They know who you are - just by what you've printed

[Tags: newmedia]. There's a disturbing article over at Poynter on work by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that reveals how governments could trace printouts to the individual machine that printed them:

"Researchers working for the foundation have broken the code that some color printer manufacturers are using to watermark printouts so the printer that produced them can be identified, down to the serial number.

"... This is a good reminder that while new technologies in general have made it easier for people to communicate and share information, they also allow new kinds of government or law-enforcement monitoring that can threaten our civil liberties -- or enable despotic regimes to crack down on dissent."