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I always love to imagine how the developer who designed these protections would react when reading about these hacks. Are they frustrated, amused, angry? Do the

I always love to imagine how the developer who designed these protections would react when reading about these hacks. Are they frustrated, amused, angry? Do they need to resist an urge to correct some small detail?

mschuster91 6y ago
This kind of DRM is like locks - they keep "honest people honest", aka they offer enough resistance to deter the wide, wide mass of 99% of people. Outside of IT people, how many are willing to hack together microcontrollers and circuits that can reset an ink tank for a home refill?
- afandian 6y ago
  I'd substitute the word 'compliant' for 'honest' here.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  Until someone makes a kit, ala games console mod chip kits.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    So what? Even these are a drop in the bucket. There were 113M PS4 units sold, even if there were 1M modchip kits circulating that would still be a drop in the bucket.
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      So what? So it's not just "IT people". Also, a PS4 functions perfectly fine without mod chips, but printer ink costs will be a constant concern. Also, there is little risk in attempting to mod an otherwise unusable ink cartridge. It's also notable 3rd party cartridges are not a drop in the bucket of printer ink sales.
- foobarian 6y ago
  I was in the camp of refilling cartridges back around the time of that article. It was terrible. I spent untold hours futzing with 3rd party ink, using alarming looking syringes and squirt bottles, getting it all over my hands, desks and equipment, and then spent more time debugging the poor print quality and clogged nozzles. One day in a fit of rage I swept the contents of my desk into the garbage and never looked back. :) I feel that in retrospect, it was a useful exercise at least to help me realize what exactly it is I am paying for when I pay for OEM refills. Also, to be fair having nozzles included in the cartridges was a technological leap that really solves a lot of the issues with or without using 3rd party materials.
  - afandian 6y ago
    How much of that inconvenience was deliberately manufactured by the printer company, and how much was innate?
- userbinator 6y ago
  It's a small number of people, but then they sell kits to do it easily, along with things like CIS. In SE Asia, where inkjets don't clog as easily, this is a common setup.
sidewndr46 6y ago
I would suggest that the developers reaction is "salaried". It seems unlikely any hardware or software developer designed this. They probably were in the implementation portion only. Whenever this idea was brought up, I suspect they weren't terribly interested in it. They also mentioned it would be hilariously easy to circumvent for someone who wanted to, but not the average end user. A few weeks later it was all complete and promptly forgotten about.
EvanAnderson 6y ago
Here's some stuff the author of the Amazon Kindle "Topaz" DRM format had to say about the effort to reverse-engineer the format: https://web.archive.org/web/20100114231344/http://beesbuzz.biz/blog/e/2010/01/07-interesting_topaz_drm_development.php https://web.archive.org/web/20100114231344/http://beesbuzz.b... https://darkreverser.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/new-blog/#comment-800 https://darkreverser.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/new-blog/#comm... I think it's interesting, in this case, that the author would have liked the work they did to be patented so that it could be discussed publicly without fear of compromising trade secrets.
llimos 6y ago
Here's one account of something similar - MSN Messenger's attempt to interoperate with AIM against their will. At the end of the article the engineers on opposite sides of the battle met up and discussed it. It's a nice article. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
> I always love to imagine how the developer who designed these protections would react when reading about these hacks. Define "developer". Do you mean the printer company and its management or an individual engineer who work for them? Speaking from the perspective of an individual, I think the hardware and software developers who designed the protection aren't really interested in preventing people from using 3rd-party ink refills, they probably had no personal motivation to lock people out, perhaps they hate inkjet printers like everyone else on Hacker News. The only reason they implemented it is because they were being paid by their employers. So my guess is a "fair enough" response.
naringas 6y ago
Maybe they arleady knew this was a possibility but they work at companies large enough that it doesn't matter.

mschuster91 6y ago

This kind of DRM is like locks - they keep "honest people honest", aka they offer enough resistance to deter the wide, wide mass of 99% of people. Outside of IT people, how many are willing to hack together microcontrollers and circuits that can reset an ink tank for a home refill?

afandian 6y ago
I'd substitute the word 'compliant' for 'honest' here.
Chris2048 6y ago
Until someone makes a kit, ala games console mod chip kits.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  So what? Even these are a drop in the bucket. There were 113M PS4 units sold, even if there were 1M modchip kits circulating that would still be a drop in the bucket.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    So what? So it's not just "IT people". Also, a PS4 functions perfectly fine without mod chips, but printer ink costs will be a constant concern. Also, there is little risk in attempting to mod an otherwise unusable ink cartridge. It's also notable 3rd party cartridges are not a drop in the bucket of printer ink sales.
foobarian 6y ago
I was in the camp of refilling cartridges back around the time of that article. It was terrible. I spent untold hours futzing with 3rd party ink, using alarming looking syringes and squirt bottles, getting it all over my hands, desks and equipment, and then spent more time debugging the poor print quality and clogged nozzles. One day in a fit of rage I swept the contents of my desk into the garbage and never looked back. :) I feel that in retrospect, it was a useful exercise at least to help me realize what exactly it is I am paying for when I pay for OEM refills. Also, to be fair having nozzles included in the cartridges was a technological leap that really solves a lot of the issues with or without using 3rd party materials.
- afandian 6y ago
  How much of that inconvenience was deliberately manufactured by the printer company, and how much was innate?
userbinator 6y ago
It's a small number of people, but then they sell kits to do it easily, along with things like CIS. In SE Asia, where inkjets don't clog as easily, this is a common setup.

sidewndr46 6y ago

I would suggest that the developers reaction is "salaried". It seems unlikely any hardware or software developer designed this. They probably were in the implementation portion only. Whenever this idea was brought up, I suspect they weren't terribly interested in it. They also mentioned it would be hilariously easy to circumvent for someone who wanted to, but not the average end user. A few weeks later it was all complete and promptly forgotten about.

EvanAnderson 6y ago

Here's some stuff the author of the Amazon Kindle "Topaz" DRM format had to say about the effort to reverse-engineer the format: https://web.archive.org/web/20100114231344/http://beesbuzz.biz/blog/e/2010/01/07-interesting_topaz_drm_development.php https://web.archive.org/web/20100114231344/http://beesbuzz.b... https://darkreverser.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/new-blog/#comment-800 https://darkreverser.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/new-blog/#comm... I think it's interesting, in this case, that the author would have liked the work they did to be patented so that it could be discussed publicly without fear of compromising trade secrets.

llimos 6y ago

Here's one account of something similar - MSN Messenger's attempt to interoperate with AIM against their will. At the end of the article the engineers on opposite sides of the battle met up and discussed it. It's a nice article. https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/ https://nplusonemag.com/issue-19/essays/chat-wars/

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

> I always love to imagine how the developer who designed these protections would react when reading about these hacks. Define "developer". Do you mean the printer company and its management or an individual engineer who work for them? Speaking from the perspective of an individual, I think the hardware and software developers who designed the protection aren't really interested in preventing people from using 3rd-party ink refills, they probably had no personal motivation to lock people out, perhaps they hate inkjet printers like everyone else on Hacker News. The only reason they implemented it is because they were being paid by their employers. So my guess is a "fair enough" response.

naringas 6y ago

Maybe they arleady knew this was a possibility but they work at companies large enough that it doesn't matter.