Foiled plot tried to sneak 49 lbs of cocaine into Australia via Xerox printers
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Why the emphasis on Xerox? Is there something else untoward I don't know about them?
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The cocaine was chipped to only be compatible with Xerox printers?
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Imagine how much money they could have made if they swapped out the coke for printer ink.
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"We totally stopped the sea, they're too scared to fish now. but now we're gonna do the land. and next the office"
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TheWerewolf
Ars Scholae Palatinae
"I think there may be something wrong with these printers..."
"What's up?"
"Well, they all have white toner in them..."
"What's up?"
"Well, they all have white toner in them..."
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My coworkers used to joke frequently about a printer having white toner (printing a blank page). Not a joke anymore...
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Excuse me I need to make an emergency order of Xerox printers... for the office.
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Aren't journalism standards clear about not implying guilt of someone that hasn't yet been convicted? In this case, your opening sentence implies that all four persons where guilty of this plot after one of them was found not guilty.
You should change the article to say "Three Australian men..."
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According to NIST,
Here I thought AFP was deprecated in favour of SMB.
National Institute of Standards and Technology said:
Here I thought AFP was deprecated in favour of SMB.
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Rookie mistake.
Even the cops know that it's too good to be true if the toner cartridge isn't 90% empty right out of the box. A clear tip-off that someone other than the vendor is involved.
Even the cops know that it's too good to be true if the toner cartridge isn't 90% empty right out of the box. A clear tip-off that someone other than the vendor is involved.
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In addition to criminals hiding drugs in printers, there was also the failed 2010 plot to blow up airlines by hiding explosives inside HP LaserJets. Foiled largely thanks to Saad bin Khalid Al Jabri.
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jonbob_newcastle
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I haven’t thought about The Guard for a long time but this article brought it back to mind.
It’s a very good film.
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Why wouldn't they just seal them inside the toner cartridges? It would make much more sense, and nobody would want to debate if the toner cartridge is full of drugs.
These are small time idiots who only think "this easily openable drawer, lets put a bag full of our drugs in that".
These are small time idiots who only think "this easily openable drawer, lets put a bag full of our drugs in that".
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Be fair, Xerox wax printer wax was unchippable.
The thing was, there was a Byzantine system of ordering the stuff that meant you always ended up with unused colors which you paid for. But the results were as good as Epson 7 color print with UV varnish.
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ubercurmudgeon
Ars Praefectus
That would explain the mystery of why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam? If not what the fuck "PC LOAD LETTER" means.
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White ink and toner exist and for a purpose. They enable you to print white lettering, or full color, on non-white paper. It's useful for things like menus and wedding invitations, and sometimes for printing on cardboard packaging where white is more visible than black.
Yes I know I have no sense of humour. But having been involved in that industry I know that there are few things so bizarre that they haven't been tried at some point.
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PC LOAD LETTER means you are required to unfix the jam by locating a police constable to write a stern letter to the printer, and insert it into the slot.
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Whenever I see these I can't help running the numbers:
22400 grams @ $6.7 million USD = $300/g
22400 grams @ $9.0 million USD = $400/g
That almost costs more than replacement printer toner!
22400 grams @ $6.7 million USD = $300/g
22400 grams @ $9.0 million USD = $400/g
That almost costs more than replacement printer toner!
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Yes, empty out the coke, and smuggle in HP toner. It's more profitable.
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This explains why Bolivian marching powder is USD$290 per gram in Australia. Yikes.
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Back in the early ‘80s I was a software engineer on a nuke plant safety monitoring system that got delayed for a similar reason.
The ModComp computers we ordered got delayed because the boxes containing some components from South America to the factory in Fort Lauderdale were discovered to also contain shipments of drugs (cocaine if I recall correctly). Both the drugs and the components all got impounded.
Oddly the printers in this article were discovered in Melbourne Australia. My company developing the nuke plant system when we had the ModComp problem was in Melbourne Florida.
Coincidence?
The ModComp computers we ordered got delayed because the boxes containing some components from South America to the factory in Fort Lauderdale were discovered to also contain shipments of drugs (cocaine if I recall correctly). Both the drugs and the components all got impounded.
Oddly the printers in this article were discovered in Melbourne Australia. My company developing the nuke plant system when we had the ModComp problem was in Melbourne Florida.
Coincidence?
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I’m Australian. 9 years of work to sentence people for importing $9 million of cocaine. I can’t imagine the overall cost of the investigative and prosecutorial resources over that time, and it’s not like the people I’ve known who do coke have had a hard time getting it during this period.
I’m not into drugs myself, but this just feels like an absolutely insane waste of time and state resources that could go into just about anything else.
I’m not saying the government should start handing out free heroin, I’m just saying that the balance doesn’t seem right.
I’m not into drugs myself, but this just feels like an absolutely insane waste of time and state resources that could go into just about anything else.
I’m not saying the government should start handing out free heroin, I’m just saying that the balance doesn’t seem right.
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For optimal smuggling profits, load only Pure Cocaine in the letter tray, not the street grade stuff cut with toner.
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Curse you, I was going to make the quip about it printing white-on-white that gave the game away!
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Okay, so I had the same HP jokes too, so did a little half-assed research.
Cocaine is about $60-200/g (in USD) depending on 'various things' like quality and where you are. Or So I Hear.
HP Toner is about $1/g. Based on an HP 148A toner in the box being 1000 g, about 25% of a cart actually being toner (the rest being plastic case, etc) and then the packaging weight I'm going to say 150g of actual toner. So $150/150g = $1/g.
Even with a bit of margin (or a lot of margin) in my calculations you can see that cocaine is still about two orders of magnitude more expensive than even HP toner. Same goes for HP ink.
So obviously what HP needs to do is to legislate the ban of toner and ink, then they can jack the prices waaaay up!
Edit: I used 'slop' in the old pre-AI sense, replaced with 'margin'
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