Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

skids writes 'File this under "no, really?" CBS news catches up with the fact that photocopiers, whether networked or not, tend to have a much longer memory these days. When they eventually get tossed, few companies bother to scrub them. Couple this with the tendency of older employees to consider hard-copy to be "secure," and your most protected secrets may be shipped directly to information resellers — no hacking required. "The day we visited the New Jersey warehouse, two shipping containers packed with used copiers were headed overseas — loaded with secrets on their way to unknown buyers in Argentina and Singapore."'

No problem

[eln]

I always take care to disguise my ass before photocopying it. You can never be too careful these days.

S/N

[paiute]

If they are anything like our photocopiers, the criminals will have to wade through a sea of lolcats and fail posters to get to any actual business information.

Re:No problem

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

If you get the moustache just right you can do a passable Mr Potato Head.

Re:No problem

[Monkeedude1212]

I somehow knew this topic would be the butt of every joke.

I discovered this fact the hard way...

[xandercash]

...(in 1999) when I copied an offer letter for better employment on my current employer's copier, then left for a long weekend. I came back on Monday to find my offer letter pasted all over the company.

Re:Secrets

[zill]

I wrote a script that would make all the HP printers on campus flash an animated ASCII Kirby dance.

Travis! You finally made a slip of tongue. Us sysadmins has been hunting the culprit for years now and now we finally got you!

Re:Secrets

[Lumpy]

My favorite was to change the language file and make "ready" be "insert coin"...

Re:Thats supposed to be obvious?

[interkin3tic]

It's supposed to be obvious when your giant MFP has a goddamn HARD DRIVE in it, and I've seen many that do.

See, I don't even know what an MFP is, so whether or not mine has a hard drive in it is really not obvious to me or my coworkers at the buffalo police office sex crimes division.

(For those of you who didn't RTFA, the "buffalo police office sex crimes division" was a humorous reference to the article. You missed out on that very funny joke. That'll learn you to not RTFA.)

Re:true story

[EdIII]

I just had this wonderful image of you in a lawn chair, pants up to your nipples, with a bunch of little tykes sitting attentively on your lawn while you waxed nostalgic about the days of the parallel port, the Internet being a bunch of BBS's, and having to enter in the heads and cylinders of your hard drive into CMOS. When CPUs had numbers and not fancy marketing names given to them by Nancy boys with MBA's and real men used punch cards....

*sniff*

I got to call my Gramps, brb

Re:No problem

[KC7JHO]

Ya, just imagine if the oil companies ever get wind of it ....

Re:No problem

[Abstrackt]

I somehow knew this topic would be the butt of every joke.

Only the cheeky ones.

Re:No problem

[Hoi Polloi]

It was your butt? That explains why one image filled the whole copier hard drive.