Do printers remember what you print?

[simpo two]

Friend said he'd heard that modern printers have a chip in them that store everything you print.

Urban myth or Big Brother?

[timmy30]

simpo two said:

Friend said he'd heard that modern printers have a chip in them that store everything you print. Urban myth or Big Brother?

More to the point...... what have you been printing?

[wolves_wanderer]

What has this "friend" been printing then Simpo?

[puggit]

Modern printers (the sort which combine Fax, Printer and Scanner) are certainly capable of this...

However they'd probably need to be setup to remember everything dodgey that your mate has printed.

[Einion Yrth]

Over time that could come to a hell of a lot of memory, so I'd say it's fair to say that in it's given form it's bollox - laser printers have enough memory as scratchpad to store a couple of pages though.

[Plotloss]

Bollocks

Its not persistent storage, its just there to ensure that the printer works a little quicker than it would need to if it took data byte by byte from the interface.

[simpo two]

It's not a 'what you print' thing, it's a principle thing. But if I want to print out bomb-making recipes, I'll just smash the thing to bits with a large hammer afterwards

[pdV6]

Utter codswallop. Imagine just how much storage they'd need!

[tiga84]

I have heard, and this may also be bollox, but each page printed has a "yellow" type single pixel somewhere on it that denotes which printer it was printed from (Id number of the printer). but this may also ony be true of government organisations or people dealing with classified data.

Anyone else heard this?

[puggit]

One thing to watch out for with the big Xerox boxes is that if for some reason the job is cancelled by a fault with the unit, but the job is received - it will be stored in the memory until someone comes along and reboots the box or prints the job.

Some tasty morsals can be gleaned with 'Xerox harvesting'

[toni896]

no - you need a lot of memory storing a filename would not cut it.
However some of the higher grade printers do tag a little code to say which printer printed it.

[simpo two]

tiga84 said:

I have heard, and this may also be bollox, but each page printed has a "yellow" type single pixel somewhere on it that denotes which printer it was printed from (Id number of the printer).

He did mention something about yellow, yes. But how you get a printer's serial number into one pixel defeats me.

If true, just print out your images of Mohammed on a second-hand printer off eBay...

[jamieboy]

tiga84 said:

I have heard, and this may also be bollox, but each page printed has a "yellow" type single pixel somewhere on it that denotes which printer it was printed from (Id number of the printer). but this may also ony be true of government organisations or people dealing with classified data. Anyone else heard this?

Yep, I saw this on the Register
www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/20/outlaw_printer_dots/

No clue whether it's true, though.

Regarding the original post, in little printers stays in the buffer until it's been successfully printed (to allow for paper jams and the like), but then it gets flushed.

Bigger MFDs certainly store documents on their local hard disks (both queued documents for printing, and received faxes) but whether they store them after they've been printed/forwarded is something you'd have to ask the vendor or whoever configured it.

So a bit of both - true that some high-end devices could retain copies of stuff you've printed, urban myth that your 50 quid Epson is going to call the cops.

[rich 36]

One thing to watch out for with the big Xerox boxes is that if for some reason the job is cancelled by a fault with the unit, but the job is received - it will be stored in the memory until someone comes along and reboots the box or prints the job.

Some tasty morsals can be gleaned with 'Xerox harvesting'



Arse

[tallbloke]

Some printers can be set up to store a copy of the printjob on the connected PC.

[lockstock2sb]

our new Xerox photocopiers/printers put a invisible watermark onto the paper which tells them what device printed it and the date and time. Only Xerox can make the info visable (apparently). They have a 40GB hard disk which buffers prints sent to holding boxes, but these are deleted at a pre-defined date. In our case its 3 days. Once they are gone from there you are safe. I also know that no-one cannot view whats been scanned/printed previously on them.

For normal laserjets - unless your job has screwed up and is stuck in the print queue/spooler - you are safe. Just dont leave any evidence on the printer !

[chilli]

Slightly off track here, but I got a cracking emial with a load of naked birds on it... Think it was a powerpoint thingy.. Anyway, now whenever I get a work related presentation I flick through the slides, and I always find the naked birds on the end....Gutted!!

[lockstock2sb]

wasn't the pirelli 2006 calendar, was it ?

>> Edited by lockstock2sb on Friday 3rd February 17:01

[Carrera2]

rich 36 said:

One thing to watch out for with the big Xerox boxes is that if for some reason the job is cancelled by a fault with the unit, but the job is received - it will be stored in the memory until someone comes along and reboots the box or prints the job. Some tasty morsals can be gleaned with 'Xerox harvesting' Arse

[wedg1e]

tiga84 said:

I have heard, and this may also be bollox, but each page printed has a "yellow" type single pixel somewhere on it that denotes which printer it was printed from (Id number of the printer). but this may also ony be true of government organisations or people dealing with classified data. Anyone else heard this?

Given the amount of colour bleed into paper fibres... HORSESHIT.