never trust a photocopier

Oh my God!
That's really terrible, I didn't know.

I tried to snopes this, but it may just be too new.

Now the question is, do consumer copier/printer/all-in-ones also have the hard drive? Is the printer beside your computer just waiting to sell you out?

I thought about that, but I don't know enough to answer.

The other day on NPR they were saying the doo-hicky under newer vehicles steering wheels, where mechanics plug in to do diagnostics, is basically a black box.

It records second by second every move made by the car, and can tell if people were sitting in the other seats.

I think I saw that. I don't really mind so much about that. But I have seen people make personal copies of everything you can imagine in the office where I work.

Literally, I'm gob smacked!

The diagnostics interface box in your car is not to be confused with a hard-drive. It is recording sensor information of the engine, microprocessors and its components. If a passenger is depressing the weight sensor for the purpose of the airbag sensing. it cannot distinguish whether or not there's weight or an actual person in the seat.

This is not the same as (a flight recorder black box) recording where you are ... where you go...and with whom you actually ride in your car...and it's creating no breach of privacy. It records performance and/or safety items like oxygen sensing, braking issues, acceleration, air/fuel mixture, passenger seat (weight), traction and speed status.

However, the copier hard drive recording every document ever printed...is a definite breach of privacy. That is pretty shocking. My Epson photo printer, however has no hard drive in it. I've taken it apart in the past and know it doesn't contain one.

Insurance companies are using this information though, to determine fault.
Still pretty alarming if you ask me.

It can tell if there is weight in other seats, whether right before an accident you were accelerating, how hard you were turning, how hard you were braking, etc.

Here's a cut and paste from the story.... Here's the link to listen to the story also

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/03/20/174827589/yes-your-new-car-has-a-black-box-wheres-the-off-switch

If you're a vehicle owner and happen to have a car accident in the near future (we hope you don't), it's likely the crash details will be recorded. Automotive "black boxes" are now built into more than 90 percent of new cars, and the government is considering making them mandatory.

Dave Wells, a detective at the King County Sheriff's Office in Washington state, specializes in accident reconstruction. That means he's often crouched under steering wheels, looking for the connector that mechanics use to get diagnostic codes. But Wells is using a different kind of tool, and it pulls out a very different kind of information.

Reading a sampling off his laptop, he says, "In the first 10 milliseconds they're up to a half-mile-per-hour acceleration."

This is crash data — moment-by-moment statistics saved from the car's most recent collision. There's speed, acceleration, braking — even information from inside the car.

"There are sensors under your seat," he explains. "So if someone tried to say there was another person in the car at a crash who had run away, this shows at the time of collision there was not."

Put it all together, and you get a detailed picture of the seconds right before and after a crash. The information comes from something called an "event data recorder"; the EDR has become key to insurance investigations, lawsuits and even criminal cases. But that wasn't its original purpose.

"It was never designed for investigative purposes," Wells says. "It was designed for ... motor vehicle safety and keeping people less injured and alive."

EDRs are part of a car's safety system, which has to make split-second decisions, for example, whether to pull seat belts tighter or inflate the airbags. And engineers like to see data from real-world crashes to track how those systems are working. So the EDRs save the crash data, and as safety systems grow more complex, the recorders keep saving more information.

"I don't think you'll find very many Americans who know these devices are in their cars," says Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass. For eight years now, he has been trying to pass legislation giving drivers the right to opt out.

The Option To Turn It Off

"I would argue that this is a device that the average person should be able to turn off if they so desire," he says. "Obviously, if that were an option, some insurance companies might want to take that into consideration in pricing insurance; I understand that. But nonetheless, I think the average person should have that choice."

EDRs have been around for a while, but the issue is surfacing again because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has proposed making the devices mandatory on all new cars, starting next year. That's caught the attention of privacy experts like Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"The amount of data that they record is vast. And it's not capped," Cardozo says. "And I found that to be quite problematic."

Cardozo sees the safety value of the crash data, but he says it's important to set limits — especially as cars' digital storage capacity grows. He also says the feds should clarify who gets the data.

A Gray Area

Some states restrict what insurance companies can do with EDR information and require police to get a warrant before plugging in. But in much of the country, it's still a gray area.

"They could do something like put a notification in the owner's manual saying that the driver has a reasonable expectation of privacy in that black box data. We think that would go a long way towards making the issue of who owns that data a lot more clear," Cardozo says.

NHTSA won't discuss its plans — because it's in the process of writing the proposed new rule making the recorders mandatory — but in the past, some NHSTA officials have suggested the privacy of crash data as an issue that should be taken up by Congress.

In King County, Wells says he doesn't think the saved crash data should scare people.

"More often than not, the data from this is going to help them in an accident," he says. "It's at least going to point out one thing, and that's the facts."

Wells says privacy-conscious drivers should worry more about GPS and built-in services that offer roadside assistance. The difference is, on new cars, those systems will still be an option.

Thank you for providing me with that valuable info and correcting my misguided ways. Now, I'm even more paranoid than before...but at least it's justifiable paranoia.

It's not new, the report was from 2011.

The black boxes in cars provide good information about the use of the car - not nearly as intrusive as something like what a gps will report. I believe black box investigations were involved in the recent Toyota recall related to brake failure.

This is a report from a 2011 CBS report? For real?

It's on the CBS website - and it turns out it was actually from 2010.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6412572n

Still, there are plenty of people out here that did not know.

Oh please, don't be sarcastic.

I wasn't trying to one up edgar with the car story, and I wasn't trying to "correct your misguided ways"

I was simply putting forth another item that I'm betting a lot of people didn't know about.

And it is valuable information, don't belittle what I shared.

Moving on....

As far either edgars story (or mine) being old or new, if not everyone has heard about it, it's new and valuable to them. 2011 info isn't old, and is brand new if you haven't heard it.

In fact, I went to the office manager at work yesterday, and mentioned this, and she said our corporate office takes any copiers and such when we're disposing of them, and makes sure the hard drive is wiped clean.

I felt pretty good about that.

My boss had no idea. She was grateful that I shared the story with her.

I'm a bit taken aback. I wasn't being sarcastic. I genuinely am appreciative to read something I didn't know. In no way was my intent to belittle this. In fact I passed this info a long to a close family member. I joke with this family member all the time about justifiable paranoia and non-justifiable paranoia.

Passing the info a long to your office manger who likewise didn't know what could happen was a worthwhile act. My hat goes off to you.

Ok, sorry ragman, I did think you were being sarcastic.

Sorry for the misunderstanding of the printed word.

At least we didn't call each other goys.

No prob.

BTW, Wanna buy a copier?