If you're worried about privacy why are you printing something on a device you do not control? For that matter why are you connected to a public hotspot in the first place?
Ever used an airport lounge printer? You probably don't know how blabby they can be
Privacy consultant and former Internet Architecture Board president Christian Huitema has said he reckons hotspot users should be given better privacy protection. In an informational draft for the Internet Engineering Task Force published yesterday, Huitema explained that DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD), the protocol that lets …
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Tuesday 2nd October 2018 10:36 GMT smudge
If you're worried about privacy why are you printing something on a device you do not control?
Exactly. The basics of confidentiality have been overlooked here. Who also has (privileged) access to the server and printer? How long does your document persist in server or printer memory?
I still remember, from many years ago, the look of glee on the face of one of our penetration testers when I told her that the new photocopiers round the office were based on Windows NT and had IP addresses on the internal network.
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Tuesday 2nd October 2018 10:48 GMT Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese
How long does your document persist in server or printer memory?
In the case of things like commercial photocopier/printers, for the lifespan of the printer and beyond.
Whatever you send to the printer actually gets converted to a TIFF image and stored on a hard disk inside the unit, and then printed out. The TIFF file persists on the disk after the print job is finished.
Go shopping for a used photocopier/printer and I'll offer you fairly short odds that the hard disk is still in there and it won't have been formatted.
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Tuesday 2nd October 2018 17:05 GMT LeahroyNake
they call it DOSS
Half right but...
'In the case of things like commercial photocopier/printers, for the lifespan of the printer and beyond.'
Data Overwrite Security System is now included as standard in all new Ricoh devices (for at least 2 years). Additionally you can enable HDD encryption. At the end of machine life or when it gets repurposed to a different site it has a build in HDD wipe facility that comforms to at least UK MOD spec.
Other manufacturers meh, you may be right. All I say is make sure you specify the above on the quote before the install and don't let some idiot sell it on eBay.
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Tuesday 2nd October 2018 11:50 GMT Robert Helpmann??
Re: @iron
True. But if one can plug a bunch of privacy leaks in any type of network interaction, why would one not?
I think what was being spoken to is example as it was given in the article rather than the actual need to correct this particular vulnerability. Both are good points. Yes, we should correct flaws where we can, but we should also be cognizant of areas we do not have control over and avoid them when it matters. Good security is really more about implementation - behaviors - than the tech supporting it.
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Wednesday 3rd October 2018 06:23 GMT Danny 14
Re: This is, BTW, one reason to have Fax on your Laptop
good idea. A few years ago we went on a quiet villa holiday flying with ryanair (im only human! sorry!) and got my bag wet on way to villa. return boarding passes ink had run and i didnt fancy the silly charges at return check in (their software wouldn'tinstall on a rooted phone at the time)
Emailed my docs to my dad who did a priority mail to the villa, they arrived 3 days later. It was a small Spanish rental so no IT stuff for miles (and the airmail was cheaper than a taxi to town....)
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Tuesday 2nd October 2018 10:53 GMT Kientha
Usability > Security
As already mentioned, anyone using an airport printer shouldn't be expecting any privacy of what they print. Surely this is just a classic example of how the system working and being accessible is more important than the system being secure. Even if you made the connection completely secure, what's to stop someone just grabbing it off the printer before you get there? Some printers allow you to reprint stuff stored in memory. You can't know the printer isn't capable of doing that. Anyone who prints sensitive stuff on these printers should be banned from printing things ever. Especially with how easy it is now to get machines with pens for annotating stuff as cheap as a couple hundred quid.
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Tuesday 2nd October 2018 18:02 GMT Orv
Re: Usability > Security
While what you're printing may not be confidential, that doesn't mean you want your device's identity broadcast to all and sundry. Especially when just the act of your device locating potentially available printers might be enough to do it. Opening the print dialog at all may be enough to do that even if you don't print anything.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
