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There was no need to use the yellow tracking dots to track Reality Winner... the NSA would certainly have the ability to audit anything printed in their facilit

There was no need to use the yellow tracking dots to track Reality Winner... the NSA would certainly have the ability to audit anything printed in their facility and know exactly what was printed on any given day.

thewakalix 6y ago
Who said she printed it at work?
- boogies 6y ago
  TFA seems to: > Maybe she thought physical paper would be safer from digital surveillance than an email. So she printed the documents at her office [my emphasis] and then mailed them
- angry_octet 6y ago
  You can't just plug in a USB key a copy it off. If she'd been randomly searched when leaving, then accidentally removing a printout (with a bunch of other doc's) would earn a breach and possibly loss of access, but it isn't as incriminating as a USB or camera.
mike_d 6y ago
This is correct. People are making the mental leap because they know this technique exists and they want it to be something cool. The reality is even in corporate environments print servers for sensitive areas will retain audit logs and/or copies of documents sent to the print spool. Even if that completely fails, you can do a forensic recovery on the hard drive inside the printer where all documents are buffered.
not2b 6y ago
The tracking dots certainly made things much faster for the NSA: they could immediately locate the printer and the date, without the need to audit the huge number of printers and employees they have. You say "on any given day" but they wouldn't know the day, only a rather large possible range of days.
- angry_octet 6y ago
  I doubt that more than a dozen people printed that document. It was a TS/SCI doc IIRC, so all of those printers are in SCIFs with rigorous access control, so it's not like someone grabbed it off the printer -- you have to release the job from the printer console anyway.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  How exactly would auditing all prints even work, assuming they were even logged? Wouldn't the auditor need to have security clearances to see what pretty much everyone in the NSA is working on, which goes against need-to-know principles? Or I guess an auditor needs to know these things to do their job...
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    That’s exactly how Edward Snowden had so much access... he was in a back office function that basically had root.
Aeolun 6y ago
Hmm, that would only work if they knew exactly which documents were used to inform the press.
- throwanem 6y ago
  Which they did, because the Intercept gave them copies with the authentication request. That's how they had the yellow dots.
  - dimator 6y ago
    Kind of a reckless, noob move by someone like the intercept.
    - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
      To say the least. https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/intercept-laura-poitras-fired-first-look-media-1234609499/ https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/intercept-laura-poitras-fi...

thewakalix 6y ago

Who said she printed it at work?

boogies 6y ago
TFA seems to: > Maybe she thought physical paper would be safer from digital surveillance than an email. So she printed the documents at her office [my emphasis] and then mailed them
angry_octet 6y ago
You can't just plug in a USB key a copy it off. If she'd been randomly searched when leaving, then accidentally removing a printout (with a bunch of other doc's) would earn a breach and possibly loss of access, but it isn't as incriminating as a USB or camera.

mike_d 6y ago

This is correct. People are making the mental leap because they know this technique exists and they want it to be something cool. The reality is even in corporate environments print servers for sensitive areas will retain audit logs and/or copies of documents sent to the print spool. Even if that completely fails, you can do a forensic recovery on the hard drive inside the printer where all documents are buffered.

not2b 6y ago

The tracking dots certainly made things much faster for the NSA: they could immediately locate the printer and the date, without the need to audit the huge number of printers and employees they have. You say "on any given day" but they wouldn't know the day, only a rather large possible range of days.

angry_octet 6y ago
I doubt that more than a dozen people printed that document. It was a TS/SCI doc IIRC, so all of those printers are in SCIFs with rigorous access control, so it's not like someone grabbed it off the printer -- you have to release the job from the printer console anyway.
oh_sigh 6y ago
How exactly would auditing all prints even work, assuming they were even logged? Wouldn't the auditor need to have security clearances to see what pretty much everyone in the NSA is working on, which goes against need-to-know principles? Or I guess an auditor needs to know these things to do their job...
- spoonjim 6y ago
  That’s exactly how Edward Snowden had so much access... he was in a back office function that basically had root.

Aeolun 6y ago

Hmm, that would only work if they knew exactly which documents were used to inform the press.

throwanem 6y ago
Which they did, because the Intercept gave them copies with the authentication request. That's how they had the yellow dots.
- dimator 6y ago
  Kind of a reckless, noob move by someone like the intercept.
  - aaronbrethorst 6y ago
    To say the least. https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/intercept-laura-poitras-fired-first-look-media-1234609499/ https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/intercept-laura-poitras-fi...