You guys don't use the printers that allow you to pour liquid ink in the tanks?
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
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Anybody saying they "protect against viruses" in 2024 is selling something to boomers.
Those are ink printers so this track.
There is nothing quite like a company praying on the ignorance of people who don't know that you can't get a virus on your devices by using 3rd party ink. The ink itself cannot do anything on its own to harm your PC, as far as I'm aware.
Well… turns out they have a serial connection from the printer to the cartridge, all in the name of DRM. And you could put nefarious things on the chip of the cartridge, which would then be able to connect to the computer through the printer. All because of them wanting to thwart third party cartridges, so a problem of their own making, basically.
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.
Why does the ink cartridge need to be so smart that it has CVEs?
The printer firmware, not the cartridge.
Ah my bad
"They're hacking our profits!" - HP CEO
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!
No but see then you could get hacked through...uh...nanobots in the ink! Yeah. Real problem, totally possible, definitely happens.
Some YouTuber said the only evidence if this was an hp document of their internal testing. So instead of fixing the security hole they monetize it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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......
HP trying to pull a "Google" and say it's all for our own protection. :)
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.
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........
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
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.
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.