OT: Odd system folders!

Fyron · #1 January 14th, 2007, 05:54 AM

Atrocities said:
Your printer prints all information about itself, and your PC on each and every peace of paper printed.

bull. Your printer can print a diagnostic sheet with some info about itself, sure. But that is purely for your use in trouble-shooting. No consumer-level printer can possibly print secret information on every page, either with some sort of "invisible ink" or at tiny, tiny resolution such that you can't see it with the unaided eye. That would require massive engineering costs, making them impossible to sell in the low hundreds of dollars range.

The META data in Digital images gives all information about the camera and its settings at the time the image was taken.

Yes, it's called EXIF data. There is nothing unusual or scary about that, in any way. It is there to provide you, the photographer, with extra information about your photos. The entire process was designed and implemented openly, at consumer (mostly professional level, but still consumers) request. Maybe you should look up just what EXIF data is...

Your CD burner burns its serial number, and your PC information onto each disk you create.

I'd have to call bull again. MAYBE a drive serial number, but even that is unlikely. If drive manufacturers were to attempt this (or be forced by the government), there would be privacy related lawsuits about it. The ALCU, for one, would be all over it.

Atrocities · #2 January 14th, 2007, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
Atrocities said:
Your printer prints all information about itself, and your PC on each and every peace of paper printed.

bull. Your printer can print a diagnostic sheet with some info about itself, sure. But that is purely for your use in trouble-shooting. No consumer-level printer can possibly print secret information on every page, either with some sort of "invisible ink" or at tiny, tiny resolution such that you can't see it with the unaided eye. That would require massive engineering costs, making them impossible to sell in the low hundreds of dollars range.

Your CD burner burns its serial number, and your PC information onto each disk you create.

I'd have to call bull again. MAYBE a drive serial number, but even that is unlikely. If drive manufacturers were to attempt this (or be forced by the government), there would be privacy related lawsuits about it. The ALCU, for one, would be all over it.

These are not "bull" as you so gently put it.

In fact they are quite real. Your printer does indeed print information about itself and your PC on each page in the form of little yellow dots Here Is A Link. The Secret Service use special methods to view and read the dots. This was shown on a Discovery Channel show. Sorry don't recall the name of the program but I believe it was Secrets of the Secret Service or something like that. In fact all of the things I mentioned were shown on that show. Your CD burner does encode information about itself and your PC on EVERY DISK you burn.

As to the information contained in digital images, like you said this is nothing new. However, many people do not know about it. For Digital Video, every frame of video shot, 30 fps, it is time coded, and the image you see is actually smaller than what is really recorded. Most people don't know about this as it is really unimportant. However, if your on a tight shot of some person reading a statement, and all you see is their face, the FBI will see another 6 to 12 inches around them, and that could reveal a gun to the person head, or someone or something in the back ground that they can use. Also the camera records its serial number along with the time coding on to each frame of video.

Most people didn't believe that they could be tracked by using their cell phones five years ago. I recall someone telling me that I was full of "bull" back then.

Sivran · #3 January 14th, 2007, 06:27 AM

I know about printers. However -

Quote:

and even your CD burner all encode the products they produce.

Cite sources.

CD-R/DVD-R media is detectable not because of some secret data being written to the disc, but because of the very nature of the media. Dye-based recordable media is different from "pressed" manufactured media and is detectable as such.

http://www.advance.mb.ca/hiworks/cd_r.htm
http://www.megalodon.com/disc-manufacturing.html
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4

Atrocities · #4 January 14th, 2007, 07:24 AM

The way it was described on the show left the impression that it was putting the information onto the disk without the knowledge of the PC operator. That this information was considered "secret" and quite detailed. Until I watch the show on on the Discovery Channel, I did not know that every disk I burned had this information on it. The CD-Rom serial number, my PC information, and the date and time it was burned all encoded without me ever knowing it.

Now that I do know about it, I want to be able to turn it off. While there are advantages to this technology, I.E. to prove that whatever data is on the disk is yours, it also can be misused horribly. So the option to have the feature turned on or off is something that I would be very interested in.

Fyron · #5 January 14th, 2007, 03:25 PM

*shakes head*

The discovery channel runs a lot of garbage conspiracy theory stuff, you know... You aren't supposed to believe it as real.

Atrocities · #6 January 14th, 2007, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
*shakes head*

The discovery channel runs a lot of garbage conspiracy theory stuff, you know... You aren't supposed to believe it as real.

Well the guys that they interviewed were Secret Service Men.... so I think this was on the up and up.

Fyron · #7 January 15th, 2007, 12:05 AM

Or so they alleged... The Discovery Channel is pretty much antithetical to a valid source.

Atrocities · #8 January 15th, 2007, 12:44 AM

Never the less the yellow dots proved true, and so will the the CDRom stuff.

Whether or not the government is behind it, well that certainly is a valid point of contention. I don't believe they are, although, I am sure that they benefit from it.

Baron Munchausen · #9 January 14th, 2007, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Sivran said:
I know about printers. However -

Quote:

and even your CD burner all encode the products they produce.

Cite sources.

CD-R/DVD-R media is detectable not because of some secret data being written to the disc, but because of the very nature of the media. Dye-based recordable media is different from "pressed" manufactured media and is detectable as such.

http://www.advance.mb.ca/hiworks/cd_r.htm
http://www.megalodon.com/disc-manufacturing.html
http://www.cdrfaq.org/faq02.html#S2-4

There is a serial number created for every burned CD, but I haven't seen any information that it is either unique or traceable to the creating machine. If this turns out to be true, I'd say the RIAA/MPAA are more likely culprits than the government for getting the hardware and software producers to do this. Since they are pushing for legislation to add all sorts of DRM junk to our systems, the industry might be trying to work out a 'better deal' with them so they will drop efforts to make the more expensive and difficult enforcement into law.