Juha Saarinen: Sentry Eagle surveillance programmes

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Photo / AP

I was intending to give Snowden and the topic of mass state surveillance a rest, as it is starting to feel done to death already.

The last lot of leaked documents will have a bunch of high-tech companies grind their teeth, as they suggest that not only is there a concerted effort to plant "backdoors" into communications equipment but there could also be spies employed in American and overseas companies.

Documents on the Sentry Eagle collection of surveillance programmes also undermine claims by telcos and international cable operators who insist their networks have not been intercepted by spy agencies. What's more, the National Security Agency appears to have collaborated with different companies on Sentry Eagle programmes.

Even if what is described in the leaked papers was never put into action - and that's unlikely to be the case, given the information spans several years - the damage has been done.

Until there is reassurance that user and business data isn't routinely captured, analysed and stored for unknown existing and future purpose, anyone even moderately conscious about information security will think twice about using cloud and other networked services.

How cloud and web providers will be able to provide that reassurance is hard to say, as it doesn't look like they'll get any help from governments.

Instead, large American providers are fighting the US government for permission to tell customers if and when their customers' data is being requested, the very first, tiny step towards greater transparency.

Google's Eric Schmidt is already warning that the spying with unfettered access and data retention proposals in twenty different countries could do far more damage than imagined.

"We're going to end up breaking the internet," Schmidt said.

Meanwhile, it sounds like Snowden's preparing for the worst. In Laura Poitras Citizenfour documentary that screened in New York, he says he already knows how this will end for him.

What that means remains to be seen, but it's not likely to be a happy ending to the Snowden saga. Nor is it certain that the leaks will end even if Snowden is finished off.

Gear: Brother MFC-J5720DW multi-function printer/scanner

It's been quite a while since I last looked at printers, so when the Brother MFC-J5720DW (who names these things?) arrived, it was surprising to see how much has been crammed into a relatively low cost device.

You get lots of features for the $400 recommended retail price (don't pay that - the printer can be had for $50 less if you shop around). On top of the colour printer, there's a scanner (24-bit colour, max 1,200 by 1,200 dots per inch), Wi-Fi and wired networking and a fax, should you require 90s tech like that.

The J5720DW is easy to setup and manage remotely with software for Windows and Mac OS X as well as the touch screen on the printer itself. It's a matter of minutes to poke in the ink cartridges, connect the printer to a network and you're done.

Better yet, the J5720DW supports printing from mobile devices and can handle up to A3 size paper.

For the money, this Brother produces decent print quality on normal A4 paper. The output wasn't as sharp and crisp as from my five-year old Dell colour laser, but good enough for most normal print jobs.

Brother says the printer can produce up to 1,200 by 6,000 DPI prints at 20/22 pages per minute (black and white/colour) but both those specifications are rather optimistic. It's not a slow device by any means, and not too noisy either apart from a slightly annoying high-pitched whine when it starts up.

Scanning images and documents on the other hand produced excellent results and was quick to boot.

I've still got ink in the XL cartridges which are rated for 2,400 and 1,200 pages black and white and colour respectively, with five per cent coverage.

Black and white cartridges can be had for around $58 including GST and a three-pack with colour ones for $98 so you're looking at a cost per page somewhere in the 11 to 12 cents region. Again, don't pay RRP for the cartridges: they're almost a fifth less in stores.

For my needs, I would spend more money for better print quality. If you're after an affordable multi-function business printer with scanner though, the Brother MFC-J5720DW is worth checking out.