Comments on: Does your printer really need internet access?

By: Remote Access Software

Remote Access Software — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 19:42:46 +0000

Good advice. Too many administrators set everything as having full access when it is not only unrequired, but can be extremely dangerous.

By: shakey

shakey — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:52:54 +0000

this is something i’m guilty of, i’ve never really thought about it before.
makes a lot of sense, i’m off to modify network now…

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:18:35 +0000

Nope! The “depends” looks forwards, not backwards. I left out “whether the printer will actually work with your other machines” before the word “depends”.

So your criticism focuses on the right word for the wrong reasons. At least until I have a better link between my frontal hippowhatsit and my cerebral finger-doodaddle.

By: Rob Nichols

Rob Nichols — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:52:09 +0000

Surely the sentence “The argument about a default gateway setting amounitng to a vulnerability is something of a non-sequitur” is itself a non sequitur as soon as it has to be followed by the phrase “it depends…”.

By: Steve Cassidy

Steve Cassidy — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:56:05 +0000

Umm, this is not uniformly applicable advice. The argument about a default gateway setting amounitng to a vulnerability is something of a non-sequitur: it depends on whther the OS on the devices connecting with that device, will happily handle traffic with something that doesn’t share the detail of their own network configuration.

Generally, in networks large and small, this is being tightened up – so the sin of allowing the printer to see the Net is balanced by other problems which are not predictable without detailed knowledge of the behaviour of your PCs, your choice of sprint-spool software, and how much you spent on your firewall.

Probably best explored in more detail in my next Networks column!