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Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

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Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some law against postal fraud that says whatever they send you though the post is yours (to avoid exactly this kind of scam) You can try not paying the invoice and see what happens.

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.

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#43
post #4

Worse than printing somewhere remote, many of those are probably also scanners. If the original is left on the glass (I forget it all the time), an attacker could scan it remotely.

Some scanners (and printers, for that matter) store cached copies of recently scanned/printed items. Probably you could grab those if you knew what you were doing.

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some law against postal fraud that says whatever they send you though the post is yours (to avoid exactly this kind of scam) You can try not paying the invoice and see what happens.

Yeah and then they retaliate by sending you two pallets of crap toner cartridges, had enough? No? Still not going to pay? Ok here are five pallets of crap toner cartridges sitting in your mail room. Call up the dump, "What? Toner? That probably a toxic waste, you'll have to make an appointment and pay the extortionate hazardous waste fee." Then the toner guy calls back "You either pay us or next time it will be 10 pa…

That doesn't seem like a cost-effective way to scam someone. The victim could just sell the toner themselves, right?

Sounds pretty stupid.

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet, print a QR code, they can just scan it with their iPhone.

What a great way to distribute malware. Host it on a server somewhere, encode the URL in a QR code, and print just the code, blown up large, with no descriptors to printers everywhere. People will be so intrigued they'll just scan it. Aaaaaaaaand infected .

talking about hp printers and malware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njVv7J2azY8

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#47

Idea for startup. 1. write a script to scrap google links to HP admin panel 2. filter out the IPs that are from US (given you want to work on US market) 3. assemble the list of printer types and current toner levels. 4. write a script that will print to each of those printers a one single page, stating your company "Cheapo Suppliers Inc" was notified that "your printer is low on toner. Call xxxxxx to re-fill. Lowest…

Nostalgia Scam Time: Back in the late 90s there was a common scam run against big-ish offices. A caller would call asking to talk to the person in charge of printers, typically either IT or Facilities. Once connected they would say that they are sending out the recipients free gift, which was some lame piece of electronics - often a small television. They would get the work address and confirmation to ship the free g…

I've had not just people calling, but a door-to-door toner salesperson visit as recently as last year.

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some law against postal fraud that says whatever they send you though the post is yours (to avoid exactly this kind of scam) You can try not paying the invoice and see what happens.

Yeah and then they retaliate by sending you two pallets of crap toner cartridges, had enough? No? Still not going to pay? Ok here are five pallets of crap toner cartridges sitting in your mail room. Call up the dump, "What? Toner? That probably a toxic waste, you'll have to make an appointment and pay the extortionate hazardous waste fee." Then the toner guy calls back "You either pay us or next time it will be 10 pa…

Is there a reason you couldn't just refuse delivery?

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#49
post #14

Interestingly, if you try to browse far into the results, Google decided it actually only has 73 to display (after telling it to include ommitted similar results).

Google makes only a rough estimate of the total number of results. Try it on any query that returns a relatively small number of results.

Re: Google has indexed thousands of publicly accessible HP printers

#50
post #38
post #4

Worse than printing somewhere remote, many of those are probably also scanners. If the original is left on the glass (I forget it all the time), an attacker could scan it remotely.

That's a very bad idea, you should call your lawyer/a law firm to prepare for the impending deluge of threatening letters and lawsuits filed against you.

I only pointed out that there is more danger for people with publicly available printers than just getting random junk printed.

You are jumping to conclusions.

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