It’s kind of like the way they can pick out a specific digital camera by the sensor noise…
Or the secret government codes in yellow ink in color printers (though that one is intentional).
OK seriously I sound like a wacko conspiracy nut, but those were real things.
I read that article, and it’s probably somewhat useful for showing that something could have come from a particular machine. But replace the nozzle, tighten the frame or loosen the belts…
Don’t forget the microprinting serial number in most all copier brands…
You might want to change it, I scanned it and it’s Charles Manson 
ROFL!
That’ll just have go be our little secret 
Well, there goes my next murder weapon source.
Wasn’t there a Hardy Boy story that treated this in terms of a type writer? Mechanical artifacts of systems are a thing. Would be interesting as applied to lasers.
Wow. That’s a blast from the past. I remember those books as a kid.
First book I read cover to cover in one setting one night. Stayed up till four in the morning reading it. I loved the Hardy Boys in Fourth and Fifth grade. My favorites were Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators and Mad Scientists Club. I credit my interesting in mechanical contraptions to this short, but amazingly fun series.
What about the Hardly boys?
Knowing Matt and Trey, probably a very simple Freudian answer.
probably a raging clue.
Yep! And Tom Swift. That was a Maker
I’ll allege that you have a shelf of those books in your library from your youth.
Yep. Still have a bunch. Not all of the Hardy Boys though (had the complete collection) because my sister took them for her kids. I only have the dups.
Had some that were original first release ones from the 30s and then updated ones from the 50s & 60s before they fell out of favor/print.
Oooohhh yeah 
Did you ever read the original and one of the blue cover re-do ones back to back?
The Tom Swift ones were neat because some of the early ones came true by the time I was reading them in the 60s and 70s.
I did, long ago! Some interesting updates between editions.
I noticed that with the Tom Swift books. I never found as many of those as I would have liked, though.
