EFF outs government-industry collusion

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has cracked the secret fingerprinting code that some color printer vendors use to watermark every printed page. The story has chilling reverberations for how technology "features" that are introduced to combat one problem, in this case counterfeiting, can be used to combat many others as well. EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien:

"'Even worse, it shows how the government and private industry make backroom deals to weaken our privacy by compromising everyday equipment like printers. The logical next question is: what other deals have been or are being made to ensure that our technology rats on us?'"

UPDATE: This story has now been picked up by slashdot, the wp, and others.
UPDATE: October 19, 2005: Mr. Schneier covers as well.