As much as I love the brand, this was just obviously going to happen. It always happens, it’s the eventual outcome. All that is needed is one middle manager wanting to get an extra bones to come up with some short sighted idea that will make a little extra money in the short run and possibly bankrupt the company in the long term.
See Boeing, see Intel, see…
The only way to not have this happen is to get open source hardware. The open source eco system is amazing already but we need more focus on that, hardware. CPU’s, Computers, printers, phones, everything
I’m only letting my latest Brother printer connect to my computer through the USB cable. No Internet connection at all.
“You were supposed to be the one”
Is this happening to toner for their laser printers too?
I really wish we had open source 2D printers like we have open source 3D printers. That could solve a lot of the problems I think as we could have an open spec to allow people to do whatever they want. My Prusa doesn’t care what brand filament I want to use, just as long it can drive it, melt it, and lay it down the way I need. Also why is it my 3D printers are more reliable than my 2D printers most days?
Any brands left? 🤔😅
FedEx if you only need to print once in a blue moon…
Or the library or office supply store.
Et tu, frater?
Brother losing all competitive advantage they had via reputation. Doing a very big 180 and reversing the changes and commiting to no do t his BS is the only way to undo this
Losing*
They must’ve hired some new analysts that said “hey, people are willing to accept less! Why are we doing more?”
It’s up to the people to prove them wrong, but that usually doesn’t happen :\
If Brother starts playing that game, they will lose. Why bother buying their considerably more expensive printers over those of HP if they are going to be just as bad in the third party ink department?
Thats’s a shame, I always considered brother one of the better makers of paper manglers.
And this is why I’ll never connect my working printer to the internet.
Taking a USB stick to it to print is annoying, but fuck this shit.
They’re all horrible companies
What’s stopping you from connecting it to the local network but denying internet access? E.g. via a firewall rule or separate VLAN?
effort
understandable, have a good day
As if using an USB stick to print isn’t more effort 😂
Most relatable comment ever.
Just connect it to a Server (like a raspi) via USB and share the printer through CUPS
Its a little tedious to set up, but it works
Is there a step by step anywhere to achieve this? I’m adept in tech. But don’t have the training or knowledge to just do it
How many cups does it take to transfer the printer over?
I think you can just use 1 large bucket instead of many small cups. Faster that way.
Why do that when you could just connect it to the LAN and put it on a separate VLAN?
Because it’s a lot simpler and avoids the issue of dealing with printer drivers on all your machines.
I could see the argument that it’s more air gapped this way. Without having physical access to the Pi (or at least SSH access), it’d be hard to get any network connection through USB.
But personally, I just blocked outgoing traffic from the printer.
Are there more precise informations about affected firmware versions yet? Recently bought a refurbished laser printer and still have a brother toner, but my intent would be to buy aftermarket toners in future.
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ink printers are total scams, you might as well use a printing shop or library to do it, if you are planning on printing large number of pages. we got a canon laser jet printer, only need toner cartridge, no subscription based models. we orignally had scam-epson.
The printers in the article are using toner. The title is misleading.
These motherfuckers are actively making tech as a whole less secure by destroying any trust the public may have had in firmware updates.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched on a lot of shit because consumers are seeing more and more firmware or software updates actively making things WORSE.
Definitely true. I’ve been putting off an upgrade of my NAS because they have randomly decided to completely remove the video streaming software that came with it when I bought it. So infuriating.
Time to DIY.
I use a regular Linux system and set stuff up manually, but there are options that do more out of the box if you don’t know how (and don’t want to learn) to DIY the software.
I’m working on that. I have little previous experience with Linux and self hosting but I’m slowly making progress. I now have switched my gaming PC over to Linux almost full time. I know I can switch to Jellyfin for video streaming but it’s been a lower priority to figure out compared with other services I’m trying to understand how to self host.
Tell me you are using synology without telling me you are using synology
That sucks.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched
I don’t understand why a printer would ever need an “urgent security fix”. Or a software update for that matter.
Any networked device can be used to gain access to the rest of the network (kind of).
… Because products can contain security exploits, and if not patched could leave homes and businesses vulnerable.
This shouldn’t need to be explained, but here we are.
The fun part is the security exploits often come from things like DRM ink cartridges that allows an attack to come from the goddamn cartridge!
Wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t include a serial connection to the cartridge in the first place!
Oh hey I can think of a solution to improve security here!
Depends on whether you absolutely need your printers connected to the internet or not.
