Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

Post by plumeria » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 5:48 AM UTC

csense wrote: post #71

plumeria wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone go to jail for this?

The nail that sticks up gets hammered. If someone else later does something bad with the publicly accessible printer and there's a witch hunt for the responsible party, and the only lead they have is that you emailed them about the possibility in advance...then they'll go after you, even though you were just trying to do a good thing. And if you're expecting the victim / police / legal system to understand that, tech…

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 6:08 AM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #41

samstave wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - this was in 1997...

I think that law dates back decades. I don't think it applies to non USPS carriers though. That said my Google-fu is weak against this particular law.

Post by KMag » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 7:42 AM UTC

flxmglrb wrote: post #72

modernerd wrote: post #23

Some of the IPs are registered to large US universities, who list abuse/tech support email addresses in their records. I've already emailed several with a headsup and had a couple of "thank you!"s in reply.

You're lucky you haven't gotten accused of "hacking" yet.

Post by meaty » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 9:59 AM UTC

josephlord wrote: post #122

meaty wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same goes for smart tvs. Most of them you can push stuff to via dnla without a password. Much amusement to be had.

I think the Sony TV's offer an onscreen pop-up before accepting commands from unregistered DLNA controllers although maybe that can be faked (and maybe there is a flaw, I've never explored it deeply).

Post by stephen_g » Sat, Jan 26, 2013, 11:24 AM UTC

dragonbonheur wrote: post #115

cs702 wrote: post #13

I've written about this before.[1] Many network-connected printers simply assume that the local network they connect to will be securely protected from external threats, so they're not configured to withstand even the simplest of attacks. This is exactly the opposite of what many security experts recommend: devices should be secure regardless of whether the network they're on is secure or not. Bruce Schneier's person…

IMO Bruce Schneider should be more careful because lots of routers are very capable general-purpose computers and he's definitely responsible for what goes out of his IP address.