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| We are setting up a bunch of copiers to use a common access card authenticate onto the network for scanning. This is a new device that Ricoh is just deploying and is not quite ready for prime time, thus the reason the Ricoh tech was in town.
I mentioned to him that some of the error messages displayed and possibly recorded by the copiers are not very descriptive. He said that was by design. In our discussion it became clear to me why the dang messages are so unhelpful at times.
The bottom line is this is for security purposes. If you make the error too descriptive, then unauthorized users can (for example) too easily figure out what part of a user name/ password combination is incorrect and thus narrow down his focus in his quest to crack a username password combo into a network. | |
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I don't really agree with that too much, but I have a reason. First, if I was to try to gain unauthorized access to a network, I wouldn't use a copier. Second, passwords on these machines are always encrypted on these machines, so they couldn't get the password if they wanted. The username is going to be easy to find other ways. Third, if a user has access to a copier and they wanted to gain access to the network, they probably have the same access to a computer. A computer will give you a more detailed error and would be a "hacker's" preferred tool anyways.
When it comes down to it, the only way for an unauthorized user to gain access is to crack the password. If there is a way to extract the passwords off a bizhub 600, I need to know that trick.
The server connect error is almost like a customer saying "it don't work". You could have a few problems: DNS servers, smtp server name/address error, username problem, password problem, no smtp authentication, SSL encryption, incorrect sending protocol, firewall blocking ports, internet provider blocking ports, among a few others.
It would help greatly if they could provide a little more information about the actual "server connect error", like where it failed to connect.
Am I wrong?