Epson's printer drivers keep asking for
Bidirectional Network Access for
E_SRUN03.exe and EPIBSR10.exe
which seem to be in
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\spool\drivers\w32x86
and
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\spool\drivers\w32x86\3
I have installed several printers over time so I'm not
sure which printers, drivers, are involved.
I think there are other Epson related .exe's.

Is Epson spying on me?
Are they checking to see if I'm refilling my cartridges?
Maybe they are spying on me to see if I'm printing
images of currency, or kiddy porn.

I've been alright since I came off the medication,
but now I'm getting paranoid again, and can't sleep
because of the worry.

Why are they spying on me and what are these
..exe's that keep triggering my firewall?
Do printers have to call home.

Please help.

<ato_zee (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Did you have a Epson printer setup up as a network printer at one time? If
you did, go into my network and remove the printer if necessary.

On Sun, 4 Feb 2007 21:19:20 GMT, ato_zee (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote:

I once needed to remove bidirectional support for an HP printer
because a conflict with another parallel port driver made the
printer work about 20 times slower whenever that other driver was
loaded. The only loss, after communication with the printer became
one-way was that it was no longer possible to use HP's utilities to
check ink levels, have the printer send various warnings to the
computer, etc. Since you're getting Bidirectional Network Access
requests, do you have Windows configured to allow other computers to
print to your local Epson printer? If so, the purpose of the
request might be to allow those other users to also receive warnings
and notices from the printer ("print job complete", "out of paper",
"out of ink", etc.) If Epson wanted to "phone home" it wouldn't
request bidirectional printer support, it would try to use the
internet, and a decent firewall would trap any such attempts, and
depending on how it was configured, either automatically reject
those attempts or ask you whether to allow or disallow it.

ato_zee (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote in
news:b8qdnVpE_chK0FvYnZ2dnUVZ8t2snZ2d (AT) pipex (DOT) net:

I'm similarly paranoid. I wonder about the same thing. We have a Brother
Multi-Function machine with a built in Ethernet port and the Brother
drivers never set off the firewall to monitor/print to the Brother. The
Epson driver, however, set off the firewall so much that I finally had to
give the firewall instructions to permanently disallow Epson programs to
make a network connection.

Strangely, even with those Epson programs prohibited from network access
(supposedly), the Epson drivers still print to Epson printers over our
network and the Epson drivers still report the same progress information
backc to the client computers.

So, why do the Epson drivers still perform properly over the network even
though they've been denied internet access?

Why are the Epson drivers contacting the DNS server at my ISP?

I, too, am paranoid if you are paranoid.

However ...

.... let's remember Henry Kissinger's advice ... "You may be paranoid but
that doesn't mean they're not watching you!"

//rus\\

Now Now

Epson does not spy on users who use Epson OEM ink.

Meander Holefield wrote:

On 7-Feb-2007, Meander Holefield <meander (AT) the (DOT) net> wrote:

Think I've cracked it. Epson are checking the EAROM and EPROM
in your printer to see if you are refilling, if so they permanently turn
off a few nozzes. That's why we are seeing what we assume
to be clogs from shiddy refill ink, it's no the ink at all.

:-D Now duz dis take branes :-D

ato_zee (AT) hotmail (DOT) com wrote:

measekite <inkystinky (AT) oem (DOT) com> wrote in news:jNHyh.19699$zH1.10951
@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:

Sounds bizarre I admit. I had to chuckle. On the other hand, I know that
50 bits destined for my printer's chip registers could easily slip through
"sniffers" while I watch and I'd never even notice it.

//rus\\

Think of the class action lawsuit and DMA criminal prosecutions!

"Meander Holefield" <meander (AT) the (DOT) net> wrote