Is a printer secure by default?

Today, at a customer premises, I had to print a document on a local printer. Out of the Windows domain, I decided to use a printer by connecting directly to its IP address. nmap is your best frien in such case. Here is the scan result against the printer:

H:\>nmap -sT 10.100.15.82

Starting Nmap 4.20ALPHA6 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap ) \
at 2007-09-12 14:04 Romance Standard Time
Interesting ports on 10.100.15.82:
Not shown: 1670 filtered ports
PORT     STATE SERVICE
21/tcp   open  ftp
23/tcp   open  telnet
25/tcp   open  smtp
80/tcp   open  http
110/tcp  open  pop3
139/tcp  open  netbios-ssn
514/tcp  open  shell
515/tcp  open  printer
631/tcp  open  ipp
1720/tcp open  H.323/Q.931
5060/tcp open  sip
9100/tcp open  jetdirect
MAC Address: 00:00:74:A1:C3:2F (Ricoh Company)

Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 106.844\
seconds

H:\>

Even if printers have more and more functions (this one has also fax and copier features), why are so much ports “open” by default?

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