Are Your Peripherals Monitoring You?

An anonymous reader writes " Engadget is reporting that 'Lexmark, makers of printers and scanners, has been caught monitoring users' printer, scanning, and ink cartridge usage.'" Newsgroup comp.periphs.printers readers noticed the software; the Engadget report says that "Lexmark say they're just tracking printer and cartridge usage, but the registration information and packets being sent say otherwise."

Comments

really!

[Anonymous Coward]

My webcam does it too

Re:really!

[Barryke]

10 sell printer
20 sell inkcartage
30 disable inkcartage via internet
40 goto 20

Re:really!

[iamlucky13]

Stupid moderators, that's not interesting. It's FUNNY. Get it right. Sheesh! I guess some things are too basic for you people.

Re:really!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do to the non-value of a funny moderation, a user who gets a +5 funny comment can actually take a negative karma hit because there is no opposite to funny and thus, the user would be modded down with overrated and/or flamebait moderations. Thus, some moderators mod funny comments as interesting.

Now it looks like you're the stupid one. Don't criticize the moderators when you've only been coming to Slashdot for a day 795185.

Re:really!

[Anonymous Coward]

some jokes are better served serious. thats where 'interesting' comes in.

Re:really!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:

35 send data to http://www.lxkcc1.com/

Re:really!

[TerminalInsanity]

i noticed my Microsoft Intellimouse Optical's windowz drivers where contacting a MS ip address (207.46.249.222) http://wehate.org/img/microsoft-firewall.jpg

Re:really!

[Hognoxious]

Yeah, I noticed it tries to do that. What good reason a mouse driver has for connecting to the internet is beyond me.

Re:really!

[Barryke]

Probing the market for license-rental possibilities?

Re:really!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot

25 Profit = Profit + 30

Not clear?

[BoldAC]

Not clear what they are monitoring?

What am I missing? Couldn't somebody just install the program and sniff the information out of the packets?

Gesh, this is slashdot...

Re:Not clear?

[sl4shd0rk]

Certainly. The problem is, capitalism is fleecing the privacy of people, and it's very sneaky of Lexmark to conduct business this way. It is not surprising for Lexmark to do this. They have been cornholing their customers over ink cartridges for years. As far as I'm concerned, if your still running windows connected to the internet, buying Lexmark gear, and reading this with IE, then you deserve everything you get.

Re:Not clear?

[arivanov]

Lexmark's attempt to use DMCA to prevent thrid party cartridges sank in court a few weeks ago. They are bound to start looking for a different means to achieve the same goal as their printers are sold at dumping prices and they generate profit mostly from cartridges. In order to chose the next move they definitely need some reconnaissance data. Alternatively they are looking to move the grounds of enforcement on what the customer uses from suing competitors to sueing customers (what a novell idea...).

2. Lexmark AFAIK is one of the companies who are participating in the stupid law assistance program where software and hardware should detect common types of currency and refuse to copy or print it. Going from there to ratting on the ones who scan/print it is only one step.

Re:Not clear?

[zumbojo]

Amen brother. If I only had mod points...

Re:Not clear?

[surprise_audit]

participating in the stupid law assistance program

That's really only going to work on a counterfeiter dumb enough to have an Internet connection on his currency scan'n'print LAN.

The people they're most likely to catch are the kids that watch National Treasure, and then start scanning $bills and loading the images into a pirated copy of PhotoShop to see if they can find the clues...

Re:Not clear?

[Kaemaril]

uses from suing competitors to sueing customers (what a novell idea...).

Uh ... no. That's an SCO idea, not a Novell idea :)

Re:Not clear?

[Oligonicella]

"...the stupid law assistance program where software and hardware should detect common types of currency and refuse to copy or print it."

Just why is this stupid? Counterfiting is illegal and undesirable. Please explain your opinion.

Re:Not clear?

[castanaveras]

Preach it. I just wish I'd seen this while I still had mod points.

Re:Not clear?

[E_elven]

Bills that look exactly like real ones, though? I don't see why you should need something that doesn't have a big "NOT REAL MONEY" overlay on it -for legitimate purposes. That being said it is a bit iffy.

Re:Not clear?

[rpozz]

As far as I'm concerned, if your still running windows connected to the internet, buying Lexmark gear, and reading this with IE, then you deserve everything you get.

While virtually everyone on slashdot knows to install anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, firefox etc, it's all getting way out of control. Who the FUCK (except from a tin foil hat nerd) would expect a PRINTER DRIVER to spy on you? Isn't it great how this sort of crap is legal, but (for example) modding a console isn't?

Re:Not clear?

[h4rm0ny]

Just why is this stupid? Counterfiting is illegal and undesirable. Please explain your opinion.

I'm neither the original poster, nor do I necessarily agree with him. But I think I can do a good job as advocate for the Devil.

The obstensible objection to the hardware and software currency detection would probably be that it does nothing to catch actual counterfeiters but does inconveniance legitimate users. Do you really think that people such as these are going to be bothered by such little measures. In order to procure the equipment, inks and papers to forge modern currency (at least in Europe), you have to be a professional. The only remaining result of this technology is the inconveniance to legitimate users.

Now that said, there is a secondary reasoning behind objecting to the law which is less commonly stated, but often underlies such arguments.

You stated that Counterfeiting is illegal and undesirable. Placed in a criticism, this indicates that you feel the law is essentially a good thing and that legality is an indication that something is acceptable. There are many who would agree that counterfeiting is undesirable (it reduces the value of their own / family's money) but would not instinctively add illegal as a criticism. This is because many now feel the government is an adversary, especially in recent times and especially in the US and the UK. They are heavily concerned about increasingly unjust laws and this is colouring their view of the entire legal process. The relation of something as large as this to something as small as the anti-counterfeiting technology is twofold. Firstly, in foisting this technology on innocent people, they naturally resent the presumption of wrong-doing. Much the same as you would feel about having people come around to search your home for stolen goods without grounds for suspicion, or having someone wire your car so that it couldn't go over 70mph to prevent speeding, or outlawing firearms (in the US). It's insulting to many people who no longer feel the government is their friend. It's especially insulting that this redundant technology was diseminated secretly and sneakily amongst people who did not know that what they bought had that it had been fiddled with by government agencies. Remember, many people no longer regard the government as friendly.

The second secret reason behind the objection may be that in order for this technology to work there has to be some subversion of people's computer systems. It can't be implemented in The Gimp and if Photoshop or Lexxmark is calling the FBI when it detects a banknote, then this is basically taking control away from the user. He can no longer trust his computer. Who knows what information it's providing to other parties. This will be especially true with technologies enabled by Trusted Computing. The issue about the anti-counterfeiting technology is not the thing in isolation, but that is part of a broader sweep of taking power away from the user and making their computers work for someone else, not their owner.

Okay, that's my analysis. Of course, the OP may not think this way at all, purely basing his comment on the fact that the technology is flawed (which it is) and inconveniances innocents (which it can do); but I think that many people do feel the way that I've described.

For myself, I just want someone to post the pattern so that I can mix it into my own images and mess with people's heads.

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

So when are some of our state attorney generals going to get off their butts, review their respective computer use laws, and apply the law against these felons?

In Nebraska, it is a class IV felony to use another party's computer resources without their consent. As Lexmark has continued to deny their software is conducting surveillance on its customers, it is pretty clear they've lost an argument that their customers gave them consent to spy on them. This is pretty evident unauthorized use, and needs a few AG's to get busy (please, none of this "overworked/underpaid" crap which I've heard AG offices use before. Everyone is overworked and underpaid. Get used to it or resign so we can find someone competent to work in your office using our money).

Slashdotters using these products should sent registered letters to their state AG office filing a complaint and requesting criminal investigation. Follow up in thirty days if no progress has been made and send letters to your governors office indicating the AG has not proceeded in a corporate criminal investigation. Contact your newspapers and let them know that the AG's office is permitting corporations to spy on state citizens without consequence. Spyware is becoming a significant fear for common people and AGs that ignore it will soon be returned to private practice.

The other thing that needs done is closing up the EULA loophole. Lexmark presumably did not try specifying its right to spy on customers in its EULA, but others do and given increasingly restrictive return policies on technology products by retailers like Best Buy (as reported on /.), burying spying consent in a EULA is unacceptable. Spyware must be opt-in and states need to establish a separate consent agreement that must be used independent of EULA, contract, service agreement, etc. Imagine a separate form that you must sign that states that you have been advised that your product being purchased has spyware and will monitor your activities, requiring your signature and reference to verification documents (e.g. drivers license) to authorize.

Absent this form, vendors using spyware should be *criminally* responsible. This is obviously a wish-list item, but would have an appropriate limitation on corporate spyware. Having AGs enforce existing laws, on the other hand, should be done immediately and informed Slashdotters can have an influence by submitting complaints and following up. As always, send those letters via certified/registered mail - it's the way to let the other party know you're putting them on notice.

Re:Not clear?

[budgenator]

It's stupid because they can't detect the image of a countefit currency, they can only detect a yellowish pattern of 5 circles printed on the currency. If I try to print anything with the pattern, the software fires up my webbrowser to a website that tells me about how counterfitting is wrong. Now If I am a clueless teenager, I see the site and think "OMG they know" and stop doing the stupid shit like scanning currency it's good. If I am somebody who is trying to print out someting completely legal, but happens to have that pattern I think "but this is not money, what are they talking about" and try again, sooner or later the Secret Service see my IP address a shitload of times and comes to call just to say HI, and to let me explain myself before a trip downtown to jail for a little chat.
Another possibility is some printers, if they get more than a certain number of images with the pattern lock-up, requiring an expensive service call from a factory rep, who's policy is when they see that error code, will report it to the Secret Service. Immagine what it could do the the Secret Service's ability to investigate real crimes if I posted some pictures of Sara Michelle Geller nude with the pattern on a P2P network.

Re:Not clear?

[MrWarMage]

Short answer? When they're done dicking us over on "Faith Based Initiatives."

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

In this day and age, I think that it is fair game for anything to spy on you iff you are running a closed system. You have to remember that all the printers are trying to lock you into their ink. Likewise, for the scanners, they are trying to prevent you from scanning money and copyrighted items (several do send packets fi you scan interesting pages which indicates they are working closely with the US government).

I suspect that MS's little program for asking to inspect your system is not what your think. Who gets that information? The feds. Under patriot act, US companies must give access to their DB's to the feds. This program is being used to figure out who you are, not what your system runs.

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, capitalism is fleecing the privacy of people

Capitalism is not sentient or capable of malicious action.

The problem, as always, is unethical people and not the system they abuse with their immorality. But of all the human systems tested to date, capitalism has proven to be best-immunized against corruption and abuse.

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone waster their mod points modding down a post that complains about a lack of mod points? The only thing that would be dumber would be to mod this funny or insightful...

Re:Not clear?

[jazman_777]

The problem is, capitalism is fleecing the privacy of people...

Yes, it's captitalism that's doing it. And here I thought it was the Martians! Par for the /. course.

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Counterfeiting.

Re:Not clear?

[BarryJacobsen]

immagine what it could do the the Secret Service's ability to investigate real crimes if I posted some pictures of Sara Michelle Geller nude

One problem I forsee is that one person sharing won't be enough initially, you should send the pictures to me so that way we have a larger sharing base. Yeah, and I'll also use them for...other research projects...

Re:Not clear?

[Skevin]

> Not clear what they are monitoring?

Usage statistics? It seems that more and mroe companies are infringing on your privacy. My trainer just got a Tivo and he was wierded out by the fact that you have to plug it in to a phone jack. The same goes for Dish Network's receiver. It seems that more and more appliances want to call home to let their manufacturers know what you're doing with their particular product (with promises of privacy, of course). I've wondered if, over time and with a a little effort, some agency out there has found a way to compile all this data into an single comprehensive database and develop an amazingly accurate profile for any given individual.

My personal solution? Disable my land line, and switch exclusively to cell phones. The only downside is that my Satellite TV provider doesn't believe I don't have a working phone jack to plug in my satellite receiver into.

Solomon Chang

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Writer]

making their computers work for someone else, not their owner

Nicely put. That's a really simple and concise way of stating the problems with all this "Trusted computing", DRM, and anti-counterfeiting ruckus. Now if someone could only explain this to the computer industry and lawmakers.

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

While virtually everyone on slashdot knows to install anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, firefox etc,

By "virtually everyone" I assume you mean those using Windows? The truly competent Windows users have little use of anti-virus and anti-spyware. Most malware get into computers through social engineering and slippy fingers, i.e. user error.

it's all getting way out of control. Who the FUCK (except from a tin foil hat nerd) would expect a PRINTER DRIVER to spy on you?

Security professionals, maybe? I find your gullibility disturbing.

I am rather unimpressed. The printer driver is just another piece of Windows software. When I saw the headline, I thought it was about infected network printers. Loading malicious PostScript or updating printer firmware is not exactly a brand new idea. But this is about printers that are so feeble that they don't have any processing power. Such cheap hardware is more likely to cause you grief, in one way or another. So either pay more, or become paranoid!

Re:Not clear?

[1u3hr]

Not clear what they are monitoring? What am I missing? Couldn't somebody just install the program and sniff the information out of the packets?

Yes, but nobody has yet. I read this on the newsgroup last week; the two articles in the Slashdot "summary" obviously haven't investigated it beyond quoting these articles.

The news posting in full is:

From: Commander (Commander_rn1@yahoo.com)
Subject: Lexmark Printer Users Beware of Spyware
Newsgroups: misc.consumers, comp.periphs.printers
Date: 2004-11-09 08:17:25 PST

Yes, Lexmark is now in the Spyware business!

Just the other day I purchased a new Lexmark X5250 All-in-one printer.
I installed it as per the instructions and monitored the install with
Norton as I do with all new software.

On reviewing the install log I noticed a program called Lx_CATS had
been placed in the c:\program files directory. I investigated and
found a data log and an initialisation file called Lx_CATS.ini.
Further investigation of this file showed that Lexmark had, without my
permission, loaded a Trojan backdoor on to my computer. Furthermore,
it is embedded into the system registry, so average users would likely
never know it was there and active.

This Lexmark Trojan was programmed to monitor my use of the printer by
way of data collected from two DLLs in the c:\program files\lexmark500
folder. The Trojan would then send information on printer usage,
including types of print activity, scanning activity, OCR activity
etc., back to a hidden URL at 30 day intervals.

The URL, www.lxkcc1.com, is identified as being owned by Lexmark.

When I called and spoke with Lexmark support, they denied all
knowledge of any such program, and suggested I had somehow been
infected by a virus. When I challenged them with the facts, they
ultimately aknowleged that this was indeed activity tracking software
that reported printer and cartridge use back to them for "survey"
purposes. Lexmark said that "no personal data" was relayed by the
program, and that I could not be personally identified by it. However
- the program transmits the printer serial number, and when I
registered the warranty with Lexmark, they recorded my personal
information along with the serial number. How much effort does it take
to match the two?

I call it spying! I was not advised of this part of the installation,
nor was I asked to agree to be part of any such data gathering
activity. I see this as a breach of my privacy, and as deplorable
behaviour by Lexmark.

Lexmark users beware! But, they may not be the only ones stealing your
private information.

Re:Not clear?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Couldn't somebody just install the program and sniff the information out of the packets?
Gesh, this is slashdot...

You're right, this is /.

I use CUPS...
(which the Linux version of the Lexmark software doesn't work with as it only knows about lpr, BTW).

:-)

Re:Not clear?

[karniv0re]

As far as I'm concerned, if your still running windows connected to the internet, buying Lexmark gear, and reading this with IE, then you deserve everything you get.

Damn straight. There's no way my Lexmark z23 is spying on me, because it doesn't even work in Linux! Yeah! Take that Lexmark... oh, wait...

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Writer]

they can only detect a yellowish pattern of 5 circles

Apparently they're not just yellow, but can be any color. I was wondering if they had to be of a particular fixed size, but then I found this link through Google that says otherwise. I wonder if someone had a shirt made with a fabric with this pattern all over it, would people be able to publish digital photos of that person? Anti-paparazzi shirts!

Re:Not clear?

[LiquidCoooled]

The pattern placed onto banknotes is called the EURion constellation.

It is a pattern of 5 small circles that is like the Orion constellation.
It has apparantly been included on the back of the new $50 bill. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._fifty_dollar_bi ll

I even found a program that supposedly adds the marks to your own dowuments, but you iwll have to look for yourself, because I can't view either postscript, or pdf.
link here: http://wildspark.com/eurionize/

Re:Not clear?

[TykeClone]

Who the FUCK (except from a tin foil hat nerd) would expect a PRINTER DRIVER to spy on you?

Didn't the CIA do something like that in Gulf War I against the Iraqi's?

Re:Not clear?

[h4rm0ny]

Thanks for that, I'll try it out sometime. The author of the program says that there wont be much added security using this, but that's okay by me. I just want to mess with a few people's printers and Photoshop.

The first pdf on that euronize page shows the pattern very nicely. It's interesting to actually see it.

Re:Not clear?

[TykeClone]

So when are some of our state attorney generals going to get off their butts, review their respective computer use laws, and apply the law against these felons?

If history can be our guide (at least in Iowa), the AG will go after them only after a bunch of other states are already doing it, or if it will garner some publicity. I think that our AG belongs to the "suit of the month" club.

Re:Not clear?

[Buran]

You can run the tivo without it being plugged into a phone jack, but after two weeks it will run out of guide data. You didn't really think it just guesses what's going to be on, did you? There is tracking but supposedly it's anonymous tracking only. But you can opt out if you want to.

And you don't literally have to use a phone jack except for the initial setup (which is a goof I can't believe they still haven't fixed) but after that it can get data over an Internet connection.

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I'm concerned, if your still running windows connected to the internet, buying Lexmark gear, and reading this with IE, then you deserve everything you get.

Oh shut up already. You are such a troll. Most computer users think the IE is the internet, and that MS is the computer, and they don't choose their own printers. They don't "deserve" anything for that reason alone.

Your nick suits you well.

Re:Not clear?

[shayster]

If ever a site deserved to be slashdotted http://www.lxkcc1.com/

Re:Not clear?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Trojan would then send information on printer usage,
including types of print activity, scanning activity, OCR activity
etc., back to a hidden URL at 30 day intervals."

So how come noone here, at /. for petessakes, is connecting this with anything other than Lexmark profit activities? Homeland Security anyone? They're spying on your friggin library activity. You think they don't want the above too? These are the guys sending agents to hassle a store about carrying a (legal) rubik's cube copy. I don't think you appreciate how paranoid and off the rails they are.

Frank Mills didn't think he was dealing with anything more than burglary when he found taped doors in the Watergate hotel. Go ahead and ask yourselfs what's the most this sort of information can be used for, and then consider there's well funded people being paid full time to think that way.

Re:Not clear?

[Rary]

Well, just to further play devil's advocate.....

The obstensible objection to the hardware and software currency detection would probably be that it does nothing to catch actual counterfeiters but does inconveniance legitimate users.

Or perhaps what it really accomplishes is discouraging the amateur counterfeiter.

In other words, we all know that the professional counterfeiters will not be inconvenienced by this one bit. But, what about the teenager who notices that the quality of scanned/printed images he gets using his dad's computer is so good that he can produce an exact duplicate of a $50 bill with little effort? He may not use this new-found skill with much frequency to be a serious concern to law enforcement, but if it's really that easy, he won't be the only one doing this. Suddenly, half the money being spent by 16-year-olds is counterfeit money. Law enforcement can't just crack down on an individual who's doing this, because virtually everyone is doing it.

So, measures such as this come in to prevent that from becoming a problem.

Anyway, that's just something that came to mind as I was reading your post. I don't actually support these measures, but I thought I'd throw that into the ring.

Re:Not clear?

[kcbrown]

But of all the human systems tested to date, capitalism has proven to be best-immunized against corruption and abuse.

Well, not pure, unregulated capitalism. Regulated capitalism, perhaps.

You see, capitalism by itself encourages corruption and abuse. Consider, for instance, a society that operates under "pure" capitalism, and which has no laws against murder, assault, etc. A corporation which provides an essential good or service (such as food) in that kind of environment would literally eliminate its competition, by assassinating the owners and executives of any competing firms. Eventually that corporation would have no competition because nobody would be stupid enough to risk certain death in order to compete.

The reason things would go down that way is that capitalism encourages unethical behavior. Think about it: unethical behavior is basically behavior which does not follow a certain set of restrictions (e.g., on killing or harming others). Capitalism encourages this because it rewards those who are willing to go further to get what they want. Someone who acts ethically is restricting the set of actions he can take, while someone who acts unethically is not restricted in that way. The person acting unethically has available to him a superset of actions available to the person acting ethically. That means that the person acting unethically has more options than someone acting ethically, and some of those additional options will give him an advantage, and being unethical he will use those. Since the system doesn't have any built-in mechanisms to discourage such unethical behavior, the person who behaves unethically will win, pretty much every time.

Organized crime is what you get with unregulated capitalism.

Re:Not clear?

[mrchaotica]

The truly competent Windows users

That's an oxymoron; the truly competent Windows users don't use Windows anymore! : P

[insert "monty python foot icon" here]

Re:Not clear?

[mrchaotica]

The "computer industry" understands -- it's made of people like us (or at least I'd like to think so). However, it only takes a few unscrupulous people at the top -- and virtually anyone at the top is unscrupulous -- to force it on us, since not everyone is willing to lose their job for refusing to create DRM [sic].

Sadly, I think the only real way to succeed is to start at the bottom -- get the public to care about this. The real trouble with that, though, is that we have to get them to care more about this than they do all the other stuff (terrorism, gay marraige, etc.).

In other words, we're fucked.

Re:Not clear?

[mrchaotica]

Immagine [sic] what it could do the the Secret Service's ability to investigate real crimes if I posted some pictures of Sara Michelle Geller nude with the pattern on a P2P network.

You know, that's a great idea! If we actually did this, maybe the Secret Service would get fed up and stop screwing with our printers. It can be sort of like that anti-war-on-drugs symbol that lots of pictures have, except (hopefully) more effective.

Re:Not clear?

[Mycroft_VIII]

Lesse, an ac calls mods stupid, implies they could be even stupider, makes an OBVIOUS play for postive modderation. AND GETS MODDED UP.
I dunno, I've been here over a year and even I am amazed at this one.

Mycroft

Re:Not clear?

[mrchaotica]

And indeed it is!

Re:Not clear?

[fingerfucker]

As far as I'm concerned, if your still running windows connected to the internet, buying Lexmark gear, and reading this with IE, then you deserve everything you get.

Are real-time visitor stats of /. public? Link anyone?

Re:Not clear?

[Perky_Goth]

nobody said it's legal. when you don't buy the laws, make sure the victim is too dumb/poor not to sue. guess what? it's a great way to do business.

Re:Not clear?

[Gi77 B4t35]

He may not use this new-found skill with much frequency to be a serious concern to law enforcement, but if it's really that easy, he won't be the only one doing this.

It's fortunate that it isn't that easy, then.

God I hope not

[LooseChanj]

I don't think anyone or anything could stand the sight of me before clothes or caffeine.

Re:God I hope not

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you ask yourself where all those requests from .gov domains were coming from? Don't worry about that. The government already has some nice orange jump suits ready for you as soon as you switch off that camera. Go back to work!

Vote Jeb Bush in 2008! Four more years!

Please clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

First you tell us this:

Lexmark, makers of printers and scanners, has been caught monitoring users' printer, scanning, and ink cartridge usage."

Then you try to tell us this:

"Lexmark say they're just tracking printer and cartridge usage, but the registration information and packets being sent say otherwise."

So the evil Lexmark tells you that they are tracking printer and cartridge usage, which is what you tell us is what you found. Then you claim that the packets being sent tell you something different. Well, spill it! What did you find that Lexmark didn't say they are tracking? It seems that they told you what you'd expect to find if you monitored their packets.

I don't like the idea that some company is building drivers that call home. But it's not because I think my privacy is somehow invaded. I just don't like someone using up my bandwidth without my knowledge.

If I was really concerned with privacy, I doubt I'd be using a computer, much less connecting it to the Internet.

Re:Please clarify

[Timesprout]

The actual initial post is even better. They call it a "Trojan Backdoor" which is stretching it for a program that calls home once a month.

Re:Please clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything that calls home unasked and silently is a backdoor. Anyone working for a foreign agency is a spy and will be treated as one, no matter if he has blown up that power plant *yet* or whatever his orders were.

Spying is spying, no matter if it happens daily or monthly. And who are you to be sure they don't collect other info, send ascii-only copies of your printed documents, scan for keywords and worse. Calling home once a month is enough to report back every info you hold dear. Plain ASCII, zip compressed doesn't need more bandwidth.

But none of us has a problem with others monitoring what we say or do. I have nothing to hide. I like orange jump suits and cable ties. I like the president. I am a happy citizen and I will go back to work now.

Re:Please clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was really concerned with privacy, I doubt I'd be using a computer, much less connecting it to the Internet.

Well I'm concerned with privacy, but I still want to use a computer and also connect to the internet. I don't necessarily disagree with your argument but you weaken it here.

Re:Please clarify

[surprise_audit]

The concern is that, if you fill out the printer registration card with name, address, phone number and serial number and if the spyware sends the printer serial number along with the other information, then they can tie cartridge usage to a particular name/address record, along with the IP it came from.

Which immediately suggests a course of action to "poison" the information pool - register as Darl McBride and start copying something illegal...

Re:Please clarify

[scifiber_phil]

I sometimes use my computer to earn money. Does the use of the computer mean sorry no privacy for you? If it does, who decided that? What gives them the "right" to decide that? How do we take that "right" from their hands? Because, the bottom line is, people need and deserve privacy. Notice that God has not given us the ability to read others' thoughts. If a measure of privacy is good enough for God, it should be good enough for corporate America and the government.

Re:Please clarify

[Feanturi]

Well there's degrees of privacy.. The phone company knows who I've called lately, and who has called me. That doesn't upset me, because I know it's part of having the service. The only wrongdoing I can see with Lexmark (unless someone actually ponies up with the 'more' that is supposedly being transmitted) is that Lexmark implemented this without telling anybody. Of course they wouldn't, because it would discourage people from buying the brand.

Ok, so let's look at that.. If, I say if, the only data being transmitted is the ink levels, why should this bother anyone? If it could have been known ahead of time, why should it affect sales? But people get all freaked out whenever they realize that they have somehow had an activity recorded, regardless of what that activity is.

That's of course assuming that Lexmark isn't also dumping the printer output to a compressed file and sending that off as well. That would be truly scummy. But that hasn't been shown, in fact nothing scummy has been shown other than the lack of informed consent. The transmission is being found offensive purely on the basis that there is any amount of transmission at all.

Re:Please clarify

[Moofie]

Why should this bother me? Because they didn't ask.

Not that I'd go near a Lexmark printer in any case.

Re:Please clarify

[Nikker]

Is there anyway or program to run win32 to find this type of activity. Possibly a sniffer that would log data by the program that sent it?

I don't own any tin foil (right now) but this would seem like a nifty little trick that, leagally would be a piece of cake to impliment since no-one really reads the EULA's anyway.

Hey its Christmas right? Mine as well start finding out now .....

Re:Please clarify

[subtropolis]

s/citizen/consumer/g

Re:Please clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

What a hypocrite. Not concerned about privacy? Then why did you post as Anonymous Coward? From now on please type you real name at the bottom of each Anonymous Coward comment you make. After all, you're "not really concerned about privacy" right?

Re:Please clarify

[Anonymous Coward]

"So the evil Lexmark tells you that they are tracking printer and cartridge usage, which is what you tell us is what you found."

TFA: "When I called and spoke with Lexmark support, they denied all knowledge of any such program, and suggested I had somehow been infected by a virus."

Looks to me like Lexmark is lying. (surprise, surprise...)

Lexmark sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Lexmark printer for about $20 after a rebate and it was a good printer. The trouble began when I had to buy new cartridges, I bought 3 in a row, and they were all empty, what the hell is up with that.

Re:Lexmark sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the exact same problem, I bought a Lexmark printer on sale, it was a steal. A few months later I needed to buy a new ink cartridge and it was empty, I brought it back and got another one, it was empty as well. I tried to return that one but Best Buy refused to take it back because they thought I was just returning cartridges when I was finished with them. Bunch of shit if you ask me.

Re:Lexmark sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the same problem with HP cartridges. I changed my vendor and it resolved the issue.

Re:Lexmark sucks

[dattaway]

The trouble began when I had to buy new cartridges, I bought 3 in a row, and they were all empty, what the hell is up with that.

You are an engineer for [evil printer company] and are told to increase profits 50%. So you increase i=20 in the cartrige purge program.

Re:Lexmark sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who is reading Slashdot and _keeps_ buying Lexmark products deserves every shafting he can get.

Sorry for being rude, but WE TOLD YOU

No complaining about Lexmark's business practices, Internet Explorer insecurities and anti-democratic measures by anyone from the Bush family. Guess what - we told you, too.

Re:Lexmark sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

May I propose an economical solution to your problem. I cite these people just as an example, but you can find similar suppliers everywhere. 'Tis better paying $6.00 for a refilled cartridge than $16.00 for OEM ripoffs, especially empty ones.

Data stealing

[Realistic_Dragon]

Linux can do it just as well as Microsoft and Lexmark! Admittedly, you do have to install it yourself, but the feature is there and just as good as these so called professional vendors can offer!

Re:Data stealing

[dougmc]

Admittedly, you do have to install it yourself

Yes, but that makes *all* the difference.

We (or at least me, though I seriously doubt I'm alone) generally have no problems with `spyware' if it's installation is *completely* voluntary and if the user is educated on what it is and does clearly (and not in some 500 page document) before it's installed. Especially if it's something that the person has to manually install the program, and especially if the program is benign and useful (counting linux users = benign, but not terribly useful for a given user.)

You may think this has something to do with Linux, but it really doesn't -- we generally don't have problems with Microsoft Update either, for example, even the automatic functions, and they phone home on a regular basis as well. This could change, however -- for example, if we were to learn that the program was reporting back more information than we were told it did.

ZoneAlarm

[TVC15]

Interesting, I just installed ZoneAlarm on a PC last week and it gave me an alarm that some Lexmark process wanted to make a network connection. I havnt had a Lexmark connected to that thing in probably 3 years (and can find no obviously labled Lexmark files) but have been too lazy to reformat the drive. Perhaps it's time to break out the install CDs.

Re:ZoneAlarm

[Captain Chad]

Would that have been the 'PDP RPC server' by any chance? I had the same issue with a Compaq-branded Lexmark printer. It took a bit of google searching just to find out it was from Lexmark and that 'PDP' stands for 'Print Driver Plus'.

Re:ZoneAlarm

[AndroidCat]

I guess we now know what the 'Plus' part is. :)

Re:ZoneAlarm

[AndroidCat]

Want sound effects for ZoneAlarm? (Shameless plug.)

Re:ZoneAlarm

[Anonymous Coward]

As a sidenote from me: be careful when combining ZoneAlarm with the Windows XP SP2 firewall. If you don't like watching your machine reboot endlessly over and over again, that is.

Re:ZoneAlarm

[ImaLamer]

I've got a Lexmark Z705 on Windows XP with Sygate Personal Firewall.

After installing the printer I noticed the process "LEXPPS.EXE" trying to broadcast and do everything to get onto the network first then the Internet second. I simply don't allow it access because at the time I had a wireless hookup (with no WEP key) and was afraid that someone might try printing to my printer.

Even with that process blocked I could still print "over the network" so it wasn't even an issue and nothing has "broke" since then...

By the way, the process listens on 1026.

Re:ZoneAlarm

[horatio]

I've used both ZoneAlarm and Kerio. I'm much happier with Kerio. It is much less of a pain to use, and you can two-click enable/disable it without affecting any of your existing network connections.

KPF also monitors processes spawning other processes - allows you to catch a lot of things that try to run but shouldn't.

Re:ZoneAlarm

[ozbird]

The Microsoft Intellimouse and Intellitype(?) drivers do the same thing. While I suspect they're just phoning home to check for updates, I don't trust them - blocking the connection in my firewall software did the trick, and the drivers didn't whine. (You won't get warned about these drivers if you use the Microsoft firewall in XP - surprise. They may have changes this in SP2, but I doubt it.)

Posible reason

[coolsva]

I believe Lexmark recentl lost a case where they tried to apply the DCMA against a 3rd party ink cartridge manufacturer. Since now they cannot force he user to buy their high priced cartridges, perhaps this way, they would know that you used one of these cartridges and they can then void your warranty
However, this does not justify them sending the data without your knowing/asking. If they wanted to keep a flag in the printer and when you return the printer for a repair under warranty, they cold check for this flag and refuse to honor the warranty.

And, why would they want to hide their intent and send the data to a wierd sounding URL (lkcc1.com)? I would have first suspected some other scumware trying to phone home, never suspecting lexmark. Well, guess you cannot trust any compan to have honor ro ethics these days.

Re:Posible reason

[northcat]

No this dates WAY back - to 2001 google groups

Re:Posible reason

[dhj]

When dealing with automobiles if a manufacturer wants to void your warranty for using third party consumable parts they have to provide those parts for free as part of the warranty. So I say if they're tracking this stuff to keep people from using third party ink cartridges more power to lexmark. It seems like a reasonable prior case that they'd have to give everyone free ink cartridges if they expect third party ink cartridges to void the warranty.

--dhj

Newer print drivers only?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Lexmark Optra E+ laser printer. It's several years old. I'm very happy with it as a printer.

I don't see any c:\program_files\lexmark500 directory even though I have the print driver, downloaded from lexmark.com, installed.

I've added the following to my hosts file just in case.

0.0.0.0 www.lxkcc1.com

Re:Newer print drivers only?

[mistered]

It's because the inkjet and laser groups behave very differently. From linuxprinting.org:

Lexmark produces two lines of printer: the Optras and the Color Jetprinters. The Optras are business-focused printers with the unique characteristic that every Optra supports Postscript and PCL; no other vendor has such uniform support for standardized printing languages. As a result of this, every Optra is 100% supported by free software. The Color Jetprinters are consumer-focused printers with the exact opposite characteristics: not a one of them supports any standard printing language, and not a one of them is 100% supported by free software.

The two groups in the company are very much separate, although the occasional Optra product is produced by taking a reasonable Color Jetprinter and nailing an Optra-style mainboard onto the back; this produces a Postscript/PCL networkable inkjet (like the Optra 40, for example). Efforts to obtain programming information for the Color Jetprinter protocols have been unsuccessful and will probably remain that way; Lexmark apparently feels that the details of the protocol reveal some of the engineering techniques they use to make the Color Jetprinters so competitively inexpensive.

printing ripoff

[pchan-]

okay, enough of these printing scumbags. printers are getting worse, print quality is crap, ink cartridge prices are obscene while lasting for shorter durations (my gf's printer will not print in black when the color cartridge is empty), DMCA restrictions on refilling ink, spying on users...

bullshit. i will never buy one of these printers again (this means you lexmark, canon, hp, and your friends). when will a manufacturer stand up and sell good quality printers, refillable by the user using just an ink bottle? there is a market of people who are willing not to buy the cheapest piece of shit printer because they know how that turns out. who will fill it?

Re:printing ripoff

[Helix150]

I recommend the canon multipass series... I have a MP730, its a combo printer/scanner (w/ feeder)/fax/copier, very nice machine. A bit expensive ($300) but IMHO well worth it. The Canon ink tanks are clear so you can see the ink inside them, and there are no chips on them. The printer measures the ink level by shining a light through the tank. They are quite easy to refill, and LaserMonks has replacement tanks for IIRC about $5 each. Replacement official tanks are about $7 each. Four colors, CMYK.

Re:printing ripoff

[arivanov]

Buy a panasonic. Dunno about their small ones, but they make a selling point from the fact that their office kit is refillable with a bucket. It ain't anywhere near cheap, the size is monstrous, drivers are mildly horrible and 2-3 years behind the relevant OS requirements, old printers do not have drivers for new OSes as they stop development the day the first printer in a model is out of the door, Linux support inexistent. But it lasts forever and costs nearly nothing to run.

Re:printing ripoff

[Timesprout]

I recommend a pencil and paper. One caveat is to always use a single sheet of paper instead of a pad though so spies cant find out what you wrote by rubbing graphite over the pad. Also tell the recipient to eat the page after they have read it.

Re:printing ripoff

[Lisandro]

Get an used (old model) HP Laserjet. They can be found at reasonable prices, with service and replacement parts still available, and it's toner lasts forever. The printer will too, they are some of the most relaiable printers ever built. Too bad HP has been going down the crapper lately.
Laser printers are expensive at a first glance, but the price per page is a fraction of a inkjet. It's overall a much better value.

Still, if you want a cheap one, try the newer Cannon inkjets. You'll still be forced to buy overpriced, half-filled ink tanks, but they work as expected, the printing heads don't clog and the print quality is top notch (for an inkjet). I have a Cannon S1000 at work that has been working perfectly for almost two years now. I wish i could say the same about Epson printers.

Re:printing ripoff

[jridley]

I also recommend Canon printers. I have an i970. While not designed intentionally for refilling, it's about as good as it gets these days. As you say, the tanks are just clear plastic boxes with ink in them, refilling is a snap. I've previously refilled Epson and HP, and the Canon is by far the easiest. After refilling Epson/HP, you have to let the ink settle overnight to eliminate bubbles, and do a lot of fiddling to get it printing right. I've refilled my Canon tanks about 15 times so far and haven't had to even do a nozzle cleaning pass once. The printer does automatically do a nozzle clean if it hasn't for a while during idle time after a print job.

The i970 is a 6 color printer, FWIW. Photo printing is quite nice.

Re:printing ripoff

[Handpaper]

Get an used (old model) HP Laserjet.

A very big second to that.
I've used a LaserJet 4 Plus at home for c.2 years now. The gods alone know how many pages it had printed before I bought it second hand (it's ex-British Telecom - still has the asset sticker on it), but it's purred through the two boxes (10,000 pages) I've fed it. Toner? Nope, not replaced it yet.

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer the Leeloo Dallas Multipass.....

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome, didn't even see it coming!

Re:printing ripoff

[Pfhreakaz0id]

get a laser! If you print a fair amount, it pays for itself. Price per page is WAY lower, quieter, faster, and maintenance problems are far fewer. My wife prints a lot for her stay at home contracting gig. (It's oodles of paperwork), and we love our little Samsung 600dpi laser. It was like $150 after rebate. Sure the toner cart's are like $60, but they last a LONG time (like about 9 months, several 500 page reams of paper).

Also, we don't miss the color. Wife or myself takes the camera or media card to the drug store and crop and print a picture for 25 cents. (less if doing multiple prints)

Re:printing ripoff

[Jeff DeMaagd]

IIRC, you need to buy printers intended for the corporate market. Printers made for the consumer market are shit boxes supposedly sold at a loss so they can rip people off buying cartridges, much like the Gillette razors. They can literally give away the printers and still make a profit on cartridges.

Re:printing ripoff

[Lumpy]

Actually newer high end ones do as well.

I have a monster 8100DN her eat home that I got from an auction in 2000 for dirt. it had a used toner/drum cartridge in it when I bought it and I have been printing about a half ream of paper a month and I STILL have not replaced it. I'm betting a full toner cartridge would last me until I'm 60.

it is heavy? yup, is it huge? yup. but it's the only printer I can find that will print insanely fast, double sided, pull cover sheets from a seperate drawer and then cooilaqte and staple the whole thing into a book.

run a piece of binder tape down the spine and it's a instant book machine.

Oh and the fact that I can fit 10 reams of paper in the bottom drawer is really cool.

Re:printing ripoff

[mdrn28]

darn, beat me to it. :-)

Re:printing ripoff

[xornor]

I have an HP Laserjet 4MP I think I got in 1995 for close to $1300. I'm on my second toner and it has yet to have any problems printing anything... You get what you pay for I guess.

Re:printing ripoff

[whovian]

I've used a LaserJet 4 Plus at home for c.2 years now. The gods alone know how many pages it had printed

Actually if you force the printer into test mode, it will print one or two test/info pages, and the page count will be on printed on one of those. Though it may be the page count since the toner cartridge was last (re)installed.

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

But it lasts forever and costs nearly nothing to run.

Uhh, by virtue of not being able to run it?

Re:printing ripoff

[Trailer Trash]

I don't know how you got modded up. You are confused.

The DMCA case was about toner carts. Just as stupid, sure, but a different market.

If you want an ink-jet that is easily refillable, some of the high-end models feature this. Of course, they don't cost $30 and come free with your Dell.

Your best bet is always going to be laser, anyway. My marginal cost per page printed is under a penny. The new color lasers can be had for under $1000 and produce better quality at a much higher print speed than ink-jet.

Anyway, do your homework.

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the best advice if you're only printing B&W. I SOMETIMES wish I had color, but I so rarely need it that I could care less. I used to own an old color inkjet, but when it broke down, I was lucky enough to get a used LaserJet. I got it with 80% toner left in the cartridge, and 35,000 pages printed. So far I have added another 2,000 pages to that, but the cartridge is still cool. I also have a spare cartridge ready, but it may never see action. The printer "just works", exactly the way I want it to, with my PC (Win2K) and Mac (OS X 10.3). Not only is the quality nice, but it's FAST. If I'm just printing a single page, I'd hit "print", and by the time I walk over to the printer in the other room, it's done. It works on a LAN, and really, things couldn't be much better. If you find one like it around, I'd actually pay as much as $400 for one, it really is worth that much, used, if you need to print a lot.

Re:printing ripoff

[Todesmetall]

Maybe then a laser printer instead of one of these crappy inkjet printers is an option for you?

I have bought a Lexmark printer that supports Postscript and I have been very happy with it since it works very well with a relatively simple setup on the Linux side - thanks to the ps support.

However, after these stupid stunts from Lexmark I probably wouldn't buy from them again.

Re:printing ripoff

[JonTurner]

First of all, I agree with almost all your points. My advice is to do like I did, quit bitching and buy a color laser. The prices have fallen quite dramatically in the past year and so long people continue to buy their cheap-shit inkjet printers, they'll continue to make them.

The price per page on a laser is about 1/4 inkjets, toner cartridges last for thousands of pages (not hundreds, maybe, if you're lucky and the planets are aligned just right as with the typical 8ml inkjet), and it's waterproof.

Sure, you'll spend more upfront with the laser, but it's a far more dependable technology and

Oh, in case you're wondering, I bought a Dell 3100cn color laser on sale for $384, delivered. (Thanks, www.techbargains.com !) Supports my PC, Mac & Linux boxes just fine and according to my firewall, no spyware bullshit in the drivers.

Re:printing ripoff

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

I have a hp laserjet 4L that had been in my friend's closet underneath 3 feet of stuff, took it out, pluged it in, it worked like a charm, been using it for about 8 months and still haven't had to replace the tonner cartridge that was in it when i debo'd it.

Re:printing ripoff

[mercuryresearch]

I'll add one more Canon vote. While the linux drivers aren't quite up to the level of those for Epson, I've had a couple Epsons die immediately after ink cartridge changes (all using Epson branded carts.) Once the print head is toast, it's over for the entire printer, and there's been a number of reports that any time Epson branded ink is mixed with anything else, the print head clogs -- in my case, it appears the ink formulations probably had changed between carts, as they came from different regions.

Even relatively low-end Canons support replacable print heads (not cheap, but more environmentally friendly than disposable printers.)

As others have mentioned, Canon uses simple, clear, un-chipped ink tanks that are trivial to refill. The Canon i560 I use now is the first inkjet where I don't feel I'm getting screwed on supplies. Print quality under linux is pretty good -- top quality isn't as good as Epson at the moment, but very acceptable, and the cost and reliability of the Canon more and outweighs the slight print quality difference for me, at least.

Re:printing ripoff

[Sandman1971]

I have a lifelong promise to myself to stay away from Canon printers. Here's my Canon horror story. 3 months before Windows XP came out, I bought a Canon printer (I *think* it was a 5000 series) for about 300$ (Can) at Staples. This was not in their bargain bin or anything. Canon at that time was still fully supporting the printer. I believe it had come to market something like 6-7 months before. Windows XP gets released. I purchase XP and upgrade from 98. Printer no longer works. Canon outright refuses to release drivers for XP for the printer. To this day, there are still no drivers for it. Supposedly some people managed to get the Win2k drivers to work with it, but I never could. 300$ down the drain.

Re:printing ripoff

[Gailin]

Agreed.

My Laserjet 4 refuses to die. Seriously, I have eyed many a new laser jet printers, but this darn thing just keeps on working.

The only problem I ever had for it was when it would pull more than one page. But HP had a fix kit that they sent out for free for this issue. Even though the printer was like 5 years old already.

Gailin

Re:printing ripoff

[thempstead]

To right ... a friend of mine picked up a HPLJ4+ off ebay uk for 25 quid ... it didnt work at first (due to a stuck cooling fan) but 10mins with a screwdriver and its fine and will last her for years !

t

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a canon printer (i550). when printing a black and white image using greyscale only it decided the best way to print it was using the combined colours of the coloured cartridge.

Wtf?

Re:printing ripoff

[Tim Doran]

Couldn't agree more. One thought - these old beasties probably use a TON of power. Might want to consider putting it on a powerbar so you can completely power it down when not in use.

Re:printing ripoff

[stu72]

Not going to happen w/inkjet. Buy a laser - it will pay for itself with cheap toner, better quality & long life.

Re:printing ripoff

[nmos]

A number of companies did this including Epson and HP (with scanners).

Re:printing ripoff

[iantri]

No crap! The lights flicker repeatedly in my house when my LJ4si is on.

Re:printing ripoff

[Trepalium]

Actually, photo inkjets produce better images (usually quite a bit more vibrant with better color mixing) than color laser printers. Modern inkjets can change the intensity of the color by changing how much ink it applies to the paper for a particular dot, as well, it can mix several of the colors on the same spot on the page. Laser printers don't have this option. Either the toner sticks to a particular place on the page or it doesn't, and color mixing doesn't really work as well.

There's also a vast difference between color lasers, too. I've printing digital photos on a Laserjet 4500 and 2500, and the image came out very nice. I tried the same on a Samsung CLP-500, and I was dismayed with the dismal print quality. The image came out dull, dark and poorly halftoned with obvious banding.

Re:printing ripoff

[Dr. Cody]

I recommend a pencil and paper. One caveat is to always use a single sheet of paper instead of a pad though so spies cant find out what you wrote by rubbing graphite over the pad. Also tell the recipient to eat the page after they have read it.

Jackie Treehorn has a way around that one...

Re:printing ripoff

[gad_zuki!]

I gave up on inkjets a couple years ago. You can get a personal laser printer for $100 or less nowadays. I cant say I miss color at all and if I really needed a color printer I could get one free with rebates/purchase of a new computer.

In the near future I'd like to be able to print high-quality photos, so I'll just spring for a cheap little dye sub photo printer and let the laser printer do all the printing work. This "all in one" color solution is silly. Even if ink was a little cheaper you'd still be wasting tons of it compared to how much toner a laser printer uses.

I still get a kick out of hearing people say "Im out of ink!" Hehe, its like hearing "We're gonna run out of coal" during the steam engine period.

>when will a manufacturer stand up and sell good quality printers

Never. I mean, think about it. How many $200 printers are they going to sell when they can get a crappy/ink subsidized one for free or next to free. This is market failure. When more people shift to laser, perhaps the inkjet people will wake up and smell the coffee.

Re:printing ripoff

[jp10558]

I've been a big Epson supporter for years. They have great print quality, and work just as well with really cheap 3rd party inks (www.monsterinkjets.com/). Any time I've had it clog, epson replaces the printer under warrenty. I personally like paying $5 per cartridge for my printers. The older model cartridges are even cheaper.

Re:printing ripoff

[Hex4def6]

I second that;
I have a laserjet 5m, and the thing is a champ -- stats say that its done something like 50,000 pages(!) (I got it from a company getting rid of them).

Ive had it for 2 years now w/o replacing the 2nd hand toner cartridge yet :)

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm only using HP printers. They have great Linux support and AFAIK their drivers are even free and open. That's definitely a major selling point.

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

I *think* it was a 5000 series...To this day, there are still no drivers for it

How the hell do you know if there are or aren't drivers for it when you aren't even sure what the model was?

There probably ARE drivers available now. Lots of manufacturers don't release drivers right away when a new OS comes out. My HP Scanjet 3300C, for example, had no drivers for XP on their web site, and the driver CD that came with it refused to install under XP. I don't even remember how I hacked it, but the drivers that they claimed would not work under XP worked with 100% functionality.

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Samsung ML1210, and yes it works great, and you can buy toner refill kits on ebay that bring toner down to less than $15 per cartridge. Which last forever btw.

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Even relatively low-end Canons support replacable print heads (not cheap, but more environmentally friendly than disposable printers.)

I should point out that although the print-head in the Canon i450/i455 isn't permanently attached (actually, you have to install and calibrate it yourself), it *isn't* a "user-replaceable" part.

In other words, you can't just pop down to the shops and buy a replacement in the way you could for the BJC-4x00 series (and possibly others); you would, I guess, have to be some sort of "Official Canon Repairer", or have such contacts to get hold of one. That's the bad news.

The good news is that, despite the tiny ink droplets (2pl, compared with 5pl on a typical bottom-of-the-range model- and even *that* is small), the print-head seems far more robust than the semi-disposable one on the BJC-4300.

That having been said, I do take care not to leave the printer close to a radiator, or leave it for months without using it.

Re:printing ripoff

[Derek Pomery]

Paid $89 for my Samsung ML-1710 laser personally.
Tray fed, reliable, fast.
Crisp pages. Sure it is only in black and white, but rarely need colour anyway, and I might buy a printer designed for photo quality prints for those few occasions.

Re:printing ripoff

[anagama]

I bought my 4l in 1995 (I think it was $400, 20% cheaper than my 1991 Deskjet 500 ($500)). At this point, I almost wish the beast would die! Except ... the printing is excellent, economy is excellent, linux compatability is excellent - it's just that 4ppm is a bit slow. In all truth, I'll be a bit sad when it finally does give up the ghost. I've had this machine since the time I thought a 486DX-40 was speedy! I'll probably be chugging away on this thing 10 years from now. I refuse to replace it till it breaks.

Re:printing ripoff

[Derek Pomery]

oh, also, included linux drivers which was a thoughtful touch - although I had better results with the foomatic driver.

One of the linux machines shares it out quite well to the others.

Re:printing ripoff

[anagama]

My desklight flickers during printing (just a 4l) too. Built like a Mac truck though so you gotta assume a bit of juice suckage. ;-)

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

My advice is to do like I did, quit bitching and buy a color laser. The prices have fallen quite dramatically in the past year and so long people continue to buy their cheap-shit inkjet printers, they'll continue to make them.

There are cheap-shit inkjets and not-so-cheap, not-so-shit inkjets.

The Canon i455 gives incredible quality for the price; I'd like to see a laser in anything approaching its price range give that sort of results. (Of course, it does suck if you use very cheap-n-nasty paper, which a laser might do better on, but that's hardly a reason to buy a laser).

Of course, it still might not be such a good deal if you're planning on doing masses of printing; but it's not meant for that. Your $384 laser printer is *not* a good replacement for a "cheap-shit" inkjet, simply because the cheap inkjet user won't be printing off enough to justify the extra cost.

Enough waffle. My points?
(1) Don't lump all low-cost inkjets in with the dirt-cheap Lexmarks and Epsons. Paying a *little* more can get you a pretty decent printer.
(2) Your laser might work out cheaper if you do lots of printing; if you don't, it won't.

Re:printing ripoff

[anagama]

Refilling toner carts is pretty easy and you can usually get 3 or 4 refills before the drum goes bad. Just do a google search for "toner refill kits" or something like that. Here's the breakdown for a Lexmark Optra S 1625 I have in my office (17k page toner cart): a new manufacturers cartridge is around $250 ($0.015/pg; $1=67 pgs). A new 3d party cartridge is about $150 ($0.009/pg; $1=111 pgs). And doing a toner refill myself is about $25 ($0.0015/pg, $1=667 pages).

Re:printing ripoff

[syncrotic]

That's nothing. I've seen a LaserJet 4 with 170'000 pages, and there was nothing to suggest it was near the end of its useful life. They replaced it with a newer HP though, because the print speed was proving too slow for the reams of paper students would constantly demand of it.

Re:printing ripoff

[jabuzz]

Yeah and I have a LaserJet 5 with over 500,000 pages at work and still going strong. Yep that is right over half a million pages. That said it has been given a very good clean (read dismantled and most of the external plastic washed in a sink) and a maintenance kit fitted. However it is still going strong, and you can still get the spare parts, unlike some other printers.

Re:printing ripoff

[dfm3]

...You'll still be forced to buy overpriced, half-filled ink tanks...

Ha, I'd feel lucky if I bought a Lexmark cartridge that was even half full. Once, I was curious and dissected a used black Lexmark cartridge. The reservior is stuffed with a large sponge that is used to hold the ink and I guess to keep it from splashing when the cartridge is moved. Looking at the stained part of the sponge, I could tell that the cartridge had never been filled more than 1/4 of the way. I estimated that the cartridge couldn't have contained more than 4-5ml of ink, and that is without considering the volume taken up by the sponge itself. No wonder cartridges these days don't seem to last...

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Get an Apple Laserwriter. The print engines are rated for 500,000 pages or more - 10 times what modern lasers are rated. They may be a little slower and noisier, but they all support Postscript and don't spy on you.

Re:printing ripoff

[sconeu]

Ditto to this, Derek. And to your other comment in response to this.

I'm very happy with my 1710.

On the other hand, my father-in-law's LaserJet II fell off a four foot table in the '94 Northridge quake. Landed upside down, etc...

I picked it up, turned it on, and it ran no problem. Those old LJs were built like tanks. Back when the HP name actually meant quality (fuck you very much, Carly).

Re:printing ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you mean "couldn't care less".

Re:printing ripoff

[mrchaotica]

One caveat is to always use a single sheet of paper instead of a pad though so spies cant find out what you wrote by rubbing graphite over the pad.

Not if it's a one time pad! : D

Sorry, I could resist. But seriously, I'd use encryption instead of pencil and paper (or at least use a code).

Re:printing ripoff

[goatan]

We have laserjets from model 3 upto modern 8100. The 8000 near me has done 1,667,137 prints with only 30 failures all from the same paper tray, unfortunatley it doesn't give any dates so i don't know how old it is. I would say stear clear of any HP stuff made for the home but there laserjets are something else built like brick shiat houses to.

Usenet post

[nstrom]

Original usenet post from comp.periphs.printers on Google Groups here, or here for a news: link.

Re:Usenet post

[AndroidCat]

The original port is there, but I notice that the coverage of the rest of the thread is pretty spotty on Google Groups. (Even allowing for their feature that changing the subject of a post will de-thread a post.) Possibly some of the posters used x-no-archive?

Lately I've been noticing that Google drops a lot of posts. There have been a few cases where repeated posts of the same content by different people from different news servers (after the first failed) haven't propagated to Google. Definitely nothing horrible about the text, no x-no-archive: yes, and not BI >= 20. Sometimes chopping the text in two and posting seperately will result in one half not making it to Google (but everywhere else fine).

I haven't pinned down the weirdness yet, but people who still use Usenet and think of Google as the definitive archive might want to keep an eye on this.

Re:Usenet post

[Anonymous Coward]

Google News has been having major technical issues of late. I use it to check for replies to Usenet threads, and recently it's been failing to show entire threads on an intermittent basis. Here today, gone tomorrow, back the next day... that sort of thing.

Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll probably be marked off-topic for this, but something strange is going on with Slashcode.

I am logged in currently, but am unable to post with my account. I am (as you can see) able to post anonymously by checking the little Post Anonymously box, though.

The error message says that excessive posting from my domain is the reason why I can't post, but usually that just results in all posts being rejected, not just the logged-in ones.

Well, this is an interesting Slash upgrade to say the least. Wouldn't it encourage trolls by forcing them to post anonymously? Then again, I'm not a Slashdot edtior, my level of competence is pretty far removed from that position.

Re:Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

Please reassign to the officially marked free speech zone. Our officers will escort you.

One question to answer cui bono: have you posted deliberate insults against the editors, government or anything specially witty or rude against any of these bodies?

Slashdot errors are one thing, but censorship is another. And I've read too many posts on the same problem in the last days and weeks. Tell me, are the orange jump suits and cable ties handed out on Slashdot now?

Re:Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

I am having the exact same problem.

DAldredge

Re:Informative

[Anonymous Coward]

I reported this a few weeks ago - almost in the same words - and it seemed to go away. I assumed someone had fixed the code, but maybe they did something retarded like hardcoding my IP as being shared by n users (which it is, being the gateway of a big corp).

In Soviet Russia...

[Vicsun]

peripherals monitor you!

I'm so sorry; it had to be said.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[j0e_average]

Sadly, the joke, in this case, would be:

In Soviet Russia, you monitor your peripherals!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[mikael]

In high school, the hall monitor monitors your monitor.

That's ok...

[jmcmunn]

Just as long as my Dvd burner isn't monitoring what I am burning...

Re:That's ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

We laugh now, but will we in five years, I wonder ?

Re:That's ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah I couldnt use ejaculate inside the drive tray either

Re:That's ok...

[mikael]

Every put a CD-ROM in a Windows XP system. The first thing that happens is that Microsoft's automatic image catalog spider starts to try crawling all over the CD-ROM. I would be very grateful if anyone could tell me how to disable it entirely (ie. that little rectangular toolbox icon that has a non-standard menu format).

Incidentally, I used to run 'netstat' whenever I rebooted my PC. One time I was surprised to see the drivers of my video card going over to the manufacturers website in Korea. I don't know if they were downloading updated drivers, uploading performance statistics or application logs, but after I complained, it stopped.

Re:That's ok...

[mrchaotica]

I would be very grateful if anyone could tell me how to disable it entirely (ie. that little rectangular toolbox icon that has a non-standard menu format).

That's easy! Just make sure the next CD you put in has "Linux" written on it. Oh, and reboot too.

[don't tell me you didn't see it coming] : D

Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[Secrity]

Somehow I don't believe that Lexmark would install this spyware without having the EULA cover it. This may be another example of people just hitting "AGREE" (effectively signing) without actually reading the EULA (a legally binding agrement). Stupid laws? Stupid people? Both? You decide.

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[cliffski]

you have to be kidding. EULAS are a waste of time. you are seriously telling me you read them? I am 35, I dont have many years left ;) I aint gonna waste half of them reading longwinded legalese drafted by some creep in a suit who earns ten times my salary.
If I buy a printer, it should print what I tell it too and fck all else. Adding a clause in a 30 page eula that says using this printer signs my kids over for experimentation isnt exactly playing fair.
fck lexmark.

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[Hackeron]

Hard to say really, the EULA is long and boring and I cant imagine anyone reading all that crap just to print something -- so stupid law.

Then again there are alternatives -- dont buy printers with no linux support, they suck anyway, and printing under linux is more than fast these days.

And for the unsupported printers, there's a cheap commercial driver called Turboprint thats worth it if you just must have the unsupported printer in question (like my Canon i850 -- crap print quality).

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[jdreed1024]

This may be another example of people just hitting "AGREE" (effectively signing) without actually reading the EULA (a legally binding agrement).

Legally binding? I don't think so. EULAs have questionable legal status at best (I'm sure some lawyer could argue for the fact that the fact that the EULA is not printed on the box and the fact that some say "If you do not agree, you cannot install this software" could very well amount to coercion or something. EULAs have never been tested in court.

I would love to see a EULA with some seemingly innocuous yet annoying clause such as "By agreeing to this license, you give everyone the right to call you 'butthead' for the rest of your life." and then have that tested in court. Ideally, there would be one of two outcomes: EULAs become illega or software vendors are legally obligated to accepted returned opened software if the user did not agree to the EULA. (Which means many software vendors would stop stocking software with crap EULAs, and maybe the software industry would get a wake-up call.

And the older crowd here will remember that EULAs didn't always used to suck. They used to be printed in fine print on envelopes containing the CD or floppies, and said in big letters "If you open this envelope, you agree to the license". Which is much better, because if you didn't agree to the license, you could take the software back and if the diskettes were unopened, the place would almost always accept returns.

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[the_brat_king]

Better than that, when I had a retail shop a few years back, we had some QXPress and MS Software CDs, on the jewel case it said "By opening this case you agree to the enclosed license agreement"

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[jdkane]

So far I see responses to your post saying EULAs are stupid, unenforceable, and ignored. However I'm curious about if the EULA "covers" the tracking software aspect.

Does ANYONE WITH A LEXMARK PRINTER (that has the tracking software installed by Lexmark) have a EULA that they can post for us to see? That would be great so we can check it out ... no matter how dumb, boring, or theoretically unenforceable it might be. Some of us just want to see if it covers that tracking software aspect.

TIA

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[uid7306m]

I don't see why people need to restrict the
bad idea of a unique EULA for each object
that you own to software.

See http://bunop.com for pencils with EULAs.

That'll fix the guy up above who recommended
using pencil and paper for security...

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[Secrity]

I do not normally read EULA's as they suck. Who said that EULA's were easy to read and fair? It is very likely that the EULA for the printer driver allows the vendor to install spyware. Making sure that crap like spyware clauses is included in the EULA is the job of that creep in a suit. There may be some questions about the enforceability of certain portions of EULAs, however most US states have adopted the 2000 Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) which specifically says that EULAs are enforceable. A clause that says that you give your kids up for experimentation may be one of the things that may be unenforceable. With the current elected officials in the US it is hard to say what would be unenforceable. It is likely that courts would uphold the legality of this particular type of spyware as long as the EULA informed the user that it may be installed.

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[Secrity]

The time when EULAs didn't suck was before the UCITA being adopted by most US states. The UCITA makes EULAs enforceable, as long as they are are not unreasonable. Any condition that a court finds unreasonable would only invalides the unreasonable condition, it does not invalidate the rest of the EULA. I doubt that a court would find that a clause allowing this sort of spyware to be considered unreasonable. The butthead clause may not meet the reasonableness requirement, in which case the butthead clause would be considered unenforceable and the rest of the EULA would remain in effect. And guess how much money it would cost to get the butthead clause to be judged unreasonable by a court.

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[antispam_ben]

Legally binding? I don't think so. EULAs have questionable legal status at best (I'm sure some lawyer could argue for the fact that the fact that the EULA is not printed on the box and the fact that some say "If you do not agree, you cannot install this software" could very well amount to coercion or something. EULAs have never been tested in court.

ISTR a legal case or two involving EULA's, but without any far-reaching rulings. I suspect this will remain a legal gray area for a long time.

I'd like to be the last person to have something to do with the content of a commercially produced software CD-ROM and add some text:

"By installing this software, you agree to ... bla bla bla ... and to give to us through legal adoption your first-born child."

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[roger_ford]

Actually, as a legal conclusion this is far from true. Many academics have questioned whether "shrink wrap" type licenses are binding, but the court cases pretty unanimously hold them to be binding. See for example ProCD, Inc v Zeidenberg, 86 F3d 1447 (7th Cir 1996).

From Judge Easterbrook's opinion:

In Wisconsin, as elsewhere, a contract includes only the terms on which the parties have agreed. One cannot agree to hidden terms, the judge concluded. So far, so good--but one of the terms to which Zeidenberg agreed by purchasing the software is that the transaction was subject to a license. Zeidenberg's position therefore must be that the printed terms on the outside of a box are the parties' contract--except for printed terms that refer to or incorporate other terms. But why would Wisconsin fetter the parties' choice in this [*1451] way? Vendors can put the entire terms of a contract on the outside of a box only by using microscopic type, removing other information that buyers might find more useful (such as what the software does, and on which computers it works), or both. The "Read Me" file included with most software, describing system requirements and potential incompatibilities, may be equivalent to ten pages of type; warranties and license restrictions take still more space. Notice on the outside, terms on the inside, and a right to return the software for a refund if the terms are [**10] unacceptable (a right that the license expressly extends), may be a means of doing business valuable to buyers and sellers alike. See E. Allan Farnsworth, 1 Farnsworth on Contracts 4.26 (1990); Restatement (2d) of Contracts 211 comment a (1981) ("Standardization of agreements serves many of the same functions as standardization of goods and services; both are essential to a system of mass production and distribution. Scarce and costly time and skill can be devoted to a class of transactions rather than the details of individual transactions."). Doubtless a state could forbid the use of standard contracts in the software business, but we do not think that Wisconsin has done so.

(IAN[Y]AL)

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I intend to EULA my games with requirement to trade in your souls in exchange for the right to play. You see, demons, devils and such are ready to offer quite a decent payment for that stuff!

Re:Didn't the users agree to this monitoring?

[Mycroft_VIII]

I was under the impression that rullings varied a bit and tended to side AGAINST eulas.
I seem to remember nintendo losing one as well. though the details are vague.
Quick look around found this:
http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html
But I haven't looked it over much yet so I don't know if it's a good place to start or not.

And irregardless of court decisions on the matter, most eula's are unethical peices of crap, and valid or no are the leagle equivalant of spyware and other such malware. Both in terms of what they say and in terms of how they are sprung on purchasers AFTER the fact. Shure many claim you can get a full refund, but just try it and soon the effort and expense of said 'refund' exceeds whatever value the software may have had and they know it, or should.

Mycroft

Mycroft

Note: z605 works PERFECT under linux with cups

[Anonymous Coward]

The $50 lexmark z605 works PERFECT with linux! Graphics, word processers, spreadsheets, everything! As for this article: This just in - the electric company has just been caught "red handed" monitoring everyone's power usage! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!

Re:Note: z605 works PERFECT under linux with cups

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in - the electric company has just been caught "red handed" monitoring everyone's power usage! OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!

Let me guess, you're either an idiot, or work for Lexmark. (Possibly both.) Here's a wake up call. The power company NEEDS to monitor the usage in order to BILL YOU for what you used. It has obvious legitimate reasons. As for your Lexmark driver calling home, I can't think of any legitimate reasons. And I would never give a PRINTER permission to use my broadband connection, which I pay for.

Another Posible Reason

[Lead Butthead]

Lexmark could also very well instruct the device driver to STOP WORKING if it detects a third party ink cartridge...

Re:Another Posible Reason

[wdd1040]

Lexmark could also very well instruct the device driver to STOP WORKING if it detects a third party ink cartridge...

And how quickly would that get publicized and the general non-geek public realize that Lexmark == Bad.

Re:Another Posible Reason

[Anomalous Coward]

More likely they would instruct the driver to go into "crap quality" mode. Then they could point to the lousy print you get with 3rd party ink and say "See! Those other ink cartriges aren't as good as ours! Look how much better the print is when you use genuine Lexmark brand ink cartriges!"

At least, that's what I would do if I was a sleazy, money-grubbing corporation....

Re:Another Posible Reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Even geeks still buy Lexmark, if you scan the comments here. I don't even want to think about a possible reason why _anyone_ regularly reading Slashdot can come home with a Lexmark product. I bet some readers here still print out their emails.

Re:Another Posible Reason

[Tim C]

I bet some readers here still print out their emails.

Sure I do, although rarely - I have no other way of reading them on the journey to/from work (eg I'm reading documentation, additional information provided by the client, etc), and I'm not about to spend hundreds of pounds buying one.

Re:Another Posible Reason

[analog_line]

They wouldn't need to have the driver contact Lexmark to do that. I'm sure you could easily write the driver to detect all that without talking to home.

Re:Another Posible Reason

[Feanturi]

likely they would instruct the driver to go into "crap quality" mode

If I discovered this for myself (without knowing there was an intentional reason), that using a cheaper cartridge that *should* work properly with other printers, goes all screwy in a Lexmark, then I would be faced with a decision: Pay the higher price and buy Lexmark cartridges, or get a printer from a different vendor so I can continue using cheap cartridges. Not a very difficult decision to make, eh?

Re:Another Posible Reason

[Lord_Dweomer]

That's all you'd do? Why not generate them some ad revenue as well. Every time you print with a non-Lexmark cartridge, the printer prints a small ad on the bottom of your document with a coupon for $1 off a Lexmark ink cartridge.

Now THAT would be sleazy.

Re:Another Posible Reason

[tsm_sf]

Just compare prices between a new printer(including ink) and a replacement ink cartrige from the same vendor. I think the difference for a low-end Lexmark is around $10 or so.

Not necessarily bad news for Lexmark though. If you don't print that much, you can just buy a new printer when the ink runs out. Briefly join the upper class when you junk a perfectly good printer "because the ashtray was full".

Re:Another Posible Reason

[Mycroft_VIII]

I have to admit I did buy a Lexmark printer once, It was $9.00US after rebate. Of course once it ran out of ink I couldn't bring myself to spend $40 on more ink for a printer sold for less $49.99 before the $40 rebate. especially when I could buy a better printer for less than $20 more with full ink carts.
Oh and I was getting an employee discount (15%) on ink at the time it ran out.

Mycroft

Sites to block

[Anonymous Coward]

lxkcc1.lexmark.com
www.lxkcc1.com
lxkcc1.com
ww w.lxkcc2.com
lxkcc2.com

ips
192.146.101.0 - 192.146.101.255

Re:Sites to block

[Anonymous Coward]

www.slashdot.com

Re:Sites to block

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, bastiches! I added a line to hosts: 66.35.250.150 www.slashdot.com. That fixes them good!

Re:Sites to block

[Anonymous Coward]

#ban slashdot.org nosing around
ban=" 80 3128 8000 8080 "
for i in $ban ; do
$IPCHAINS -A input -i $EXTIF -s 66.35.250.150 --destination-port $i -p tcp -j DENY
done

Re:Sites to block

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget www.slashdot.org

Didn't TFA indicate that...

[gargonia]

... the information was being stored in a file? Perhaps someone who has access to a copy of the file can post it somewhere. I'm sure there isn't going to be high security on it, so perhaps someone can crack it open and we'll see what kind of information they're getting.

how about opensource device drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

mfgs of device drivers should opensource their device driver software so it will be open to auditing & public scrutiny..

maybe a public data base where any anonymous user can search and review devices & their drivers and things like what Lexmark is doing can be exposed...

i know a chic that has a Lexmark printer and its device driver has gobs of kludge and cruft that is totally unnecesarry including audio files that say "Printing Started"

no windoze installed on my computer, CUPS is what runs my printer, is CUPs spying on my printing habits? or any other Linux software?

is the internet evil? or a benevolent big brother?

Inkjet cartridges...

[Krankheit]

Lexmark obviously wants to track ink jet cartridge usage because that is where they get their most profit. They probably want to know when consumers start switching to a more viable printing technology so they can jump on the bandwagon.

Good thing really

[drl0gic]

1. Put spyware on printer driver
2. Tell that you warranty is voided because you have used a non-certified cartridge in date xx/yy to print counterfeits and porn together
3. ...
4. Profit!

Man.. I hate this profit maximization thing

[Gentlewhisper]

Lexmark is so obsessed with it man. Why can't they just be more content with regular money like other printer companies?

Jeez

Re:Man.. I hate this profit maximization thing

[AC5398]

My HP All-In-One keeps trying to dial home also ...

Lexmark sees you need a new model....

[zakezuke]

google groups link

I don't find this at all shocking. Lexmark makes those lovely OEM Dell printers that you sometimes can get free with a PC. Not only is the software a commercial to buy ink from Dell but the cartages are keyed so you have to mail order the ink. Now Lexmark can track you by serial number and possibly detect if you've been a naughty user and used 3rd party cartages or refilled you cartages. Can anyone say warranty void? Even better still, they can collect enough information on your printing habits and offer you bigger and better printers.

There are good reasons to object to this. What we need are some solid facts as to what exactly is reported to Lexmark, and how to prevent this. Would adding "www.lxkcc1.com 127.0.0.1" to the hosts file be effective?

Re:Lexmark sees you need a new model....

[Anonymous Coward]

Not unless your hosts file is weird. ;) That should be "127.0.0.1 www.lxkcc1.com", bub.

Re:Lexmark sees you need a new model....

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what the big deal is with using third party catriges voiding the warranty.

After all, I've had 4 customers with Lexmark printer s that died within 60 days of purchase which Lexmark refused warranty service on for one reason or another. (abusive use in two cases... the customer printed an average of 20 pages a day... One because the customer actually filled out the warranty and registration stuff and gave the wrong po box... I forget the forth reason.)

They don't honor the warranty anyway, so what's the big deal about the 3rd party catridges?

Re:Lexmark sees you need a new model....

[AndroidCat]

Oh sure, self-slashdot my local web server. (Depending on the OS, 0.0.0.0 will null-route completely.)

Somehow, this doesn't surprise me..

[Anonymous Coward]

Lexmark has a reputation for making cheap junk. I've seen it firsthand: I made the mistake of buying a Z51 (Z52?) at Fry's on April 14th, 2000 so I could print my taxes. I went through 3 of those stupid things in one evening. None of them worked right.. If memory serves, paper handling was the issue.

The HP 932c I exchanged it for is still running strong.. I gave it to my neighbor last year.

Lexmark's history with Static Control and the DMCA doesn't sit well with me. They won't be getting any of my hard-earned money. That's a promise.

On a brighter note, the website "www.lxkcc1.com" (192.146.101.142) is dead.. maybe someone did them a favor.. or they wised-up.

That's OK, Lexmark....

[vudufixit]

Because I'm monitoring the poor quality of your equipment and the equipment you let Dell rebadge with their name. And whenever my clients need a new printer, I make sure not to recommend you, and recommend Brother or HP instead.

Re:That's OK, Lexmark....

[wdd1040]

I hope you don't have a VPN Solution at work as the Brothers drivers will always mess it up.

I recommend HP and high-end Cannon to users.

In Soviet Russia...

[goldspider]

...your monitor monitors you!

Problems with closed-source printer drivers?

[Hobart]

I seem to recall a story from somewhere about sketchy companies with closed source printer drivers. I think the guy who was affected by it did something or other ...

Why wasn't this popularised before?

[northcat]

A quick search on google groups reveals that this has been going on since as far back as 2001 (google groups). Why am I seeing an article so late?

Re:Why wasn't this popularised before?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why am I seeing an article so late?"

Recent history for nerds, stuff that mattered once?

Whaddya bet....

[Rick Zeman]

....buried 500 paragraphs into a EULA that the user "consented" to be monitored?

Xerox network lasers

[prestwich]

We caught a xerox network laser printer trying to send mail, by itself back to xerox; it tried three different outgoing smtp servers that fortunately our gateway blocked.

I don't know what was in those mails - but a google search revealed an article about a large data mining system based on Oracle; I think the main intent was to detect reasons for early failure - but who knows what happened to the data.

Re:Xerox network lasers

[CrystalFalcon]

Xerox printers can be configured to automatically order new supplies when the current ones run low. You're sure it was not something like this?

Also, they can be configured to send out e-mail to supply adminsitrators (in this case, picture Carol, the PHB's secretary in Dilbert) to ask for ordering new supplies with a handy web page served from the printer, if human intervention is desired. You're sure it was not something like this?

As every printer manufacturer...

[Z00L00K]

This is probably only the top of an iceberg. All printer manufacturers are trying by different means to keep up the incomes by secondary sales in some way. Some more intrusive than others.

Personally I dislike inkjet printers since they usually are causing a mess by spreading the ink everywhere, and the printouts are normally not water-resistant either! Another thing is that the ink cartridges tends to dry up and cause messy pritouts if any if you leave the printer unused for some months. Only way out is to buy a new cartridge.

Laser Printers are a little better, as long as you have a decent vacuum cleaner arond to catch any excess toner. At least they don't mind being offline for a year in decent conditions. (maybe you will have to shake down the toner in extreme cases)

In all, tracking printer use should only be acceptable if the user is notified beforehand, and that the data communicated is easy for anybody to check regarding it's content. The user must be able to disallow any usage tracking.

A legitime use of printer usage tracking that I see is actually to let the printer manufacturer find out the most common errors occured with a printer, and which colors that are most frequently used in order to optimize coming models on the market. But as noted beforehand, the user must have his/hers last say in this. Relate this to the error reporting that Microsoft offers for Windows XP. (Not that it actually catches ALL problems)

My 1/2 cent opinion...

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[mangu]

A legitime use of printer usage tracking ... which colors that are most frequently used in order to optimize coming models on the market

There are two much less intrusive ways to do this:
1) design the printer to use separate cartriges for each color, or
2) offer a used-cartridge trade-in discount and check how much ink is left of each color.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[E_elven]

Year 1895 called, they want their idea of having to go out of the house to accomplish anything back.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[yasth]

The problem with the trade back scheme is lots of people keep on printing after they run out of a color (or two). I mean the carts always run out at the exact wrong time, and some people are just lazy. Besides they generally know what colors run out first, the problem is there is variance based on subject matter.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[k4_pacific]

Come on now, the ink has to be the smallest part of the cost there is. It probably breaks down like this:

2% Ink
5% Cartridge
15% DRM chip
7% ???
70% Profit!!!

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[Angostura]

Not if they are using an Epson they don't. Bloody thing simply refuses to print if *it* thinks you are getting too low on ink. Something about damaging the heads if ink actually runs out, allegedly.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[AhabTheArab]

2% Ink
5% Cartridge
15% DRM chip
7% ???
+70% Profit!!!
______
99%
+ 1% Evil spying software
______
100%

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[BillX]

A legitime use of printer usage tracking that I see is actually to let the printer manufacturer find out the most common errors occured with a printer, and which colors that are most frequently used in order to optimize coming models on the market.

This IS Lexmark we're talking about though...will this cause future printer cartridges to contain more of that color, or less?

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[ATMAvatar]

1) design the printer to use separate cartriges for each color, or

Excepting, of course, the fact that the colors are intentionally put together in one cartridge so that you're forced to buy all three colors when just one runs out (or reaches 30-50% full and the chip decides the color is out).

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[Jucius Maximus]

"Another thing is that the ink cartridges tends to dry up and cause messy pritouts if any if you leave the printer unused for some months. Only way out is to buy a new cartridge."

This is only true for HP and Lexmark, as they integrate the print head with the cartridge. If your Epson or Canon dries out, you're screwed as the print head is integrated with the printer. (There are cleaning techniques available on some web sites, but YMMV.)

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[arivanov]

They are right that the head gets damaged - their head is not part of the cartridge. They are also right in the way they determine it. They mark it as empty if the level is low enough to allow the system to draw a bubble into the pipeline. I wish car manufacturers were so anal retentive - I know more then one person who have managed to kill their ignition systems (Fiat and some GMs) by running them dry. The thing I do not like is that on a system that is obviously designed for a refill, and used to be refillable (just look at a 1991 stylus) you have to swap a cartridge. Anyway, loads of pros and cons with one major pro in their favour - it actually works. You can forget Epson unused for half a year and you can still print on it (at least their laser printers). They are nasty like all printer manufacturers, but not as nasty as Lexmark, Canon or HP.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be close, as Lesmark's profit margin IS 70 percent.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[sconeu]

Not only that, it even refuses to print B&W only pages, even if you have a brand new full B&W cart, but a dead color cart.

My guess is that way people will go out and buy both carts at the same time. Gee, more money for EP$ON.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[devilspgd]

The same amount of the color most people run out of, less of the rest.

Putting less of that one wouldn't make sense, they'd be wasting more and more of the other colors -- Even if the ink isn't a significant cost, it's still a cost.

By reducing the others, they could screw users who don't print using the most popular color, plus they could save a few pennies themselves.

I'm surprised they haven't attached the black cartridge to the color cartridge by now to force you to throw out the color if you happen to run out of black first.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[Mycroft_VIII]

Speaking of HP, what the heck is with the dozen programs it loads on startup no matter HOW you put the drivers in. You can't load just raw drivers at least on some moddels as the data file on the disk insists that stupid helper apps ARE part of the drivers.

Mycroft

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[Biomechanical]

[Disclaimer: I don't work for Canon.]

I bought a new Canon Pixma iP3000 for AU$218.00 at Big-W. It came with four full ink catridges - one black, one cyan, one magenta, and one yellow - and a separate print head that pops in an out as easy as the individual ink tanks that it cradles.

Actually, if you look at the cost of the ink cartridges as separate items, the printer itself cost just over AU$100.00.

I like it. It does what I need it to do, including printing on compact discs, has in-built duplexing (double-sided printing), and will take paper either from a top loading sheet feed or a tray that slides into it's base - automatically switching from one source to the other when original source is empty.

Unfortunately I don't think there's native drivers for linux but my workstation is a W2K box so it's not really a negative for me.

As to whether it could be monitoring me or not. {shrug}

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[bhtooefr]

IIRC, Lexmark has a few color printers that only take one cartridge (they use the nasty C+M+Y=almost K trick used by inkjet manufacturers in the mid to late 90's). Also, some of their dual-cart printers only come with the color cart, so that you still burn the C, M, AND Y to get a muddy black (HP is an offender, too, FWIW).

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[devilspgd]

I realize that -- But the output looks like shit PLUS it burns a huge amount of ink, so John J Consumer doesn't like those printers.

My "suggestion" (of doom and gloom for the future) was still having C+M+Y+K, but putting it in one cartridge "for user convenience"

Just think how giddy printer manufacturers would get if you had to replace the $80+ color cartridge every time you ran out of black.

Re:As every printer manufacturer...

[bhtooefr]

Actually, come to think of it, the color cartridge for Canon's portable printers (at least the BJC-50/55/80/85/NoteJet III (486 laptop with built-in inkjet)/and others) is all four colors in one. Seeing how tiny carts for those things are, I'd hate to print ANYTHING ;-)

www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[skinfitz]

Duly firewalled.

Re: www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[Anonymous Coward]

Moral. Practical. Impossible to go. Back.

Re: www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[twitter]

So what do you do when the binary uses an IP address instead? I use CUPS on Debian and don't have to worry about what some dumb ass at Lexmark wants to know about my printing. I get nice quality prints too.

Re: www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[skinfitz]

So what do you do when the binary uses an IP address instead?

*points at IP address*

Er...

Re: www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[twitter]

*points at IP address* Er...

Skinfitz says "Er" as information about his print jobs roll happily along to Lexmark. I suppose that's what most users of closed source software do.

Re: www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[skinfitz]

Skinfitz says "Er" as information about his print jobs roll happily along to Lexmark. I suppose that's what most users of closed source software do.

...while twitter hints perhaps at the origin of his nickname along with being seemingly oblivious to the fact the subject of the message contains the IP address...

Incidentally I use a Mac for printing.

Re: www.lxkcc1.com aka 192.146.101.142

[Cid Highwind]

So what do you do when the binary uses an IP address instead?

What's in the binary driver is pretty much irrelevant to detecting crapware like this. If you look at the packets coming out of a Lexmark-infested machine, and you'll find the IP address of their server. Binaries can be encrypted or obfscated, but IP packets can't hide their destination.

Well then...

[Flizesh]

Can they track why their craptastic printers keep breaking all the time? Never buying one of them again.

broadband routers

[Vladimir]

my router logs all in/out connections and keeps bandwith utilization statistics. Last morning it informed me there is a new firmware update (so it called home). It is also capable to establish VPN tunnels via IPsec so it can send anything it likes without any possibility to examine content. Does it spy on me? Who knows..., but I started to think about installing a normal Linux box instead.

I don't know about periperals...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the toaster has been laughing at me from time to time.

Are yet just, plain, mad?

[steve_l]

I dont understand lexmark. They crossed the boundaries of the sensible with the DMCA suit, now they are up with this spyware print driver thing.

Are they in league with the MPAA or something? Or do they just want to get extra money from users.

The fact is, refill cartridges perform a valuable role: they keep the retail cartridges within bounds. If it wasnt for the refill biz, the vendors would be tempted to charge even more.

As for the spyware stuff -if this is in UK print drivers (as the zdnet UK article implies), then it could be illegal under our data protection laws. It certainly ought to be banned. All spyware should be illegal.

That is the nice thing about OSS -you can check the print drivers, and anyway, like linux.org or sf.net cares about your printing. Interestingly, spyware is very rare in the macos world too. There is something about windows that just encourages it. I think it is the fact that Ms effectively ship windows with spyware-to-MS preinstalled, then the home PC vendors join in, giving the green light to everyone else.

I despair.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Nogami_Saeko]

Oh, I understand Lexmark perfectly.

Most of their money comes from ink and toner. And just like a crack dealer on a street, they know that once they have you hooked (by buying one of their printers), like a junkie on a fix, you'll need to keep coming back to them for ink.

Remember folks. IMHO, Lexmark = crack dealer.

I will NEVER buy a Lexmark printer or any of their other products. Hopefully they go out of business.

One of the (odd?) things is that local Staples, Office Depot, and Costco stores don't seem to carry many Epson printers anymore. I assume it's because of some sort of licensing deal with the store. All they usually carry is Lexmark and HP crap, so I go directly to computer dealers to buy decent printers.

N.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[ScrewMaster]

Well, the business model that Lexmark (and HP, Canon, and the rest) follow is that of selling a cheap printer and expensive consumables, with the costly ink subsidizing the initial low price of the hardware. We can all agree on that much, I think. And, honestly, that approach did make a lot of sense when printer technology was improving by leaps and bounds and users were continually tempted to upgrade their equipment. But nowadays, inkjet technology is becoming fairly mature and you really don't see major improvements in price/performance anymore. That being the case, I'd rather pay a hundred bucks more for my printer, right up front, since I'll probably be keeping it for a while, and then pay a more competitive price for the cartridges.

Frankly, I think you may have it backward. Lexmark isn't the crack dealer: we are. They get the first hit (i.e., we give them fifty bucks for the printer) and then they keep getting periodic hits every time we run out of ink. The problem is, printer manufacturers have growned accustomed (nay, addicted) to this way of doing business: they like that unending revenue stream from little boxes filled with ink. It's the way of the modern world, i.e. don't just sell somebody something once, sell it to them over and over and over.

I'd like to know how many ink cartridges you have to buy before you've paid them back for the loss they took on the printer itself (assuming they take such a loss, China makes things pretty cheap nowadays) and when those sales start becoming pure gravy. Hell, if Lexmark wants to use those spyware drivers to help their customers they could do this: keep track of the number of times the cartridge has been replaced, and when the company has made back what it lost on the printer sale, send the user a discount card. The user could then take that card to any store that sells Lexmark cartridges and get some money off. Hell, if Lexmark wants to accumulate personal data in spyware fashion they should give something to their customers for the privilege, much like the major grocery store chains do.

Whatever, I really don't like Lexmark anyway and I'm proud to say I've never owned a Lexmark product. Talk about a company that is ethically challenged ... they wear their unlightened capitalism as a mark of honor. I hope they choke.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Tim C]

There is something about windows that just encourages it.

Two main reasons for that:

1) historical "everyone runs as admin" meant no pesky user permissions getting in the way of what you wanted your software to do

2) orders of magnitude larger install base - you have X amount of time to develop this crap, do you target 95%+ of the market, or just the remaining 5%?

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Atzanteol]

Or do they just want to get extra money from users.

Hmmmmm. Let's see.... Maybe... No. That couldn't be it...

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Anonymous Coward]

ink prices are already to the point where it's about as cheap to just buy a new printer then new ink, if they get much higher, noone will buy new ink at all...

Then they'll just ship less and less ink with the with printer. You already get less than 1/2 a cartridge...

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[TRIEventHorizon]

HP's Deskjet series is actually good!

My school has a bunch of older 6xx series printers that still work, and I have an 895cxi that still purrs like a kitten.

I simply won't buy Lexmark because of low quality in their hardware.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[TheLink]

I dunno, do crack dealers make it a habit of spying on their users to find out how their users are using their crack, where, how many times etc?

I don't think crack dealers would last long in their business if they did that.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Anonymous Coward]

The worse part is that all the printer companies loose money on their printers. HP's got some new really stupid scheme in development that's going to make them loose almost $100 per printer in '06+ and they have to make it up on ink sales, just to break even. Cannon and Epson did it right with the snapper technology. But nooooo! HP's doing some insanely complicated pump delivery system that's going put them over a billion dollars is the hole on the hardware sales and they hope to make it up on ink sales. Can you belive it, a billion dollars in ink sales just to break even. Time to sell your stock. Seems like some pretty bad management to me. What were they thinking?!?!

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Fallen_Knight]

what printers do you use?

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[toddestan]

Interestingly, spyware is very rare in the macos world too

What are you talking about? Programs that call home are alive and well in the Mac world, as well as programs that scan the LAN for Macs running the same program with the same serial. Though very few Mac owners I know run a firewall like with functionality like Zonealarm, so they are completely unaware of this.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[ScrewMaster]

I don't. I have several monks that live in my basement. I provide them with parchment, quill pens and ink periodically, along with a few bowls of rice now and then, and they make all the "printouts" I need.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[ScrewMaster]

I've never owned any HP stock, but if I did, I'd have gotten rid of it the moment Carly Fiorina started making noises about Compaq. Match made in Hell, if you ask me, right up there with Time Warner and AOL as one of the all-time great stupid mergers.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[ScrewMaster]

Actually, at the moment at home I have an old HP 855C that still does the job. As long is it keeps working and I can get cartridges for it I'll keep using it. I had a Laserjet IIID until recently. My beef with Lexmark isn't about their marketing techniques (which, after all, are the same as everyone else in that business) but with their anticompetitive behavior and abuse of the law with regards to the DMCA. I'm simply not willing to support a company that isn't willing to compete on its merits, and resorts to illegal suppression of competitive products.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[sowth]

if Lexmark wants to accumulate personal data in spyware fashion they should give something to their customers for the privilege, much like the major grocery store chains do.

What do these grocery stores ever give customers for the cards? All I've ever seen them do was jack up the prices and give "discounts" (really the original price) to card users. They just screw the customers who refuse to get the card...

I don't see why we should have to worry about wether we train companies to screw us or not screw us. If they were honest in the first place, it wouldn't be a problem. The only real solution is to try only doing business with honest companies. Question is, are there any reputable companies left?

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[ScrewMaster]

Oh I agree about the grocery cards but at least they're up front about it ... we'll give you regular prices in exchange for your purchasing info. Lexmark was quite a bit less honest about it and that's what bothers me. It's only a step away from remotely monitoring printer drivers, both ethically and technologically, to transmitting customers' URL lists and other useful information and then reselling it. And given Lexmark's less than stellar ethical stance regarding competition, I wouldn't put anything past them.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[loraksus]

Wasn't that stupid, Carly and friends got some really nice bonuses.

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[Gi77 B4t35]

Me too, but s/monks/pakistanis/

Re:Are yet just, plain, mad?

[ScrewMaster]

Yeah ... and from what I read at the time, they got some really fancy golden parachutes to strap on when the time comes to leap from the burning wreck before it hits the ground. Still, it is educational to watch the empire-building process at work.

Slashdot are evil port scanners

[Anonymous Coward]

The IP 66.35.250.150 is the Slashdot website, type the ip into the browser for slashdot main page.

Here is my firewall log:

11/13/2004 23:14:31 Port Scan Minor Incoming TCP 66.35.250.150 05-00-20-00-05-00 * MY IP *
00-00-05-00-00-00 * My Name * BEAST3 Normal 1 11/13/2004 23:27:33 11/13/2004 23:27:33

Somebody is scanning your computer.
Your computer's TCP ports:
80, 1080, 3128, 8000 and 8080 have been scanned from 66.35.250.150.

Re:Slashdot are evil port scanners

[Gwala]

By the look of that, it's just a check to see if you are running through an anonymous proxy. IRC nets have been doing things like that for years now, seems only a small step for a major discussion forum to take similar precautions.

-Adam

Re:Slashdot are evil port scanners

[AndroidCat]

They're looking for trolls using proxies. They only test for your first post with a new dynamic IP address. I have a nice ST:TNG theme of sound effects when they hit those ports in a row.

2 Computers

[nurb432]

The safest thing to do is have 2 computers:

#1 - for internet useage only...
#2 - for everything else...

Re:2 Computers

[crash24601]

> The safest thing to do is have 2 computers:
>
>#1 - for internet useage only...
>#2 - for everything else...

I've actually recommend this to a couple people lately that had me build them second computers to do things like photo editing. One of them has followed my advice, the other told me it was great advice, then the next time I was at her house, she had plugged it into her cable connection with her other PC.

I run a second PC at home that is off the net, it can be a pain though. Software needs updates, some software makes it difficult to install and register without a connection. So many vendors now assume all pc's are net connected.

Re:2 Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

And when you want to print out a web page....?

Re:2 Computers

[nurb432]

You print to disk, then move it to your other PC via disk.

Didnt say it would be easy, but it would be safe..

old HP LJ4050 is good.

[steve_l]

I'm running a hand-me-down LaserJet at home; it sits on the lan, has power saving, etc, etc. Refills are possible (no DMCA laws) and the printer's own web page provides the configuration GUI (warning, Java applets).

The inkjet printers are built on a different model -revenue through ink- than the laser printers, where third party refills are mainstream. Indeed what Lexmark were trying to do with their DMCA gig was do the same lock in in firmware that ink cartridges do in hardware. They lost.

So: look at laser printers, especially those on the LAN. make sure they talk LPD and dont need a windows only app for management. That is, take your laptop and some cat-5 cable to the showroom, and test it. Colour laser printers do pretty cheap colour prints too, and are becoming low cost.

Re:old HP LJ4050 is good.

[daviddennis]

I have a HP Colour LaserJet 3500, which I bought for $999 and I really love using it. Colour printing is very cool, and the cartridges last forever unless you print lots of photos. Even if you do tons of photo printing, it's still something like $0.50 per photo instead of $2.00. And it's really nice to be able to print the PDF instruction manuals programs like Apple Motion provide in colour. I wish they'd offer real printed manuals becauset they're easier to deal with, but they sure do look at lot better in colour than black and white. (Printing them on an inkjet, of course, would not be cost-effective at all).

Quality isn't quite as good as the high-end photo inkjets, so they still have their uses. As others have said, I recommend Canon. They're a company with integrity; their print cartridge system is simple, you buy individual ink tanks when they empty for reasonable sums, and they sell their printers with full cartridges, not starters.

D

Their excuse

[Daath]

Their excuse was that they didn't have an inkling as to user's usage ;-)

Or just spoof data

[steve_l]

Imagine a perl script to generate spoof statistics. Imagine a million ./ readers running the script as a cron job.

They'd soon stop trying to spy on the users, if the data was all that everyone keep on printing the same url all the time, something with "goat" in the URL...

Re:Or just spoof data

[just fiddling around]

Great idea! We could also package the thing as a nice screensaver so unused CPU and bandwidth of millions of people could be contributed to the cause!

We could call it something like spoof@home, or pdp@home!

Cool. I am breaking out the celebration Ethereal!

Re:Or just spoof data

[Anonymous Coward]

Or sue Slashdot for DDoS

Re:Or just spoof data

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a perl script to generate spoof statistics. Imagine a million ./ readers running the script as a cron job.

Imagene a Beowulf cluster of... oh never mind.

Re:Or just spoof data

[legirons]

"Imagine a perl script to generate spoof statistics. Imagine a million ./ readers running the script as a cron job."

Has anyone got a packet-dump (or even better, an analysis of the packet structure)? It's easy enough to write a script, but we don't want to just replay the same ID number again and again...

Closed source considered harmful

[wikinerd]

It's just another example of how much control software companies have over you when you use their closed-source software (and drivers): You have no idea what the software really does!

Re:Closed source considered harmful

[hacker]

This goes for Open Source software as well. The "Trust Factor(tm)" exists, but do you really know what every single application you're running is doing and sending? Have you audited them all yourself? If the upstream source is clean, are the packages made by distribution package maintainers also clean? Can you be sure their "patches" applied to upstream source aren't opening holes, or adding back doors?

You can't be sure, unless you audit it yourself.

Re:Closed source considered harmful

[randalx]

You are correct sir! I can no longer trust a piece of closed source shareware cause who knows what spyware they are installing. This seems to go for regular software companies as well. I think if people keep pushing this "who knows what's inside closed source" meme, OSS will take off even faster. aboveGame, the Gamer's Photo Blog

Are Your Peripherals Monitoring You?

[alexo]

Only in Soviet Russia.

Ethereal?

[herko_cl]

It would be very interesting and fairly easy to find out what the software is doing while it's "phoning home". Won't someone that has a Lexmark printer (Canon myself) please install Ethereal (or whatever floats your boat) and just try to capture whatever the software is sending?
While we may not find out what all of the data is, at least it should be fairly easy to establish whether they are collecting your name, or your username, or your IP. If this is installed quietly, it seems unlikely that they would bother with encryption. They don't seem too interested in privacy in the first place.
As an aside, I can see how real usage information from the field could be extremely valuable to a printer company, but it should say in big red letters "this product phones home". If the consumers are acting as their research lab, they better be volunteers...

i have to agree, go canon

[caveat]

my first inkjet was an apple-branded canon, back in 1994; i think it actually still works. then i had a loaned i800, and i just recently bought a pixma iP6000D. the last two print great photos (the 6000D is a bit nicer since it's 6-color), and as the parent said the ink tanke are clear plastic so you can check the levels yourself. cheap, too. oh, and the canon drivers have never tried to phone home.

Within seconds of blocking it in my firewall ...

[sho-gun]

Nov/13/2004 09:48:08 Drop TCP Packet From LAN 192.168.0.2:1654 192.146.101.142:80 Rule: Lexmark Block
Nov/13/2004 09:48:00 Drop TCP Packet From LAN 192.168.0.2:1654 192.146.101.142:80 Rule: Lexmark Block
Nov/13/2004 09:47:56 Drop TCP Packet From LAN 192.168.0.2:1654 192.146.101.142:80 Rule: Lexmark Block
Nov/13/2004 09:47:41 Drop TCP Packet From LAN 192.168.0.2:1502 192.146.101.142:80 Rule: Lexmark Block
Nov/13/2004 09:47:34 Drop TCP Packet From LAN 192.168.0.2:1502 192.146.101.142:80 Rule: Lexmark Block
Nov/13/2004 09:47:30 Drop TCP Packet From LAN 192.168.0.2:1502 192.146.101.142:80 Rule: Lexmark Block

and I wonder just how often its trying to phone home.

Epson, perhaps?

[quarkscat]

Ever since their announcement of a inkjet
printer that can print up to 20 layer PWB
using conductive (silver?) ink, I have been
having strange dreams at night. A PostScript
dream. With an Autorouter daemon dancing in
my head.

Whoa! Way too much caffeine! Must stop
drinking so much Starbucks java ...
Ssst! Connection broken ...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Are Your Peripherals Monitoring You? Why, Yes!

[thewiz]

I caught my webcam watching me the other day.

I put a bullet in its beady little eye.

Now my stuffed Tux doll is watching me.

It's the guillotine for him!

What about Macintosh Drivers

[goombah99]

Since on Macs you frequently dont have to install a driver to use a printer I wonder if macs have this Issue with the pre-installed drivers.

on a related topic, I was disaapointed how crappy the drivers for mac have be come with HP mulit-function printers. They are really unstable and unfreindly to mulit-user mode. I wish I could use it without the driver.

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[drinkypoo]

Ha ha ha, you bought a multifunction device and now you're bitching about the driver? You're a fool to even buy one of those pieces of crap. You can get an inkjet printer for $40, a 1200 dpi flatbed scanner for $40 (That's what I paid for the Canon lide scanner I have here) and a modem for about ten bucks. If one of them fails, you only have to replace that device. If the scanner on your printer fails, you're left with a big ugly scanner/faxmodem. Everyone knows those things suck and AFAIK they are all PPA devices, meaning the host generates a bitmap and sends it to the printer. I don't want any printer that doesn't speak PCL and/or PostScript. Both of our printers now are PPA (well, one is, that's what HP calls it - I dunno what to call the dell printer) and they suck, but they were both free.

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[Angostura]

Have you checked out GIMP Print for HP drivers for Mac OS X? It might be the solution to your woes

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[morcheeba]

Ok, I'll stand up for multifunction devices. I don't own one, but I've used them and can see their use.

Yes, they are more expensive and may be less compatible, but they have their upside: they are smaller (adding a scanner to a printer doesn't add any additional desk space), they can operate without a computer (the "color copy" button on the one at work is great), and they are supposed to be easier to install (One driver instead of three. One customer support line instead of three.). Of course, if the software sucks, you're just as stuck as with sucky software from an individual device, but now it's harder to replace the hardware.

Postscript is cool, but my dad doesn't really care about that. He's not even much of a quality/speed person - just ease of use.

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

I'm pink, therefore I'm spam.
Hormel loves you. So does the "pink embassy". Also you are loved by the Pink States and the red-to-pink states. :-)

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[drinkypoo]

The thing about those things is that they really do have three drivers, but typically only one driver installer. If you're particularly unlucky the drivers only ever unpack themselves to ao temp directory, and you have to use that winhandle program to even figure out where it is half the time.

People buy a multifunction device for the same reason they use to buy macs - and I'm talking about when there was only one reason here, and that was because anything else confused them. The thing about that is that multifunction devices are more complicated, not less. They're harder to support (if something goes wrong you will have more trouble) and if your network should ever grow, well, you can't hook them up to a print server and still use their scanning and modem functions. And believe me, even people with no computer knowledge and/or experience end up asking people who do to set up stuff like print servers for them in their house so they can have two computers print to the same printer without having to make sure one is on :P

Multifunction devices are not cheaper, they're not easier, so what's left? The belief that they take up less space? Multifunction printer/scanners are almost all huge, because they have a flatbed built into them and a large printer mechanism underneath so there's an excuse for the ridiculous physical size. We have a 720dpi inkjet that's about one third the size of the average scanner/printer/fax. It and my scanner together, maybe one-half. My scanner is USB-powered, about 1.5" thick, and provides a pretty good 1200dpi scan, although not very rapidly. Won't be any worse than a combo box, though. It came with a cute plastic stand that will keep it upright on a desktop, but I usually put it on a shelf or something. When I'm not using it I unplug it from the front panel USB connector, but it's got a USB B jack on it, so you can just leave the cable connected all the time.

Postscript isn't about cool, and it doesn't have to be postscript, it can be PCL. The important part is to minimize the amount of data you send to the printer, which improves your print speed. Fast printing is convenient, much as fast CD burning is.

Being able to upgrade the individual components that are provided in one of those units is worth buying them separately all by itself. Being able to decide that the inkjet isn't working for you and move up to a laser without having to get a new scanner is the way things should be to say the least. We aren't getting modular devices where you could just replace the printer part of the combo unit, so it only makes sense to just buy the separate devices.

There is just one reason I can see to buy one of those things: If you wanted an inexpensive copier/fax machine. I wouldn't even want to hook it up to a PC, although I would consider hooking it up to one that did nothing but act as a print server.

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[morcheeba]

I think you nailed it with the last paragraph - good insight. That's how we used it at the office. I keep thinking of my dad as an example because these things would fit him more. He would like a cheap fax/copier that is easy to use. If it weren't for that, he wouldn't be interested in the combo. And as far as color copies goes, the price/performance combo of these just rocks.

I was going to say that the combo takes less desk space, but then you mentioned how you put your scanner out of the way when not in use. My dad would want it readily accessible because a copier/fax is more useful if it doesn't require setup (including booting up the computer). He's willing to trade a lot for the convenience.

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[Phat_Tony]

Angostura's right that GIMP-print drivers might be worth looking into. But I have an OfficeJet G55xi, and the HPIJS drivers are by FAR the best. Better than anything by HP or in GIMP Print. You should give them a shot.

Re:What about Macintosh Drivers

[EvanED]

Multifunction devices are not cheaper, they're not easier, so what's left? The belief that they take up less space? Multifunction printer/scanners are almost all huge, because they have a flatbed built into them and a large printer mechanism underneath so there's an excuse for the ridiculous physical size. We have a 720dpi inkjet that's about one third the size of the average scanner/printer/fax. It and my scanner together, maybe one-half. My scanner is USB-powered, about 1.5" thick, and provides a pretty good 1200dpi scan, although not very rapidly. Won't be any worse than a combo box, though. It came with a cute plastic stand that will keep it upright on a desktop, but I usually put it on a shelf or something. When I'm not using it I unplug it from the front panel USB connector, but it's got a USB B jack on it, so you can just leave the cable connected all the time.

But usually their extra size is in height. You can't stack a scanner on top of most printers, so the footprint would be smaller. My scanner (HP ScanJet 5200c) alone has a larger footprint than most MFDs. In many situations, height is essentially free, it's only the amont of room it takes up on the desk that matters.

what choice do they have?

[geg81]

You buy a $50 printer. If you don't agree to the EULA, it's a piece of junk. If you take it back, your retailer is going to keep track of you and make future returns harder, and the time it takes to return it isn't worth the printer anyway.

The lesson? Just don't buy Lexmark.

So then . . . . .

[theparanoidcynic]

It's a good thing after all that those somewhat functional, unreasonably cheap, disposible printers don't work with Linux? :)

Re:Censored or Mindfucked? What's better?

[drooling-dog]

Admittedly, you do have to install it yourself

Well, that does make just a little bit of difference, doesn't it?

Marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with it but I'd imaging they're after usage data to help with forcasting. They know how many printers they've sold but they don't know excatly how quickly users are going throught the ink. That's important because to add production capacity, say an extra production line to an existing facility, and staff it up probably takes 6 months to a year from the point when you order the line from the machine builders to when it passes QC and starts running in anger. Now you don't want all that metal and folks sitting around doing nothing but eating up your profits, but you also don't want to undershoot and have a shortage of refills, pissing off all your resellers by rationing and handing market share to the competitors. It would also help with financial forecasts too.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

charge 'em with a crime, sue 'em in civil court

[scotty777]

Isn't there a law against spyware? Federal?

And can I claim violation of my right to privacy under a civil rights act?

Any lawyers out there? Ralph Nader? Public Citizen?

Re:charge 'em with a crime, sue 'em in civil court

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahahahahaha, civil rights? What are you, some sort of America hating towelhead?! Now get back to work and make Uncle George proud!

Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[pla]

When considering the purchase of new hardware, I start by picking something with support already built into my OS. With Linux, this often means the difference between it working or not. With Windows, this means the difference between having to run a dozen tiny third party apps that appear to do nothing at all (beyond take up memory, disk space, and as per this topic, spy on my activities).

It really amazes me when I go to help someone with their PC, and I see a list of startups dozens of entries long. When I see a system tray that stretches halfway across the screen. When their process list requires scrolling down for three pages to see them all.


For a good default policy, when you buy new hardware, throw away any software it came with. You don't need it.

Printers? They all speak PCL or PS (unless you very unwisely bought one that does not, which goes back to "check for driver support first"). End of story.

Scanners? Okay, once upon a time, these could take some work to get up and running. But anything less than five years old (and if older, you can get a better quality replacement literally for around $20)? Free hint - Plug it in, open MS Paint, and check out the "from scanner or camera" menu. Simply amazing, eh? Everything you need to scan, already built in.

Cameras? I had two of my users actually install the software for new cameras we got just this past week. Do you have any idea what a pain it took to remove that software, when they discovered that not only did they not need it, but they couldn't use it due to some vague, irregularly-reproduceable conflict with other software they actually do require? Anyway, point of story - After removing every last trace of Kodak's crappy software (including a very large application, a boot-time driver, and a service! Ack!), I demonstrated to my users that they just need to connect the USB cable and turn the camera on. Poof, all their pictures appear under "My Computer" as a removeable drive named similarly to their camera's model.

How about video cards? Okay, no argument that you would do well to run the newest actual video driver from the manufacturer, but do you have any idea how many people I've see that also have 3Dfx's task manager, NVcpl and Nwiz, or ATi's set of up to half a dozen useless crapware blobs, all loading at startup (I won't even go into startups such as MS Messenger, Office startup, Quicktime, and all the rest that suck memory at the whopping "savings" of 5 seconds the first time you run the relevant program)? Sad. Truly sad, that people let such software steal their memory and CPU cycles.

Okay, I'll grant that more exotic hardware may well require third party support. But that quite simply does not apply to 99% of machines out there.


So I suppose the moral of all this, to stay on-topic... Why do people install Lexmark's own drivers in the first place? Don't ! Use the built-in drivers, and you can get all the same functionality without the spyware or the bloatware.

Not to imply that Microsoft doesn't pull similar crap as Lexmark (time.windows.com, anyone? Which if you run your own NTP server, you will notice does not speak plain ol' NTP). But just because one company likes riding us bareback doesn't mean we need to spread for the rest.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[TheLink]

It's not The People's fault that they install Lexmark's drivers when they buy Lexmark's printers AND they get spied on by Lexmark.

Let's not change the norms of proper social and civilized behaviour OK?

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[webworm99]

Why do people install Lexmark's own drivers in the first place? Don't ! Use the built-in drivers Hmm, What built-in drivers?

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[pla]

Hmm, What built-in drivers?

Did you read the very first sentence I wrote, or just skim for something with which to take issue?

Although your point may hold with Linux (though in that case, only a total idiot would buy hardware before verifying support), since the release of XP SP2, no major advances in printing technology have occurred (or at least, none have made it to consumer-level devices).

Consequently, someone who just needs a new printer has absolutely no reason to rush out and buy the latest and greatest (and otherwise identical to the other few hundred printers on the market) Lexmark printer. They can browse through the list of drivers included with their OS, and pick one that best meets their needs (which in most cases means "doesn't totally suck and costs the least"). Then they can buy that exact printer, and feel comfy knowing that they won't ever need to hunt down a driver disk for it, whether during initial install, or two years from now when they get a new PC.

Keep in mind that, for the majority, we talk about inkjet printers here anyway. Now, I've seen some really nice inkjet plotters, but for a desktop 8.5x11 printer, getting an inkjet means one of two things - One, a person needs color and can't afford a color laser; or two, quality, and speed means absolutely nothing and they bought the cheapest model at WallyWorld (most likely without even considering the TCO, which thanks to ink costing more than champagne, actually comes out quite a lot higher than the extra up-front cost of a low-end laser).

So while I will readily agree that exceptions to my points exist, they simply don't apply to the particular market we deal with here. Now, in fairness, I also don't expect that same market of essentially clueless consumers to have the foresight to research issues such as drivers, privacy concerns, and lifetime ink costs. On Slashdot, though, I do expect a little more - Perhaps not all readers count as hardcore geeks, but at least they all have a vague awareness of the issues involved.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[webworm99]

First Not all operating system have default drivers and that includes Linux. I can not even use this printer I have on Linux and it is a Lexmark.
Also, xp sp1 & sp2 do not have Lexmark default drivers. I wish they did.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[nosferatu1001]

you're missing his point.

his argument: buy the printer AFTER chcking driver support that is built in.

For Linux, make sure it talks PCL and PS, and you are fine

For Windows check the driver listing.

Simple idea, and makes sense - recent printers are not significantly improved over printers 1, 2 yrs older, so why go for one which reuires this extra crap.

Bu tthen you bought a lexmark inkjet, so you're short of a clue already....

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[Rattencremesuppe]

I demonstrated to my users that they just need to connect the USB cable and turn the camera on. Poof, all their pictures appear under "My Computer" as a removeable drive named similarly to their camera's model.

That's fine ;)

But unfortunately, there are still some cameras (Casio Exilim, for instance) and MP3 players (Creative Nomad, for instance) that don't implement the standard "USB mass storage" protocol and force users to install some third-party software to access the files that's stored on the device.

I think that there should be a "Standards compliant" sticker or whatever on product packages because if you want to purchase such a device, it's often hard to find out before you actually try to use it.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that there should be a "Standards compliant" sticker or whatever on product packages because if you want to purchase such a device, it's often hard to find out before you actually try to use it.

Then use it before you buy it! That's how I purchased my latest laptop. I brought two Linux live CDs, a DV camcorder and a firewire cable to the dealer. Those things had to work, or the deal was off. And they worked. It took about 15 minutes to check Firewire, DV grabbing, networking, video and sound on a blank machine (no operating system on the hard drive).

The beauty of laptops is that you can bring them with you. Testing a USB camera would take 2 minutes, tops. USB speakers, likewise.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[webworm99]

Ok, I see his point. However, I am not clueless. He are the reasons I bought a Lexmark printer. My old Lexmark printer lasted for a long time. This second printer I bought had a scanner built in. I also like some of the features. Can you show me a list of printers that won't need to install there own drivers and use windows default printer drivers? I am not just taking about xp. I am talking about all version of windows 95,98se,me, e.t.c.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[49152]

Anything that speaks PS or PCL should work fine even with stone age windows versions like 95, 98 etc.

This means all their (lexmark) business line (optra) models at least.

Re:Does no one else check for drivers *first*?

[Mr2cents]

Very good point, but you forgot to mention mouses and keyboards! I once (about a decade ago) installed a third party mouse driver to try and get the middle mouse button going, big mistake!

A simple mouse for goodness sake! I didn't aks for ten "helper" apps!

Gives a whole new meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

to the phrase "peripheral vision".

Class Action

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, all you ambulance-chasers: how about a class-action law suit? All you need to find clients are to sniff at lexmark's sites as the packets come in!

LaserJet 4 Plus is hard to beat.

[Nick Driver]

Excellent, sturdy-built printer. Probably one of the best medium-size laser printers that HP ever built. I have one that I found outside sitting next to a garbage dumpster full of old 486 and 1st generation pentium pc's. That's right, I got it for free. Took it home and found all the rubber rollers were nasty and the unit was filled with paper dust and assorted debris. It had never been maintained or serviced since new. I disassembled the unit, vacuumed out all the dust and crap, and carefully cleaned every moving part with isopropyl alcohol, bought a refurbished toner cartridge from OfficeMax for $50 and have had about four years of trouble-free printing at a total investment of some labor and less than the cost of two average inkjet cartridges.

Hell yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I bought that webcam in the first place!

HP Printers?

[Anonymous Coward]

On my OS X box there is a background application called "HP Communications.app" thats always running. I sure hope it does not have a memory leak.

Maybe its time to take that out of startup items and see if I can still print.

Re:HP Printers?

[beyond_the_blue]

Any moderately current HP printer or multifunction device has the same kind of monitoring software. There was a number of executables and services that would install right after the printer finished Plug-n-Playing, one of which is called HPScout, or something like that. That application monitors ink useage and printer stats just like the Lexmark app. I can't tell you what information was sent: I wasn't privy to that. I can, however, tell you that I had to disable that app along with a few others that get installed automatically to keep the amount of system resources that the printer was using down to a reasonable level. Also, I worked for the Windows side of support, so I can't tell you what it looks like on the Mac side.

printer ink prices

[Hachey]

did you know that printer ink is one of the most expensive liquids that common consumers buy in the world?

i looked at work a while ago for the cheapest non-generic printer cartridge with the most ink for your buck. if you were to fill you car with printer ink from this cheapest of ink cartridges, it would be about $3,059 dollars a gallon. (how much is my tuition again?).

lexmark needs to stop being so greedy. they already make money hand over fist. the common printer company tactic of making cheap cheap printers that eat cartridges like candy that cost $35 a piece (mind you, printers have a color and a black ink cartridge) should be enough for those guys. shoot, i already feel dirty enough shelling out that money, but having my computer sniffed is going too far.


--no sig.

I wonder

[Trailer Trash]

I wonder if Lexmark was smart enough to somehow encrypt or sign the data going back. I doubt it. I don't own any of their stuff, and never will due to their silly lawsuit, but I would be more than happy to feed their little servers plenty of interesting usage data. Plenty. We could distribute a program to allow like-minded folk to send over some good usage data whenever the urge hits (or in a cron job).

Anyone want to start deciphering packets? Can someone with a Lexmark do some capturing? Seriously, this could be fun, and their illegal database could become, shall we say, useless.

People in Nevada and any other states with spyware laws also need to contact their state AG's immediately. If you're in NY, you might want to get Spitzer's office on the phone. That guy can *find* a law that they broke.

Osama bin Scanning

[nxs212]

Hey, I am sure they are doing it in the name of national security!
Their plan to catch Osama was to flood Afghanistan with cheap Lexmark printers and hope that he or one of his buddies buys one. Then wait until Osama or one of his followers prints his digital camera pics on one of those printers. [Assume anyone in Afghanistan who can afford such a printer has Internet access as well] It should not be that hard to match and existing [reference]photo of Osama's face (embedded in that DLL file) with one in a solo or group photo.
It's not that hard to track someone down once you have their IP address.
Don't forget about the $20million reward!
The right way to do this would be to trigger data upload only if match was found, otherwise sit quiet.
OK, that was movie-of-the-week fantasy, but what they could have really done is monitor anyone scaning or printing $20 or $100 dollar bills.
Doesn't Photoshop alert you if you are trying to scan US currency? (or is that another urban legend?)

Re:Osama bin Scanning

[Epona]

Doesn't Photoshop alert you if you are trying to scan US currency? (or is that another urban legend?)

I'm not sure- but I do know that my friends ten y/o brother scanned a hundred dollar bill into photoshop, printed it, taped both sides together and got my friend to pass it at a 7-11 in the city. It's been more than a year and no problems so far :o)

Wow

[bperkins]

When was the last time something insightful came out of usenet?

You need to think some more.

[twitter]

If I was really concerned with privacy, I doubt I'd be using a computer, much less connecting it to the Internet.

I'm concerned with privacy, so I use free software. Sure, my ISP can log my web habits but I don't have to worry about them selling information about what I do inside my own network to spammers. Nor do I have to worry about being compromised by some kind of email worm or malicious web site, which are just as large a threat to privacy.

You might be a little more concerned if you think about how any business can function without internet connected computers and what information your company might want to protect. All of that gets thrown out the window with M$ junk.

Hrm...would it be hard to...

[TyrranzzX]

Persay, find the server, find the data they are collecting (reverse engineer the software for the packet format), do a google search for port 8080, and fill up their systems with so much junk crap that the data becomes unreliable? Perhaps figure out how they use the data, and over a period of months, feed them innacurate data such as "print cartridges fail fewer times than they normally would, and use ink more quickly than they normally do" to get lexmark to say, for example, make unreliable print cartridges that fail often and do 50 pages for $40 a pop?

Net Assumption

[nurb432]

When i run into those issues, i call them and they either get me another way to do it, or "i will return the product due to its being unuseable"..

Normally they get me what i need, and I dont have to threaten them with a law suit....

What printer language to use, PCL5 or PS?

[SigNick]

I recently got a used network laser printer for $200, it has both PCL5 and PS and since it's my first laser would somebody be kind enough to explain which mode should I use?

Are there any differences in print quality and/or speed, resource usage or something else I should know about? In case it matters the printer has 64MB of memory, a 4MB flash card (for firmware upgrades??) and no hard disk.

The PCL5 driver reports the printer as 24ppm, max 1200dpi and PS driver as 16ppm, max 1200dpi - is PCL really 50% faster or is this just a driver quirk?

I would test it myself but the toner refill won't arrive untill next Tuesday.

Thanks in advance to anyone who helps a laser newbie!

Re:What printer language to use, PCL5 or PS?

[raju1kabir]

If you are doing advanced graphics stuff then you will get better results with PS (and there are some things you just can't print with PCL). But if you are just printing things you made in Microsoft Word you might as well get the extra speed from PCL.

Fight back - swamp them with garbage...

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely it would be easy enough for a few people to flood their site with garbage reports so that any useful data gets buried....

Legal where and how?

[Tim Ward]

If anyone is monitoring me like that, in an identifiable manner, it's only legal if they've included what they're doing in their Data Protection Act registration and follow all the requirements of the Data Protection Act.

Re:Legal where and how?

[Gi77 B4t35]

follow all the requirements of the Data Protection Act.

Great if you're one of the tiny minority of the world's (and indeed /.'s) population who live in the UK.

And bollocks all use if you're not.

Yesterday...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geicko. You really need to get your ass back on Usenet, buster. Seriously!

Enter the (Dot) Matrix

[freezin fat guy]

Looks like it might be time to dust off my old Star dot matrix printer. It was a gem and I've never had the heart to get rid of it. Maybe I'll hook it up yet for old time's sake.

Article doesn't say packets were sniffed

[handy_vandal]

Not clear what they are monitoring?
What am I missing? Couldn't somebody just install the program and sniff the information out of the packets?

What's confusing is that the original post:

Engadget report says that "Lexmark say they're just tracking printer and cartridge usage, but the registration information and packets being sent say otherwise."

Wrong: the Engadget report doesn't say that the packets being sent say otherwise -- there's no reference to packet sniffing:

The newsgroup posting claims that the program, found on the X5250 installation software, embeds itself in the registry and monitors the use of the printer through DLL files in the c:\program_files\lexmark500 folder.

The program sends the information, which includes print and scanning data, to the URL www.lxkcc1.com. According to the internet Whois database, this domain name belongs to Lexmark International in Kentucky.

As you suggest, packet sniffing is the next thing to do.

-kgj

Nothing new

[beaststwo]

My printer and mouse have been sneaking into the kitchen and checking out the ice cream supply for years.

ZDnet article

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like ZDnet.com.au Austrailia has also picked up the story, and has ran an article on the same Lexmark issue.

Re:ZDnet article

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also several other news sources as well.

Re:Not clear? - profit of course !

[Alain Williams]

All that we know is that it is making a connection, so how about something like this:

1. Read serial number from ink jet cartridge
2. Send serial number back home
3. Check with home 'has the cartridge been used before ?'
4. If it has been used before then it has probably been refilled, so degrade print quality and squirt ink all over the place.
5. User sees: poor quality and blots on the page
6. User never buys refilled cartridges again
7. Profit for Lexmark!

How to scam Lexmark

[Deliri...uhmmm]

You can buy a Lexmark printer for about 25 dollars. With shipping it was 32. It comes with one color ink cartridge. It doesn't come with a usb cable, but if you're like me, you have those lying around.

A replacement lexmark cartridge costs 35 to 40 bucks. So when the original cartridge runs out, buy a new printer. Then sell the old one on ebay for 10 bucks (make sure to tell them it doesn't have an ink cartridge). So you've paid about 23 dollars for the whole thing. Which is how much even "cheap" ink cartridges cost, no matter who makes them.

I've got a nice all in one Brother scanner, fax, printer lying around that has something wrong with it, but it would cost me more to fix than I can buy a Lexmark for. And the ink for that printer was about the same as the Lexmark would be, even though the associate at Office Depot told me that it was the cheapest ink around. It is, but when you have to buy 3 color cartridges and one black cartridge it comes to about 50 bucks.

I've also been thinking about buying a lot of these lexmark printers and taking the cartridge out, sell it and the printer on ebay. I could probably make a profit of about 10 dollars for each printer I did this with. They are worth more if you take the ink cartridge and the printer and sell them seperately than they are if you sell them together.

HP

[lateralus_1024]

I worked at hewlett-packard's All in One division and we wrote software that did the same exact thing and sent the data back to HP over http.
This software would be installed within the gigantic 120MB setup file. Somewhere deep in the EULA is a sentence about HP being able to process user activity data.

Re:HP

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is a reference to the Backweb spyware program they use.

I work for an anti-spyware company and it is a hassle. If you remove it, all their crap software starts complaining about it, although it still works. You can't just go ahead and delete the entire program installed by HP (or Kodak or whoever else uses it) so you are left with no good choices. Either remove the backweb program only (and get hundreds of customers complaining) or don't remove it and let HP/Kodak/Whoever keep mining data.

I also bought an HP Pavilion a530n the other day when it was on sale. It came preloaded with Claria. I shouldn't be surprised.

Lexmark makes some crappy printers

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's just common sense that their software would be complete shit as well. Also, I always register all my products to:

Cheese Dick Christ
444 Upyours Ave.
Suckit, CA 91166

Feel free to track me all you want. It's not like the fucking warranty does me any good, because I'll just get the run around and in the 4 months it takes you to refurbish it and send it out, I'm obviously not using the son of a bitch so a fat lot of good your "warranty" does me.

What? No one remembers the Printer sourced...

[digital photo]

What? No one remembers the printer embedded logic bomb which kept taking out the computer system of a certain power facility some decades ago when a disgruntled employee knew he was being fired/laid off and write a program into the memory of the printer unit which could initiate a communication to the main computer and wipe it out?

By sending packets out like this, Lexmark is opening up a can of worms.

All this means to me is:

• Continue to use Gimp-Print+CUPSd to handle my printing needs.
• Avoid Lexmark products just like I avoid Belkin products.
• If I NEED a windows based print server, put them on restricted segments of the network.

A driver that goes out to a website to upload data could just as well go out to a website and download code. Someone who can hijack that domain will probably find a way to screw with the system.

Re:What? No one remembers the Printer sourced...

[Magnetic_Monopole]

Is there a GIMP driver for the Lexmark X75?

Economics of Printer Cartridges

[hross]

We know that the printers are sold at a loss and the consumables are more expensive than Dom Perignon. But the reasons for this are not only due to the choices of the manufacturer.

Printer consumables (e.g. ink & paper) generate a lot of revenue for the retail outlets as well as the manufacturer. Companies that sell cheaper ink and more expensive printers will have difficulty placing their printers in retail outlets. The cost per page of large photocopiers is very low, but you don't see them sold at big-box stores.

While retails outlets were the primary source of printers this was a stable situation. What has changed recently is that companies like Dell have enetered the direct sales market and so cut out the retail vendor. Retail can still make some money on consumables since there is some compatibility (e.g. Dell OEMs Lexmark).

But manufacturer's have no forced commitment to retail stores and if the Internet allows them to bypass the middleman and do direct sales, they will attempt to do so. In fact they must in order to compete with companies like Dell. At the same time Dell can't completely undercut the existing price regime because Lexmark still needs to see positive economics for their own printers even though they also build printers for Dell. Cut price ink would cannibalize their own sales more than the benefit of the increased hardware sales.

In order to make up for the loss of retail sales - and the loss of retails sales information - both Dell and Lexmark have created software that tracks usage and directs the user to the manufacturer's website *before* they run out. Otherwise, people will tend to impulse buy from retail rather than wait a week for delivery.

So the manufacturer's want the information, they need it in advance of ink exhaustion to bypass retail, and they can collect all sorts of information that they probably don't need but might find useful.

It's the 'might find useful' category that causes the greatest privacy concerns, and are probably not necessary for the immediate purposes, but it's easy to collect and few people complain. So far.

If ever a site deserved a slashdotting

[gtkuhn]

this site deserves it http://www.lxkcc1.com/. Only problem is they don't let ya in. Anyone know how to get in?

Re:If ever a site deserved a slashdotting

[Anonymous Coward]

Try "Ya don't get in".

Likely it swallows a GET or POST request, whole, and never replies. Why complicate the driver with the code to accept it? Even if the server were flooded, and had to drop the packets on the floor, occasional, genuinely random loss of samples wouldn't be a problem for the gathering of statistical information, which is ostensibly the purpose.

Note that this analysis is strictly technical, not ethical. Not even going to go *there*, thanks, especially at this late date.

Clarified

[Anonymous Coward]

Clarity improves somewhat considering the timeline. First Lexmark denied the allegation. Then capitulated when pressed with the evidence to admit that they were tracking printer and cartridge use.

Less clear is the statement over 'packets saying otherwise'. I wish more detail over information found within those packets would have been disclosed. The two articles I have read so far have not shined any illumination upon that.

No matter. For all the Lexmark drivers out there of that version it should not prove overly difficult for researchers to obtain, monitor and report their findings. If Lexmark is guilty of a greater transgression than what has been admitted to date then all such will be uncovered eventually.

Lexmark brings greater suspicion upon themselves by not being forthcoming as queries go unanswered. Truth being found the alternative whenever suitable lies won't do and at that, extraction forced only when faced with undeniable evidence to the contrary.

Legalities aside, the whole matter strikes one as a sleaze ball operation intended to co-opt, coerce, exploit and defraud. Considering that Lexmark is now a subsidary of the private equity firm Genstar Capital and considering how private equity firms tend to conduct business, this is hardly surprising.

-AC

It already does

[cyberformer]

This is why Lexmark tried to invoke the DMCA: The printer uses a cryptographic signature to identify Lexmark cartridges, and won't work if it finds one made by a third party.

To get around this, Lexmark's competitors reverse-engineered the authentication algorithm, so that the cartridges could fool the printer into thinking they were made by Lexmark. Lexmark responded by suing them under the DMCA. Happily, it lost.

Re:Not clear? - profit of course !

[Rattencremesuppe]

1. Read serial number from ink jet cartridge
2. Send serial number back home
3. Check with home 'has the cartridge been used before ?'
4. If it has been used before then it has probably been refilled, so degrade print quality and squirt ink all over the place.

IMO, this can also be implemented without "calling home" - the printer software itself could keep a list of the S/N's of the used cartridges.

Fight back

[AmiMoJo]

If I had a Lexmark printer, I'd fight back. Write a program to send bogus packets with false data to screw up their data. Distribute it to other pissed-off Lexmark owners. Release another program to disable Lexmark's spyware.

It's nasty and somewhat immoral, but sadly it seems like the only way companies will learn.

Re:Fight back

[a24061]

There's nothing nasty or immoral at all (IMHO) in your suggestion!

Starbucks my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoa! Way too much caffeine! Must stop drinking so much Starbucks java ...

Starbucks? Whoah.... their coffee must rival Epson or Lexmark's ink as the most overpriced stuff ever.

Do you enjoy shopping at Gap as well?

Lexmark P2P???

[DogsBollocks]

Try opening LEXPPS.EXE in Resource Hacker.

The information is as follows for those who are fortunate enough not to have any Lexmark products.

VALUE "Comments", "MarkVision for Windows '95 New P2P Server (32-bit)"

VALUE "CompanyName", "Lexmark International, Inc."

very very scary!!!

It's not the public's fault

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

As far as I'm concerned, if your still running windows connected to the internet, buying Lexmark gear, and reading this with IE, then you deserve everything you get.

Sorry, but I really don't think that's a very constructive attitude.

There is simply too much small print in an average person's life for them to read and absorb all of it. That would probably still be true even it it were written in plain $LANGUAGE, and not deliberately obfuscated by lawyers. Hence it is unrealistic to expect anyone to understand and, if necessary, challenge everything that they might not agree with if asked in isolation.

To protect society from the unscrupulous behaviour of those who would capitalise on this systematic weakness, we have a legal system. We elect people to form a government that can spend its full time in administration on our behalf, so we don't have to. Their remit is to look after our interests for us in cases like this.

The problem with a lot of technology is that it takes a fairly long time for the elected government's knowledge and views catch up with informed professionals (who, of course, can dedicate their whole working life to the technology industry, an advantage the lawmakers don't have). Consequently there is a fairly large window of opportunity for profitable spamming, spyware, adware, etc. that aren't really in the general public's interests before it becomes illegal.

The only realistic solution to this problem is to educate the lawmakers and draw their attention to new problems faster so they can act against them. Expecting to educate everyone in society about every potential threat to their finances, privacy, security, work-life balance, etc. just isn't a realistic possibility, which is why comments like the parent post aren't very helpful.

Re:Not clear? - profit of course !

[darkjedi521]

But that would only stop the user from refilling thier own cartridges. The other way would stop the user from considering any off brand carts.

Capitalism?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, capitalism is fleecing the privacy of people

Funny, I thought it was Lexmark doing it, not capitalism. Gotta love dorm-room socialists.

That's like saying Linux is an OS for illegal hackers just because one hackers uses Linux in a bad way.

Unreachable here...

[mortonda]

I can't even connect to that IP address. a traceroute dies shortly after att.net:

3 12.124.142.225 218.574 ms 12.124.143.89 219.708 ms 12.124.143.81 221.850 ms
4 gbr2-p50.sl9mo.ip.att.net (12.123.209.6) 72.486 ms 73.981 ms 87.997 ms
5 ar1-p3110.lsvky.ip.att.net (12.123.198.1) 89.893 ms 100.274 ms 104.215 ms

Pinging it says that it is filtered. Have they teken it down already?

Re:Unreachable here...

[Coolnat2004]

A whois search reveals that 192.146.101.142 indeed belongs to Lexmark:

OrgName: Lexmark International Inc.
OrgID: LEXMAR
Address: Lexmark International Inc.
Address: 740 New Circle Road, Northwest
City: Lexington
StateProv: KY
PostalCode: 40511
Country: US

The DNS is lextra2.lexmark.com. Pings say 'Destination net unreachable' and trace routes don't get anywhere farther than your ISP.

slashdot's twisted priorities

[nusratt]

This story has approximately ten times as many responses as the story (five hours older) titled "Airlines Ordered To Turn Over Passenger Data".

Shame on us.

Re:slashdot's twisted priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no right to privacy on commercial airlines. In fact, you have no right AT ALL to fly commercial. Flying commercial is a privilege that is likely (not guaranteed) only after you have paid for a ticket.

You are free to fly your own airplane anywhere you'd like.

Re:slashdot's twisted priorities

[/dev/trash]

Perhaps 10 times as many people have a printer, than fly.

Games like these are why I bought Canon

[Windcatcher]

My trusty Epson Photo EX died last week (true story, I'm not making this up) and I bought the Canon i9900 specifically because the people at Canon don't seem to play these games with their customers.. Nothing in the world could comvince me to buy Lexmark and whenever someone I know has looked for an inkjet printer I've made sure to point their antics out.

Two words: worldwide boycott.

Give them the 'Gomer Pyle' treatment...

[Sam Nitzberg]

I remember an old Gomer Pyle show... (OK - I know - all Gomer Pyle episodes are old...)

Anyway, there was an episode where he would use a particuliar jeep. Everytime he had the jeep, his buddies would keep filling it with gas for fun, and not tell him. He thought that he was getting like 100 miles per gallon. When the sargent had the jeep, they'd siphon off the gas...

You could really screw with their numbers. Your Lexmark printer could report 200 reams per ink cartridge. Depending on the detail of their reporting back, you could make it look like you printed 1000 sheets all red, then all blue. You could mess with their metrics. Worse yet, if you falsify your registration number, you could fill their databases with fake data and even collide with other numbers already registered. How do they interpret data when the same printer is being reported numerous times with different behaviors. They shouldn've used strong crypto to ensure data integrity...

They probably should have had a click-to-authorize this activity as on option with their driver, with some benefit attached. Most would click it anyway, or not read the advisory...

http://www.iamsam.com

Re:Give them the 'Gomer Pyle' treatment...

[mrchaotica]

They probably should have had a click-to-authorize this activity as on option with their driver, with some benefit attached. Most would click it anyway, or not read the advisory...

I betcha a million bucks their driver installer has an EULA!

Re:Give them the 'Gomer Pyle' treatment...

[surprise_audit]

I wonder if the packets are tagged in any way?? It would be kinda funny to trap some packets and retransmit them out of sequence... Many times...

No Phone Home here

[Coolnat2004]

I own a Lexmark X1150 Multifunction. I do use the programs included, but I have checked my firewall logs and there is no communication between my computer and any Lexmark servers. In fact, no Lexmark programs are even set up for network access.

I think I remember an option during setup that said something about 'anonymous usage statistics', and I unchecked it. I could be wrong, as several programs have that.

All I know is I'm not being spied on.

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

In corporate america your scanner scans you!

+1 Funny

[leonbrooks]

+1 Insightful, too.

Well spotted, that arab! So it is true that y'all invented Algebra? (-:

Lexmark! Bah!

[rnturn]

You guys got crossed off my list of potential replacement printers as a result of your using the DMCA to try to lock out toner cartridge competition. Now this? Has anyone at Lexmark even heard of public relations let alone what it means?

Their laser printers are tanks

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an Optra L for about $80 a few years ago; it had about 30K pages on the engine. The thing works great; it even came with partially used cartridge, so I've been printing lots of paper. This includes a PS interpreter and a network interface.

Now I'll admit that it has one quirk; when I switched to a 100baseT hub, it has timing issues when it first connects to the network. But I can probably print for a few more years and sell it for what I paid for it.

By contrast, their inkjet stuff looks like junk.

I just bought an all-in-one scanner/printer/fax, and Canon is clearly *clearly* the best choice for an inkjet printer.

I second the recommendation

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought one of these (got it for $250), and I can't say enough good stuff about it.

When you take everything into account, its simply the one to get. HP and Lexmark don't even come close.

See, Canon charges a fair price for the printer, and then get this...they charge a fair price for the ink.

Epson too?

[mig0]

If people RTFA they might've seen a comment suggesting Epson's doing this too:

http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/p ro tectingid/talkback.htm?PROCESS=show&ID=20035702&AT =39125876-3800003100t-39000836c

I just wonder if with my Z605 if I'm safe. I got it as an Xmas gift (free after rebate)

Great post! And the best part...

[mrchaotica]

"I have nothing to hide." -- Anonymous Coward

: D

I'd demand my money back

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Samsung laser printer couple of years back. IIRC, it was the cheapest model back then but I'm very happy with it and it does not send my data to anyone.

If a printer I bought would start sending my data without my explicit permisison, I'd demand my money back. As simple as that.

anti-spyware laws

[MaverickUW]

I wonder if when all the anti-spyware legislation finally comes into effect, if Lexmark will be one of the first companies sued over it. Class action lawsuit anybody?

Makes me wonder if Lexmark is gonna scramble to offer driver upgrades that remove the spyware now that the world knows about it.

Easy 1-2-3 solution...

[crazyphilman]

Use Linux (or a *BSD) and CUPS to run your printers. Since you don't have to run any printer-company applications (because Linux has its own drivers for everything, all thoroughly vetted by the open source community), it is impossible for manufacturers to spy on you.

I'd include OS/X in that, but unfortunately, I'm using a Hewlett-Packard print manager on my iBook, which could possibly be spying on me right now. It's a bummer, but I paid 1800 bucks for this thing (the iBook, not the printer), and I don't want to quit using it until it dies of old age. Sigh...

In the meantime, I have a couple of old mil-spec laptops running Slackware that can take over when the iBook dies, so I guess that's pretty cool.

Printer scam - modus operandi

[Vexar]

I used to work in the printer business, before their bottom line dropped too close to red for comfort, and they saved money by two subsequent 30% staff reductions. The product manager calls printers "ink and media dispensers." A lot of effort does go into making the ink and paper come out with just the right colors, but several of the knock-off inks, such as is made from Pelikan, all good stuff, good, accurate gammut. You need a decent color profile (ICM file), and the profile for OEM inks never quite does the trick.
It sounds to me like Lexmark is struggling financially, and they have turned to blood-sucking lawyers and unscrupulous programmers writing spyware. Too bad their execs know nothing of the concept of brand image/reputation, because from this point on, I expect several of us won't touch their product. Like it or not, the in-the-know technical crowd tends to influence a larger buyer volume than their own. Consider the multitudes that ask us for shopping advice.
Fear this, Lexmark:
"This holiday season, I would recommend [HP, Canon, Epson] over Lexmark. In addition to this particular brand being my favorite, Lexmark has engaged in unscrupulous practices, and uses the internet to watch you use your ink. Who knows what else they plan to do in their printer drivers next year?"
We have a rough enough time keeping ahead of worms and OS patches, to be bothered with disinfecting device drivers. Lexmark, feel free to fire the idiots who came up with this, along with all guilty parties. You have my permission. When this makes market-based media, heads will roll.

Of course

[pakolo]

Two eyes have grown up in my mouses' top. I'm worry about that.

Countermeasures

[elegie]

1. There is lots of emphasis on guarding a system against outside attacks. However, it can also be useful to restrict the privileges of software on the system i.e. a limited user account and restricted access to the Internet.
   
2. Free (as in "freedom") software and open-source software are less likely to have issues of secretly reporting data. Even proprietary software produced by individuals (as opposed to companies) is less likely to spy on users (consider the bad publicity for the author.)
   
3. When software costs nothing or if it has already been paid for, filling out a registration form for the software may not be worth the effort and the potential privacy violations.

Multifunction Devices (MFDs)

[Macgrrl]

Like most manufactured products, their are good and bad implementations of a product family, and professional and consumer grade products.

As a general rule I would be suspicious of any inkjet based or top feed device that claims to be a genuine MFD. All in one products need to be robust or you are at the mercy of the weakest component to bring down the whole device.

If you are looking at a device which scans (either to file or to print) look for something that scans off the glass unless it has a heavy duty document feeder, as those mechanisms have a high incidence of failure.

Paper trays that rely on top-down gravity feed frequently fail and start drawing multiple sheets of paper through at a time.

MFDs have two major market spaces:

1. High volume office environments where the main print engine is a heavy duty copier engine, which is both more reliable and more cost effective than desktop printers, and the total copy volume is probably less than 20% of the print volume. Fax, copy, scan, print should operate independantly of each other for true miltitasking and drivers are handled at an enterprise level.

2. Isolated workspaces where space is at a premium but multiple functions are required, generally still in a corporate environment. An example would be a nurses station in a hospital - most hospitals in service were designed before there were computerised patient tracking systems, everything was managed through card systems and cardboard folders of patient records, now every nurses station needs to fit a computer, a printer, a phone, a fax and a way of copying handover sheets. A small footprint laser MFD saves space and proves the required functions.

For most home offices, inkjet MFDs are a false economy.

Disclaimer: I work for Xerox - we develop, design, manufacture and sell MFDs.

You want to beat this scam?

[cr0sh]

First off - give up on color printing - unless you have a job where you need to deliver color proofs from your home, 9 out of 10 times you don't need color. Your digital photos? Why print them out? If you really need the hard copy, take it to a kinkos or a kodak photo lab kiosk and pay for those you really want. Likely, it will be cheaper than the consumables in the long run, and the quality will probably be better. Plus, at kinkos you can blow them up to poster size, if needed.

Second part: but a used laser printer. If you can find one, a low page-count ( BTW - guess where you can get laser printers even cheaper? GOODWILL! I have been making some major Goodwill runs on the weekends here in Phoenix - just yesterday I was at the 16th street and Van Buren location (those in Phoenix know that this location isn't in the greatest of neighborhoods - no big deal, though) - two newer model HP LaserJets (1100's - I think) - with toner cartridges. They looked brand new, and they probably work just fine. If they don't, they are probably easy to get working, or if you want, Goodwill has a 30 day return period. Best of all was the price - under $20.00!!! That's less than an inkjet refill cartridge, for a laser printer and toner! You might find other bargains as well.

Fight the scam - go laser, and don't look back!