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Most Digital Photocopiers Save Every Page Ever Scanned
- pg 17y agohttp://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
- dpritchett 17y agoI've found the Readability Redux Chrome extension to be just as good and significantly faster! https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jggheggpdocamneaacmfoipeehedigia https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jggheggpdocamnea... In re: the article - Do you think arc90 is logging every document that is passed through Readability? Is this body of information worthwhile? I suppose it is good ammo for them to use to approach large media properties about the possibility of a paid site redesign project.
- maeon3 17y agoEVERY page? That could finally solve all my hard drive space problem. Store the images on a photocopier!
- e1ven 17y ago20GB Hard Drive (Cheap) / 100KB / Jpg stored = 200,000 pages. Effectively infinite, when considering the copier lifetime. Certainly falls within most people's definition of Every.
- CWuestefeld 17y agoAt 300dpi (which is pretty minimally low), an 8.5x11 image is 8.4 Mpixels. At any decent compression, that's going to be more like 1MB/page, or 20,000 pages. Maybe we're talking monochrome? That reduces image size, but I'm not sure how to calculate that.
- e1ven 17y agoDon't worry, it's not "every" page like the journalist sId, it's only the last 20,000. Somehow, I don't think that will make anyone feel better. It's "every" by any normal definition, particularly in this context.
- whatusername 17y agoSo the answer is to have the work-experience kid press the copy/scan button 20,000 times! :P
- Kadin 17y agoWell, monochrome is 1bpp, so it makes the raw image about 8Mbit or 1MB. The rest you'd only be able to determine empirically, and it depends quite a bit on what you're scanning and the scan quality. "Noisy" images, including poor-quality scans or scans of halftones, don't compress well, but a crisp scan of high-contrast text or line art will be a fraction of that 1MB even with a trivial compression scheme like RLE. If you store as a TIFF with LZW, or something proprietary but similar to that, you're probably talking about an average of 200kB or less for a high-resolution scan. And this is assuming a fairly generous size/speed tradeoff, since you have a local hard drive to burn. I've seen huge document archives that go the other way (scan at lower resolutions, compress hard) that average 30-50kB/page.
- oiuytfgvbhjnk 17y agoThey don't compress the images - they are written as essentially bitmaps from the scanning engine then read back to the printing engine. Most actually record 8bits/pixel even in mono because it lets you do lighter/darker and background level in software. so a typical page at 300dpi is something like 100sq in * 90000 pixels = 9Mb
- jfmiller28 17y agoAny Idea how to extract these stored images. There has been more then one occasion where I would have likes copy of an accentually shredded original.
- ErrantX 17y agoYou'll need to get the drive out. The connector needed is the only complication; it could be anything but is probably one of the mini IDE style connections. Once out and connected to a computer you can recover data using any manner of tools. I think FTK 1.8 still has a free trial you can use (http://accessdata.com/downloads.html http://accessdata.com/downloads.html). It's a bit of overkill for such a simple job but it will recover files fine. Otherwise just Google for programs to use on your OS of choice.
- Sidnicious 17y agoI'd try Foremost: http://foremost.sourceforge.net/ http://foremost.sourceforge.net/
- sili 17y agoCan someone explain the need for a copier to do that? Which engineer in his right mind thought that this would be a good idea without some routine clean up procedure?
- _delirium 17y agoShort-term storage is useful for things like being able to make 5 photocopies of a document--- old copiers would have to literally run the copier across the document 5 times to do so. Now they're more like scanner->printer, so they scan once and print 5 times. They don't delete it immediately after the job either, because many copiers support convenience features like "ok, 2 more copies of that last document please". It does seem like they could delete once N more documents have been printed in between, though.
- sigstoat 17y agoi'd quite curious about this, myself. the answer is also necessary to figure out how many images are probably being stored. if the copier is just keeping them for debugging reasons (which would explain why nobody knows they're there), then they could very well be highly compressed 72dpi images.
- Frazzydee 17y agoThe headline of the HN article is a bit misleading. "using a forensic software program available for free on the Internet, he ran a scan - downloading tens of thousands of documents in less than 12 hours." Since he had to use special software to extract the files, it looks like the software deletes the files, but not securely. Basically, it uses 'rm' instead of 'scrub'. As explained below, storing scanned pages temporarily is good when photocopying (or faxing) multiple pages. Also, the creator of the software mentioned (securely wipes photocopier harddrives) is a very smart marketer. The article is basically an advertisement for his software, "INFOSWEEP," and he's the one who showed the journalist this vulnerability in the first place.
- maukdaddy 17y agoFrom an Infosec perspective this is terrifying, not simply because of the amount of data, but how difficult it is to scrub. Most people/businesses know that they need to scrub the hard drives from computers before donating/surplussing. Doing the same with copiers is a nightmare. This is why I'd recommend all businesses use some kind of secure disposal service to get rid of old equipment. Hopefully the businesses that specialize in this field will add copiers to the list of items they scrub.
- Kadin 17y agoIt's not just copiers. Most office printers these days contain their own servers, with hard drives for the spool. It would be just as simple to analyze the drive from one of them and grab whatever's left. And there you'd just be dealing with PS and PCL, probably, rather than some weird proprietary image format that you might get on a copier's drive.
- blahedo 17y ago"In 2008, Sharp commissioned a survey on copier security that found 60 percent of Americans "don't know" that copiers store images on a hard drive. Sharp tried to warn consumers about the simple act of copying." Does anyone remember this warning? I certainly heard nothing about this; and while I knew there had to be a hard drive in there to temporarily store the image, there was no reason to expect that it would store images permanently. Of course Americans "don't know" that copiers store images like that; how would we? Who had ever, EVER told us?
- jim_dot 17y agoI'm surprised it's only 60%!
- billybob 17y agoIt's WAAAAAY more than 60%, I assure you. If the HN crowd is surprised (like I am!), the millions of people who don't know a hard drive from a monitor have absolutely no idea. I'd guess that it's more like 99.999%.
- brown9-2 17y agoDepends on how the survey question was structured. I can imagine Do you know that photocopiers store image on a hard drive? would get very different response rates than Do you know that photocopiers store image on a hard drive permanently until manually wiped?
- Seiwynn 17y agoOr even: Do you know that photocopiers store image on a hard drive? 1) Yes 2) No vs When you photocopy an image, the photocopier... 1) saves the image to a hard disk permanently. 2) temporarily stores the image until the copy is finished. 3) other The first question leads people to lie in order to not be seen as ignorant.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago>Do you know that photocopiers store image on a hard drive? Is still pretty leading. People would say yes because they don't want to appear naive. "Do photocopiers keep any records of copies made?"
- Alex63 17y agoIsn't it ethically questionable for the manufacturers to know about the issue (as they admit in the article), but to charge extra for software to address it? At the very least, shouldn't encryption or the mentioned erase utility be sold with the machine, with the buyer having the option to opt out if they don't want it?
- Kadin 17y agoLots of manufacturers charge extra for various security options, on all sorts of hardware and software. We can go back and forth all day on the "ethics" of it, but it's pretty standard practice. And Sharp's add-on module might not be required if the copiers were treated like the computers that they are; it would be perfectly fine to just remove the hard drives when the units are being sold at their EOL, as I suspect most healthcare and government facilities do with their old PCs.
- chc 17y agoUnexpected conclusion: Photocopying your rear end counts as pro-privacy activism.
- arvinjoar 17y agoIf done properly, this could be part of an awesome XKCD.
- Groxx 17y agoWhat would a stick-person's scanned butt look like? V?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- danohuiginn 17y agoand if the local kids have been doing it, you're likely still in possession of child pornography.
- randombit 17y agoWhat I am finding really absurd about this whole thing is, the photocopier companies knew about this (obviously), and a number actually had services/software available to wipe the drives - but failed utterly in actually telling anyone who might care about them. My gf works at a hospital and there are many panties in a twist about this right now. She contacted one of their major photocopier providers and asked about what happened to the ones they had on lease that were returned in the last few years. "Oh, they were sold, or scrapped, or given away... couldn't really tell you for certain though." So the obvious question: "Did you wipe the drives first?" "A: No, that wasn't included in our contract with you." - because nobody knew about this 'feature' when the contracts were written! Massive fail both security wise and from the sales side on missing easy upselling. Very likely any hospital or police dept would gladly have paid for these services had they know it was necessary.
- lr 17y agoIn general, you can't really scrub a hard drive. No company in their right mind should ever let an old computer go out the door with a hard drive in it. Hard drives should be destroyed. I recommend something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYPCPB1g3o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYPCPB1g3o
- shizcakes 17y agoNot true. A single pass of 0's is sufficient to make a magnetic drive unrecoverable. Anything more is FUD.
- masomenos 17y agohave any references for this? I've seen the same claim and would love to believe it.
- pyre 17y agoThe whole '26 pass' thing is based on a paper that created 26 different patterns of wiping the drive in order to default the different hardware schemes for the hard drives of the day. But that paper was written long, long ago, and I don't believe any of those schemes are used anymore.
- pyre 17y agoOops. s/default/'defeat'/
- ErrantX 17y agoYeh agreed. It's a much argued situation in the Forensic world - but this paper pretty much agrees that it is impossible: http://www.springerlink.com/content/408263ql11460147/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/408263ql11460147/
- lr 17y agoGiven that our government requires the destruction of storage devices to protect their secretes from seeing the light of day, I have to wonder why anyone would ever want to risk it: http://www.nsa.gov/ia/guidance/media_destruction_guidance/index.shtml http://www.nsa.gov/ia/guidance/media_destruction_guidance/in... Seriously, how expensive are hard drives these days?!
- pasbesoin 17y agoAt my last "office" job, the new machines they brought in were fully networkable. (The next time you're using a newer generation copier, check whether there's some cat5/6 plugged into the back.) So, if you copied something personal during your lunch break (considered a de facto perk, as long as exercised in restraint, e.g. that tax form before dropping same in the mail), would it remain on the copier hard drive? Worse, would it be deliberately archived in a company datastore? This place was big enough and sophisticated enough to have some technologists dedicated to managing the machines (in conjunction with a service contract). Yet I ended up having to help them with some configuration difficulties. Which led and leads me to consider the implications also raised by this story. Any organization with a halfway decent security policy should understand and address these problems when first deciding the bring the machines in. Yet they apparently don't. And manufacturers should have addressed them up front in the feature set and use/management guidelines (e.g. a setting to wipe images on job completion, whether user controlled or in overall systems settings; a clear machine management feature to securely wipe (e.g. to a clearly defined and understood DoD standard) all drive data storage). Yet they apparently haven't. Or they don't clearly steer customers to knowledge and use of those features. The reasons for the technological features are obvious. Their mis-management, unfortunately, seems all too familiar. I'm sure there were people arguing for better, but that would have been hard.
- Tichy 17y ago"All the major manufacturers told us they offer security or encryption packages on their products. One product from Sharp automatically erases an image from the hard drive. It costs $500." That's just outrageous. I can't think of a reason why copiers need to store images to begin with. It's a huge fail from the producers, and they shouldn't charge for cleaning up the mess. Instead this should evoke a scandal like the Toyota braking thing and make producers have to recall their copiers, with millions or billions of losses.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- halostatue 17y agoFrom the article: "All the major manufacturers told us they offer security or encryption packages on their products. One product from Sharp automatically erases an image from the hard drive. It costs $500." This should not cost extra. It should be included in every single hard-drive-based copier.
- mambodog 17y agoCopiers saving potentially (very) sensitive information to enable features most people don't use. Seems like a poor choice of default...
- hackermom 17y agoAnother interesting, related fact, that not many people know of: the small photo booths you find on airports, train stations, malls etc., the ones often used to take that classic, romantic strip of pictures with your loved one, or your passport photo and so on, exposes each frame on a special type of transparent, photographic film laid flat onto a strip of photographic paper. The directly exposed paper is the copy you get in the slot, but the reel of film is kept in the machine for "governmental bodies' reference".
- smallblacksun 17y agoreference?
- giardini 17y agoThis reminds me of the hidden identifying markers put on all printed color pages for later possible "forensic" investigation by FBI/spook types: "Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents" http://www.pcworld.com/article/118664/government_uses_color_laser_printer_technology_to_track_documents.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/118664/government_uses_color_...
- grk 17y agoSo, wait, when I push "Print + Delete" it deletes the page from the job queue, but still stores it on the hard drive? Now that's misleading.
- zitterbewegung 17y agoI wish I had enough money to buy some digital photocopiers from interesting places. Government surplus sales would probably be the most fun.