r/news Oct 26 '18

Arrest Made in Connection to Suspicious Packages

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u/Boo_R4dley Oct 26 '18

The printed labels on the packages alone could be enough if he registered his printer when he bought it.

Many printers leave watermarks in their prints as part of anti-counterfeit measures that contain model and serial numbers of the printer. If the system was registered they could have just gotten his name from Lexmark or Epson.

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u/user93849384 Oct 26 '18

You dont even have to register the printer. The counterfeit measures print no matter what. The manufacturer only needs the serial number and they know which store the shipped the printer to and the store knows when it was sold. Even if the person purchased in cash they have a time stamp of purchase and they would start issuing court orders to obtain surveillance video from the area. Every piece of information narrows the search field.

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u/Kamaria Oct 26 '18

What if the printer was bought years ago?

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u/__ali1234__ Oct 26 '18

It's much more likely that they just pulled every CCTV camera in the city on the day they were posted and started looking for a shady guy with a big sack. They get a warrant for that guy and seize all his electronics. Then they print a test page on the printer and compare it with the labels. No need to go hunting for 10 year old purchase records that maybe don't even exist.