HP CEO evokes James Bond-style hack via ink cartridges - ""Our long-term objective is to make printing a subscription.""

tigerjerusalem , 5 months ago

Just made me realize I haven't printed anything in what, 5 years? Even at work, sharing files is way easier.

kaffiene , 5 months ago

HP are one of the few electronics manufacturers who I will never again purchase from

____ , 5 months ago

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.

postnataldrip , 5 months ago

We will save you from a problem that only exists because we want it to!

Treczoks , 5 months ago

My next printer purchase objective is not buying HP again.

PraiseTheSoup , 5 months ago

Don't stop at printers; don't buy any HP product ever again. It's all been junk for ~15 years at this point.

Treczoks , 5 months ago

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.

ArcaneSlime , 5 months ago

Brother Laser printer.

Treczoks , 5 months ago

One possible choice, yes.

Octopus1348 , 5 months ago

Nowadays you need to print rarely, so paying for an entire month of the subscription just to print 10 pages is a terrible waste of money.

badbytes , 5 months ago

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.

mspencer712 , 5 months ago

Even old HP printers aren’t safe. I have a two-generations-back HP Color LaserJet I got from a tech recycler for $300. (MFP M477fdw) It can be optionally configured to enforce or not enforce genuine toner. I can get a four-pack of CYMK high-capacity cartridges for $70-80 on Amazon. Prints wonderfully, toner is cheap, so I’m in the clear, right? Safe from this BS?

Turns out that wear items (intermediate transfer belt, for example) within the printer have chips with versioned firmware. And the printer will throw error codes if different firmware versions within the printer aren’t mutually compatible.

I’m sure the moment they believe they can get away with it, replacement ITB assemblies, fixers, document scanners, etc will include a shrink wrap license and firmware that requires you to update everything else to match - and the matching firmware will make official toner no longer optional.

Definitely Fuck HP. The moment any of that comes to pass and disables my own printer I’m re-recycling this printer and buying another brand immediately.

SlopppyEngineer , 5 months ago

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.

fine_sandy_bottom , 5 months ago

I don't understand these articles. Everyone knows these guys are cunts. Don't buy their stuff.

spongebue , 5 months ago

We know it. People like my father-in-law do not.

fine_sandy_bottom , 5 months ago

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.

Kit , 5 months ago

HP's largest market segment for printers is businesses, not individuals. Purchasers of IT equipment for businesses will know better.

dugmeup , 5 months ago

The problem with asshole CXOs like him is that they bring down whole companies and all the people working in it while jogging off to the next CXO role.

Not just him, but the board that supports him should.be kicked out.

BlackEco , 5 months ago

L4s reposting a link I posted two days ago 🙃

https://lemmy.blackeco.com/post/383103

CaptainBasculin , 5 months ago

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

itsathursday , 5 months ago

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.

brsrklf , 5 months ago

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.

FangedWyvern42 , 5 months ago

Get fucked, HP.

sir_pronoun , 5 months ago

The exact same words that came into my head upon reading this. What a coincidence.

bobs_monkey , 5 months ago

If a manufacturer's design allows a virus to proliferate as HP claims, they deserve to get sued into oblivion.

brsrklf , 5 months ago

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.