Who says I am not authorised? I can claim that public access is an implicit authorization, like any website! And there is no warning or message in the public control panels.
Is a printer publicly accessible over an IP network really so different from a fax machine publicly accessible over switched phone network? Hell, many times (probably always these days) the fax machine is a printer so if the printer is a "computer" the fax machine half of it surely should be as well.
I can see them getting you for spam, just as they can with unsolicited faxes I believe, but anything more than that? Seems a little silly.
To add to the printer/fax comparison, I have known people who used printers in different physical locations within an organization as a "fax machine" that was easier to use with a computer. Need to send some documents to the guys across the state? Print it to them.
There have been case(s) I think (in USA) concerning websites where it was argued successfully that placing an non-password protected page available on the public internet was implied consent to access/use that service.
That seems the right way to do it. You can't then, for example, put up a website which enables printing and then claim that people who use it are financially liable for using that service.
That would be like putting a bench on a busy street and then popping up and charging people if they happened to sit on it - if they sit down, you can tell them they're not authorised to sit without payment, or you can advertise lack of authorisation (eg with a price list) but otherwise you're implying consent.
Yeah, and there is a guy currently fighting in court because he changed some numbers in a URL and was able to get information on other customers from AT&T ... CFAA.
This is different in essential details. Google are indexing these pages. That means the pages are advertised as part of the public internet.
Now not every layman knows how to properly hook things up to the internet, but there is a definite implied consent in doing so. If the pages were restricted by password and we were bypassing it, or they were locked to an IP and we could spoof it, then there wouldn't be an implied consent to access the service being provided; but that's not the case here.
If you want to look at intent then it's notable that many listed are University addresses - people setting up those printers absolutely know what they're doing.
If you purposefully used excessive paper/ink or you kill the hardware with a broken firmware update then those things are definitely not authorised by the implied consent and would constitute vandalism.
Do you really believe that? That the owners of the printers on this public wire would appreciate, in fact deliberately encourage, anonymous users accessing them like that?
I don't see where the implied consent is unless they were advertising the availability of those addresses on the public internet, eg they were listed in Google. It's a small but crucial difference to the legal position IMO.