The nail that sticks up gets hammered.

If someone else later does something bad with the publicly accessible printer and there's a witch hunt for the responsible party, and the only lead they have is that you emailed them about the possibility in advance...then they'll go after you, even though you were just trying to do a good thing.

And if you're expecting the victim / police / legal system to understand that, technically speaking, it could have literally been anyone with an Internet connection...Or if you think that your good intentions and lack of criminal record mean that the most you'll get is a slap on the wrist even if they think your email "proves" that you did it...you're quite naive, especially given all the recent coverage of Aaron Swartz.

I should note that this isn't unique to computers, by the way. You should also never leave a note on an unlocked car saying "hey, noticed your car was unlocked --signed XYZ".

Also, if someone really wanted to do something bad at least they would do it from Tor or a shadowy proxy from eastern Europe...

Yes, but a Good Samaritan probably wouldn't go to such lengths to hide their identity.

Ok, but IP logs would throw down their assumptions. They wouldn't be able to prove a thing.

> The nail that sticks up gets hammered.

Thank you.