My Epic Struggle with the Copier: QBOS_040

I strive to be a good person and to treat everyone with respect, but I do have one enemy the copier, QBOS_0403. My relationship with that office device could go down in the annals of arch enemies like Lex Luther and Superman or Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. It is frustrating; I try to be nice and send smaller jobs and even avoid complex activities like stapling; however, for whatever reason, the device still jams all the time. It clearly has a vendetta against me. When entering the copy room, the device exudes an aura of evilness. I am certain it is giving me the digital equivalent of the finger. Standard copier niceties like replacing the paper or adding toner makes no difference; it still hates me. This pains me deeply. I keep trying to find the Be my friend setting buried deep within the menus, but have had no success. While my hope is that you have a far better relationship with your office equipment, the reality is that we all have a good reason to be nervous.

Office equipment has become more and more advanced over the years. We used to have simple machines that only did one thing, print. Now we have units that scan, print, fax, print in color, print in black and white and even bring coffee (not, really, but how long can it be until this happens?). The extended functionality has required additional storage and so most of these machines incorporate embedded hard drives. Have you ever thought about what is on those hard drives? It is likely some kind of copier Operating System and likely copies of the many documents that you have printed, scanned or otherwise received. This is fine when the unit is securely stored in your office (although I wonder about the ability of someone to hack the unit, but that is different topic), but what happens when the copier reaches the end of its useful life? Well, it typically gets removed hard drive and all which creates the potential for information theft or loss.

You might think that I am being overly dramatic, but did you know that the US Government actually used a copier-based strategy to access secret Russian documents? Yes, it is true and read Edit International's, Xerox Helped Win The Cold War. I am not trying to suggest that the government is after you although I wish they would confiscate our evil copier, but the reality is that your copier likely contains proprietary corporate information that needs to be protected just like you guard your records and IT information. The obvious question is, How do you address this challenge? I am glad to present a solution.

One of Iron Mountain's most popular offerings is called Secure IT Asset Disposition. This is an e-Stewards certified service where we dispose of corporate IT assets using a secure, efficient and environmentally friendly manner either at the customer site or at a remote location. We can dispose of virtually any IT asset including copiers, fax machines, cell phones, servers and disk arrays. In so doing, you can be assured that your data will be rendered inaccessible. At the end of the process, you will be provided with a certificate of destruction that can be used for audit purposes. It is a win-win situation.

Now, to my arch enemy otherwise known as QBOS_0403, just like my brethren, Superman and Luke Skywalker, I WILL defeat you; it is simply a matter of time. On particularly bad days, my fingers itch to dial Iron Mountain customer service to schedule an urgent and unexpected copier pickup even though I know that IT would not approve. However, up to this point I have exercised restraint, but my patience is not unlimited. For my colleagues at Iron Mountain, if QBOS_0403 suddenly disappears, I will suggest that you interview my neighbor Frank while I slip out the back stairway. You can thank me later.

LINK:	http://blog.ironmountain.com/2013/data-backup-and-recovery/my-epic-str...
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