US Secret Service helps you to have your Color-Laser printers serial number handy
 

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/

Accordig to the EFF, the U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers.

Now of course, there are all sorts of unfounded, anti-american political divagations in the EFF-texts we shall not look into anyway as this is a strictly technical board.

But it is very interesting to examine how you can decode both date and printer serial number for Xerox DocuColor laser printers by simply looking closely at a page of whatever it printed:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/docucolor/guide.png

Perhaps the printer sitting next to you is doing it right now, simply nobody found out about it yet...

This is great!
I had always hoped such technology existed.

Used appropriately – as I am sure it will be – this can help identify the source of written threats and extortion attempts, help identify spies, and perhaps even help identify the source of media leaks (be they from Apple or Microsoft).

And to think that, tecnically, the system is so wonderfully simple.
Amazing!

With best regards,
ArcticStones

It could also be used to track and harass citizens for exercising their freedom of speech, and frankly I see no indication from either of the two parties currently running our country that they would stop short of such usage, if they could get away with it. And under the Patriot Act, they can.

All the good underground media will have to stay black and white or use inkjets for the time being, I suppose. And of course, this shows why the technology is useless for its intended (good) purpose - no one is going to print threats, extortion attempts, or media leaks on a color laser printer since this is now (has been for some time, actually) public knowledge.

The technology was mostly targeting money counterfeiting (where colour is rather essential).

I think we should stick to the technical side of this,
avoiding any reference whatsoever to politics.

Seems to me this has a lot of legitimate uses. Besides,
I think we should trust the powers-that-be. Isn’t this just
like chemical signatures in ship oil cargoes, making it
possible to trace an oil spill, for instance? In other words
totally legit.

No matter – technical aspects only, please.

Best regards,
ArcticStones

I seem to remember that the same trick is done with colour photocopiers also

Wow! First you ask us to accept on face value a claim that "the powers-that-be" are trust worthy, then you ask us to stick to the technical aspects! I suppose that's easy to do if you blindly trust the powers-that-be.

What would you suggest, cwtnospam? That the technology be outlawed because it could be misused? That's true of many kinds of technology.

ShavenYak: It could also be used to track and harass citizens for exercising their freedom of speech, and frankly I see no indication from either of the two parties currently running our country that they would stop short of such usage, if they could get away with it. And under the Patriot Act, they can.

Try, just try, dear forum members, to avoid steering into these kinds of generalizations that have already given offense to some who've PM'd me. There's an interesting topic, here, that has obvious political ramifications, but lots of others as well. Let's see if we can discuss it responsibly.

I would suggest that if you don't want a political response, you shouldn't make a political statement. Asking people to trust the current leadership without question is about as political as you can get.

I think it is yet another perfect you-can't-keep-it-apart question where technical solutions are politcally motivated and cannot be discussed in a meaningful way by leaving essential aspects out.

However, just like Phil suggested, keeping it civil is key.
We have already had long threads with lots of thoughtful posts on similar subjects and I would be very glad if we could examine the different aspects of this without shouting "anti-american leftist" and "neo-con" at one another.

I took Arctic's point to be in the interest of discussion -- that you have to assume proper use of a technology in order to be able to even get into what its benefits might be. You can also acknowledge the dangers and pitfalls as well without slamming politicans, political parties, etc. Unfortunately, that calls for a certainly level of discipline and maturity that's generally been lacking in similar discussions, here, but let's see what happens.

I think it could be agreed that anonymous speech is an important foundation of this country's founding, since it was stated as such in many of the Founders' writings. We can probably also agree that anonymous speech is an important function in a free society, right?

This technology RIGHT NOW doesn't have a big impact on that as long as it is fully disclosed, and used only in color laser printers. However, how long until it gets into all printers?

I would be annoyed at having my content tampered with. Even if the dots are "microscopic", yellow on blue in a pattern, as in the example might well turn up as a noticeable blemish. If they are there as a deterrent to counterfeiting, wouldn't they have to be present with a spacing such that every dollar bill-sized area of paper on the sheet would have to receive one? That could get really ugly. And if they only appear once or twice on a sheet, then what's the point?

biovizier has a point.

Once disclosed, the whole thing becomes pointless if you don't plaster the paper with repeating patterns close enough together to be at least once on the fake document this technique pretends to help avoid.

Unless that is not the main purpose...

It is also a lot more intrusive than what prevents newer color-copiers and for example Photoshop CS and higher (7 still works) to work with banknotes. Although that algo annoys people in charge of producing "cinema-money" to no end, it does not disclose any information, it just doesn't produce the expected output.

And it is probably a world-wide problem as I don't see two different firmware versions being maintained depending whether or not the Secret Service considers a country "interesting".

Hopefully the EFF will be able to come up with a list of manufacturers who implement such watermarking techniques and those who resisted the demand and see how the market reacts to yet another attempt to do things without the knowledge of the owner of the machine.

As with everything that might make the life of the police easier, it needs to be carefully balanced against the losses in civil liberties.

And I'm afraid the dot-pattern is a good candidate for elimination because it is both next to pointless for all but the most naive criminals while it tags extremely sensitive information on the vast majority of "innocent" output.

And to complement Phils comment, it would be great if everybody posting remembered that there are big differences in the perception of political issues around the world and what seems completely normal to the average american might result in a european foaming at the mouth and vice-versa.

I'm confident we'll be able to keep up a fair and polite debate here.

Sorry, Mr. V, but the reference you posted earlier states that the watermarks are printed all over the sheet already.

So I'd argue that in the case of counterfeiting, it's very effective. For the case of civil liberties, well, this kind of watermarking is easily outmanoeuvred by using an inkjet printer, thereby rendering marking pretty useless in this area.

My position on this would change if it transpires that inkjet printers also add dots but I think they are too crude (at present) for this to work.

It's easily defeated by anyone serious enough to be counterfeiting. All they need to do is purchase the printer using cash or a stolen credit card.

Printers don't counterfeit, criminals do!

The idea behind inserting the watermarks is not to trace the printer and owns it, but to be able to legally link a printer with its output.

A serious counterfeiter isn't worried about stolen goods - that's a misdemeanour in most jurisdictions. But being found with a printer who serial number has been found on fake dollar bills means a whole lot more time in the clink. That's the deterrent.

So are you saying that this is essentially the same as the "signature" of a typewriter – just a bit more scientific and systematic? In other words, the comparison with a vessel’s chemical signature was not far off the mark?

Best regards,
ArcticStones

Basically the same thing.

Just like any other form of registration; cars, guns, whatever, this will not affect any marginally smart criminals.

Maybe so, but 99% of them are less than marginally smart and so anything that makes it harder to get away with a crime reduces the number of idiots that need to be dealt with.

It's similar to computer security. You can't really stop a dedicated professional from breaking into your computer. But for most people, stopping the hordes of script kiddies is sufficient.

This seems more like the kind of thing that's only going to be done by pros anyway, since it requires more than just a good printer. A close approximation of the paper is one requirement for example that makes it unlikely that the 99% who are less than marginally smart would be a problem anyway.

It seems likely that this will be more of a hinderance to legitimate users than real criminals.

Actually, there have been quite a few instances of ridiculously bad counterfeits being passed off. One involved three dollar bills (wish I had the link here). I bet if I printed 20s on one of our $25k color laser printers, I could pass them off at least 1/4 of the time.

Yes, there are just as many less than marginally smart cashiers as there are criminals of the same intelligence level. Even so, I doubt that any of those instances involved large amounts of phony cash actually making it into circulation. This wouldn't be aimed at them anyway, since they're likely to be caught before the printer information can be used to track them down. ;)

I agree, and believe there are ulterior motives for the serial numbers, of course.

Arctic's post about sticking to a talk of the technology, not the politics, left me wondering. What technology? I mean, it's just the replacement of a single pixel in a sequence, not a lot of high-tech there. The other application could be as watermarking for copyright, but that doesn't seem so useful.

I suppose there's some technology in the software that incorporates the grid into an image so that while it can be seen, it isn't obvious to the point that it interferes with the print out. That could be a bit tricky. As an example, bright yellow dots on a dark image would jump out. Since the grid needs to be printed repeatedly, the software would need to recalculate for each grid. I admit it isn't very difficult or sophisticated, but hey, if you can patent the iPod's hierarchical menus, why not this? :D

I think you're right though, it does seem that the ulterior motives are the ones driving this.

Re: Technologies with "multiple applications"
 

Phil is right; my admonishment was for the sake of discussion – not brushing away the possibility that there may, conceivably, be ulterior motives for implementing the tracking technology for colour laser printers (which as Carlos points out seems low-tech).

Allow me, for a moment and by example, to examine a far more innocuous technology…

In Norway many road projects are financed by road tolls (as I’m sure they are many places). To catch the "cheaters", there is video surveillance installed. The recent version here in Bergen is based on pre-paid electronic chips read by sensors as you pass, and optical license plate readers (you get a giro in the mail if you don’t have a chip).

This is an expensive set-up! Many have pointed out that there are far cheaper ways to collect the money – the most effective being a fee for all drivers in the area or a direct tax.

A "side effect" is that this system renders most major towns into an electronic fortress, effectively keeping tabs on who enters and exits those town. (According to some – that is the prime motive behind its implementation. But of course those people are just paranoid, right?)

In a number of recent court cases, the prosecution has tried to gain access to video footage that can help identify drivers and passengers. With varying degrees of success. (The Norwegian Data Inspectorate is a force to be reckoned with, often preventing "multi-use" of databases, electronic tracks, etc.)

Now, what is what? What are motives and what are side effects? I would argue that it’s rarely possible to know. (Law-and-order afficionados and conspiracy buffs can argue until they’re blue in the face without getting any closer to agreement or bridging differences in perception.) But it is obvious that a wide range of technologies that have been implemented in recent years, or will be implemented in the near future, have "multiple applications".

I certainly believe that revealing and analysing those "multiple applications" – preferably before implementation – is an important public service. The technological nuts and bolts, the possibilities, the risks and benefit are all intertwined. Provided we can discuss it as sensibly as here, those are valuable topics in this Forum.


With best regards,
ArcticStones

@Carlos

Not true.

There is no central register of these printers. Ownership of these printers does not require that a government authority be notified.

@Everybody

Counterfeiters with ownership of a printing press must be linked to their product for a legal case to be successful. Normally, this is done by demonstrating that the press has a set of defects which are also on intercepted examples of funny money.

The top range printers produced by Xerox, and other manufacturers, not only produce consistent accurate output over time, but are also practically clones of each other. i.e the output is capable of rendering paper money accurately - and printouts produced by different printers can't be distinguished. So the money couldn't be detected, and even if it could, it couldn't be proven to be from a given printer. Hence the watermarks ... Their purpose is to allow detection and to prove legally that a given printer was used to produce funny money.

I would become concerned for civil liberties if I was required to register the printer.

I realise that ownership data might be held by the manufacturer of the printer, which could be handed over to a government authority. But my perception of this issue is coloured by the different legal position of such data here in the UK (and, I suspect, from AS's post, Norway.) [EDIT - UK law is also governed by 'EC Data Protection Directive' which means all complaint EU countries will have similar legislation.] Such data in the UK is legally still my data, and would require a legal procedure, subject to my authority, to obtain. Penalties apply - even to the police.

I can imagine that citizens of countries without any data protection laws (where ownership of data lies with its keeper) would have more concerns. Indeed, I am concerned enough to refuse to do business with a certain well-known online bookstore precisely because data obtained from me is stored outside UK jurisdiction.

A little paranoia is a good thing. The US may be a Republic or a Democracy, but since 9/11 laws have been enacted that many of us find downright scary. Rome was a Republic/Democracy too, and it didn't take long for it to make the switch to an Empire when it happened.

Rights are rarely taken away all at once. They are whittled away until a critical point is reached, when too much power has been ceded. Then the rest are lost as well. Technologies like this one aren't very harmful by themselves, but taken together with other changes and technologies, one has to wonder where we are headed.

It's worth keeping an eye on, for sure, which is something Roman citizens could not do as we do today. The problem is that sometimes the common good is better served through prudent security measures than through an absolutist position on personal rights. E.g., the issue of counterfeiting, which hurts everyone in the long run, and which technologies like this one might help to discourage (until the "bad guys" figure out how to circumvent it). How/where these lines are drawn re rights and security is an ongoing discussion, which is a good thing, imo, the extreme alternatives being either a police state or a community so naive about security risks as to leave itself wide open to destruction. How one perceives one's society on that contiuum often says as much about the perceiver as what happens to be the case.

True. My worry is that many people are unaware of recent changes either because of ignorance or blind faith in their leaders. That can easily lead them to perceive things through rose colored glasses. This technology, like most others is neutral. How it will be used is another question.

Perceptions, threats and security measures
 

Couldn’t agree more!
I think it is worthwhile for each of us to ask where on that continuum we think our nation/society finds itself. And are we willing to admit that we just might be very wrong?

Perhaps with today’s technologies and fascinatingly intertwined human networks, the "controls"/influences available to potential behind-the-scenes power players need neither be particularly overt – nor especially bothersome to the average citizen?

I seem to recall a Pentagon report that in 2003 (I believe) the total numer of deaths in the world due to terrorism were at a 25 year low! Compared to deaths due to drunk driving, street violence, domestic violence, alcohol abuse, cigarette smoking or even the common flu – the total number of casualties due to terrorism is negligible. (But painful and real enough!)

The media focus and the political focus act as a magnifying glass, grossly enlarging those threats.

May I be permitted to say that some security measures will entail the destruction of the free society that I, for one, love – far more effectively than ongoing or threatened terrorist acts.


With best regards,
ArcticStones

These two paragraphs seem to contradict each other. It should be especially bothersome to the average citizen that terrorism wasn't prevalent in 2003, yet security levels were repeatedly raised and lowered during that time. Now that there are no pending elections, how many of us know what the current security level is? I find that very disturbing, and reason enough to worry about any technology that might infringe on my rights in the future.

I can't think of a single high end printer that isn't registered to its user at the time of sale. These aren't things you pick up anonymously at your local computer store. Sure, there's no government registry, but the manufacturer knows where it went.

And the laws about privacy and procedure are unenforced here; who are you going to call, the police? There are plenty of documented cases of industry handing over private data to police without due process. Delta airlines giving up all of its passenger lists is just one example.

The (relatively) low numbers are no doubt due, at least in part, to effective measures in many countries. Needless to say, a lot of those efforts have not been made public. Hence I don’t think there is a contradiction.
I think the issue is complex – and, as Phil points out, a balance must be sought. I see both sides of this.

Consider that one of those could, next year, be a nuclear attack or some form of bio-terrorism. A culture would have more difficulty dealing with that than it would with its ongoing struggles with flu and drunk-drivers.

Sometimes taking preventive measures to avert possible (not hypothetical) worst-case scenarios is in keeping with prudence. Ask the residents of New Orleans, who were only prepared to deal with a Cat. 3 hurricane. A Cat. 4 or 5 every 500 years is a low-probability occurrence, but when it finally does come and you're not prepared . . . :(

Anyway . . . yeah, complicated, for sure, especially where to draw the lines when you're dealing with possible rather than hypothetical threats.

Preparing for a worst case is always a compromise. It takes money and effort. If nothing happens, that money and effort is wasted. If it happens, it was worth it. Some would cry out that any human life is worth any amount of money, but realistically, that's simply not true or workable.

Money is not infinite. If NO were to be prepared for what happened, what would the cost have been? What would have others had to do without in order to free up that money? Housing, food, etc?

Phil, I think prudence has helped, as I pointed out in my reply to cwtnospam. I am in no way arguing against measures and prudence!

Best regards,
ArcticStones

cwtnospam, do you sleep OK at night? Just wondering . . . ;)

What rights do you think you've lost, btw? I haven't lost any . . . none that I'm aware of, or experience to any significant degree.

Not to say that vigilance re. government policies isn't called for, of course.

Carlos, the levees, floodgates, marsh rehab and other measures required to help NO withstand a Cat 5 hurricane with any significant probability of success would have cost over $200 billion, according to some estimates I've seen. That's what's being requested from the U.S. gov't over a period of years to help rebuild the city.

I'm not sure they want to gamble again, but the story's not yet over.

-----

Edit:

It takes money and effort. If nothing happens, that money and effort is wasted.

Unless it actually helps entice people and businesses to settle in an area. That kind of influence is hard to measure monetarily, however.

I think terrorism is a special case (so I'm going to ignore your example :)), and I don't doubt that there are cases in the US where private data has been handed over for dubious reasons to the police.

This is essentially my point. As a US citizen, you have few if any rights over your personal data. There is no equivalent in US law to the UK's Data Protection Act. I feel that the lack of what I consider a basic right can't help but make Americans adopt a more negative attitude of the use of technology such as the little dots than myself because the possibility of its misuse is higher than in the UK.

The possibility of its misuse is not zero here, just less. In the case of the printer, I am well within my rights to demand the printer manufacturer delete all records relating to myself, nor to pass on information to 3rd parties without my consent. Access (within limits) can be denied to the police. Civil and criminal remedies are available in the event of the printer manufacturer breaching these requirements.

For me, the ramifications of having watermarked documents are limited to their stated purpose.

See Bruce Schneier's newsletter:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0509.html
where he discusses reacting to "movie-plot threats" and failures regarding Katrina.

How about the right to free and fair elections? Manipulating the public through a simple technology like terrorist threat levels was very effective. I have no doubt that the technology being discussed here could be used for political gain as well. For example, what's to stop anyone from forging the id from a competitor's printer and posting offensive material? We've already seen an undercover operative outed, why would a political candidate be immune from this kind of attack?

Hayne, that’s some interesting analyses!

Some years ago, I wrote a proposal for a middle-of-the-road Norwegian political party. My idea was to put the military in charge of a broader spectrum of national threats, including non-military.

Examples: oil spills, natural disasters, animal/human epidemics, etc. My point was that the military had the operational expertise and the ability to mobilise effectively. In case of an oil spill, for instance, the Norwegian Pollution Control Authority would have the expertise.

In some regards Norway is a special case, since military duty is mandatory for all men, except conscientious objectors and those with a medical excuse. Besides, we’re regularly required to partake in re-training sessions. Relative to the size of our population, Norway can mobilise surprisingly large armed forces.

More importantly, in terms of natural disasters and other threats, the highly organised nature of our society enables us to deal with various scenarios more effectively than we otherwise would. (I’m not comparing countries, mind you.)

Many different types of threats are dealt with in different ways.

Bruce Schneier surely has an important point in regards to NOT limiting preparedness and spending to whatever "movie-plot" threat happens to be popular this month.

Another problem, however, is this: Western society is simply not structured to offer effective security against a no-holds-barred enemy without a territorial base. And I’m not sure such restructuring is desireable. So all measures necessitate a complex balance – cost/effectiveness, liberties/security, etc etc.

The most effective measures that have been taken so fare are probably the ones that we don’t read about. But we also have to find ways to erode support for the terrorist position. Without going into detail (which would be inappropriate here), I’m not convinced that the decisions being made are achieving that. Quite the contrary.


With best regards,
ArcticStones

Maybe, but unless you know for sure that the threats were bogus, you're just howling at the moon. Apparently, some of those threats were real.
- http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-10-07-voa57.cfm
(10 threats stopped mentioned, and verified by media and other sources.)

Conscience? A respect for law? The consequences of getting caught?

The point is not that the threats were bogus. They weren't. The point is that the same types of threats exist today, but we don't see urgent notices about threat levels anymore. In fact, the month after the elections, they ceased. Clearly, the people responsible for changing the threat level indicators no longer felt the need to tell us after the elections. Since the same threats continue to exist, the only conclusion I can see is that the threat level changes were politically motivated. Somebody must have been using them to manipulate the public.

So what is your point? It was an election, not a spelling bee – the candidates use whatever means they have at their disposal to win (and those means are considerable, including possible selective emphasis of intelligence data). Do you expect any less? I never did.

Technology used for political gains? Voting machines? But surely you don’t suggest...

By the way, I don’t know what technology or intelligence the Spaniards used, but everyone involved there is either dead or in prison. And their ex head of state lost because he tried to blame the ETA (Basque separatists), even though that was highly inconsistent with preliminary intelligence findings.

;)

Candidates, even political parties, should not be able to use the government to control the outcome of an election. In fact, I'm pretty sure doing so is a crime.

For sure. And we all know what you're suggesting, and that you don't like or trust the Bush admin, etc. That's pretty much all you've wanted to say since you joined the discussion. Duly noted! Time to move on (or move out).

Refocusing . . .

The issue raised on the thread wasn't about using technology to influence public opinion, nor how technology can serve to distort information for politician's gain. Good heavens, every political advertisement does that, so you'd have to say that TV, radio, email, web sites, etc. are suspect. People need to read various sources to inform themselves on this matter. I understood the issue to pertain to technology and privacy issues, so how about we get back to that. Thanks.

Yes Phil, I don't like or trust Bush, but I can't imagine a polititician, party, or government agency that I'd like having the ability to track down people who put up their own political posters.

I can only think of two reasons for not wanting your identity known:

1. You're doing something illegal and don't want to get caught.

2. You're doing something that is political in nature, and that could cost you in some way. By political I don't necessarily mean that you're running for office or even supporting some one who is.

My point is, when you talk about privacy rights, you are talking about politics.

3. You're doing something which has been made illegal but is or should be your right.

I'm from Cuba. I don't need to be reminded how important anonymous political speech is.

As far as what rights the Patriot Act has abridged... Did you know it's illegal to discuss various parts of the law itself? So illegal that in a court challenge against it, the agrieved party could not actually file the text of the law it was fighting? A very important foundation of our system of law is that you can't be accused of violating a law that is unclear, and that trials are public. The PA has created secret laws and secret courts. That's contrary to our constitution.

This technology makes it risky for someone to expose those illegal laws.

The nature of the threat posed by serializing and dating printouts has been made a lot more obvious. Color Laser Printers might be just a test case. HP already tried (and stopped after consumer protest) to implement printer drivers phoning home and telling hp about ink consumption. That was presumably only for marketing (and getting reliable data about 3rd party refills), but still an intolerable intrusion.

Firmware-Watermarks and phone-home drivers (why not include document titles printed or even complete text dumps) could be the next step. The political dimension here is clearly about not tolerating the beginning of what looks more like a first step to control anonymous free speech.

Remember what happened to the DVD-zoning scheme and how zone-free firmwares for about any drive you care to name can be found easily. Finding "anon"-firmware for snitching printers will probably become the next Big Thing should that trend really persist. Illegal or not doesn't matter much here, because whoever needs that kind of anon-printing has strong reasons to do so.

Having a larger public debate about the balance between breached privacy versus crime-prevention and whether or not that is good enough to justify snitching printers has been pretty interesting so far.

I'm grateful for the re-focusing last posts and all those who try to keep the discussion on-track. The diversity of political opinions and cultural differences is what can make a rich debate if everybody is careful to avoid provocative blanket statements like most of the participants have so far.

Yes, those are qualities that "human beings" value. Unfortunately, I don't see them in the world leaders of today, quite the contrary, corruption, lies, deceit, falseness, ignorance, manipulation of power, etc. etc. permeates every strata of society starting from the top down. The small learn from the big; a child from his parents and teachers, an adult from his community and leaders, and countries look to learn from the world leaders. The situation today is so bad, that as a result I don't expect normal people to "understand" those good qualities anymore. Conscience, law and consequences are being bought easily today with manipulation of power and money $$$...

.

I couldn't agree more.

This is new? ;)

At least in free societies, the media, congressional oversight groups, and disclosure laws can help to preserve a certain degree of accountability. So can one's political opponents. Lots of good people don't want to run for public office any more because any dirt from your past will be dragged up for all the world to see by your opponent and journalists looking for "a story." In a way, that's a kind of corrective, too. As long as one has political opponents, you can be sure they will not let a slip pass unnoticed.

But, OK, some of you are cynical about politicians, and with good reason, no doubt. The misuse of a technology by political leaders is a possibility, for sure, but that shouldn't put an end to the discussion, nor to the possibility that the positive uses can outweigh the dangers and can even be safeguarded somehow.

You're right, it is not new, precisely my point. It is a very sad fact that after more than 5000 years of history, people keep making the same mistakes again and again as if they haven't learned anything yet....

The terrible thing is that in the past, this state of affairs polluted the spirit of a town, region, maybe a continent, but today, there's enormous power in the hands of very few, and is so enormous, so big, that affect the lives of all humans and living things on this planet and beyond. Never before our planet as a whole was subject to this kind of manipulation.


Yes, but I have observed that this alone is never enough, usually their movement is too slow, sometimes bias to interest groups, and most of the time they act after all the damage is already done. So, yes, they help to create a "certain" degree of accountability.


Yes, I agree with you as everything has two sides and you're right, that shouldn't put an end to the discussion. Anyhow, I usually don't like to get involved in this kind of threads, sorry about that.

.

In this case, I don't see how the positive can outweigh the negative. Catching a few counterfeiters isn't enough, but maybe I've missed something. Is there another positive?