Gene E. Bloch wrote in
:

On 12/02/2011, DanS posted:
And now with the whole HP printer exploit that's in the
news, who knows what's going to go on with printing
technologies...maybe there wil be a push just back to
dumb peripherals for most.

News to me. I plead ignorance here and I must check this
out.

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/29/9076395-
exclusive-millions-of-printers-open-to-devastating-hack-
attack-researchers-say

One quote from the article:
"In that demonstration, a thermal switch shut the printer
down – basically, causing it to self-destruct".

That tends to destroy the article's credibility for me. In
reality, thermal switches, like fuses, *prevent*
self-destruction...

But that was probably written by the reporter, and he may
have been confused.

Beyond that, I've been trying to figure out how the exploit
can take control of me and cause me to obtain CIA documents
& carry them to the printer so they could "...use a
hijacked printer as a copy machine for criminals, making it
easy to commit identity theft or even take control of
entire networks that would otherwise be secure", or cause
me to carry copied documents to the post office and mail
them to Petrograd.

I'm not sure.....although, if you have a large size commercial
HP printer/copier, similar tot he one at work which is a
Minolta, not an HP.....it could be one that has a hard drive
on it that stores things it copies and print, basically
forever, until it's overwritten or purposely erased, usually
through some obscure front panel sequence.

It was a big to-do here, when the city's leased peripherals
were traded in, with city document still on them, on the HD.
These could have been just copiers however, but the
possibility stil remains.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/...gnews/main6412
439.shtml