The company says it wants to protect you from “viruses.” Experts are skeptical.

HP CEO Says They Brick Printers That Use Third-Party Ink Because of … Hackers::The company says it wants to protect you from “viruses.” Experts are skeptical.

  • RememberTheApollo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    73·
    10 months ago

    Amazing how completely absurd things like this come out of their mouths and they expect people to believe it. Insulting is what it is. We’ve had an HP AIO printer for a decade + that is “bricked” because of their stupid DRM. I can’t even use the scanner because we have non-HP ink. Never gonna buy another HP product.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      10 months ago

      That’s literally a crime. HP exceeded authorized access to your computer (specifically, the microcontroller in your printer) in order to damage it. I don’t know if the criminal complaint should be directed to the FBI or the FTC, but either way, you should file one.

    • EdibleFriend@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21·
      10 months ago

      You put the wrong thing in and they take away all functionality.

      I, once again, am forced to ask…when do we start burning things?

  • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    39·
    10 months ago

    So what they are saying is, their design is so terrible that a drm module can cause their printer to become a vulnerability on the network.

    Or they are just lying for profits…

    • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      Either way, they’ve already gone beyond any level of integrity I can support. I already wasn’t buying any HP products and will continue not doing so. What else can you do?

      It unfortunate given their reputation of old. Current management is trying to milk any remnants of that reputation, but they’re not the same: just another scammy consumer products company with shitty products. Cross them off your list and let them fade. Always remember that sometime cheap or even free is just not worth it

  • CodeName@infosec.pubEnglish
    30·
    10 months ago

    What harm are they saying these “hackable” cartridges can even do? Brick the printers? So they are preemptively bricking the printers because… the hackers might… brick the printers? Makes sense! I expect better from corpo technobabble. This is just idiotic.

    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      10 months ago

      Site won’t let me read the article, but if I remember correctly from another one of these threads, they’re saying that a hacked cartridge could be used to load malware onto the computer itself. If true, the printer itself is hilariously insecure, as are the drivers they provide.

      • CodeName@infosec.pubEnglish
        3·
        10 months ago

        Right? Instead of bricking the printer they can make their software secure. But we all know the reality is they want to punish anyone who dares to buy third party ink which is why they ignore vulnerabilities, and probably created them in the first place. Just a sad state of affairs. Part of me wants to believe consumers and even corporations will rebel against this obvious BS, but they’ll probably make bank.

        • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Not saying it’s correct, but it would be an interesting way to make sure the printer you installed ink in had “upgraded” firmware. Make the ink carry the firmware and flash when installed…

  • Magnus Åhall@lemmy.ahall.seEnglish
    25·
    10 months ago

    What if they DIDN’T have a chip in the ink cartridge, and just used it as a container that could be refilled and used in every printer they made? No hacking the cartridge then.

    No, that’s crazy talk!

    • ilinamorato@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      10 months ago

      No but see then you could get hacked through…uh…nanobots in the ink! Yeah. Real problem, totally possible, definitely happens.

  • Routhinator@startrek.websiteEnglish
    25·
    10 months ago

    Meanwhile, here in reality land:

    People are downgrading their firmware to ancient versions likely containing old CVEs because fuck HP and their printer cartridge mafia.

  • TurboWafflz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    10 months ago

    It’s always so sad to see how far HP has fallen. They used to be such an innovative company and produce so many good products but then they decided to not anymore.

  • N0body@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    18·
    10 months ago

    Makes perfect sense. Bill Gates puts Chinese 5G into third party printer ink. It’s used to activate the spikes in vaccinations.

      • extant@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        10 months ago

        Thats actually a misunderstanding the lasers aren’t any brighter but the stuff they put in the chemtrails that makes the frogs gay adds a bright glow around the laser.

        • TurtleJoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          10 months ago

          And the stuff they put in chemtrails are the original RNA packets that will change your DNA. The covid vaccine is what activates them.

          (But seriously, pretty much every covid vaccine conspiracy is just the chemtrail conspiracy repackaged.)

          • extant@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            Why you gotta call out the psyops groups out there, you know how hard they’re already working. There’s no time for coming up with new campaigns when the old ones work so well.

  • Valen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    10 months ago

    So the bricking is because there are chips in the ink cartridges. And why are there chips in the cartridges? Because HP wants to charge exorbitant rates for ink.

  • yol@lemmy.worldEnglish
    15·
    10 months ago

    Imagine if they put engineers time and money into developing faster, lighter, printers or faster, easier to use scanners or next generation OCR software or some sort of enterprise printing solution that doesn’t make me want to throw up.

    No. Physical DRM only.

    Also, their laptops and business workstations have been quite bad in my experience.

  • 1984@lemmy.todayEnglish
    12·
    10 months ago

    HP trying to pull a “Google” and say it’s all for our own protection. :)

  • INeedMana@lemmy.worldEnglish
    10·
    10 months ago

    I’m not big on gambling. But I feel I could bet that their software/firmware is so bad that someone could still hack the network via the bricked printer