Securing Printers

[Bryce Embry <embryb () k12tn net>]

Howdy,

A recent thread on BugTraq, along with some discussions with my 
colleagues, has me curious about printer security.  What dangers are 
there in giving a printer a public IP address?

To me, a printer with a public IP sounds utterly foolish, but I'm not 
doing a very good job of making this point with my colleagues.  They 
usually respond with the question "Why would anyone want to print 
something to a printer they can't even find?".  My answers (usually "Why 
not?" or "it's a system running an OS that is subject to exploitation") 
 don't seem to be very convincing, especially since I can't produce any 
known exploits.  I would appreciate any arguments and reasoning that 
would carry more weight, or enlightenment to help me stop being so 
paranoid.

Thanks,

Bryce