security issues and fax machines

A few days ago I was walking down the street and I found a fax machine on the sidewalk waiting for the garbage truck to collect it. Of course the truck arrived too late and I got home with a fax machine to play with. This was a heavily used Panasonic model which had a lot of dust in every place possible. I left it in the storage room for about 8 days before I decided to play with it a bit. And then after tinkering with it for 10 minutes it occured to me that this fax machine could pose a serious security threat for its previous owner for the following reasons:

Since it is still pretty much operational,

1. I could listen the recorded incoming messages on the answering machine.

2.I could hear the recorded message of the answering machine.

3.I could read all the faxes that had been received on the roll of ink paper that was stored in the fax. Thats a LOOOOONG roll of paper to read.

4. I could read the 30 last numbers that had called this particular fax machine.

5. Could access all the stored numbers in the fax's telephonebook.

Now malice is not in my playbook, but if it was, I could make the life of the person owning this fax quite interesting by having so much data about the contacts and the business. Of course such an attack would be considered kinda analog and not as interesting or in depth as getting access to an email account for example but still troublesome. Of course if the fax hadn't been operational or had been off the AC for longer period not all the data would be accessible. But electronics can be fixed if there is need to.

All I can say is: Take care when disposing an old fax machine you dont know what a dumpster dive might reveal.