Wednesday | 04 DEC 2024
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Printing at Staples

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Date: 2023-01-16
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This is going to be a bit of a strange post. This will outline what I did to print a document at staples.

At Staples, they have the print center and there you can print anything you want yourself. At least anything you want a regular sheet of paper. I think if you want to print anything like architecture drawings and the like you may need to talk to someone.

Anyway, you can go up to any of the printers it will ask you to first pre-authorize an amount. I chose to authorize for 10$ meaning that I could print up to 10$ worth of stuff. Once I finished that step, I could then select what I wanted to print from. I chose the phone option which then told me to e-mail my document to an e-mail address. I sent the e-mail and in response I got a specific code.

This code is what unlocks my documents and once I entered it, I could see the files I sent as attachments. Then it was as easy as selecting an attachment and setting some printing options.

I have to say this entire thing was about 5 minutes from me entering the store and me leaving the store. It was quite the experience because I have printed in university and at other pay as print places and it has never been as smooth. I was worried that the e-mail would be slow but the code came in a few seconds after I sent the e-mail. It is worrying that they now have my documents in a mailbox somewhere and I'm curious what they have scanning it and if they have backups.

I'm also wondering if I could brute force the code to get other people's documents, it doesn't feel safe not knowing how they are generating the codes and what they are doing to protect these e-mails. How much sensitive data is Staples holding on to?

I also want the printer I was using, it was silent and it printing my fully color images immediately and silently, it was magical!

Great experience with Staples printing.