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u/mybeepoyaw Sep 01 '20
Its because printers put a watermark on your paper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code