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Cracking Litter Box DRM
- bitwize 8y agoWarning: Author appears to be Canadian. Don't try this in the United States unless you want a five-year prison sentence and a felony record.
- dcow 8y agoReverse engineering for the sake of interoperability is protected under the DMCA.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoReverse engineering is legal in the US and no circumvention of copyright protection is taking place. This battle has already been fought with ink cartridges.
- umvi 8y agoI mean, it's not like this is Geohot-level reverse engineering.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoNot to devalue reverse engineering work... However, knowingly buying hardware with DRM of this nature only signals the acceptability of this utter garbage to the marketplace. The best way to "hack" them is by not buying it at all, or disassembly if given. I've seen 3d printers with the same scam as well; "buy our special filament" (aka: rfid chipped garbage). Thankfully those printers are usually stripped for the nema17 motors and switches, and junked for a reprap. I'm glad people still take to the 4th R of "reduce, reuse, recycle... Repair. But I despise manufactured obselesence in all its forms, especially DRM and phoning home.
- dh-g 8y agoGood point, in this case I didn't realise that the device had any DRM until after my first cleaning cartridge ran out. Even during initial set it up I thought that the device would simply beep and let me know it was empty while continuing being useful.
- mcphage 8y ago> However, knowingly buying hardware with DRM of this nature only signals the acceptability of this utter garbage to the marketplace. The best way to "hack" them is by not buying it at all, or disassembly if given. Frequently the cost of the item is offset by the expected gains from the DRMed consumable; enough people buying the litter box but not their soap would cause the company to lose money—a net negative.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoA net positive if it makes companies stop distorting prices with such bullshit. Selling hardware below design/manufacturing costs and recouping losses via consumables/subscription should be considered antisocial business practice, as it not only is user-hostile itself, but also forces everyone on the market to follow suit.
- mcphage 8y agoI meant, a net negative in money.
- vortico 8y agoVoting with your money is only effective when lots of people do it. If this product is sold in a supermarket, 99.999% of people will have no idea how to even parse this article, so everyone's decision in this thread has absolutely no measureable effect on profit, certainly not enough to make a decision to remove DRM.
- LeifCarrotson 8y agoBut good reverse engineering (as has been done to the iPhone or Keurig) is consumable by the masses in a way that can be communicated back to the manufacturer. Too often, it's miscommunicated as "criminals keep breaking our monetization scheme" but it's a lot more effective than shaking your fist at the sky.
- monocasa 8y agoSo, pedantic question: isn't repair implicit in reduce and reuse?
- brirec 8y agoI would sure hope so, since the idea is that they're in order of best-to-worst for the environment. Reduce: don't buy water bottles in the first place, as they're one of the biggest pollutants. Reuse: If you're gonna buy water bottles, reuse them for other liquids when you're done instead of buying a separate vessel for them. Recycle: When that fails (i.e., when you've got water bottles that you can't really reuse, or whatever…) have that plastic recycled to make, well, more water bottles. -- If "repair" is the "fourth R" in "reduce, reuse, and recycle" that would imply it's less environmentally efficient to repair something than to simply toss it into the recycling bin.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoI wasn't going by any sort of order. Repair seems to have been left out on the 3 R's. I remember opening up equipment from before 1980, and you were greeted with circuit schematics, diagrams, and replacement part numbers. Replacement of a single component was usually simple, and very cost effective. For some, it may take a few weeks to get the thing, but arrive it did. Now, people throw out wide screen TVs and all sorts of electronics. Why? A cap popped, or a resistor burned out. Someone spend $399, and it was foiled by a $.05 component. But what about swapping the board responsible? Nope, it's all "non-user-servicable" aka buy more crap you lazyass consumer. And what this cat litter cleaner ultimately is; it's a device that does a thing as long as you keep feeding money in it from the approved source. It's not like a pillow, or a chair, or a tv. It would be more like those, if it weren't for the fact that built in is a device that obeys its owner - and you aren't that owner; you're the owned.
- northwest65 8y agoI have a DRM 3D printer (XYZ DaVinci), and I would buy another. I've never had to do anything to it except level the bed, feed it STL files, and clean/glue stick the bed. I have had hundreds of successful prints, indeed my first print (an angled foregrip for an AR15 rifle) is still in service. I never wanted a 3D printing hobby, all I wanted was a tool (like a hammer or soldering iron) that I could use to further my actual hobbies. XYZ gave me exactly that. For me at least, I find the descriptions 'scam' and 'garbage' to be nothing more than emotive angst.
- wnevets 8y agoI actually have this litter box and never noticed I was being blocked by DRM. I just use the official cleaner and move on with my day.
- mjk315 8y agohttps://i.imgur.com/jSpd1oA.png https://i.imgur.com/jSpd1oA.png
- King-Aaron 8y agoPersonally I have a plastic box with an elasticated bag of litter in it, and I change it by hand and move on with my day... But that's not the point of the article, the point seems to be that the author wanted to work out a way to not need to use a proprietary cleaning agent - which I think is fair enough tbh.
- dreamcompiler 8y agoI had a Cat Genie and ended up throwing it in the trash. The DRM was annoying but it was the least of the problems with this device. The biggest problem is that the scooper doesn't always remove all the feces from the litter, and then when the heated air starts blowing on the litter to dry it, a very impressive smell fills your house. You haven't lived until you've smelled baking cat shit wafting through every room of your house. The machine has lots of other problems (sensors that require frequent manual intervention to clean, etc). The bottom line is that this device removes an everyday quick chore that's slightly unpleasant but replaces it with 30 minutes of sheer unadulterated horror at least once a week. I've tried all the other robotic litter boxes too, and they all suck. I clean cat boxes by hand now. The robots are not yet up to this task.
- luma 8y agoThis mirrors our own experience with the Cat Genie. When it works it's great, when it fails you are elbow deep into liquified cat shit. There has to a be lesson here: when making a device that solves a problem, make sure that the failure mode isn't worse than the problem you're looking to solve.
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoWhy make the product actually work correctly when that would require more time and money? People will buy the product anyway.
- dh-g 8y agoAuthor here: I've actually had good luck with my unit. I have two cats and run the unit two times a day. I haven't had to do any maintenance except cleaning the water sensor once. I do use safflower seeds in place of the plastic pellets which I have found to yield better results.
- Aloha 8y agoI think whether the cat genie works for you or not depends on if your cats primarily eat wet food or dry food. The more liquid in their excretions, the less likely I suspect it is to work properly.
- userbinator 8y agoThis is just the same "cartridge with EEPROM" technique that's been prevalent in consumer printers for literally decades, so it's not surprising it was applied to a totally different product. It's an ongoing cat-and-mouse(!) game. It used to be a simple counter like this, but now the printer manufacturers are starting to use (mild) crypto.
- mikestew 8y agoIt's an ongoing cat-and-mouse(!) game Yeah, except it could be argued that I need to print things, and might be willing to put up with print cartridge bullshit. [0] In this case, when the mouse goes, "I'm over here!", the cat is going to say "I've lost interest in the game" and scoop the cat shit by hand. A robotic cat box is a luxury, not a necessity, and when it fails on the "luxury" part (in that my life has been made easier and better), well, what the hell are they selling? [0] Though in my particular case, the inkjet makers finally drove me to a B&W laser printer. Lost that one, too, mice.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> A robotic cat box is a luxury, not a necessity, and when it fails on the "luxury" part It doesn't really fail on "luxury" part, it simply exploits the fact that if you can afford a luxury cat shit robot, you can also afford buying expensive, DRMed consumables on a regular schedule. Uncharitably, it's parting fools from their money. Charitably, it's making money on your opportunity cost.
- carterage 8y ago"carterage" Is that supposed to be cartridge?
- eclipxe 8y agoI recommend the LitterRobot. Life changing.
- octorian 8y agoAgreed. While its probably one of the more expensive ones, I really like how you don't have to buy anything from the manufacturer besides the device itself. The consumables are not proprietary, and are just off-the-shelf litter and garbage bags. I only wish the gears were a little less noisy, and that it took up a little less space.
- blackflame7000 8y agoHey lets add a compactor to the bottom and create and patent a competitor!
- Jagat 8y agoWould echo that. Life changing indeed. Had an issue within the warranty period, and the service was amazing.
- 8bitsrule 8y agositting on the cold bathroom floor the CatGenie serinaded me with angry beeps every few seconds. I'm a little fuzzy on this whole 'angry beep' thing. But I'm delighted that you taught the little robot a lesson it won't forget. (I just hosed out a catbox, in the process of replacing the extremely low-odor FelinePine litter. No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.)
- dh-g 8y agoThe unit beeps incessantly unless it thinks there is a cartridge inserted.
- blackflame7000 8y agoLitter Robot is by far the best automatic literbox ive used.
- blackflame7000 8y agoThe ability to modify and reverse engineer a purchased good should be legal and supported by the manufacturer after they have declared end of life so that the user can turn to open source for continued support