Forensic Watermarking

There's a stink on about the use of "forensic watermarking" wherein some computer printer manufacturers make certain that their printers imprint an almost impossible to detect pattern of yellow dots in each printed document, so that law enforcement authorities can easily figure out who counterfeited those fifties, wrote that ransom note and complained about the Bush Administration's conduct of the War in Iraq. (It's the third one that gets a little twitchy...)

Major news outlets are reporting that there has been some domestic spying using the method of tracking source of documents involving such groups as the ACLU. Chilling.

The Electronic Frontiers Foundation has been kind enough to release a list of several printers that they have tested for this embedded "spyware", including their findings.

The EFF Printer Test