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[–] [deleted] 0 points 9 points (+9|-0) ago  (edited ago)

[Deleted]

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[–] fortuitouslyunfallen 0 points 12 points (+12|-0) ago 

You're thinking about it wrong. Doesn't matter if it's connected to the internet. The police would have, or be able to gain access to a database with all that data. Where and when the printer was manufactured down to the store. From there they could check who bought it originally, then they could track that person down, find out who they sold it to etc etc. If the owner didn't know (i.e. sold it at an estate sale), they could check who was connected to the cell tower near that vicinity and go about questioning those people. That's one example, they would have other ways of getting the information.

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[–] 7e62ce85 2 points 1 point (+3|-2) ago 

Could have hidden GPS locator too.

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[–] 0fsgivin 1 point 1 point (+2|-1) ago  (edited ago)

Well, if the estate sale didn't take any of your information or if you gave false info. And waited a year or two. Would be very difficult for them to track down.

Expecting someone who ran an estate sale or other customers to remember an accurate description of who bought this printer a year or two ago... Very unlikely.

Ideally you use it for whatever you intended and then burned it bagged it up and took it to the dump yourself as well. before dissemenating any of the flyers or what have you.

Now, you should be able to avoid beiing tracked and even if the police manage to track you down for buying that printer and SUSPECT you printed it. Would have no actual proof.

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[–] slwsnowman40 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

Except the serial number is allegedly one of the items included. It'll be harder to track down to you since you got it second hand.

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[–] lanre 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Here's my opinion: Not sure on printers, but computers purchases are linked to whatever credit card/name bought them, so it stands to reason that printers would be as well. Thus printer X prints yellow dots identifying itself as printer x, and then the feds ask the electronics dealer who sold that printer for their sales records and then go track down the buyer. So it'd probably go like this: fed identify it as a lexmark printer, serial # X. They go to lexmark, get their sales records, and find out it was sold in the New York City area to Y Electronics store. So they go to Y Electronics and ask for customer sales records for that printer model, and then hopefully they can link the serial # to a name. And then work from there. If not, they can investigate each of the customers (maybe dozens or a few hundred at most) depending on how serious the crime/situation is.

Here's how the government tracked down Reality Winner, who's the most recent example I can think of of someone being caught by the little yellow dots.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170606/11210737530/how-document-tracking-dots-helped-fbi-track-down-russian-hacking-doc-leaker.shtml