We have seen the game of Doom running on an ATM machine before, and this particular project is certainly no mean feat either. In fact, a hack that was started by security researcher Michael Jordon allowed the classic FPS title Doom to run on the screen of a wireless Canon Pixma printer, now how about that?
The entire labor of love took Jordon close to four months before the game managed to be up and running on the rather limited hardware. The motivation or inspiration behind this undertaking? Jordon was a man with a point to prove as he wanted to highlight security problems which surround devices that would eventually make up the “internet of things”.
Canon claims that they have every intention to shut down loopholes on future printers so that the printers are a whole lot more difficult to hack into. Right now, Canon’s Pixma range of printers are accessible through the Internet, allowing owners to check up on the device’s status. This is a double edged sword of sorts, since Mr. Jordon discovered that Canon had not done a pretty thorough job in securing such a method of interrogating the device.
Jordon claimed that “the web interface has no user name or password on it”. In other words, anyone had the potential to check out the status of a device once they have stumbled across it, leaving thousands of Pixma printers vulnerable to such a proposition. As for how Doom came into the picture, running the game itself was actual proof that you had full control of the printer. Pretty cool, yes? [Press Release]