Crime fighting takes a new, advanced form through
document tracking among laser printers. This is a good news, bearing in mind that there is a considerable increase in the number of counterfeiters nowadays. This new technology would make criminals think twice before forging documents.
This kind of thing reminds of one episode of the Brady Bunch where Marsha (I think) tried to trace an anonymous letter-sender by comparing the keystrokes in a typewriter. You cannot compare keystrokes from a laser printer because every printout is the same. Actually, the emergence of laser printers made it easy for criminals to fake money and forge documents. But somehow, printer companies found a way to stop this by enabling the tracking of a certain printout back to its owner.
How does this work? Well, several
laser printer makers actually encrypt their products' manufacturing codes and serial numbers to their colored copiers and laser printers in super miniscule prints. These products then stamp these codes and numbers to every document it ever prints. These prints (which aren't seen at first glance and can only be seen when you shine a LED light on it) therefore make it easy for the government to track these frauders. Pretty neat, don't you think?
