If you want to copy confidential documents using a self-serve copy machine at a business or library, how can you tell if that copier is connected to the internet?
Whether internet-connected or not: what happens to the copied files on the copier’s harddrive? Are they supposedly automatically deleted? [Hopefully before they’re hacked.]
I was GOING to write that there is no motivation for anyone to look at those files, and there’s no incentive to spend money to keep them on the hard drive, so just use the copier and don’t worry.
But that logic says there’s no danger in throwing out my bank statements and such in the regular trash. Security experts to tell us to shred (or otherwise efficiently get rid of) sensitive documents. So perhaps they’d advise us not to use public copiers too.
Consider this post a “bump” in hopes that someone who knows will wander by.
You are right to be cautious. Old fashioned printers and copiers didn’t have much memory and there wasn’t much danger of data loss if someone got access to the device.
All modern printers are digital, meaning they store the information (either print or scanned when copying) on a hard drive or equivalent when executing a job. That data stays there unless it is deliberately flushed. The very latest equipment will likely do this (or encrypt all the data so that it is useless after the job completes and the key is flushed).
But you can’t be sure what the printer/copier is doing with your data after you get your copies, so the best thing to do is to assume it is accessible to the next person.
Being digital does not mean that they store information on a hard drive. They have to store it somehow, but there’s no reason that storage couldn’t be in volatile memory.
But how would you, the user of the copier, know if it uses volatile memory or a hard drive and whether the data is wiped?
A link from the FTC about copier security:
Digital Copier Data Security: A Guide for Businesses | Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov)
A copier can transmit an image to another location as it is scanning and printing. You don’t have an easy way to determine if it’s doing that since it can be using a wireless connection. It could be worthwhile to some people. I don’t think there’s a lot of highly valuable corporate secret documents copied at the public library, but there could be all sorts of documents with people’s identifying information on them.
If you really wanted to get at valuable info you’d go after corporate networks. Even when they take security seriously I’m sure there are many that haven’t a high enough priority in making sure the printers and copy machines aren’t being hacked. They wouldn’t have any idea if that machine that was just replaced was wirelessly transmitting all the images it was scanning.