6 ms·

HP Apologizes for Bricking Third-Party Cartridges, Will Restore Functionality

65 points by defenestration 10y ago

corbet 10y ago
So now will they stop bricking "Genuine HP" cartridges every time I look away from the printer for a few days?
sandworm101 10y ago
Don't care. HP is on my no-buy list until they promise to not do this again. Ever. I don't own an HP printer today and I probably now won't for a while. DRM stunts like this, the surprise bricking of working hardware, are not forgiven overnight.
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Apologies and promises are worthless. If they move to free software and firmware, I might consider them again. No trust required.
ensiferum 10y ago
This is normal. I'd expect the sales of ink cartridges to be a bigger business than the sale of printers itself.
- dspillett 10y ago
  > I'd expect ... Yes, that has been the case for many years.
- mthoms 10y ago
  Why would you expect that though? It is indeed the state of things today but I can't, from a technical standpoint, see how this is a natural or "normal" conclusion.
ChrisNorstrom 10y ago
Why bother, just go with the new Epson Eco-Tank printer ET-3600 and you get the ink tanks on the side, basically a continuous ink system. You can buy a gallon off non-epson ink (like Nano Digital brand ink) and literally print color for fractions of a penny per page. Cartridges seem so outdated.
- yitchelle 10y ago
  Just looked this up as I have not heard of it before. "Cartridge-free printing — comes with up to 2 years of ink in the box" - I really like this bit. Any idea how this works from a dollars & cents perspective?
  - pricechild 10y ago
    They're filling radio adverts here in the UK about them, claiming "new tanks cost as little as £6". If replacements won't be needed for 2 years I figure most people will expect it to have broken and been taken off the market by then...
  - criddell 10y ago
    They are excellent document printers. The ones I've used have been okay for printing photos, but that isn't what they are tuned for.
- LukeB_UK 10y ago
  Partially because some people don't want to spend that much money on something they'll rarely use (cheapest I found from a quick search on amazon UK for any of the Eco-Tank series was £185)
- travanx 10y ago
  Got a Canon ink jet and a third party tank. Win win. Never ever will go with HP again, after buying the biggest POS HP inkjet printer. First printer shipped broken. Second wouldn't feed paper after a year. Not to mention the color ink drying out. Brother Laser is amazing. I am a small business owner, Civil Engineering firm, that prints plans constantly. Epson may have the future locked up for those who print large scale plans. Otherwise Canon and Brother all the way.
amiga-workbench 10y ago
Spend a bit more and get yourself a Brother monochrome laser printer, you won't have to deal with it squirting half of its ink down the drain every time it needs to unclog.
- robinduckett 10y ago
  I've got a Samsung monochrome laser printer, best purchase ever.
  - kogepathic 10y ago
    Good you have one now, HP just agreed to purchase Samsung's printer division. [1] I can't see this ending in a better customer experience for future Samsung printer models. It's a shame. I've had several Samsung CLP series laser printers and they've all worked amazingly well for many years. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12478699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12478699
bambax 10y ago
I was recently in the market for a label printer. Dymo is the leader on this kind of products and as I was about to buy one I read this review https://www.amazon.com/review/R2VG8JOAJDWJ0E/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0027JIIKQ&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1064954&store=office-products https://www.amazon.com/review/R2VG8JOAJDWJ0E/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti... as well as many like it, that explain how the printer will only accept original, overpriced Dymo labels. I bought a Brother QL-700 instead, with ordinary labels that cost 1/5 of the price of the Dymo ones, and couldn't be happier. Let's hope those practices hurt the businesses instead of helping their bottom line, that's the only way we will get rid of them.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I doubt it, do you know how the GNU project started? You have to thank Xerox for it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-summary.txt https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-summary.txt
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Interesting, good to know. We've bought a handheld Dymo LabelManager 280 for our Hackerspace. We've tried third-party labels, but we'll be back to official ones. Not because the third-party ones aren't supported - they very much are! It's because they turned out to be shitty; the quality of print is quite bad. Not a showstopper, but you don't spend money on a label printer to have shitty-looking labels everywhere.
  - GrinningFool 10y ago
    To my paranoid side that raises an interesting question. They have the ability to know when approved labels are used in the device. They could just reject them, creating all kinds of bad publicity. Or they could degrade output quality on "unapproved" mediums then say earnestly, "This lack of quality is why we recommend using only Genuine Dynamo Labels®. Buy some today!"
    - yrro 10y ago
      You know, I'd be fine with the printer detecting the use of 3rd party ink cartridges and signalling this fact to the computer, so that a warning C n be displayed, as long as the printer and driver don't use that information to deliberately degrade the output. And I'm not necessarily against using that information to void the warranty too.
yomly 10y ago
If I squint my eyes (or brain) really hard I can just about believe that zero day exploits could exist for a printer cartridge. But then I just arrive at the conclusion that if you didn't add DRM and try to make cartridges "smart" there wouldn't even be a security vector...
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  That can be said about a lot of things now. Coffee makers, anyone? DRM is mostly a tool to support shitty business models, and above that, it tends to introduce new attack vectors.
rspeer 10y ago
This article promised a "sincere apology", but what followed instead was > We updated a cartridge authentication procedure in select models of HP office inkjet printers to ensure the best consumer experience and protect them from counterfeit and third-party ink cartridges [...] That's insincere as hell. It all paraphrases to "We did this for your own good and we're sorry you got upset".
- dspillett 10y ago
  It is like the apology Sony gave for the BMG rootkit thing which basically amounted to "we are sorry we got caught and embarrassed our shareholders wit this sort of publicity".
- ourmandave 10y ago
  I don't know whose worse, De Beers or HP.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Even worse, as the article points out: This is a one-time thing. They'll do it again in the future, only that time with a warning in the EULA or something like that.
  - heroprotagonist 10y ago
    Yeah, that's how I read their "apology", too: > We should have done a better job of communicating about the authentication procedure to customers, and we apologize. Note that the apology was for not properly disclosing what they were doing, rather than for what they were doing.
ChoHag 10y ago
This headline lacks the words "getting" and "caught".
gushie 10y ago
My first inkjet printer was a HP Deskjet 500. It was fantastic (for its day and my requirements), robust and seemingly lasted forever. I eventually upgraded to something that did colour, but no printer I've had since, HP or otherwise has ever been as reliable as that old printer. It is sad that I'm now in a position where I won't buy another HP printer while the cloud of them restricting my ink choices lingers.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Just give up on ink. Laser printers are much better in every regard, and are only bought less because they can't be pushed out the door for less than a restaurant bill.
raverbashing 10y ago
Yes, I want a better user experience. That's why I'm not buying any more HP Inkjets
ourmandave 10y ago
I thought I'd had the inkjet game beat when I saw Epson color printers at Walmart for < $50. Since it cost $50+ for new color and black cartridges I figured I'd just buy a new printer every time the old one ran out. Sadly new printers come with super small cartridges.
blakesterz 10y ago
"When ink cartridges are cloned or counterfeited, the customer is exposed to quality and potential security risks, compromising the printing experience." [1] I know there's security risks in the printer and in any other thing plugged into a network, but what's the security risk in a cartridge? A cartridge can be hacked and then...? Can a cartridge really be owned? What can possibly be done then? [1] http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/blog/Small-Business-Printing/best-possible-printing-experience.html http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/blog/Small-Business-Printin...
- kabdib 10y ago
  If you can hack an HP printer by installing a cartridge from a third party, then HP has even more embarrassing security problems to apologize for.
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    I would love to meet the person who owns a printer using a hacked ink cartridge.
vasanthagneshk 10y ago
Good luck the customers will be very happy with your apology. /s

So now will they stop bricking "Genuine HP" cartridges every time I look away from the printer for a few days?

Don't care. HP is on my no-buy list until they promise to not do this again. Ever. I don't own an HP printer today and I probably now won't for a while. DRM stunts like this, the surprise bricking of working hardware, are not forgiven overnight.

jasonkostempski 10y ago
Apologies and promises are worthless. If they move to free software and firmware, I might consider them again. No trust required.

ensiferum 10y ago

This is normal. I'd expect the sales of ink cartridges to be a bigger business than the sale of printers itself.

dspillett 10y ago
> I'd expect ... Yes, that has been the case for many years.
mthoms 10y ago
Why would you expect that though? It is indeed the state of things today but I can't, from a technical standpoint, see how this is a natural or "normal" conclusion.

ChrisNorstrom 10y ago

Why bother, just go with the new Epson Eco-Tank printer ET-3600 and you get the ink tanks on the side, basically a continuous ink system. You can buy a gallon off non-epson ink (like Nano Digital brand ink) and literally print color for fractions of a penny per page. Cartridges seem so outdated.

yitchelle 10y ago
Just looked this up as I have not heard of it before. "Cartridge-free printing — comes with up to 2 years of ink in the box" - I really like this bit. Any idea how this works from a dollars & cents perspective?
- pricechild 10y ago
  They're filling radio adverts here in the UK about them, claiming "new tanks cost as little as £6". If replacements won't be needed for 2 years I figure most people will expect it to have broken and been taken off the market by then...
- criddell 10y ago
  They are excellent document printers. The ones I've used have been okay for printing photos, but that isn't what they are tuned for.
LukeB_UK 10y ago
Partially because some people don't want to spend that much money on something they'll rarely use (cheapest I found from a quick search on amazon UK for any of the Eco-Tank series was £185)
travanx 10y ago
Got a Canon ink jet and a third party tank. Win win. Never ever will go with HP again, after buying the biggest POS HP inkjet printer. First printer shipped broken. Second wouldn't feed paper after a year. Not to mention the color ink drying out. Brother Laser is amazing. I am a small business owner, Civil Engineering firm, that prints plans constantly. Epson may have the future locked up for those who print large scale plans. Otherwise Canon and Brother all the way.

amiga-workbench 10y ago

Spend a bit more and get yourself a Brother monochrome laser printer, you won't have to deal with it squirting half of its ink down the drain every time it needs to unclog.

robinduckett 10y ago
I've got a Samsung monochrome laser printer, best purchase ever.
- kogepathic 10y ago
  Good you have one now, HP just agreed to purchase Samsung's printer division. [1] I can't see this ending in a better customer experience for future Samsung printer models. It's a shame. I've had several Samsung CLP series laser printers and they've all worked amazingly well for many years. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12478699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12478699

bambax 10y ago

I was recently in the market for a label printer. Dymo is the leader on this kind of products and as I was about to buy one I read this review https://www.amazon.com/review/R2VG8JOAJDWJ0E/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B0027JIIKQ&channel=detail-glance&nodeID=1064954&store=office-products https://www.amazon.com/review/R2VG8JOAJDWJ0E/ref=cm_cr_dp_ti... as well as many like it, that explain how the printer will only accept original, overpriced Dymo labels. I bought a Brother QL-700 instead, with ordinary labels that cost 1/5 of the price of the Dymo ones, and couldn't be happier. Let's hope those practices hurt the businesses instead of helping their bottom line, that's the only way we will get rid of them.

pjmlp 10y ago
I doubt it, do you know how the GNU project started? You have to thank Xerox for it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-summary.txt https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-summary.txt
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Interesting, good to know. We've bought a handheld Dymo LabelManager 280 for our Hackerspace. We've tried third-party labels, but we'll be back to official ones. Not because the third-party ones aren't supported - they very much are! It's because they turned out to be shitty; the quality of print is quite bad. Not a showstopper, but you don't spend money on a label printer to have shitty-looking labels everywhere.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  To my paranoid side that raises an interesting question. They have the ability to know when approved labels are used in the device. They could just reject them, creating all kinds of bad publicity. Or they could degrade output quality on "unapproved" mediums then say earnestly, "This lack of quality is why we recommend using only Genuine Dynamo Labels®. Buy some today!"
  - yrro 10y ago
    You know, I'd be fine with the printer detecting the use of 3rd party ink cartridges and signalling this fact to the computer, so that a warning C n be displayed, as long as the printer and driver don't use that information to deliberately degrade the output. And I'm not necessarily against using that information to void the warranty too.

yomly 10y ago

If I squint my eyes (or brain) really hard I can just about believe that zero day exploits could exist for a printer cartridge. But then I just arrive at the conclusion that if you didn't add DRM and try to make cartridges "smart" there wouldn't even be a security vector...

TeMPOraL 10y ago
That can be said about a lot of things now. Coffee makers, anyone? DRM is mostly a tool to support shitty business models, and above that, it tends to introduce new attack vectors.

rspeer 10y ago

This article promised a "sincere apology", but what followed instead was > We updated a cartridge authentication procedure in select models of HP office inkjet printers to ensure the best consumer experience and protect them from counterfeit and third-party ink cartridges [...] That's insincere as hell. It all paraphrases to "We did this for your own good and we're sorry you got upset".

dspillett 10y ago
It is like the apology Sony gave for the BMG rootkit thing which basically amounted to "we are sorry we got caught and embarrassed our shareholders wit this sort of publicity".
ourmandave 10y ago
I don't know whose worse, De Beers or HP.
Mithaldu 10y ago
Even worse, as the article points out: This is a one-time thing. They'll do it again in the future, only that time with a warning in the EULA or something like that.
- heroprotagonist 10y ago
  Yeah, that's how I read their "apology", too: > We should have done a better job of communicating about the authentication procedure to customers, and we apologize. Note that the apology was for not properly disclosing what they were doing, rather than for what they were doing.

ChoHag 10y ago

This headline lacks the words "getting" and "caught".

gushie 10y ago

My first inkjet printer was a HP Deskjet 500. It was fantastic (for its day and my requirements), robust and seemingly lasted forever. I eventually upgraded to something that did colour, but no printer I've had since, HP or otherwise has ever been as reliable as that old printer. It is sad that I'm now in a position where I won't buy another HP printer while the cloud of them restricting my ink choices lingers.

Mithaldu 10y ago
Just give up on ink. Laser printers are much better in every regard, and are only bought less because they can't be pushed out the door for less than a restaurant bill.

raverbashing 10y ago

Yes, I want a better user experience. That's why I'm not buying any more HP Inkjets

ourmandave 10y ago

I thought I'd had the inkjet game beat when I saw Epson color printers at Walmart for < $50. Since it cost $50+ for new color and black cartridges I figured I'd just buy a new printer every time the old one ran out. Sadly new printers come with super small cartridges.

blakesterz 10y ago

"When ink cartridges are cloned or counterfeited, the customer is exposed to quality and potential security risks, compromising the printing experience." [1] I know there's security risks in the printer and in any other thing plugged into a network, but what's the security risk in a cartridge? A cartridge can be hacked and then...? Can a cartridge really be owned? What can possibly be done then? [1] http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/blog/Small-Business-Printing/best-possible-printing-experience.html http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/blog/Small-Business-Printin...

kabdib 10y ago
If you can hack an HP printer by installing a cartridge from a third party, then HP has even more embarrassing security problems to apologize for.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  I would love to meet the person who owns a printer using a hacked ink cartridge.

vasanthagneshk 10y ago

Good luck the customers will be very happy with your apology. /s