According to people who claim to have seen the manifesto in print, dozens of posts on Reddit and a cybersecurity firm that is analyzing the web traffic of unsecured printers, one or more people are sending “anti-job” manifestos to receipt printers at businesses around the world .
“Are you underpaid?” According to several screenshots posted on Reddit and Twitter, one of the manifestos was read.”You have a protected legal right to discuss wages with your colleagues. [...] Poverty wages exist only because people ‘will’ work for them.”
One Reddit user wrote in a thread on Tuesday that the manifesto was randomly printed at his job.
“Which one of you is doing this because it’s hilarious,” the user wrote.”My colleagues and I need answers.”
There are countless similar posts on the r/Antiwork subreddit, some with the same manifesto.Others have different messages and share the same worker empowerment sentiment.All of them advise readers of the message to check out the r/antiwork subreddit, which has exploded in size and impact over the past few months as workers begin to demand their values and organize against abusive workplaces.
“Stop using my receipt printer. Hilarious, but I hope it stops,” read one Reddit thread.Another post read: “I got about 4 different random messages at work last week. Seeing my bosses having to rip their faces off the printer was very inspiring and inspiring, It’s also fun.”
Some on Reddit believe the messages are fake (i.e. printed by someone with access to a receipt printer and posted for Reddit influence) or part of a conspiracy to make the r/antiwork subreddit look like it’s doing something illegal.
But Andrew Morris, founder of GreyNoise, a cybersecurity firm that monitors the internet, told Motherboard that his company has seen actual web traffic going to unsecured receipt printers, and it appears that one or more people are sending those print jobs indiscriminately over the internet. , as if spraying them all over the place.Morris has a history of catching hackers using unsecured printers.
“Someone is using a technique similar to ‘mass scanning’ to bulk send raw TCP data directly to a printer service on the internet,” Morris told Motherboard in an online chat.”Basically every device that opens TCP port 9100 prints a pre-written document that references /r/antiwork and some workers’ rights/anti-capitalism message.”
“One or more people behind this are distributing a lot of prints from 25 separate servers, so blocking one IP is not enough,” he said.
“A technician is broadcasting a print request for a document containing worker rights messages to all printers that have been misconfigured to be exposed on the internet, we’ve confirmed that it prints successfully in a few places, the exact number is hard to confirm but Shodan suggested Thousands of printers were exposed,” he added, referring to Shodan, a tool that scans the internet for unsecured computers, servers and other equipment.
Hackers have a long history of exploiting unsecured printers.In fact, it’s a classic hack.A few years ago, a hacker made a printer print a promotion for the YouTube channel of the controversial influencer PewDiePie.In 2017, another hacker made a printer spit out a message, and they were bragging and calling themselves “the god of hackers.”
If you know who’s behind this, or if you’re the one doing it, please contact us.You can message securely on Signal by calling +1 917 257 1382, Wickr/Telegram/Wire @lorenzofb, or emailing lorenzofb@vice.com.
By registering, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertising and sponsored content.
Post time: Jan-14-2022
