Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets

Your Office Copy Machine Might Digitally Store Thousands of Documents That Get Passed on at Resale

(CBS) 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.

The Story
This just floored me, can you imagine the amount of info that could have been collected ? and this little statistic got my attention and i am included in the 60

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

what does ATS think?

Wow, that is some freaky stuff. I mean just the amount of sensitive documents that are copied, or faxed. This should put some fear into dirty workers. But unfortunately if cops were aware of this, I don't see them using it.

Ours has a state-of-the-art 10GB hard drive in it. I'm amazed it's still working.

Some older copiers used a paper negative that you could recover.

I guess it's one of many reasons you don't photocopy sensitive documents if you can avoid it. For copiers in sensitive locations, the copiers themselves are locked up and the hard drives are physically destroyed when decommissioned.

Newer models are encrypted, but they're still physically destroyed.

Originally posted by areyosicker
Wow, that is some freaky stuff. I mean just the amount of sensitive documents that are copied, or faxed. This should put some fear into dirty workers. But unfortunately if cops were aware of this, I don't see them using it.

\

All the more reason to check your firewall and not let your printer phone home.

Good thread

Signals wanders off, sledgehammer in hand, going to "fix" the copier....

Jesus River Dancing Christ.

We really are not as free as we like to think we are.

I'm in that in that 60% of people who weren't aware...until now that is. I appreciate you bringing this to the attention of the ATS community so those who don't know are armed with information.

I'm going to check the manual my household copier that I purchased last year to see if it contains a hard drive.

edited for spelling mistake

[edit on 19-4-2010 by cornblossom]

Originally posted by Signals
Good thread

Signals wanders off, sledgehammer in hand, going to "fix" the copier....

Nice signature. Are you Australian or is it a Vauxhall?

Anyway I had no idea scanners kept images on an internal hard-drive. I don't think I've ever scanned anything that I'd regret but it's still a bit creepy since I sold my old scanner a few years ago.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/f66b2c7d44a6.jpg[/atsimg]

I'm almost certain that this harddrive wasn't added for nefarious reasons, however it can quickly be used for it.

I'm guessing the hard drive is there to fix "broken" copies, for example, if something went wrong with your copy, you wouldn't have to rescan it, the printer would fix it silently.

But then again, everyone should be aware that there IS a hard drive in their machines. Think of big businesses, sending out various bills with personal information, or internal memos. Who needs industrial espionage when you can just buy their old printer?

Good find though, starred and flagged.

Definitely very surprising to me. I know digital copies had to have some sort of way of storing large amounts of data on a temp basis, because I've used them for producing some very large documents (up to hundreds of pages at a time stored in memory), but I always assumed this got dumped or copied over pretty soon after by the next large documents.

But if they are using large hard drives, they could easily be storing thousands of .pdf files, or whatever file format they use. I'm sure a lot of big businesses hate this idea, especially since a lot of very sensitive documents might be getting copied. With these things linked to office networks for printing and emailing purposes, that means they are probably vulnerable to being hacked just like any other computer.

Also, there's a lot of people going to their local Kinko's to copy their own, private information (contracts, financial documents, etc.) and now their private data is locked in a hard drive that someone could access.

A nice feature would be a daily memory wipe command, or even a button so people could just do it manually when the want to.

[edit on 4/19/2010 by LifeInDeath]

This is an old technique, actually. Dating back to the 1980s, the U.S. had specifically modified copiers shipped to many sites all over the world. It was not discovered until a Soviet agent became concerned about a particular copier that was continually serviced by a different service person than the others. They examined it from every viewpoint, finding nothing. Finally, they weighed it on a highly-sensitive scale, discovering that the questionable copier did weigh slightly more than the other copiers. At that point, the Soviets tore the copier apart, finding a recording device to duplicate each copy made of every document.



[edit on 19-4-2010 by Truth1000]

This is an opportunity for some company to sell their services and let companies be aware that their copiers store lots of sensitive information that someone might eventually obtain or hack into if their copier ever gets compromised or hacked into. The company could advertise the problems and offer to wipe or clean the harddrives except for the information you want to keep on it.

Has anyone ever copied their tax return? Was it on a public copier? I don't feel as safe as I once did. Thieves might steal hard drives now or find a way to hack them and steal the information without the businesses even knowing about it.

I apologize for my error.

[edit on 19-4-2010 by Truth1000]

Imho, it's your own fault if you're not aware of the properties and features of the hardware you buy. It's nothing they're hiding and conspiring with. It's consumers who don't know what they're doing.

reply to post by Truth1000


Now you tell us?!!!!





After 3 printers, never, have I ever heard of this, though, I guess I am not surprised, again, and again! Like, what is next? (Now in a panic Trying to remember all workplace and home copies and faxes and anything incriminating I will be serving time for!)..... A couple old girlfriends are going to be pissed!!!!

reply to post by cornblossom


Yea you would think they would have a warning label or something ,like "this contains a hard drive dont photo copy your*snip*"

Kinda reduntant. Like having a sticker on your computer saying 'needs a monitor for output' or 'will not run without fuel' on your car

reply to post by PsykoOps


"Your right" but I am just pissed that I did not not know this, I am looking through my home copier manual now and it doesn’t say anything about a hard drive! They should let you know somehow. I also seen your earlier post that we all should know our hardware but 60 % is such a big number because they don’t tell you!

[edit on 20-4-2010 by paradiselost333]

what exactly is the point for putting a HD in a photocopier and storing the images?

i cant seem to think of 1 good legit reason