One of the most blogger protective website The Electronic Frontier Foundation is hoping to cause an avalanche with a bottom-up project. The grassroot initiative aims to expose printers which have embed trackable information on printed pages. Apparently, several companies embed tracking data in their printers to help prevent counterfeiting, which is a good thing. As the EFF notes, ‘manufacturers and the Secret Service claim that the marking technology was developed to deter counterfeiting activities using color machines. While they may actually use it for legitimate anticounterfeiting purposes, currently no law prevents them from exploiting the technology in ways that could infringe on the privacy and anonymity of Americans.’ In an age when governments want to track and prevent dissent, this is rather worrying situation Investigating Machine Identification Code Technology Color Laser Printers
Cyber criminals have found a new doorway into our hard drives, this time under the guise of seemingly friendly community sites, blogs and freebies Danger lurking on web freebies
CODA: In August, energetic Jenna Freedman, of RR fame, exclaims: ‘Hooray for Chicago Radical Reference volunteer Laura Crossett!' Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sponsors cooperative computing awards ... And The Overall Awards Go To The ramblings of Laura Crossett, The Medium is Not the Message: ‘As I read news reports now, five years later, about bloggers getting in trouble for their writing, I'm reminded of that moment in the basement of Jessup and of the inability, or unwillingness, of the woman at the end of the hall to see electronic communication as equal to oral communication. The attempts to say that bloggers don't have the same rights as journalists stem, in part, from a belief that electronic print is not equal to hard copy print...’