Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: Hippy Tribe Chief on May 14, 2013, 07:46 pm

Title: Can you print anonymously via tor?
Post by: Hippy Tribe Chief on May 14, 2013, 07:46 pm
Lets say, i want to print official u.s. documents from a .gov site, without my computer or printer being exposed..

can i simply just print from my computer? since my internet is connected through tor?

is another possibility simply downloading the print job onto a vps, saving, and printing offline on a sd card or something?
thx
Title: Re: Can you print anonymously via tor?
Post by: Jack N Hoff on May 14, 2013, 07:53 pm
Yes you can print from tor.  I was discussing something different from what you described in this thread in during our conversation earlier.  Sorry for the confusion.
Title: Re: Can you print anonymously via tor?
Post by: astor on May 14, 2013, 08:19 pm
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question, but if your printer is connected directly to your computer, it's not a networked printer or anything, and everything is on a home LAN, then what does the internet and Tor have to do with anything?


More important than that: you need to do some research to figure out if your printer is susceptible to fingerprinting. The serial number may be encoded on the paper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_steganography

https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots

http://boingboing.net/2008/10/23/howto-read-the-secre.html

On that list of printers above, note the EFF warning: "A 'no' simply means that we couldn't see yellow dots; it does not prove that there is no forensic watermarking present."

So if you want to print anonymously, you should only use a printer that you purchased anonymously, and preferably one that does not print identifying watermarks.