Better yet, apply different printer settings (because you can't use "safe" setting designed for your own cartridge) that visibly worsen print quality. Some rand

Better yet, apply different printer settings (because you can't use "safe" setting designed for your own cartridge) that visibly worsen print quality. Some random line here and there. Ah, these 3rd party cartridges quality is just so bad.. But given how expensive these are anyway I'm surprised they don't use PK cryptography (micros are really cheap these days) to authenticate themselves to the printer. Extracting private key could quite difficult with appropriate chip used (still cheap). And the keys could be put in batches that correlate with the cartridge expiration date.