Do you remember the last thing you had copied, either for yourself or someone else?
You probably do. It could have been someone's driver's license for your client file, a HUD statement, an earnest money check, tax returns for a mortgage broker, or a contract. How about your insurance card at the doctor's office or your social security card for a job you just accepted?
These are just a small sample of what we copy on a daily basis. But did you know that the copy machine keeps a digital image of every single thing that it copies?? They're all stored on its hard drive, ready and waiting to be re-viewed by whomever looks for them.
I don't know about you, but to me, that it S-C-A-R-Y.
My uncle sent me this YouTube video the other day which explains everything clearer that I can. It's a piece that CBS News did on April 25, 2010. It is a couple minutes long, but you'll be glad you checked it out. Or maybe not.
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We proudly serve and sell real estate in and around all of Charleston, SC. If you are thinking about purchasing or selling your home in Charleston, Johns Island, James Island, Folly Beach, Kiawah Island, Seabrook Island, West Ashley, Mount Pleasant, Isle of Palms, Sullivans Island, North Charleston, Hanahan, Summerville, Goose Creek or other surrounding areas, and more importantly, want to work with a local area expert, contact us at your earliest convenience.
Jim and Maria Hart
Realtors®/ AgentOwned Realty
(843) 364-9845
hart@agentowned.com
Copyright © 2010 by Jim and Maria Hart (AgentOwned Realty).
Hi Jim and Maria...I did see this on the news and yes it is scary...everyone needs to be aware of this and it goes for removing telephone numbers from your old phones, and data from computers before giving them to someone..never know whos hands they will fall into.
It is very scary, more so when you are using the company cpy machine in a large office. Nice blog!
Wow, it is really scary to think about who's hands that information could end up in! Thanks for the info!
Jim and Maria - I'm surprised that CBS News took so long to report about this issue. I've known about it for at least a coule of years when I first read about it in a newspaper.
That is one scary, scary video! I certainly worried about every company that takes my information and copies it.
Hi Jim:
I've known about this for a while...
What amazes me is that there are no precautions in place.
You should be able to remove the hard drive completely before selling a copier...
I agree...scary stuff and why can't we remove the hard drive as Toula suggests? Think of the ocmputers yikes!
Oh man I had seen this earlier and I shudder to think of my personal intel out there, Yikes!
wow, very intersting...my brother in law told me about this but now I believe it.
Jim and Maria, hadn't heard that before. That is pretty scary - especially when you think of all of the old machines they've hauled away - presumably with hard drives in tact. Yikes!
Jim&Maria--All I can say is WOW! I would hope that my broker would take care of a copier prior to selling but it really makes you wonder about copying anything important at a place like Kinkos doesn't it?
Jim and Maria - Wow, this is really scary news. Think of all the copy machines since 2002! I guess you can count me in on that 60% that had no idea copy machines had a hard drive. I think something should be done, don't you?
Jim and Maria, Saw this on the news recently, but not the video. Nothing is private even if you try to keep it so. Re-blogging. Thanks.
Gloria
UGH, One more thing to be concerned about! You know what worries me is all the times you give your drivers license to be copied at a Doctor's office.
This is unbelievable. BIG Brother is watching. I think we have totally lost our right to privacy... except in the powder room..
wow .... very scary ..... thanks for spreading the word.....
Lori Cofer
I agree, thanks for letting us know about something we would not have even thought existed! Susan
Jim & Maria - I can't begin to count all the personal financial paperwork I've copied for me and for my clients! I'll be re-blogging this one. Thanks.
Jim and Maria It is very scary, but I'm sure it goes way beyond copiers
HA! We just found out that Google indexes everything you do on the Internet. Cameras are everywhere in town and in the country.
What else.
There is no longer any privacy, only the "right to privacy" some have found in the U.S. Constitution, unless, of course, you copy a document in Kinko's.
Makes me think of the person who got fired for sitting on the office copier and making a copy.
Jim and Maria: I watched the story... Lenn summarized it very well by saying: "There is no longer any privacy"....
This is quite disturbing, never would have thought that this information was being stored, Great Post!
Think of all the Kinko's, FEDEX stores and other copy places! Nothing is private anymore.
Our office just traded off the old one. I hope the boss knew about this.
Just one more thing to worry about - miserable. Good that you are getting the word out on this, but I'm sure those who can really harm us already know how to use it for less than honorable means.
I had no idea...should of, I mean this does make sense! Scary!!!
Thanks for sharing this - I didn't know about it. In a way I'm not surprised - seems like info about all of us is out there everywhere. Will have to take great care with our printers in the future.
Wow, that is scary.
OH OH, who was that sitting on that machine the other night? Hope they smiled...
excellent information... not surprising, just scary.
I knew that copiers stored a copy of any document faxed on it - every time we fax we see the message "Storing document" or something similar - but not that copies were stored as well. This could well be a ticking time bomb. Remember all of those copies headed overseas in the video? If your data is on there, all of the steps you might be taking to secure your private information just might be all for nothing. And that's disturbing.
One other disturbing fact is, although this video was obviously made to alert the public and businesses about the potential for serious breaches of private information, and we certainly appreciate it, it also could alert nefarious people about a potential cash cow they may not otherwise known about. How many criminal enterprises will be born or expanded because of their seeing this report? How many dishonest people will now rush out to buy used fax/copiers to avail themselves of the wealth of information they could contain?
Lastly, while it's good that companies like Sharp have a $500 solution for immediate deletion of documents from their product's hard drives, what about the millions of copiers currently in use? Who will be the first to offer a similar product for SOHO users that won't break the bank? How do we take steps to ensure that our client's private information is not at risk when we replace the copiers were are currently using? We routinely copy hundreds of documents a month in our real estate business, if a client has seen this report and asks us, "What are you doing to safeguard our private information?", what do we tell them??
Just sayin'...
this makes you want to copy your personal information at home and deliver a copy when you visit the doctor, dentist, etc. The digital storage has been around for years in the copy industry and now someone is just figuring this out.
Good thing I gave up copying my bare rump a few years ago. I'd like to see the expression on some FBI guy's face when he discovered THAT.
There's your privacy, bub.
The risks of mitigating security breaches in digital technology get about as much attention as BP is giving to their cleanup plans of the oil spill.
Hi Jim, I had heard this once before. One of the interesting things about technology is that many products brought to market today tend to have this archival aspect of how they were used and the content of the specific data. Technology proves once again that it can extract a price far greater than the initial costs. Imagine the data that exists in the clouds of those that have ended their usage or terminated their agreements. The servers that store it also have backups and backups of that. Where will all that data go. This was done under the guise that all machines eventually fail and the retrieval process will only get easier from here.
This may be a problem for some machines and for others it may not be. Depends on the size of the hard drive. I would bet that they could be set up to dump the copies on a regular basis or after the job at-hand was finished. But in any case, it would not hurt to ask your copier's tech person. Within an office it is probably much less of an issue. More likely to be a problem if you use a public machine like in Staples or Office Depot. Might want to be more careful there, just as when you use the free WiFi in McDonalds or Starbucks. I have heard those unsecured wireless routers can be an issue and it is unwise to transmit your banking info, etc over them.
As for personal privacy, parts of the Patriot Act took care of that for us. Warrantless wiretaps and searches, what fun!
Lots of real estate offices don't have tech experts and that's where the problem starts. Machines absolutely need to be cleaned before moving on to another life.
Great post to create awareness.
Wow, hadn't thought about that! Something else to worry about. We shred everything, I'm in a paperless office. At least my clients documents won't be found in the garbage.
I saw this earlier too and now that I think about we also use our copiers to scan documents for emailing so all of that info is surely there too. WOW!
Privacy is merely an illusion. We take our old phones out for target practice, and mutilate old computers too. We don't own the copier at the office (our broker does) but it would be an interesting exercise to remove the hard drive before selling it. Although I suspect that doesn't apply when it's leased. I suppose the best thing to do is have the copier tech come out and wipe it's 'brain' before you let them take it back to the warehouse to sell as a used copier.
Wow this is pretty scary stuff.
Jim and Maria,
I saw this as well. Glad you posted it and got a gold star for it. This is quite far-reaching. :)
Steve
J & M: While this is scary -- and great information to know about -- I think it's just a reminder to be more careful with our information (make copies at home and give those to people).
I guess there is nothing private anymore.
Big Brother is definitely watching! Perhaps they should divert the technology to something useful!
I"ve removed hard drives from computers in the past before they went the recycling bin but now I'll alert the offices I work in about hard drives on copiers as well.
Wow! I had no clue - thanks for sharing this. Really is scary. We started whiting out the routing number/checking acct number on copies of earnest money checks we keep in our files recently. So much stuff out there that could do a person harm if it were to get into the wrong hands....
Yikes- Just think of all the images that are still being stored from holiday parties!
Privacy is an illusion.
Makes one wonder what Big Brother does with all the information...like find pedophiles, serial killers, terrorists and such. It's a big joke on us all.
This really is terrifying. Years ago I was dating someone who thought that information was being gathered about us all the time. I thought he was far out. Now I have to wonder if he was simply smarter than I am.
Another thing most people don't know is that networked printers may be insecure and accessible via the internet. I read a story a while back where someone had "hacked" into a printer, obtained stored images and monitored other content as it was being copied.
This is very unsettling information.
Okay that is really scary.
'Big brother' is watching over us in so many ways we can't even imagine. It just keeps getting worse and worse and totally out of control. Privacy? That's a thing of the past.
I guess anything we might donate needs to be driven over with a truck prior to disposal... ;^ )
Jim and Maria, it is incredible to me that this has not been widely reported to the public. I had no idea that documents were stored on a hard drive of a copier (and probably printers as well).
WOW! Thanks for all of the comments and the feature :)
It baffles my mind that with all of the advances we've made, that this wasn't something that someone already took care of. Honestly, there should be some sort of program that is automatically run on each and every copier/fax to delete the images each time the machine is shut off. And it shouldn't cost anything extra! That way there would be no issues at hand.
UH oh. I did not realize this or stop to think it over. This will stay on my mind now!
This is scarry. I would have never thought an image was stored and saved on a hard drive.
I had seen this before as well. I think the real issue is the fact that companies using the copiers refuse to go to the extra expense to guard our privacy.
And people think you're safe if you just stay off the Internet!!!
Jim...I did hear about this a while back. I need to replace my old copier soon and will be looking for the internal memory.
Wow! Nice bunch of comments. Scary, yes! Surprising, no. We pay a lot for these machines and hopefully, we have control of the information the machine retains. Awareness is a good thing!
Jim and Maria, I wasn't aware that copy machines had hard drives in them. Thanks for the update.
Jim,
Thanks for the heads up. I am reblogging this important information.
Wow I had no idea they stored that information. Thank you for the heads up!
Gary I was thinking the same thing...
The more I think about it the more I question if anything is ever private anymore...
As stated previously, yes networked multi-function printers also have hard drives (soon to be replaced with flash drives. Cheaper and smaller) These devices, being connected to a network, are venerable to either internal or external espionage. Best to have your own local multi-function device, if your office permits, to make certain your data is secure. Otherwise do your printing and photocopying at your home office. And use discretion whenever making copies at a copy center.
Just one more reason I really need to stop copying those $100 bills! (Just kidding, Big Brother!)
This is something ever since 2002 ..... I wonder if it was because of 9-11....
Anyhow, it's so important, I going to reblog it to help get the word out....
Lori Cofer
Wow, Jim and Maria, I had no idea. I only use the copier at my office and at home, but from now on I'll be more careful about what I copy at the office.
Wait a minute. You get a Featured Post and then you bail on us? LOL. Hope all is well.
WOW I did not know this I am shocked thanks for the post...
I hope you have an amazing weekend school is about to start close to end of 2010 believe that !
I really did not know that this was a situation is so serious.
Jim and Maria, Great featured blog to get this information out to the 60% of us that did not know copiers had internal hard drives storing all our valuable information.
It's amazing. It seems absolutely nothing is private and personal anymore! Even our cars tell "tales" with their recorders!
I went to an appointment at my dentists last week and was greeted with a Webcam to take a picture! Allegedly for the Hippa Law. Seems all medical folks now need/must have photo id's.
It's a strange and alien world we are living in.
Sue of Robin and Sue