[ale] SMB Secret?

[randy.janinda at ndcorp.com (Randy Janinda)]

I was just playing with smbclient and found an interesting tidbit. I used the following commands:

smbclient -L windowsmachine

I received the foloowing output:

     Sharename      Type      Comment
      ---------      ----      -------
      PRINTER$       Disk      
      WINNAME_HP     Printer   
      WINNAME_ZIP    Disk      
      IPC$           IPC       Remote Inter Process Communication

      Server               Comment
      ---------            -------

      Workgroup            Master
      ---------            -------

I decided to see what the "PRINTER$" was all about so I connected:
smbclient //windowsmachine/PRINTER$

To my suprise I was allowed in and a quick "ls" showed me I was dumped into c:/windows/system !!

Can anyone explain why this happened? On a side note, I can't do any REAL damage, only download the contents. I do have access to the machine so any ideas are welcome.

--Randy