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.
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.
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…
Especially since they sell brand new printers for the price of about 3 ink cartridges.