Secure Printing?

RiverWolf asks: "As a Systems Administrator (a.k.a. 'paranoid security freak') I spend much of my time tightening down systems, loading patches, and just generally making sure no one does what they're not supposed too. While tools like ssh have become a staple for file transfer and terminal sessions, I recently began looking at all the little print servers we have throughout my offices and wondered "hmm, can those things be sniffed?". Until now, my focus for printing has always been 'just get it working', but if someone can sniff the print jobs (like payroll and other confidential information) as they go across the network, then it doesn't matter how locked down eveything else is. Is there a standard for secure (encrypted transmission) network printing, or does anyone know of a way to do this? I found this document that deals with it in a round about fashion, but with dozens of printers spread throughout multiple locations, I don't see it as an option."

Comments

Unsecure print servers

[wompser]

Perhaps a little bit off topic, but one of my favorite pranks when I used to work in downtown Seattle was printing "Happy April Fool's Day" on every printer simultaneously at a freinds company. You would have thought with 25 printers they woudl have a more secure network!

Re:Unsecure print servers

[zulux]

A friend had a nack for finding Windows network printers on his local cable loop and printing out (using a generic PCL3 driver) a "How to Make Your Windows Computer Invisible To The Internet, and Why This Is a Good Thing" information packet.