Yellow Dots on Xerox Digital Prints

[leetaylor]

We run a Xerox 5000 Digital Press and every copy we print has a very feint yellow dot structure in the background - we are told this is some sort of security device to show which machine has printed the sheet?

Does anyone else have any more info on this (check the white/ non printed areas of your sheet with a linen tester to see if you too have this). Do other makes of Digital Press also do this? i.e Canon, Konica etc etc.

Any info would be appreciated.

Lee.

 

[lfelton]

We run a Xerox 5000 Digital Press and every copy we print has a very feint yellow dot structure in the background - we are told this is some sort of security device to show which machine has printed the sheet?

Does anyone else have any more info on this (check the white/ non printed areas of your sheet with a linen tester to see if you too have this). Do other makes of Digital Press also do this? i.e Canon, Konica etc etc.

Any info would be appreciated.

Lee.

As I understand it , this is a voluntary arrangement "requested" by the US Secret Service, i.e. as an anti-counterfeiting measure. I know that Xerox and Konica have implemented this and I believe that all other major manufacturers have also. There's loads of information about this, including "decoding the dots", just google it.

 

[rsands]

they are security dots that only appear in colour prints. Xerox have an issue on some machines were the dots are too visible...they say they are fixing it...but i doubt they will. i have two complaints logged about them being far too visible...technicians from Xerox agreed...but head office dont seem to care

 

[gordo]

EFF: DocuColor Tracking Dot Decoding Guide

 

[che.c]

Argh, hate that steganography. Can look very bad on light blue and cyan, especially gradients - makes it very green, and sometimes just shows up real bad on what's meant to be a white background.

That's besides the point, they shouldn't be adding 'features' like that. What people print with their printers is their business - how would you feel if you bought a car that tracked everywhere you went, just incase the government might need to know?

Check out Seeing Yellow if you're interested.

 

[Craig]

That's besides the point, they shouldn't be adding 'features' like that. What people print with their printers is their business - how would you feel if you bought a car that tracked everywhere you went, just incase the government might need to know?

That all good, but when idiots are printing $100 bills it kind of changes the tune. It's the same as Photoshop, I can't recall exactly but I thought Adobe will not allow you to print images of currency.
Some tech. from Canon told me that the digital devices will also record date and time of when a currency (or similar image) is printed.

Gotta love big brother!

 

[che.c]

Yeah I've heard that argument before, and there's no way in hell that a digital press would produce a convincing note (cracking? quality?) never mind one that would pass even the most cursory tests. There will always be some bad eggs, they will still be caught without intrusive steganography. Even then, that's not the point.

The printer was sold to you to print things. You can print what you like and it's not the government's, or the manufacturer's responsibility to trace what you print, or censor it. There is no reason to do it beyond, 'because they can' and taking a bit more freedom and privacy away from joe average.

Erherm, sorry but steganography really annoys me.

 

[PDeuth]

I had no idea...Thanks for the information. Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. As a quality manager I don't like not being able to control my processes. If a customer finds that pattern objectionable, there is nothing I can do about it. Tiny yellow dots to help against counterfeiting? I wonder about that idea - the output of those machines in the "Seeing Yellow" list is poor. Anybody duped by currency printed on those machies almost deserves to be scammed.
This is an interesting subject, to be sure, and one that is new to me. Thanks for the information and post.

 

[Vee]

It's wrong!

It's wrong!

I think it is wrong. Period.

The US government has their hands into too many things. Their sole purpose was to be here to protect us. Now they want to tell us what we can do, what we can and can't say, and what we can PRINT! Get out of here!!

 

[Craig]

Be careful........ the men in dark sunglasses are monitoring this. Crap there is a black helicopter flying over now!!!!!

 

[gordo]

Well, at least they're not doing it on our posts. gordo

 

[dynamicprinter]

It doesn't bother me.
I can only see it under a loop.

 

[lfelton]

Well, with my Fox Mulder hat on, I'd say that encoding information like the time and date printed & the serial number of the machine has more to do with tracking people who print stuff the government doesn't want you to read. After all, intaglio printing doesn't even feel remotely like offset, let alone all of the other simple counterfeit detection techniques.

However, when not in "conspiracy nut" mode, I have to say that people seem pretty easy to fool. I watched a documentary a while back about the police busting "the biggest counterfeiting gang" in the UK. They had footage of the criminal's "high tech equipment" which looked suspiciously like a tatty old Ryobi 512 in a ratty old shed. I wouldn't have suspected them capable of getting the colour right on the church newsletter, but apparently they'd printed "millions of pounds" worth of high quality notes. Maybe people really are daft enough to not notice photocopied bank notes!

 

[WillG]

As others have said, a digital print is quite obvious. I've never seen a glossy $100.00 bill, but then again who else has seen the toner cracking off currency. I guess you all didn't hear about the guy that tried passing a $1 Million Dollar bill at Wal-mart? The Smoking Gun: Archive someone is always going to try and do something stupid when they think they can get away from it.

 

[Island]

Anyone send a bill to the government for yellow toner use over 10 years?

 

[Craig]

anyone send a bill to the government for yellow toner use over 10 years?

That's funy!

 

[SAMiAM]

It's a code for the serial number of the machine. If you try to pint counterfeit money they can trace it back to you.

 

[Island]

I can appreciate the idea, but it is a bit unfortunate that on my new docucolor I can see the xerox yellow dot pattern in the prints with my naked eye. They are especially visible when printing with enhanced gloss mode on gloss stock it seems.

 

[rsands]

what machine you got? can i guess its a DC2xx?

 

[Island]

Yup. Yellow dots are a bit more noticable than I'm used to on the canons.