6 ms·

Can 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 proc

by sili 16y ago

Can 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 16y ago
Short-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.
- scott_s 16y ago
  Reading the story, it sounds like they are removed from the file system, but not securely erased.
- ars 16y ago
  Not "more like" - they actually are scanners and laser printers. With some special paper handling for the printer.
sigstoat 16y ago
i'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 16y ago
The 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.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
Kadin 16y ago
It says in the article that he had to use forensic / recovery software to extract the images from the drive. That suggests to me that they were deleted, just not overwritten. It's just like "deleting" a file off of your desktop PC; it's unlinked, but the data is still physically present on the drive platters until it happens to be overwritten, unless you make a special effort to overwrite it -- and most applications don't do that. I'm not sure that it's really a flaw in the copier design, because they're not intentionally retaining the images any more than your PC is intentionally designed to retain Word documents that you "delete" without overwriting. The problem is that many users are unaware that a modern photocopier even contains a hard drive ... they are probably oblivious of the fact that modern copiers have little in common with the traditional photostatic machines they grew up with, except that they're faster and don't smell as much. Manufacturers need to better educate buyers (or lessees) about the machines they're using, and perhaps make hard drives more accessible so that when they're sold, they can have the drives removed and destroyed first.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  I've done a few recoveries from Photocopiers in the past - pretty much what everyone has suggested is correct. Once you get the HDD out it's easily treated like any other drive. Most of the documents will be deleted (there is often a buffer of non-deleted documents) but recovering them is pretty trivial. Some of the newer ones do actually scrub data at intervals now.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    Do these copiers (multifunction right?) include a function for this? I would hope that these copiers include a wipe drive button.
mortenjorck 16y ago
This, actually, was the first thing that came to mind: http://www.eff.org/issues/printers http://www.eff.org/issues/printers
- smokinn 16y ago
  That was really interesting but the EFF really should put a date somewhere on that page. A "last updated" or something because right now I have no clue when they wrote that and whether they're still investigating it.
oiuytfgvbhjnk 16y ago
You need it to do multiple copies, double sided copies, collated etc. All the major maker's built-in software does overwrites of the data to various levels of security. Otherwise the government wouldn't buy them. They also have fairly small drives - the companies are out to make money - so at somewhere like kinkos your job would be overwritten multiple times by the end of the day. It's only an issue if the system fails and the drive needs to be replaced - but anywhere operating under any sort of security regs would destroy the drive before it went off site. We used to destroy them along with any waste explosive/munitions. Then health and safety stopped us and we had to buy a super monster shredder - which is a lot scarier than explosives but it can shred drives/entire files/interns etc.
- randrews 16y ago
  Why would you need nonvolatile storage for that? Why not just store it in RAM temporarily?
  - tedunangst 16y ago
    A hard drive could be cheaper than the amount of RAM required to store 20 pages of uncompressed scans.
    - randrews 16y ago
      If it's only 20 pages, I'd actually guess not. HDD + controller, for a minimum of (say) a 20 gig drive (I couldn't find any smaller ones), I'd guess would be a lot more than the extra hundred megs (tops) in the RAM that it already needs to have anyway. So it only makes sense to have a drive if you want to store a LOT more images than 20. Maybe it needs a drive anyway for some other reason (like the software that runs it lives there instead of on a CF card or something), so it ends up being cheaper and easier that way?
      - Daniel_Newby 16y ago
        100 megs? A single letter-size sheet is 30 megs at 600 ppi.

by sili 16y ago

Can 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 16y ago

Short-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.

scott_s 16y ago
Reading the story, it sounds like they are removed from the file system, but not securely erased.
ars 16y ago
Not "more like" - they actually are scanners and laser printers. With some special paper handling for the printer.

sigstoat 16y ago

i'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 16y ago

The 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.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

Kadin 16y ago

It says in the article that he had to use forensic / recovery software to extract the images from the drive. That suggests to me that they were deleted, just not overwritten. It's just like "deleting" a file off of your desktop PC; it's unlinked, but the data is still physically present on the drive platters until it happens to be overwritten, unless you make a special effort to overwrite it -- and most applications don't do that. I'm not sure that it's really a flaw in the copier design, because they're not intentionally retaining the images any more than your PC is intentionally designed to retain Word documents that you "delete" without overwriting. The problem is that many users are unaware that a modern photocopier even contains a hard drive ... they are probably oblivious of the fact that modern copiers have little in common with the traditional photostatic machines they grew up with, except that they're faster and don't smell as much. Manufacturers need to better educate buyers (or lessees) about the machines they're using, and perhaps make hard drives more accessible so that when they're sold, they can have the drives removed and destroyed first.

ErrantX 16y ago
I've done a few recoveries from Photocopiers in the past - pretty much what everyone has suggested is correct. Once you get the HDD out it's easily treated like any other drive. Most of the documents will be deleted (there is often a buffer of non-deleted documents) but recovering them is pretty trivial. Some of the newer ones do actually scrub data at intervals now.
- nkassis 16y ago
  Do these copiers (multifunction right?) include a function for this? I would hope that these copiers include a wipe drive button.

mortenjorck 16y ago

This, actually, was the first thing that came to mind: http://www.eff.org/issues/printers http://www.eff.org/issues/printers

smokinn 16y ago
That was really interesting but the EFF really should put a date somewhere on that page. A "last updated" or something because right now I have no clue when they wrote that and whether they're still investigating it.

oiuytfgvbhjnk 16y ago

You need it to do multiple copies, double sided copies, collated etc. All the major maker's built-in software does overwrites of the data to various levels of security. Otherwise the government wouldn't buy them. They also have fairly small drives - the companies are out to make money - so at somewhere like kinkos your job would be overwritten multiple times by the end of the day. It's only an issue if the system fails and the drive needs to be replaced - but anywhere operating under any sort of security regs would destroy the drive before it went off site. We used to destroy them along with any waste explosive/munitions. Then health and safety stopped us and we had to buy a super monster shredder - which is a lot scarier than explosives but it can shred drives/entire files/interns etc.

randrews 16y ago
Why would you need nonvolatile storage for that? Why not just store it in RAM temporarily?
- tedunangst 16y ago
  A hard drive could be cheaper than the amount of RAM required to store 20 pages of uncompressed scans.
  - randrews 16y ago
    If it's only 20 pages, I'd actually guess not. HDD + controller, for a minimum of (say) a 20 gig drive (I couldn't find any smaller ones), I'd guess would be a lot more than the extra hundred megs (tops) in the RAM that it already needs to have anyway. So it only makes sense to have a drive if you want to store a LOT more images than 20. Maybe it needs a drive anyway for some other reason (like the software that runs it lives there instead of on a CF card or something), so it ends up being cheaper and easier that way?
    - Daniel_Newby 16y ago
      100 megs? A single letter-size sheet is 30 megs at 600 ppi.