I knew about this aspect of printers more than a decade ago, before I ever got into tech, so I'm 100% sure it was/is semi-widely known. It's really sad that the Intercept and other news orgs are so technically oblivious that they would screw their source like this.
Is was very widely and publicly known. I usually hesitate to say things like this, but the conclusion is unavoidable: either the whistleblower and the people working at the Intercept are colossal idiots, or the whole narrative is fake.
