You have probably already wanted to print a document in black and white and came across the message that your printer is missing color – even though you wanted to print in black and white. There is a secret behind your printer that probably very few people know.
Disclaimer: The cover image is a symbolic image and shows a random printer.
How does your printer work for the government? Many color laser printers or copiers add a so-called machine identification code to your printed pages. This is a type of marking that can be used to identify your color printer.
The Machine Identification Code is printed on the paper using yellow ink during the printing process. The color printer marking then appears as small yellow dots that are only about a tenth of a millimeter in size and are barely visible to the naked eye.
The system was developed in the USA in the 1980s to prevent the printing of counterfeit money, but has only been known to the public since 2004.
Students spy on passers-by with a hidden camera and an AI, find out their name and address in seconds
More videos
Autoplay
If the code is read, various information can be obtained, such as the serial number of the device or the date and time of the printing process. This can, for example, help law enforcement authorities track down the origin of leaked secret documents.
In 2017, for example, whistleblower Reality Leigh Winner was caught by the FBI via color printer marking while passing on secret documents (via nytimes).
So if your printer fails when printing a black and white document because it supposedly has too little color, then this may be due to the Machine Identification Code. It may well be that your yellow paint has been used up by the small dots.
Does this have any consequences for you? Not really. Of course, you can use the color printer marking to find out your printer’s serial number and the day it was printed, but unless you’re leaking secret documents, this information probably shouldn’t have much relevance to your life.
However, critics raise concerns that the color printing marking intrudes on the user’s privacy, as it can be used to find out the owner of a printer and the printing date.
Can you protect yourself from being tagged? If you attach great importance to your privacy and want to protect it when printing, there are various options. For example, you could print the entire page yellow, but that would use a lot of toner. Alternatively, there is software that anonymizes your printer using additional yellow dots.
Curiously, unauthorized distribution of secret military documents also occurs again and again in the world of gaming – the War Thunder game community has often been involved in various leaks. For example, when a player leaked secret military documents because a tank in the Free2Play MMO wasn’t realistic enough for him.