Anyone heard of or tinkered with Printer Dots?

[Fried Chicken]

I searched and never saw this mentioned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_tracking_dots?useskin=vector

I'd be lying if I said this didn't bother me on some level. I'm thinking of pulling out a loupe and UV light or other color filters to see if I can find them on my own printer. This also calls into question selling used printers that might be linked to your name (or even registering your printer online) - as now it can be tracked to you technically.

 

[The Hat]

I'd be lying if I said this didn't bother me on some level

You’ve got it bad , if that’s all that’s bothering you about your printer..

 

[PeterBJ]

I understand the bothering. What if you sell a colour laser printer and the buyer uses it for some criminal activity? I guess you are registered when buying a high end colour laser printer, but can you be unregistered when selling it?

To look for the yellow dots I think a blue light for instance from a blue LED is better than UV light. At least blue light is better for showing the Eurion rings on bank notes and also for checking details in a yellow nozzle check.

I have looked for the yellow dots in documents printed by Canon and HP inkjet printers, but found none.

For Eurion see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
And the yellow nozzle check: https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/blue-light-helps-viewing-yellow-nozzle-check.6125/

 

[Fried Chicken]

Fundamentally it bothers me because it is my hardware doing work for me, but if it's printing these invisible dots, then I have a disloyal agent.

I know about the Eurion constellation - I've obviously tried to scan/import a currency bill before. This bothers me slightly less - I do recognize that counterfeiting is a problem, and it's not like my software is immediately reporting me to the authorities (if it were I would have a problem with it).

Is this only color laser printers or does this also apply to inkjet printers?

Going back more generally: what is the status of open source firmware for a printer? Has it been done? Presumably a jailbroken printer could be made to do whatever one wants, including even better profiling for photos, as right now the ET-8550, for example, doesn't give the user control over how ICC profiles are implemented. The best we get is "choose paper type".

 

[SableRoute]

Yeah, I’ve read about this before. From what I understand, the tracking dots are mainly associated with certain colour laser printers rather than inkjets. I’d be pretty surprised if an ET-8550 was doing anything similar, but checking a few solid colour prints under UV could be an interesting experiment.