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.world
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    11 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.world
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      11 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.world
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      11 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?

      • ripcord@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        When will you start burning things? What - specifically - would it take?

        I think that basically would be the same answer as your question.

        Edit:. Sorry, looks like you probably had this conversation already. Half of the comments look deleted on my end .

        • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Honestly I already admitted it somewhere else. This is just me being chicken shit to fight the first match. But it will take is me being able to blend into a mob that’s already someplace.

  • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
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    11 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.world
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      11 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

  • Routhinator@startrek.website
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    11 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.world
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    11 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.works
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    11 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.world
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        11 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.world
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          11 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.world
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            11 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.

  • yol@lemmy.world
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    11 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.

  • Valen@lemmy.world
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    11 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.

  • INeedMana@lemmy.world
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    11 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

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    HP is doing what now?

    Sounds to me like HP themselves are the hackers, exceeding authorized access in order to destroy people’s property. Prosecute HP!

    • wikibot@lemmy.worldB
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      11 months ago

      Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:

      The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 (CFAA) is a United States cybersecurity bill that was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to existing computer fraud law (18 U. S. C. § 1030), which had been included in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. Prior to computer-specific criminal laws, computer crimes were prosecuted as mail and wire fraud, but the applying law was often insufficient.

      to opt out, pm me ‘optout’. article | about

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    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.

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • Plopp@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      “Some youtuber”? Lol great source you have there. But yes, it’s been reported that it was HP’s lab that found what they concluded could somehow maybe be used as an attack vector. And other security experts have disagreed with that statement. Who knows.

      (and yes I know the irony of me not providing any source at all)

      • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        That’s not irony, that’s hypocrisy.

        Their source is better than your source. They at least indicated that it was word-of-mouth and didn’t try and present it as anything but that.

        • Plopp@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Maybe my communication was poor. Or maybe we have different definitions of hypocrisy. I never meant to claim my info to be of higher trustworthiness. Had I meant to do that I would have dug up my source, which would have been easy to do. Without source I’m just a rando commenting and I just wanted to highlight the humor in sourcing specifically “some youtuber”, which is the go-to source for crackpot theories (not YouTube, but poorly defined unknown random person on YouTube). My intention was not to be the bringer of the truth. I apologize for any confusion.

      • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        When I watch YouTube I’m usually in total brain drain mode and details have to be really interesting to be remembered.