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Canon printer hacked to run Doom

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#11

Post by coldpie »

binarymax wrote: post #9
userbinator wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inkjet printers squirt ink through tiny nozzles. When they're left idle in a dry environment for a long time, the ink tends to dry up and clog them, and you get white streaks. The "cleaning" basically involves moving the printhead over a receptacle with a sponge in it (it's called a spittoon, seriously) and firing all the nozzles for a short time while suction from a platen-driven vacuum pump sucks on them (that's wh…

Ink is so expensive, that this sounds less like cleaning of printer head than it does a cleaning of the wallet. The conspiracy theorist in me says its designed to purposefully waste ink so you need to buy more. --EDIT-- @DSMan195276 I cannot reply to your message (we're too far down the thread) - but the sensible less wasteful thing to do would be to offer the clean action as an option, not as a default on every star…

Honestly, with how little printing most people do these days, and especially quality printing that would require an inkjet, I think I'd rather go to Kinkos than bother owning and maintaining a printer myself.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#12

Post by Tomte »

coldpie wrote: post #2

The linked-through blog article describing the decryption process was interesting: http://www.contextis.co.uk/resources/blog/hacking-canon-pixm... What I especially liked is that this was literally one of the challenges from the Matasano crypto challenges: http://cryptopals.com/sets/1/challenges/6/ It's fun when theory meets practice.

Do the solution links work for you? I've never seen a link that doesn't return "Not Found".

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#13

Post by brudgers »

wesley wrote: post #3

I'd like someone to make custom firmware to stop these new canon pixma's from cleaning themselves at every start, and generally taking minutes before even starting to print. It's ludicrous.

My next printer will be a 24 pin, wide carriage dot matrix with a tractor feed. Though it seems counterproductive to use a high duty cycle device for the small amount of printing I do, truth is that the racket of an impact printer is a small tradeoff.

It used to be that inkjet would print black with an empty color cartridge. Now, printing something may take hours or days until I get to the store to buy a Yellow...nevermind if I order from Amazon. An impact printer just prints lighter as ink is depleted.

Printing should just work. It doesn't any more. I miss my Star Micronics NX80.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#14

Post by pizza234 »

DSMan195276 wrote: post #10
binarymax wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ink is so expensive, that this sounds less like cleaning of printer head than it does a cleaning of the wallet. The conspiracy theorist in me says its designed to purposefully waste ink so you need to buy more. --EDIT-- @DSMan195276 I cannot reply to your message (we're too far down the thread) - but the sensible less wasteful thing to do would be to offer the clean action as an option, not as a default on every star…

To me it seems like a mixture. It's definitely an important process, but it's pretty easy to abuse as well.

The problem is in the perverse incentive that the printing producers have to "use" as much ink as possible, and consequently pay for it, which prevents significant progress on the consumption.

Well, progress would be already an excessively optimistic concept. There's no need to imagine conspiracies - one just need to observe how cartridges stop working before being fully depleted, or how ink is sold at ridiculously inflated prices.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#15

Post by furyg3 »

Slightly OT, but what is everyone's favorite minimalist printer? Are there any?

I avoid printing like the plague, but sometimes you just need to print a ticket, letter, or a photo of a document you have on your computer. I don't need a scanner, wifi, 500MB of software, or even color. I need something which is small and out of the way when I'm not using it (most of the time), cheap, and ready to go when I have to print something.

I kinda miss dot-matrix printers, to be honest.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#16

Post by thearn4 »

furyg3 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT, but what is everyone's favorite minimalist printer? Are there any? I avoid printing like the plague, but sometimes you just need to print a ticket, letter, or a photo of a document you have on your computer. I don't need a scanner, wifi, 500MB of software, or even color. I need something which is small and out of the way when I'm not using it (most of the time), cheap, and ready to go when I have to prin…

I have a Brother HL-2270DW for the rare printing that I do need to do at home. Has been great so far.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#17

Post by oomkiller »

furyg3 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT, but what is everyone's favorite minimalist printer? Are there any? I avoid printing like the plague, but sometimes you just need to print a ticket, letter, or a photo of a document you have on your computer. I don't need a scanner, wifi, 500MB of software, or even color. I need something which is small and out of the way when I'm not using it (most of the time), cheap, and ready to go when I have to prin…

Older laser printers with network support is what I prefer. No drivers, just point postscript at its IP address and go. Some have weird gotchas on Linux, so try for older HPs. Don't mind their age, they're built to last and 2D printing technology hasn't changed much in years.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#18

Post by agumonkey »

furyg3 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT, but what is everyone's favorite minimalist printer? Are there any? I avoid printing like the plague, but sometimes you just need to print a ticket, letter, or a photo of a document you have on your computer. I don't need a scanner, wifi, 500MB of software, or even color. I need something which is small and out of the way when I'm not using it (most of the time), cheap, and ready to go when I have to prin…

Just saw this http://deals.kinja.com/this-wireless-laser-printer-will-make... Not trying to promote anybody, just read the comments. There are some people happy. I've rarely associated happiness and printers.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#19

Post by allegory »

furyg3 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT, but what is everyone's favorite minimalist printer? Are there any? I avoid printing like the plague, but sometimes you just need to print a ticket, letter, or a photo of a document you have on your computer. I don't need a scanner, wifi, 500MB of software, or even color. I need something which is small and out of the way when I'm not using it (most of the time), cheap, and ready to go when I have to prin…

Bought an HP DeskJet 2540 for £39 for home. Has WiFi, colour, a scanner and just works over the LAN without any effort so is probably the opposite to what you desire.

However I've lost count of the number of times the scanner/copier has been useful even though I didn't want that bit to start with and the WiFi actually makes it easier to use. No more finding that USB cable.

It's the peak of value to be honest and a worthy trade off.

Re: Canon printer hacked to run Doom

#20

Post by ghshephard »

allegory wrote: post #19
furyg3 wrote: post #15

Slightly OT, but what is everyone's favorite minimalist printer? Are there any? I avoid printing like the plague, but sometimes you just need to print a ticket, letter, or a photo of a document you have on your computer. I don't need a scanner, wifi, 500MB of software, or even color. I need something which is small and out of the way when I'm not using it (most of the time), cheap, and ready to go when I have to prin…

Bought an HP DeskJet 2540 for £39 for home. Has WiFi, colour, a scanner and just works over the LAN without any effort so is probably the opposite to what you desire. However I've lost count of the number of times the scanner/copier has been useful even though I didn't want that bit to start with and the WiFi actually makes it easier to use. No more finding that USB cable. It's the peak of value to be honest and a wo…

I don't think I've ever used a scanner since the camera became half decent on the iPhone. Even when I have 40 pages of text to scan, it's more straightforward to just snap it from my desk than to walk the 50' or so to the $8000 scanning/printer we have in the office. And, when I'm in the field - well, you get the idea.

I guess if I was scanning hundreds of pages, It would probably be worthwhile to use a desktop scanner, but for 40 pages or less - smart phone camera wins every time.

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