DEDA – Tracking Dots Extraction, Decoding and Anonymisation Toolkit | Hacker News Reader

DEDA – Tracking Dots Extraction, Decoding and Anonymisation Toolkit

github.com

91 pointsgreyface-12 comments

Reportedly, OpenPrinter will not have these dots by default. I did wonder if this omission would cause them issues. As I understand it, the dots are not mandated by law.

I don't know anything about OpenPrinter, but if they are based in the US, they can expect a knock on the door from friendly reps wearing suits and dark sunglasses coming in pairs.

I would be curious if this happens, what their demands would be, and under what authority

national security obviously

They could request it all they want but there are no current US laws that would require OpenPrinter to comply with such an order. There may exist secret agreements between major printer companies and the US government to implement this feature and it could potentially be part of an approval process for being allowed to sell printers to the US government but there are no laws requiring it.

Low effort shit post. Click the article link and see a GitHub repo. See the .de project domain.

Likely not. The yellow dots is part of a larger program, part of which involves code in image editing software to detect people trying to edit/print money. (Try to scan/edit/print a 100-dollar bill in Adobe and you will hit an error code.) GIMP was approached to add this code and politely declined. There was no massive fight. The authorities acknowledged that a black box of code could never function properly within an open source project.

For eyes on the larger international conspiracy of nations google the "Eurion Constellation", an anti-counterfeit structure found on the money of many nations.

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

> is part of a larger program

What larger program?

A web of agreements to protect the cash money system against forgeries. Try to buy certain printing equipment and you will be denied unless you are a nation state. Try to scan certain images and editing software will throw errors. Try to print a high-quality image and yellow dots will appear. It isnt nefarious. It is just countries protecting thier money supply.

But it is a conspiracy between nations. Thats why the same symbols appear on saudi, european, canadian and american bank notes.

It's more like a friendly agreement where printer makers help the government in exchange for turning a blind eye to ink price fixing.

Tracking dots were used in 2025 to uncover a ring of Pokemon beta card forgeries that caused multiple authenticity and grading companies to revoke many gradings due to high quality forgeries.

The smoking gun was almost always a mixture of quality, subtle details, and the tracking dots in some form or fashion. The writeup of the process is extremely detailed and shows just how these dots can be weaponized or utilized in the right/wrong circumstances. https://www.elitefourum.com/t/report-of-observations-regardi...

I remember hearing about this forever ago, but wasn't sure if the practice was still being done.

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