Open Printers are Major Fail

[manlymatt83]

Publicly available printers suck. I'm home tonight, printing documents out, and then wondering why they aren't coming out of the printer underneath my TV. Turns out, my default printer was the network printer at work (which I don't remember setting as the default), which is PUBLIC, and all of my documents went there. So now, I have to trek in to get them, because one is from my accountant and I don't want that stuff laying around.

GAH.

/rant

 

[arkcom]

You are fail? Why would your documents come out on a network printer? You know, a network to which you aren't connected.

 

[TheMouse]

Maybe he was connected via VPN?

 

[manlymatt83]

Maybe he was connected via VPN?

No. The printer has a public IP address with *no* restrictions.

 

[Anubis]

No. The printer has a public IP address with *no* restrictions.

post it im bored and i think your work needs a ream of the best joke ever printed out

 

[jackace]

No. The printer has a public IP address with *no* restrictions.

what is the purpose of such a setup?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

post it im bored and i think your work needs a ream of the best joke ever printed out

Indeed.

That's just asking to find a whole stack of jokes and worse things at the printer in the morning

 

[manlymatt83]

what is the purpose of such a setup?

Hell if I know.

 

[Mike Gayner]

The open printer didn't fail, you did.

 

[sdifox]

So you print to the wrong printer and it's the printer's fault?

 

[geno]

In Soviet Russia, fail is you!!

 

[mrjminer]

You should bring this up to your bosses or the IT guys. You'd probably get some kudos for saving the company money.

 

[Tsavo]

Print off Pi calculated to the 5 billionth place.

 

[PottedMeat]

post it im bored and i think your work needs a ream of the best joke ever printed out

++
i think verizon forgot to drop off a copy of the local phone book, i need a paper copy.

...who the hell would make a printer openly available? open printer-> abuse the shit out of it.

 

[Jumpem]

Why are you doing personal business on your work laptop?

 

[SpatiallyAware]

No. The printer has a public IP address with *no* restrictions.

I feel like you should let us know the IP ASAP

 

[guyver01]

No. The printer has a public IP address with *no* restrictions.

oh.. please post this public IP address. I'm curious what company, which has a private internal network, would go about using a Public IP address for an internal device?

Does this "public IP address" start with 10. or 192. by any chance?

 

[lokiju]

So your work on purpose made a NAT or something like that just to make the printer accessible from the outside?

Why in the hell would any place ever do that?

 

[IronWing]

Way back in the early 90s...

It was not uncommon on Unix networks for machines and printers to be open to the world. Under AIX, one could designate where to open a window by IP address. Students trying to open a window on a machine next to theirs would mis-enter the address and end up popping one up on a machine half way around the globe. People must have been much nicer back then as the worst outcome I heard about was an irate researcher at another university telling a student to stop sending him windows.

 

[jlee]

Way back in the early 90s...

It was not uncommon on Unix networks for machines and printers to be open to the world. Under AIX, one could designate where to open a window by IP address. Students trying to open a window on a machine next to theirs would mis-enter the address and end up popping one up on a machine half way around the globe. People must have been much nicer back then as the worst outcome I heard about was an irate researcher at another university telling a student to stop sending him windows.

Ah, fond memories of the Win9x "net send" thing..

 

[sdifox]

Way back in the early 90s...

It was not uncommon on Unix networks for machines and printers to be open to the world. Under AIX, one could designate where to open a window by IP address. Students trying to open a window on a machine next to theirs would mis-enter the address and end up popping one up on a machine half way around the globe. People must have been much nicer back then as the worst outcome I heard about was an irate researcher at another university telling a student to stop sending him windows.

xhost was hilarious. It taught university students to lock their terminal when they are stepping away for a few minutes.

 

[Lifted]

Did this to neighbors of a friend with open wifi. Found their wireless printer and printed a bit of gay porn.

Now just waiting for the inevitable divorce so I can move in on that hottie.

 

[GeekDrew]

So your work on purpose made a NAT or something like that just to make the printer accessible from the outside?

Why in the hell would any place ever do that?

I've seen it done (and have done it) when I've needed to connect to a printer from a specific remote host over the internet, and setting up a VPN was overkill or not possible for the circumstance.

That said, I can't think of many reasons why it would be acceptable to not place any ACLs on the connection.

 

[jackace]

I've seen it done (and have done it) when I've needed to connect to a printer from a specific remote host over the internet, and setting up a VPN was overkill or not possible for the circumstance.

That said, I can't think of many reasons why it would be acceptable to not place any ACLs on the connection.

I have seen this as well, but every time I have seen it there were some kind of access controls in place so not everyone in the world could print, only the appropriate remote computers. I have never seen a printer be open to the world with no access controls.

 

[geno]

Where's manlymatt with the update / clarification? I, too, want to know if this is a truly public IP