Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

CBS - Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret.

Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive - like the one on your personal computer - storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.

In the process, it's turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data.

If you're in the identity theft business it seems this would be a pot of gold.

"The type of information we see on these machines with the social security numbers, birth certificates, bank records, income tax forms," John Juntunen said, "that information would be very valuable."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• privacy
• integrity
• pirateparty
• cbs
• copyingmachine

[sttm2]

uhg, modern photocopiers have hard drives in them because they're computers not a simple device like when they were first invented. that's why you can do things like pre scan your documents before copying them.

it's not a a secret that there's hard drives in them, and yes if you photocopy your passport in some 7-11 there might be some microscopic chance that someone is going to try to steal your identity from that alone, but a fly can also fart herpes in your mouth so just live your life.

[thomastvivlarenDOTse]

@sttm2 The point is not the complexity (or lack thereof) of the inner workings of a photocopier but what it is used for. The prime purpose is - of course - to copy stuff. The issue arises when that "copying stuff" is done in a manner lacking all sorts of thinking as well as responsibility in regards to privacy and data management.

Simply put, there is absolutely no defense for storing already copied stuff on the hard-drive just because there is a hard-drive present.

[TheGrayman1234]

Easy fix for this is when you get rid of the copier. You pull the hard drive and beat it with a sledge hammer. Hard drive platters are damaged and unusable. End of story.

[thomastvivlarenDOTse]

@TheGrayman1234 From the owner's perspective, e.g. a company, that is almost true. From the user's perspective, e.g. the employees, the problem is still very real...

My use of the word "almost" above relates to the issue of not everything copied should be available for everyone's eyes. Think owner copies, people/employee with access to HD access info...

[dougsa]

Just how many copies of my butt are out there?

[nchuenleong]

Why the heck the photocopiers do not clean up the memory automatically after making the copy??? What is the reason to store it in hard-drive? To me this is the photocopier's design flaw

[whotaughtyou]

XM.?/

SAFECRACKER

[kcj1993]

Linux FTW.

[Voxnulla]

@supernobama2 Why would anybody go to fucking Kuna Idaho to rummage through your garbage and follow you to school/work in order to get your sorry ass information ? I doubt that you really are from Kuna or that you gave some other guys IP, but who cares really. A youtube ranting loser ? Nothing to gain from hacking your dumb ass.

[steffanpiper]

ummm FDISK is free

[whotaughtyou]

abc

[Xuvial]

I was literally like "what the heck is a hard drive doing in there???"

I seriously did NOT know they even came with hard drives and stored everything you copied....

[FirstPrelude00]

@dgnorthrup

Uh, copiers need a hard drive in order to work. Derp. An image doesn't just magically replicate itself, it has to be saved to the hard drive and then printed back out. It works the exact same way as a scanning an image into the computer and then printing it out without the intermediate steps.

[supernobama2]

you cant touch me Hack me if you can noobs hack me if you can 97.121.33.241