For several years (it seems it started around 2000) most printers and photocopiers sold in the US have marking every page with an almost invisible set of yellow dots. This wartermark can be used by law enforcement to identify the owner of any machine. What could be useful to track down Al-Qaeda can also be used against political dissidents. Last week, a European Union commissioner issued an official statement questioning the legality of such practice. This, he states, is a possible violation of privacy rights guaranteed by the European Union’s Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
> story in ArsTechnica
> The Electronic Frontier Foundation is leading the campaign against the yellow dots.
Related columns:
- Privacy –You liked data-mining? You’ll love reality-mining TweetData-mining is the use of mass-data to extract behavior patterns such as food purchases or clothes consumption. That will sound rather innocent compared to this: a scientist at the MIT is willing to learn about individual behavior by analyzing, — in real time of course — data collected by our cellular phone. As explained in [...]...
One Comment
thanks for sharing.I enjoy it.