The Concurring Opinions Privacy Blog had a very descriptive and informative post that explains how Microsoft Word documents may give away information about you that you are unaware of. They point out that Microsoft Word documents contain “metadata” that encodes information about the authors and editors of each document. They also cite a few examples of how this can come back to haunt you.

Similarly, according to this article, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has cracked a secret printer code with the Xerox DocuColor line of laser printers. Apparently, this is the word of the U.S. Secret Service. Encoded in each document printed from the laser printer is the date and time the document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer.

The point is, your privacy may be at risk in ways you aren’t aware of.

This entry was posted by matthew () on Tuesday, November 8th, 2005 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Computer Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Note: Blog posts are the opinions of their authors and do not reflect the official opinion of the National Science Foundation or North Carolina State University.