My God...

I simply can't believe what I saw this morning on the Marginal Revolution. Our government has the ability to spy on us through our color printers.

Printers have a special place in the history of liberty.  It is very disturbing, therefore, to learn that documents printed on color printers from Xerox, HP and other manufacturers contain secret government codes identifying the time, date and serial number of the printer.  No, I am not kidding.  These codes can be read under magnifying glass and special light.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation broke one of the codes and is pursuing more information. 

This is the domain of Communists and Dictators, not a Republic. Someone should answer for this, but I'm sure only a few will even notice.

I want to know how this happened. Was this from our elected branches? Or was it only known by law-enforcement agencies? Also, when was this first put into place? The article claims that this may have been a common practice for ten years now. How did we not find out about it earlier? Why did Xerox participate with such a thing? Were they given some incentive to do so? And, for those who own such a color printer, how can you turn it off?

Based on a comment I saw at the Electric Commentary, I'm thinking about donating money to the EFF myself.

UPDATE: The EFF has a more detailed explaination here. What an easy code to crack!