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Lucy
| Revoluciana How to Distribute Radical Shit:
*Don't Trust Your Printer*
Your printer is a snitch. It's a homing beacon for law enforcement– even offline.
My post about what to do instead:
https://www.revoluciana.net/how-to-distribute-radical-stuff/
"Have you ever wondered why your printer is always out of yellow ink, even when you print only in black and white? There's a reason why this always happens."
"Typically, each time you print, your printer creates a series of dots all over your printed paper using only the yellow ink. They're small and hard to spot with the naked eye, but they're much easier to see with a black light."
"Every single time you click print, it does this. It's why you're always out of yellow ink, and it's why your printer refuses to work even when you're only printing in black and white. It's a requirement for your printer to work."
"These dots work kind of like the way a QR code does. It essentially creates a picture with information, metadata, embedded in the way the dots are arranged."
"First, what not to do:
...if you were hypothetically trying to print something that you didn't want traced back to you, for whatever reason,
**don't print it with your printer.**"
If you want some alternatives or strategies for how to deal with this issue, go ahead and read the full post on my website (all my posts are free):
https://www.revoluciana.net/how-to-distribute-radical-stuff/
Also, I really love writing these posts and I work really hard on them. If you appreciate my writing, maybe consider a free subscription to my newsletter via email or RSS. 
Subscribe:
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(Disclaimer: I'm not an expert in this.)
One thing you didn't mention (or I missed) is that this tracking is in place only for *colour* printers. So a monochrome laser printer is likely to be safer.
The reason for these dots in the first place was that governments (even non-facist ones) were concerned about easy counterfeit money, which is only a problem with colour printers.
So, second-hand airgapped B&W laser printer with a nice random stippled background on your poster.
@suetanvil Thanks!
So, I do address this in the full post on the website. Yes, the yellow dots are only with color printers; however, as I mention, it's likely that they have implemented other tracking ability by other means with B&W printers, such as through variations in laser intensity or within the greyscale, etc.
That being said, I mention the second-hand printer, but getting a B&W one second-hand is likely a safer bet. And I love the idea of the stippled background, especially if you can use some of the same ink that is used in the printer. Even better!! I *love* the stippled background idea-- I will add this idea to the website! -- do you mind if I cite you or would you prefer to go unmentioned?
@revoluciana @suetanvil you can hide data in halftone dots by having a / shaped dot represent a 1 and a \ shaped dot represent 0. it’s called data glyphs
@revoluciana @suetanvil looks kinda like this- the advantage black and white printers have over colour is they usually have higher dot density, so there’s smaller scales they can hide patterns in
@spacekatia@girlcock.club@bri_seven @revoluciana @suetanvil (it is also very easy to encode data in dither patterns when the input contains any gray levels (or by interpreting pure black and white input to introduce them))
@spacekatia @revoluciana @suetanvil and in case it needs saying, all of thiscstuff falls under the umbrella of steganography, which as far as I kmow isn’t illegal for anyone to do