- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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If I buy a product, and the manufacturer remotely disables that product in order to coerce me into buying their goods and services, the people responsible should be charged with fraud, destruction of property, criminal conspiracy, racketeering, and anything else that can stick. It should be treated no less severely than if they hired thugs to smash it with a crowbar.
Ahhh yes, but you see, on page 176 §12.4.11 of the EULA it clearly states that by using our products you’ve given us your consent to rip you off.
I’m pretty sure it is illegal under hacking laws
“We have seen that you can embed viruses in the cartridges. Through the cartridge, [the virus can] go to the printer, [and then] from the printer, go to the network.”
Either this is complete bullshit or HP is over-engineering completely unnecessary vulnerabilities into their hardware. There’s no reason why a dumb ink cartridge (no DRM) would need any ability to send data to the printer other than very short messages (like a few bytes at most), so it should not be possible for an ink cartridge to give the printer a virus unless this vulnerability is the direct result of the new DRM-tracking additions.
So HP is either malicious or incompetent, and regardless of which it is, I can’t see myself trusting another of their products ever again.
So HP is either malicious or incompetent
Why not both!?
I’d rather have them be both. I think the incompetence would ameliorate the maliciousness.
i didn’t mean to exclude that option but rather thought it to be redundant since the result is the same.
So… Comically evil?
Either this is complete bullshit or HP is over-engineering
It’s not bullshit. Wether or not it’s “over-engineered” is debatable… a lot of seemingly simple technology is crazy complicated these days.
For example some USB-C cables are a simple cable with four pins soldered to four wires and a bit of plastic so they don’t touch. Others have over 20 wires, most of them individually shielded (which means a lot more wire and a lot more plastic separating them) with incredibly complex circuit boards to detect and counteract electromagnetic interference to eliminate cross talk between those 20 wires (because even with shielding, some of the signal on one wire still leaks out onto the ones next to them).
Is USB-C over engineered? That depends if you’re using it to charge your phone or to connect your laptop to an external screen/wired internet connection/power/etc. In the latter case, not over engineered at all.
The circuitry on printer cartridges don’t just do DRM, they’re also part of the calibration process to output accurate colours. Total overkill to print a hard copy of a payment receipt for your printer warranty… but printing a photo? I can get behind the over-engineering for that.
But I don’t see why the calibration would need to be on the cartridge. Like I could understand some sensors or similar but at the end the logic and all that the logical thing would be to be on printer.
But HP thinks that when you buy a printer, the company is investing in you
That sounds gross, but I’m pretty sure what’s meant is simply that their printers are a loss leader, and the margins are supposed to be made up in the ink cartridges. Like here’s another way of putting it: when Keurig sells the coffee machine at a loss, they are investing in you hoping you will buy a lot of kcups to recoup the investment.
That seems fine on the surface. But they don’t just sell ink cartridges. They show them empty when there’s still ink, or if you only run out of one kind of ink. They’re sniveling backstabbing weasels who fuck over their customers. Fuck them.
Plus, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen an affordable printer. I’m just going to get gouged twice.
I love my Epson EcoTank printer. $12/3oz. Ink is a fantastic bargain, and no chips to deal with as they’re just big, dumb, tanks.
Ditto. It’s great. No DRM. Just ink. The printer is more pricy but it’ll save you in the end.
Nice. I’ll look into this!
Yeah I’m not saying HP are the good guys, just explaining the wording of that quote.
Brother makes great printers and they accept generic toner/ink.
… and the inks report as empty before they are empty, regardless of brand. Still, cheaper to throw in a new 3rd party tank than throwing money at HP.
My next printer will be an “eco tank” refillable printer - which probably has other special problems I don’t know about yet.
You can put brother printers on continuous mode and they will keep printing. When the quality starts to look bad, take the toner out and shake it. Put it back in. Volia.
*Brother laser printer can do that. My consumer inkjet can’t.
Oh nice. Thanks for the info!
Similar with XBOX. Microsoft was selling Xboxes at a loss and making up revenue in selling games.
Recently, Microsoft made the push to get their game rental service Xbox Game Pass onto competing consoles like Playstation and Switch.
Savvy gamers will recall this is what SEGA did before bowing out of the hardware game entirely.
If Microsoft is learning that loss leaders are ineffective, maybe HP needs to wake the fuck up and smell the coffee, too.
shady is as shady does. on the street or in a corner office.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Last Thursday, HP CEO Enrique Lores addressed the company’s controversial practice of bricking printers when users load them with third-party ink.
That frightening scenario could help explain why HP, which was hit this month with another lawsuit over its Dynamic Security system, insists on deploying it to printers.
HP has issued firmware updates that block printers with such ink cartridges from printing, leading to the above lawsuit (PDF), which is seeking class-action certification.
Still, because chips used in third-party ink cartridges are reprogrammable (their “code can be modified via a resetting tool right in the field,” according to Actionable Intelligence), they’re less secure, the company says.
Further, there’s a sense from cybersecurity professionals that Ars spoke with that even if such a threat exists, it would take a high level of resources and skills, which are usually reserved for targeting high-profile victims.
Realistically, the vast majority of individual consumers and businesses shouldn’t have serious concerns about ink cartridges being used to hack their machines.
The original article contains 766 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 79%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Its about time to ditch printers completely inside the office. The only people who should be worried about printers are graphics shops like AlphaGraphics. What the fuck are we doing? Just beholden to these companies because paper feels nice in the CEOs hands? We deserve what we fucken get.
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