Process of Printing Part 1

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Welcome back to print Security Intermediate course on. And in this lesson I will be talking about what the network printer is today. And what are the ways to print to printer.

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So natural printer is essentially an intelligent device

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that can, ah, um,

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connect to a network,

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uh, if needed to provide credentials to network if needed. It has to be

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part off company security or networking policies. To the extent that print devices are

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and the in order to do that, it has to have a processor memory and some kind off permanent storage like hard drive. HDs is the or something like that. Or it could be a flash drive.

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So, um,

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in the meaning, intelligent, it's not. So It means that printing devices today are not just printing. They're doing other tasks as well.

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And when it comes to other tasks, I mean, for example, authenticating user and device, communicating with server to check the user credentials or communicated with active directory

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and allow these things that are absolutely needed to be part off modern

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active network.

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So the other thing about network printer, which is very important, is that it's not monitored by standard monitoring tools. That means it's not monitored by

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um. It can be monitored by standard monitoring tools that are used for PCs, but only to a certain extent. If you look at the labs at the end of this course, you will see that the number of things that have to be monitored and that can be monitored on a printer

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and the difference between that and a PC is huge. So

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you need the specialized monitoring tool, or you need some kind off plug in for standard the monitoring tools that can access these things in a printer, which don't exist on the PC.

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Which brings us to the third point, which means that network printer is not PC compliance. So things like group policies, application management, etcetera. They simply don't work on the printer.

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You cannot tell printer when you boot up. You just need to apply some group policies like, for example, password lent or whatever,

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or you cannot install Indian style applications from a printer. It's not the PC. It's not running on the Windows operating system or any other standards and point operating system. That is for,

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uh, computers.

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They do have applications, but they have to managed again by nonstandard monitoring tools

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and just mentioned the most of these tools are made by printing renders itself because they are the only ones that have access. And they have knowledge off the architecture of the device from a softer side of from operating system side

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in order to make it work like it's supposed to.

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And now this brings us to the whole idea of printings of what is printing about.

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So printing is about putting dots off some kind off dye or pigment on the paper so you have a paper and you have to

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put some text of pictures of graphics on it.

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In order to do that, you have to,

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um,

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change what you see on the screen in a format that is understandable by a printer.

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And that is a very complex process in which lots of different objects that need to be converted to raster image get converted. So we have photos

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we have as you have seen text,

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which is usually in the vector format. So it's defined by curves, not by dots

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on my rest here,

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and then you have vector graphics or vector images,

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and the whole idea about director images that they are made in such a way that they can be easily scaled on in a document without losing

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the quality. So it means that if you scale a vector image, it remains the details because it's not defined by pixels in a like in a photo. But it's a

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and it's defined by curves like funds like letters.

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So, um,

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printing process in, ah, Windows or in any other operating system like Mac OS is simple. You need a driver, you need driver for the

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certain device you're having. And sometimes it's different for every printer the each vendor is making. And sometimes it's, um ah, it can be one driver for the group off devices

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and the usual thing that we use in, ah, big companies or even small companies that we have, ah, server. But his driver.

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So driver is software that converts

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document into some kind of format that the printer can understand.

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Sometimes it does the rendering arrest arise ation of the image itself,

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and sometimes it's doing it partially, and sometimes it's not doing it at all.

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So when you have a server based printing, which is a common thing, in bigger companies,

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you have Windows application,

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and then you click on print, and one happens when you click on print is it generates a meta file,

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and then it communicates with the PRINCIP system and a driver in a PC

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and then generates another myth. A file, which is then sent to a server

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and the driver is the same driver is installed on the server,

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and they usually the same versions of a driver. Actually, the windows has a system in which, if you have the newer driver on the server, but first time you print, it essentially automatically updates without asking you the driver on your PC.

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Not always, but almost always.

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So you send the meta file toe. A driver driver is doing the rendering, so converting things to rest her when needed. Remaining some kind off curves in the vector format win when it's possible, depending on a printer or the and the driver,

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and then you have something called print file and then it's sent to a printer.

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A similar process can be done without the server. If you're using something called Direct I P printing, which you have Windows application, it creates a meta file.

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Then the prince up system generally does. The rendering in a PC generates a print file, and then it's into a printer, which then processes that print file and then puts the dots on the page.

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So this is the whole

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process of printing in general.

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And let's do just a short learning check about where he is rendering down in several big printing. So is it on the server?

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Is it on a PC,

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or is it done in Windows Printing System or host BC

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And the answer If you took

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careful listening is on a surfer.

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So

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in this lesson, you have learned about what does it mean to have a printer in the network today from from security perspective, meaning what kind of device that is and what happens when you hit the print button.

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And this last part is going to be very important in, ah, lessons to come because then you'll see how just the print file can do something about,

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um,