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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."
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
Original usenet post from comp.periphs.printers on Google Groups here, or here for a news: link.
Just as long as my Dvd burner isn't monitoring what I am burning...
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.
Lexmark could also very well instruct the device driver to STOP WORKING if it detects a third party ink cartridge...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
lxkcc1.lexmark.comw w.lxkcc2.com
www.lxkcc1.com
lxkcc1.com
w
lxkcc2.com
ips
192.146.101.0 - 192.146.101.255
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.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
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.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
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.
Can they track why their craptastic printers keep breaking all the time? Never buying one of them again.
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.
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...
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.
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.
... they wear their unlightened capitalism as a mark of honor. I hope they choke.
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
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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?
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.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
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.
10 sell printer
20 sell inkcartage
30 disable inkcartage via internet
40 goto 20
Hivemind harvest in progress..
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: