HP CEO evokes James Bond-style hack via ink cartridges - ““Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription.””::“Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription.”
Get fucked, HP.
The exact same words that came into my head upon reading this. What a coincidence.
If a manufacturer’s design allows a virus to proliferate as HP claims, they deserve to get sued into oblivion.
I don’t care if it’s not likely to be exploited, the simple fact it would technically be possible to embed a virus in a freaking ink cartridge should be enough to never use their products again.
What should a printer do: take ink from some means -> print
What shouldnt a printer do: Take ink from cartridge -> read its chip to ensure authenticity -> count cycles of usage to not allow further than the chip allows -> somehow have a buffer overflow due to this implementation
Currently I can scan documents but not print due to a non existent and non resettable “paper jam”. If only the printer were smart enough to just print it would be useable.
I have not bought a inkjet printer since forever because they’ve always been crap, and I have given up on laser printers for a long time too now… Nowadays I just don’t think having a personal printer is worth the trouble.
But one of the factors in making this decision was that my last laser printer decided my toner needed to be replaced for absolutely no reason. I am not printing a lot, and it was nowhere near empty.
Turns out there is a built-in hardware check inside the toner which is purely time-based, and after a while it just decides the toner must be checked by support or replaced. I checked on the internet, there is a resistor you can change in the toner to reset the counter and make it “new” again.
I couldn’t be bothered though. It was an old model, I was moving out, I knew a friend who was ready to mess with it so I gave it away, and I never bought another one.
It just means HP printers are an insecure mess and a security breach waiting to happen, so should be added on the “do not buy” list for that reason alone.
Then they want to make it a subscription. With the kind of security displayed there, you would be asking to have your credit card data stolen by subscribing.
I’ve got a guillotine subscription for you right here
Let’s all use our HP office printers to print out guillotines and send them to their -head- office
I don’t understand these articles. Everyone knows these guys are cunts. Don’t buy their stuff.
We know it. People like my father-in-law do not.
Perhaps, but if your FIL was buying a hammer, he workshop buy one that was a tenth the cost of the others but could only hit special nails that cost 10x the price of a normal nail.
HP’s largest market segment for printers is businesses, not individuals. Purchasers of IT equipment for businesses will know better.
HP are one of the few electronics manufacturers who I will never again purchase from
If they are able to patch the printer firmware they should be able to protect the printer from exploits introduced from the network, or the print cartridge.
It seems a bit of a lame excuse for poor workmanship on their behalf.
We will save you from a problem that only exists because we want it to!
My next printer purchase objective is not buying HP again.
Don’t stop at printers; don’t buy any HP product ever again. It’s all been junk for ~15 years at this point.
I started buying printer a long time ago. I had a big and expensive one from Canon, but it’s Linux driver support sucked, and when I asked for documentation to improve it, I got a reply of “open source is theft of intellectual property!”, and no documentation. Well, it was the last item I ever bought from Canon.
I switched to HP, who at least started to support printing on Linux back then, and their printers were good. I’ve worn out a few over the years, but the next one will definitely not be another HP. Not just because of that moron of a CEO.
Brother Laser printer.
One possible choice, yes.
Squeezing every drop of blood out of customers, so can make the red ink.
Got to be crusty old CEOs to take a dying peice of tech, and commercialize it into the ground.
Can’t remember the last HP product I bought.
The last printer I bought was a new-in-box Chinese (Taiwanese, actually, IIRC) off-brand I’d never heard of. It cost me thirty dollars on ebay.
The refills cost me twenty dollars a piece, and are roughly good for the stated number of pages (1,500, give or take).
On Linux, it even does the one thing I really expect a printer to do (besides, yknow, print) and supports A5 well.
Just made me realize I haven’t printed anything in what, 5 years? Even at work, sharing files is way easier.
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!
