[Printers] HP networked printers "phoning home" ?

[dave]

I've just joined this list having become *very* concerned over the  
speed at which this  Administration appears to be eliminating  
whatever privacy or *security* rights we (believed?) we previously  
enjoyed**.

I've appended my observations since 9/11, but I had a related  
question to the watermarking.

Has anybody observed any of the recent "networked" printers "calling  
home" in the early hours?

I awoke in the early hours last week to find the color display fully  
illuminated on my HP AIO OfficeJet 7300 printer.

It was unusual enough for me to immediately unplug it from the  
network and start to look at my logs. (I have not registered to use  
the photo sharing capability of this printer)

My concern at that time was hackers cracking the firmware for  
whatever reason, but I was unable to observe activity through normal  
routing.

It was still very suspicious and finding out about the watermarking  
has put a whole new spin and somewhat validated these suspicions.

Even although I had forced the IP on that printer, it indicates  
0.0.0.0 when the cable is removed. I've blocked the printer's IP on  
my firewall but I'm not even sure that's sufficient.

It;s one thing having your identifications on printouts, but its  
quite another to have the intrusion on copies, scans and faxes with  
the possibility that printers (in addition to the free-for-all the  
government already has in electronic communications) are being used  
to gather filenames and URLS etc.

Perhaps interception of our external networking activity isn't  
sufficient?

Has anyone ever heard of this possibility?

And I only thought of the convenience and advantages when I bought  
the stupid thing.

Regards,

Dave Thomson

**The Constitution, plus 5 or 6 of the amendments (I lost count)  
appears to have already been abolished, or it's quickly reaching that  
point, with these Reichstag-esques abuses of  9/11.

We now have an equivalent of the KGB, military courts and indefinite  
incarcerations without charges. We've deemed any International  
agreements and institutions "not applicable" and have expanded  
outsourcing of torture (while it's still illegal here). I believe the  
military courts were so rapidly instituted in order to ensure that  
the complicity of certain individuals in 9/11 never sees the light of  
day. And that was supported by the ADL.  Our domestic spy network is  
supported by Patriot Acts and self-censorship-through-legislation of  
an embedded news-media (Polit-Bureau?) and we now have a largely  
unenlightened (ambivalent really) populous.

I'm sorry, did I miss something? Did *we* bring down the Berlin wall  
or was it the USSR? Or maybe we're capitulating with Bin?

But with all these diversionary-smokescreens of war, the enemy  
within, scotch-tape and WMD which have all utilized resources which  
have facilitated Bin's "escape" (yuh) to regroup, along with efforts  
to impede  investigations to identify the TRUE  perpetrators of 9/11  
(those who *created* the blue-prints and funded the events of that  
day), I'm rapidly starting to believe otherwise.

We are told to just believe that it was that guy in the mountains who  
keeps getting away while all the time we were making up lies about  
Iraq and *vastly* expanding these questionable domestic spying  
activities, but something is definitely wrong here.

My own suspicion (and I will say it) is that this cover up somehow  
relates to the ~$6billion President Ray-Gun channeled Bin's direction  
via the Saudis and Pakistan's ISI. Shrub's dad, CIA director during  
Watergate, was VP then and maintains very good ties with the Saudis,  
supposedly as  representative of the Carlisle Group.

We're taught that Ronnie's actions supposedly helped bring *down* the  
aforementioned wall along with the mystical curtain,  in our favor.

I really don't think this government should be fixated on eliminating  
our freedoms and privacy - lets not forget there was a preponderance  
of Saudi nationals involved in the actual events of 9/11, and as I  
understand it, the whole motive was related to our continued presence  
in Saudi Arabia.