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We're going to wake up one day soon and discover that nobody makes printers any more that don't snitch on your activities to the Secret Police (b/c the public internet is dead, the olgarch social media is in the pocket of the aforementioned SP, and samizdat is … well, if your printer OCR's and emails it to the authorities that's you doing 10-20 years for "encouraging terrorism", innit).

Prolly time to buy a second-hand 1980s dot-matrix and a ribbon re-inking kit.
infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/1…


BrianKrebs (@briankrebs@infosec.exchange)

Attached: 1 image Oh how far you've fallen, Wirecutter. Recommending HP printers? Nuh uh. They all make you want to pull your hair out, but for my money Brother sucks way less. Unless you absolutely need photo quality printouts or something.
Infosec Exchange
in reply to Charlie Stross

Bob Dowling
Bob Dowling
• •
I think the Epson Ecotank series of inkjet printers is still the best (mainstream) bet. Don’t despair quite yet.
in reply to Bob Dowling

Paul Martin
Paul Martin
• •
An inkjet is great if you print a few times a week, but if you leave it idle any longer you risk the print head clogging. For infrequent use a monochrome laser can't be beaten. I have a second hand HP4250N (with duplexer) which is built like a tank and goes from doing nothing for months to printing out half a ream at once without complaint. I thought it was faulty once, but a new (off brand) toner cartridge fixed it.
in reply to Paul Martin

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@nowster @bob_dowling HP lasers from before about 2005 were built like brick outhouses and you could count on them … so many people did, HP began to lose sales, and then enshittified the new products to ensure they could make revenue targets on toner alone. HP printers after about 2010 are basically trash.
@Bob Dowling @Paul Martin
in reply to Charlie Stross

Orb 2069
Orb 2069
• •

@nowster @bob_dowling

Still regretting the bag of silver I took for my HPLJ5 during one of their "sales events". Dimmed the entire house when the fusor kicked on, but was way past unstoppable.

@Bob Dowling @Paul Martin
in reply to Charlie Stross

Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷
Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷
• •
Laser printers at least have been snitching on us for decades at this point, no?
in reply to Charlie Stross

acb
acb
• •
also, computers. Throw away your smartphone/laptop (they all serve the oligarchs and/or CCP’s security organs), build something from a junkbox Z80 and program it in BASIC/assembly to do what you need. (Make sure it’s a genuine old Z80, and not a modern emulation running on an ARM SoC along with the obligatory layers of spyware.)
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to Charlie Stross

BeeCycling
BeeCycling
• •

It's also important that people know that most printers print a code on their output that traces the printout back to that specific printer. It's usually in pale, unobtrusive yellow dots. (This is why your printer wants you to replace the colour cartridge even if you're just trying to print in black.) Created ostensibly to trace printers being used to counterfeit currency.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_…


digital watermark which certain color laser printers and copiers leave on every single printed page, allowing to identify the device with which a document was printed and giving clues to the originator

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to BeeCycling

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@beecycling That's why I'm recommending a 1980s dot matrix, from before watermarking of inkjet and laser printer output with the Constellation EUrion became A Thing.
@BeeCycling
in reply to Charlie Stross

BeeCycling
BeeCycling
• •
Definitely. Just wanted to mention the printer dots too, because most people don't know about them, and think that something printed out and distributed on paper can't be traced back to or linked to them. It absolutely can.
in reply to BeeCycling

Feòrag
Feòrag
• •
@beecycling Someone I know, who will remain nameless unless they choose to reveal themselves, had programmed their Postscript printer to print the yellow dot pattern specific to Euro banknotes on all their correspondence with the authorities.
@BeeCycling
in reply to BeeCycling

Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands
Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands
• •

Okay, so asking to confirm if I'm remembering correctly:

All color machines do the dots, this is why printers refuse to print if they don't have a working color/yellow cartridge... but fully black and white machines (typically only laser printers, and not color machines set to B&W only) do not do this. Am I remembering that correctly?

in reply to Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@deathkitten @beecycling I have not tested this, but I suspect you can see the dot patterns if you print a test page using a sheet of black or pale blue paper (pale blue = yellow gives green). It's a hack on the human eye which has difficulty distinguishing yellow from a white background.
@BeeCycling @Glowing Cat of the Nuclear Wastelands
in reply to Charlie Stross

Leszek Karlik
Leszek Karlik
• •

I have an almost 20 years old HP LaserJet 1018, works like a charm, plenty of third-party toner+drum sets, I think I'm set for now.

(I also have a second HP LaserJet 1018 in the basement just in case this one croaks, two is one and one is none :-)).

in reply to Leszek Karlik

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@Leszek_Karlik Similar. There's an ancient Laserjet 3030—a B&W multifunction—gathering dust outside my office door, and an in-use colour laserjet in $SPOUSE's office from just before the enshittification kicked in—it has a JetDirect card for network printing over 10BaseT but and probably does watermarking but doesn't phone home or use anticounterfeiting measures.
@Leszek Karlik
in reply to Charlie Stross

Frank’s Ting
Frank’s Ting
• •
@kcarruthers @briankrebs also wineglasses in the dishwasher? Nope nope nope
@BrianKrebs @kcarruthers
in reply to Frank’s Ting

BrianKrebs
BrianKrebs
• •
@franksting @kcarruthers Yes and for your dishwasher, they recommended Cascade, which is about the worst thing you can put in your machine.
@Frank’s Ting @kcarruthers
in reply to BrianKrebs

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@briankrebs @franksting @kcarruthers I sincerely hope the NYTimes outsources all subediting and copywriting jobs for this sort of shitty clickbait to ChatGPT, then gets sued into a smoking crater in the floor of the Marianas Trench when somebody follows its suggestion and puts their baby through the dishwasher on a hot cycle.
@BrianKrebs @Frank’s Ting @kcarruthers
in reply to Charlie Stross

Jernej Simončič �
Jernej Simončič �
• •
Do B&W lasers also print dot patterns? I'd imagine those would be quite a bit more noticeable than yellow ones…
in reply to Jernej Simončič �

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@jernej__s AIUI B&W laser printers don't do that. You can't forge realistic-looking banknotes with them, which was the original reason for the regulations requiring dot patterns in output. (There was a problem with high denomination Euro forgeries off colour lasers and inkjets in the 90s.)
@Jernej Simončič �
in reply to Charlie Stross

Louis Patterson
Louis Patterson
• •
don't think anyone's going to rootkit my Adana letterpress, but...
in reply to Charlie Stross

Ari does not comply
Ari does not comply
• •

I still have some old Apple dot matrix etc. printers. They're in good shape. I haven't thought about seeing if I could bring them back to life. 🤔

I do keep a basic, non-internet-connected Brother black-and-white toner printer around for bulk printing. That thing is incredibly useful.

Unfortunately I bought an HP tank printer over a year ago, but I haven't set it up yet. Maybe I need to rethink that choice, but it's way too late to return it. ☹️

in reply to Charlie Stross

Tony Wells
Tony Wells
• •

Typewriter with carbon paper, and a stencil setting + a mimeograph for bulk copying. Bonus retro ink smell.

If you want more modern tech, a 1980's daisywheel or ball electronic typewriter with a PC port/adaptor. (probably just copy the file to LPT1, but it's been a while).

in reply to Tony Wells

Charlie Stross
Charlie Stross
• •
@TonyJWells Who manufactures carbon paper today? Or mimeograph stencils? Even typewriters? (A search for "typewriter" on Brother's website shows nothing but discontinued models ...)
@Tony Wells
in reply to Charlie Stross

Tony Wells
Tony Wells
• •
Carbon paper is still made, I have some new stock. Typewriters are still made in small numbers, but awful quality, there are plenty decent 2nd hand ones that will likely last many more decades.
Mimeograph stencils can still be had, last I checked, from Japan , but it's very niche. However, like analogue film and various audio recording formats, if there's demand, someone will start making them .
in reply to Charlie Stross

Elena ``of Valhalla''
Elena ``of Valhalla''
•

@Charlie Stross @Tony Wells I think that carbon paper is still manufactured for art related uses.

it's also priced accordingly, and I have no idea whether it's the type that would work in a typewriter.

@Charlie Stross @Tony Wells
in reply to Charlie Stross

BardMoss the Linux Guy
BardMoss the Linux Guy
• •
If your printer accepts third party cartridges, it's probably not spying on you
in reply to Charlie Stross

dr_barnowl
dr_barnowl
• •

All printers capable of colour, as far as I know, print a virtually invisible pattern of yellow dots encoding their serial number onto every page, and have done for decades.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_…

I've directly witnessed a scanner get halfway though the EURion constellation on a tenner and just stop, halfway through the note.


digital watermark which certain color laser printers and copiers leave on every single printed page, allowing to identify the device with which a document was printed and giving clues to the originator

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)

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