Xerox DocuColor Printed Leaked NSA Documents

[prwhite]

Remember those alleged, NSA-leaked classified documents in the news? They were tracked back to Reality Winner—an NSA contractor—by codes put into the printed documents that identified the source.

According to The Atlantic magazine, when The Intercept news outlet asked the NSA to verify documents sent to them, the FBI was able to track the leak back to Winner from the steganography coding (encoded watermarks) left by NSA’s Xerox DocuColor printer. Those classified documents were printed on the DocuColor & then sent to the news outlet.

 

[MailGuru]

I guess, in Reality, she is no Winner!

 

[kdw75]

Seems crazy that you pay for a machine that prints incriminating data on your paper without your consent, though it wasn't her own machine. Why these companies would do this is beyond me. I would think they would not want to be implicated in nefarious activities since it opens the door for a civil suit against them in some cases.

 

[SteveL]

It was introduced decades ago by an agreement with what was at the time the G7 nations, to assist in combating money counterfeiting.
It is only a part of the anti-counterfeiting measures in printers and copiers, and doesn't open the manufacturer up to civil law suits.

 

[cyanman]

To be fair, the title of this thread is completely misleading. The DocuColor DID NOT leak any documents. It allowed the government to figure out who made copies of classified documents and illegally carried them out of the building for distribution.

 

[G Oliver]

To be fair, the title of this thread is completely misleading. The DocuColor DID NOT leak any documents. It allowed the government to figure out who made copies of classified documents and illegally carried them out of the building for distribution.

I think you mis-read the title. The DocoColor printed the leaked documents.

 

[Danny Whitehead]

It doesn't seem like a very smart way to leak intelligence documents. Still, it shows that print's not dead in the espionage sector.

 

[dabob]

Ran across this yesterday . . . pertinent to this discussion . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3QXMMV-Srs