A 2018 open-access paper in the Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences shows how yellow tracking dots embedded in Xerox color laser printouts can be extracted with Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 and used to identify the source printer. The authors scanned 91 printouts from 22 Xerox printers and multifunction devices, then isolated the hidden machine-identification code (MIC) by separating color channels and enhancing the blue channel. Why it matters: this is a reminder that “ordinary” office equipment can leave behind covert, machine-specific traces. In forensic terms, a printed page may carry a built-in provenance marker; in security terms, that means printouts are not as anonymous as some people might assume. Key technical takeaways: • Xerox printouts contained a repeated coded dots matrix, with regular horizontal and vertical patterns that differed by printer model and helped distinguish one device from another.…