Hackers Are Spamming Businesses' Receipt Printers With 'Antiwork' Manifestos (vice.com) 96
Dozens of printers across the internet are printing out a manifesto that encourages workers to discuss their pay with coworkers, and pressure their employers. Motherboard reports: "ARE YOU BEING UNDERPAID?" one of the manifestos read, according to several screenshots posted on Reddit and Twitter. "You have a protected LEGAL RIGHT to discuss your pay with your coworkers. [...] POVERTY WAGES only exist because people are 'willing' to work for them." On Tuesday, a Reddit user wrote in a post that the manifesto was getting randomly printed at his job. "Which one of you is doing this because it's hilarious," the user wrote. "Me and my co-workers need answers."
Some people on Reddit have suggested that the messages are fake (i.e. printed by people with access to a receipt printer and posted for Reddit clout) or as part of a conspiracy to make it seem like the r/antiwork subreddit is doing something illegal. But Andrew Morris, the founder of GreyNoise, a cybersecurity firm that monitors the internet, told Motherboard that his firm has seen actual network traffic going to insecure receipt printers, and that it seems someone or multiple people are sending these printing jobs all over the internet indiscriminately, as if spraying or blasting them all over. Morris has a history of catching hackers exploiting insecure printers. "Someone is using a similar technique as 'mass scanning' to massively blast raw TCP data directly to printer services across the internet," Morris told Motherboard in an online chat. "Basically to every single device that has port TCP 9100 open and print a pre-written document that references /r/antiwork with some workers rights/counter capitalist messaging."
Whoever is doing this, Morris said, is doing it "in an intelligent way." "The person or people behind this are distributing the mass-print from 25 separate servers so blocking one IP isn't enough," he said. "A technical person is broadcasting print requests for a document containing workers rights messaging to all printers that are misconfigured to be exposed to the internet and we've confirmed that it is printing successfully in some number of places the exact number would be difficult to confirm but Shodan suggests that thousands of printers are exposed," he added, referring to Shodan, a tool that scans the internet for insecure computers, servers, and other devices.
Some people on Reddit have suggested that the messages are fake (i.e. printed by people with access to a receipt printer and posted for Reddit clout) or as part of a conspiracy to make it seem like the r/antiwork subreddit is doing something illegal. But Andrew Morris, the founder of GreyNoise, a cybersecurity firm that monitors the internet, told Motherboard that his firm has seen actual network traffic going to insecure receipt printers, and that it seems someone or multiple people are sending these printing jobs all over the internet indiscriminately, as if spraying or blasting them all over. Morris has a history of catching hackers exploiting insecure printers. "Someone is using a similar technique as 'mass scanning' to massively blast raw TCP data directly to printer services across the internet," Morris told Motherboard in an online chat. "Basically to every single device that has port TCP 9100 open and print a pre-written document that references /r/antiwork with some workers rights/counter capitalist messaging."
Whoever is doing this, Morris said, is doing it "in an intelligent way." "The person or people behind this are distributing the mass-print from 25 separate servers so blocking one IP isn't enough," he said. "A technical person is broadcasting print requests for a document containing workers rights messaging to all printers that are misconfigured to be exposed to the internet and we've confirmed that it is printing successfully in some number of places the exact number would be difficult to confirm but Shodan suggests that thousands of printers are exposed," he added, referring to Shodan, a tool that scans the internet for insecure computers, servers, and other devices.
Good thing they're only talking about pay (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good thing they're only talking about pay (Score:4, Informative)
Actually at least one of the messages is about unions:
https://www.engadget.com/someo... [engadget.com]
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And not about unions. I bet that would get them to hire network security people *really* fast.
The minimalistic union is promising not to work for worse terms and conditions than those agreed upon, I think the "$25 or walk" satisfies that.
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Was stranded on K2, he's right about the meal.
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They already do, it's just the money goes to senior management and a handful of massively rich "investors".
The money for $25 an hour can easily be found, just stop overpaying the capitalist leechers.
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That's not how money works, particularly not on the state level. Fiat money doesn't really have to "come from" anywhere, it's created by a monetary authority's policies and behaviors, and by banks.
What tends to happen when small minimum wages are increased is that more money starts to flow through the economy, simply because the people benefitting from minimum wages are poor, which means they are essentially forced to spend all the money they mak
Re:Good thing they're only talking about pay (Score:5, Informative)
Unions aren't exactly the panacea people make them out to be.
Even in places with unions, management flagrantly breaks the law, and it takes forever to get a resolution that usually amounts to a few sheckles; worth far less than the abuses.
You need a combination of strong enforcement of labor laws and unions.
And management doing jailtime for breaking those laws.
That's kind of the whole point of unions (Score:2)
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Not exactly. Many unions end up being an ancillary power structure of neglect, where each can play against the other in supposedly representing workers concerns (the numerous times unions have come back with "this is the best we could do"). It is extremely problematic when any single entity becomes the sole arbiter of worker's concerns. Those same laws protect workers from corrupt unions.
Not to mention if enforcement of law is lax, it doesn't matter if you have unions or not, as the main regulator of your c
I think you're putting the cart before horse (Score:4, Informative)
Unions are essentially The fifth estate of government. Coming after the 4th estate it is the news media. Lax enforcement of law can be dealt with by the unions my mobilizing their workers.
I think the problem is people expect things to function perfectly and forever without care and maintenance. So in America when the unions were undermined in the 70s and crushed by Reagan in the '80s people looked at that instead of saying they needed to fix what was broken they just gave up. It would be like if somebody poured sugar in your gas tank so you never drove a car again.
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Unions go to their members to say that this is the best we can do when they are operating in countries that have shifted to the hard right and largely broken their unions by undermining the institutions that make them functional. Unions need government but a good government also needs unions. If you go look at the Scandinavian countries and Germany very high or near universal membership coupled with strong protections for unions is what makes it work in a sort of feedback loop.
Yes, and their economies are pretty much stagnant. So, sure, give unions all the power they want, and more. And start learning Chinese in the meantime.
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So stagnant. [worldbank.org]
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So stagnant. [worldbank.org]
Now, add China to the plot, smartass.
GDP != Wages (Score:2)
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So in the case of Dieselgate [reuters.com], where the outcome has been the stunting unions ability to negotiate across the board, in contrast to government enforcement of emission standards; what am I to make of this? Where is this fifth estate? Where are the protections for workers or the regulation of management from unions when management broke the law?
Allow me to quote-“In this situation we have other problems and no time to fight for our rights by waving red flags or calling a demonstration.”
And that is
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Found the 1%-er.
For every one like you, there are thousands who aren't, and it wasn't because they didn't work for it...
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The union is the one that tries to help create a professional workforce.
Citation needed. All I've ever seen unions do is ask for more money.
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Warning to anyone thinking of actually trying this: some of us “liberals” are armed. The 2A applies to ALL Americans, not just you alt-right nutters.
So, a fing libtard hypocrite is campaigning to abolish 2A, and yet owns an arsenal in his basement. Color me suprised.
FSOCIETY (Score:3, Funny)
The revolution has begun!
Re: FSOCIETY (Score:2)
Deja Vu (Score:2)
Who could be behind this movement? A movement to latch onto disaffected young workers and tell them that the best thing is to reject the very concept of work itself. It's not good enough to want better conditions or a promotion or a raise. No, you must be anti-work!
Say this ideology was widely and swiftly adopted. Who would stand to benefit from all of America's workers suddenly quitting out of freshly cultivated spite? Not arguing for higher wages, promotions, union rights, or better benefits, but spiteful
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Who would stand to benefit from all of America's workers suddenly quitting out of freshly cultivated spite?
It would never be “all” of America’s workers, so anyone who is still willing to work would benefit. Labor is subject to the same pressures of supply and demand, and less people willing to work means that if you’re a willing worker, your labor has just become more valuable.
The frequently parroted right-wing talking point that everyone needs to have a job, no matter how underpaid and crappy, is because wealthy business owners love a race to the bottom in the labor market. It means th
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Every market is a "race to the bottom", employment is no different. I recall an article replying to someone that made a big deal about how many Walmart employees are on food stamps. The article pointed out that Walmart can "afford" to pay such low wages because food stamps subsidize their workforce. Walmart apparently has in their HR department people that assist workers in applying for food stamps and other government assistance. Smaller employers don't have the volume of a workforce to have a departme
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... or shop there.
Depending on the location, and if they managed to kill the small shops round them, a Walmart can be more expensive than other stores. The monopoly Walmart in my city has some prices almost double from the ones two cities away where the Walmart sits between an Aldi and a WinCo.
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Remove the taxpayer from making up for poverty wages and Walmart would have to pay more or nobody can afford to work there, or shop there.
Taking away food stamps/government subsidies just makes people even more desperate to take whatever crappy underpaid work is available. Wages go up when laborers have a bit of leverage at the bargaining table, because the business is having trouble filling positions.
Everyone is motivated by profit, that cannot be removed from the equation. No profit and there's no job. I don't know what people think a "wealthy business owner" is expected to do.
Oh, the old Ayn Rand argument that if rich business owners weren't allowed to hoard obscene amounts of wealth, they'd take their ball and go home. Fine, let them. Plenty of people will step up to fill their positions in the marketplace, conte
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I don't care if people decline to work, but don't expect me to support you with food and shelter when you refuse to work.
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Who would stand to benefit from all of America's workers suddenly quitting out of freshly cultivated spite?
It would never be “all” of America’s workers, so anyone who is still willing to work would benefit. Labor is subject to the same pressures of supply and demand, and less people willing to work means that if you’re a willing worker, your labor has just become more valuable.
The frequently parroted right-wing talking point that everyone needs to have a job, no matter how underpaid and crappy, is because wealthy business owners love a race to the bottom in the labor market. It means they get to keep more profit.
Sure, in the short term. In the long term this will cause buisnesses to fail, and job availibility to drop back to where it was, wages to go back to where they were, except this time with a huge army of anti-work welfare queens in the tow.
Oh, yes, I know. Basic economy, such a foreign concept to the leftists.
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In the long term this will cause buisnesses to fail, and job availibility to drop back to where it was.
If a business can't afford its operating costs, it should go out of business. If the demand for whatever the business produced still exists, a new, more efficiently run business will spring up in its place. Crufty old businesses dying off creates new opportunities for entrepreneurship.
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In the long term this will cause buisnesses to fail, and job availibility to drop back to where it was.
If a business can't afford its operating costs, it should go out of business. If the demand for whatever the business produced still exists, a new, more efficiently run business will spring up in its place. Crufty old businesses dying off creates new opportunities for entrepreneurship.
In healthy, free markets, absolutely. But once you legislate to drive the costs of business too high (red tape, giving unions power, driving minimal wage too high, etc.) it becomes impossible to "efficiently run business" and at first you just kill off the small ones, driving monopolies, and if you put even more red tape in they move to China.
Re:Deja Vu (Score:5, Insightful)
Bottom line is, for too long people have needed bad jobs, more than the bad jobs needed the people. Walmart for instance had a timeframe where they literally ran a food drive for their employees on a thanksgiving... at the same time they filed a report showing, that they comfortably got so many job applications over 90% of applications don't even get an interview.
This "worker shortage" time, is the first time in a long time, low end workers might actually have power to fight for improvements, and the first rule of negotiations is, if you can't walk away or at the bare minimum convince the other side you might, you are going to get screwed.
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I know I'm biased because of my own political views.... but even trying to step outside that "box", I can't say any of these recent movements or agenda of the "Left" are really "good idea, good call" situations so much as exaggerating or mis-identification of problems, in order to get a large enough group of angry people to act.
"Black Lives Matter", for example? Someone could have honestly started that movement about almost any cause they felt like pushing for, and it would have had huge momentum. It's a bi
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What kind of person hears "Black Lives Matter" and thinks "oh, they think white lives don't matter"?
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You know what kind... the kind that thinks that black people aren't treated worse than white people, or worse, thinks they deserve it.
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The kind of person who thinks that equality laws mean there is no problem.
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I once read an article from a feminist who was arguing that there was no requirement to tackle discrimination against men in specific job sectors because there was still more discrimination against women than men. Now I happen to think that is a silly argument because improving the lot of women in the job market is going to require men to make adjustments and they are less likely to do that if you show you don't care about their problems.
The BLM movement suffers from that problem. For example in the UK the
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That's just whataboutism.
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Or to discourage older workers, reduce employment and increase wages for the remainder? Many workers right now are only returning reluctantly to retail employment.
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Re: Deja Vu (Score:2)
It's just a net troll that's spamming.
The more interesting thing is why someone left equipment exposed to the net and not set up with a firewall/vpn or at least with permitted IP address range. If you don't do that you should expect interesting surprises.
Revolutionary act? (Score:3)
some employers try to say the NDA covers pay (Score:2)
some employers try to say the NDA covers pay even when labor laws say that can't be done.
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Some employers (or rather, HR departments) just like to have control.
For example, where I work the "policy" says I'm not supposed to discuss salary with coworkers. But because we are a public institution, a properly formatted request will get you a complete list of all employees, their positions, and base salary (unless they are a "protected" type person - ie, related to a cop, etc). Every 18 months or so my name, position and salary gets published in the newspaper, or on a website, etc.
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Receipt Printers are unlikey to have public v4 (Score:2)
Receipt Printers are unlikey to have public v4 address.
Maybe just you need to be on the stores wifi or plug into an open e-net jack in the store.
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Welcome to the Internet of Things. There are innumerable routes to such devices, any one of which or all of which may provide attack vectors for such abuses.
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Receipt Printers are unlikey to have public v4 address.
The ones attached to traditional cash registers don't. The ones that people are using next to their iPad-based "register" might.
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Everything in the cloud, combined with simple devices being unaware of more complex network issues makes this a problem. Even in a secure context, finding a list of approved devices that regularly send business related prints can be hard, and will likely result in good prints being blocked. Marginal admins get really scared/angry when you whitelist the source list on a printer because they don't know which apps are in use, or which servers those apps use.
Shodan lists 800k devices listening to port 9100 on
why not Shodan directly? (Score:1)
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I think I've seen them [preview.redd.it].
Everyone likes a good story. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Reddit has become the foremost creative writing site on the internet, r/antiwork, while starting with good intentions as a place to discuss the most egregious excesses by employers has become little more than outlet for wagies to larp their fantasies about getting one over their bosses.
Receipt printers exposed to the internet? Nah.
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Anything which cites reddit and twitter as its main sources (one of which was deleted by the user) can rarely be taken seriously, particularly when the idea itself is so implausible to begin with. Even though there are, without a doubt, a large collection of businesses with their POS systems hanging right on the internet without a condom, that's not what's happening here. This is reddit being reddit -- and that's all.
Federal Hacking Charge (Score:2)
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Yeah, that's what a vpn service hosted in one of those countries is for. Pranks like this. I applaud whoever is doing this. It's funny.
Just causes inflation (Score:2)
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If we increased everyone's pay by 10% that would just cause all prices to rise by 10% and nobody would benefit
You say that like 3 people [forbes.com] don’t own half the wealth in america. Those luxury yachts with helipads and the larger yacht it tails with sails which can’t have a helipad plus all the other stuff the ultra rich buy really does add up. Don’t forget the world trades in US dollars and the sheer number of other currencies pegged to the dollar as well.
If everyone took home 10% more it would make a staggering difference in the quality of life of tens of millions, as is 50% of America can
Re:Just causes inflation (Score:4, Informative)
You say that like 3 people [forbes.com] don’t own half the wealth in america.
What??? That's not what the article says. If you read the chart, those three don't even own 10% of the wealth of the other rich families in the US.
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You say that like 3 people [forbes.com] don’t own half the wealth in america.
Your reading of that statement is incorrect, even though your main point still holds. That article says:
the country’s three richest individuals—Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos—collectively hold more wealth than the bottom 50% of the domestic population,
and
Bezos, Gates and Buffett held a combined fortune of $248.5 billion
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] shows total wealth is around $126,340 Billion. Meaning, those three together hold ~0.19% of the wealth in the US.
Doesn't affect your main point though.
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If we increased everyone's pay by 10% that would just cause all prices to rise by 10% and nobody would benefit
You say that like 3 people [forbes.com] don’t own half the wealth in america. Those luxury yachts with helipads and the larger yacht it tails with sails which can’t have a helipad plus all the other stuff the ultra rich buy really does add up. Don’t forget the world trades in US dollars and the sheer number of other currencies pegged to the dollar as well. If everyone took home 10% more it would make a staggering difference in the quality of life of tens of millions, as is 50% of America can’t afford a $400 emergency.
Why do people even bother discussing with leftists. "Here's why the economy says your idea will have dire consequences" "Waaaa, this guy has yacht, this means you are wrong"
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Re:Just causes inflation (Score:4, Informative)
You say that like 3 people [forbes.com] don’t own half the wealth in america.
Overconcentration of wealth may be a problem, but you shouldn't misrepresent what that article actually says. What it actually says is that the 3 richest people (who have changed since that article was published) have more wealth than the poorest 50 percent of the country. The poorest 50 percent do not own anywhere near 50 percent of the wealth. The article specifically notes that 2/5ths of those poorest 50% actually have negative or zero wealth, which really brings down the average.
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I'm not going to argue that all the problems of monarchies can be reproduced under basically any system, because you certainly can. Concentration of wealth is always going to be a problem as well. I just have to comment on this though, even though I know it's just a typo:
We needed to murder a bunch of British to be free of rule by Kong’s,
I don't think it matters how many British people you kill. If you keep capturing Kong's and bringing them to major cities to put on display, they're going to keep ruling you. They're also just going to get bigger and bigger up to the point
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There was some economist commenting on UBI, where he had proposed to his students means-testing for benefits vs. straight UBI.
What he pointed out was both measures are exactly the same. It is just a matter as to where the accounting is done (except you have the added overhead of mean-testing).
So in thinking about welfare, structure matters, and you can approach it from numerous directions from increasing wages, UBI, or even something like the Norway fund (I could envision a hybrid capitalist model where wor
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Money spent in the economy makes the economy, you know that right? Money saved does piddly-shit to help the GDP or "make America great"... its just people hedging their bets for when they don't have something to spend.
Money saved is put into bank account, which then is loaned by the bank to someone else, for example to start a buisness. Or to spend. Geez, do you leftist have any basic idea how the world actually works? No, economy is not "just a social construct".
Re:Just causes inflation (Score:5, Interesting)
If we increased everyone's pay by 10% that would just cause all prices to rise by 10% and nobody would benefit.
Not correct - proven untrue - the price of a loaf of bread has risen 1090.48 % from 1965 today - and min wage has only risen 480% - the fact is labor is only a small part of that price increase - and it would take raising everyone's wages by more than the overall productivity increase differential realized before it would greatly affect the price of goods and services. No one bats an eye when the price of a pizza goes up by $1.25 due to the cost of ingredients and gas but somehow a $.50 increase due to labor would be untenable - it's just a lie.
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Actually, good (Score:2)
And at the same time, quit paying executives with public trading stock or options.
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Demand More Pay ? ... I live in a at-will state - asking for a pay increase is grounds for getting fired.
Nice workplace you have there
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It is in the COMPANIES SHORT-TERM best interest to not have them know. However, over time, they find out and then get upset. Far better is just to pay ppl fairly.
Okay, but what is fair? If Joe Schmoe is a lazy bum and Wendy Wizard is a working fiend, it seems fair to me that Joe should be paid less than Wendy because Wendy is producing more goods and services.
Now if Wendy goes around rubbing Joe's face in her bigger paycheck, how does that make Joe feel? Like a loser, so then he gets upset, demands more pay, and now the company has to forgoe giving Wendy a raise the next couple times around.
Congratulations. Unless Joe magically produces more income for the company by working harder, you've just made Wendy into Joe's slave by way of overpaying Joe and underpaying Wendy.
In my opinion, unless you think management is actually doing something truly unfair, it's best if Wendy just keeps her mouth shut about her bigger paycheck. If Wendy wants to help Joe get a bigger paycheck, she could try figuring out ways to make Joe a more productive employee. If successful, congrats, you're now basically a manager!
Actually, any reasonable manager will just tell Joe to either start working as hard as Wendy, or go screw himself.
What triggers receipt printers to cut the paper? (Score:2)
The last time I worked retail was over 20 years ago now. Back then because I was in a specialized sector I was paid almost twice minimum wage as my base, with some opportunity to earn bonuses as well. Not sure where
You may have the right but you shouldn't (Score:2)
You may have the legal right to discuss your pay with your coworkers but you really shouldn't because you might discover that you're getting paid more than they are thus causing them to be jealous and demand higher pay. You, of course, will not get a raise and if they don't they will resent you for them not getting one. Read between the lines, folks. All this manifesto is doing is attempting to turn workers against each other so that some third-party can sweep in and sell them on supposedly better pay an
Is this the easiest way to get a manifesto out? (Score:1)