Nineteen Eighty-Four

Now, don’t tell me that Orwell was too high on Absinthe when he wrote the namesake novel about “Big Brother” having an almost symbiotic relationship with its subject citizenry and whereby the former is the dominant parasite that steers the destiny of said subjects…
A couple of questions come to mind: a) how has this flown under the radar of oufits like EFF for almost ten years? (the article cites that said tracking information on printouts has been found on copies printed up to ten years ago; mind you, a place like Apple cannot keep the rumor mill quiet for two minutes…); b) how can we take back control of what we print now that the cat is out the bag?
(Click on the image to go to the EFF.ORG article about this issue)
It occurs to me that this technology can be used for legitimate, overt purposes, by the public, specially digital artist and photographers. Give the technology back to the people and let them use it.
On the matter of the “bad guys”, the money counterfeiters, I can bet all the money I don’t have and win the bet, that those were onto the scheme long, long before it became a public… Hey, that’s their business!
Sleuths Crack Tracking Code Discovered in Color Printers / from the Washington Post

The EFF said it has identified similar coding on pages printed from nearly every major printer manufacturer, including Hewlett-Packard Co., though its team has so far cracked the codes for only one type of Xerox printer.
The U.S. Secret Service acknowledged yesterday that the markings, which are not visible to the human eye, are there, but it played down the use for invading privacy.
“It’s strictly a countermeasure to prevent illegal activity specific to counterfeiting,” agency spokesman Eric Zahren said. “It’s to protect our currency and to protect people’s hard-earned money.”