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HP disables customers’ printers if they use ink cartridges from cheaper rivals
(www.telegraph.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 13 May 2023
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@yogthos The hp printer I bought disabled itself after my firewall blocked its spyware/telemetry.
(The box said I needed an 'internet connection' not a 'raw, unfiltered connection'. And any computer worked/works on said connection.)
I took it back to the retailer. They unhappily refunded my money.
You should do that to.
@Heterokromia @yogthos So far the Brother Lasers / MFP etc we've bought over the years have been fine without Internet and with 3rd party toner. Also decent Linux drivers for print & scan from Brother. HP were good 25 years ago for laser. Never good for inkjet. Decent HP gear now has Agilent badges.
@raymccarthy @Heterokromia @yogthos Or Keysight.
@Heterokromia @yogthos Used to be an HP fanboi. No longer. For small office and home use I've been happy with Brother. Home has a cheap B&W laser that just works, Linux and Mac just sees it and it's not picky about cartridges/drums, etc.. but the real OEM ones aren't expensive. - My wife needs nice color prints every now and then, cheaper to just pay the local print shop.
@Heterokromia @yogthos @GeekAndDad I wonder how much non-printer Information is in that traffic.
If you buy your own cartridges you should be able to run without internet at all.
@Heterokromia @yogthos there was a time i respected HP. i have two HP printers both of which are 1) very nice and 2) predate ink and toner madness. HP has cured my respect for the company. i shall not buy another of their products.
@nfgusedautoparts @Heterokromia @yogthos same, I still have an old HP inkjet I bought at Circuit City in 2004 that's still going strong, but I won't touch any new stuff
@Heterokromia @yogthos Do you have a picture of the error message it gave you? I'd love to see it.
Bricking when presented "unauthorized" ink or toner is well-known for HP of the last X years, but I hadn't heard of them doing it when you block their network access.
For many years I've been telling people who ask "Buy an HP laser printer. Just don't buy a new one." There's a huge market for used office printers, and you can get one old enough that it will use 3rd-party toner.
#HP
@cazabon @Heterokromia @yogthos So the HP inkjet was a huge disappointment to me. It no long works after 13mo. because it can't communicate with the mother ship. I will NEVER return to HP and it's overarching control of my equipment. I had followed all the rules, used their ink subscription, which was also a HUGE negative experience. Purchased a different brand that does NOT communicate with the manufacturer. I'm buying my ink supply as I need it. So much happier.
@joytoworld93 @Heterokromia @yogthos
That's terrible. When I added a Lexmark printer to my network a year ago, I firewalled it off from the outside world on general principle - it never even occurred to me that a printer manufacturer would make communicating with the mothership a requirement for normal operation. I guess I'm lucky #Lexmark hasn't gone that route.
I'm glad you found something else that works for you. Did you get an #Epson #Ecotank printer? Very cost-effective.
@cazabon @Heterokromia @yogthos I got a Canon laser. Costs much more, weighs a ton, but it's really a fast printer with excellent print quality and NO requirement for it to check in to it's manufacturer for permission to print. I'm pretty much over inkjets, period.
It's the old saying, you get what you pay for. Only downside is that you need to wear a back brace to move it.
@joytoworld93 @cazabon @yogthos I bought a Pantum laser MFP, it is just fone. I got it from InkStation specifically because they specialise in recycling and refilling cartridges.
@Heterokromia @yogthos wow, that really is impertinence of the worst kind. Good that you returned it. I certainly won't be buying HP anytime soon.
@Heterokromia
I used HP Printers for a Long Time now and still do.
But I just would Not buy one with this "you need an Internet Connection" shit.
Sorry, I don't Like spyware in my House.
@yogthos @neil
@Heterokromia @yogthos And it Came To Pass that one of the Master's Chattering Servants found it self alone, and unable to commune with it's Master.
This made it sullen, and it spat in it's Caretakers face.
Many would have bent the knee, but this Caretaker was wiser than most.
It banished the Chattering Servant from its domain, and demanded restitution from the Chaos Merchants.
Hail to thee, @Heterokromia
@Heterokromia @yogthos I use an HP printer and would NOT recommend it to anyone. This full internet connection prerequisite is completely unjustified.
@Heterokromia @yogthos
I bought a JBL Bluetooth speaker and it wanted to access my contact list and call history in order to just play music. Nope, took it back.
@Heterokromia @yogthos HP is so awful, I regret owning oe of their printers still, and an old laptop.
@Heterokromia
Which model was it? Just as a warning to others.
@yogthos
@markusl @Heterokromia @yogthos don't buy any hp. I made this experience already, it didn't like a thin paper and just irreparably locked up. It's a bad company
@piggo
We have an oldish HP laser, and it works well, but I'd buy a Brother if I had to make a distress purchase today.
@Heterokromia @yogthos
@markusl @yogthos M234sdwe, but I think it is a shared bug in all new hp printers. Otherwise excellent, but it has this incredibly stinky dead cat tied to its leg....
@Heterokromia @yogthos
I'm on an HP ink sub, as I have a printer a friend gave me - to replace an old printer that had jammed (after 10 years). The old printer was probably a Brother, which worked well despite my lack of maintenance.
IThe newer HP is a great printer apart from its need to constantly monitor my usage. I'll keep it until I get a another affordable colour printer.
@Heterokromia @yogthos
It would be interesting to see what they look for, and to set up a DNS and a server to give them locally what they want.
@GustavinoBevilacqua @yogthos I was *wildly* curious about it too. I imagine a public key cryptographic mechanism, but I do not know how it actually works. My keenness to get my money back completely overrode my curiosity about the network protocol. (Yes, that's very unusual for me.)
@Heterokromia @yogthos at this point I’m more wary of printer manufactures than used car salesmen.
@Heterokromia @yogthos @cstross Why do I get the feeling that in an age where your toothbrush spies on you, where even the mightiest can be caught with their genitals in unseemly positions in unseemly places, where media gotcha engines have finally lapsed into a coma after getting everybody who can possibly be gotten, we’ll see a mighty uprising of tolerance? After all, didn’t someone righteously god-fearing once tell us that we’re all sinners in the hands of a bespoke surveillance algorithm?
@Canecittadino @Heterokromia @yogthos
Sadly, I disagree.
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
—Cardinal Richelieu
Also:
"If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide"
— Various People
Now meet deepfakes.
Everyone is guilty: it may just take the Party some time to reveal the evidence of the crime they must have committed.
@cstross @Heterokromia @yogthos Well of course I would agree with you if it were simply a matter of “homo homini lupus.” The thing is that in the historical contexts you rightly appeal to, it has always been possible for the inquiring class to excuse themselves from inquiry. Until they couldn’t, of course—a Man for All Seasons, Politburo purges under Stalin, etc. Once we all have access to AWS and ChatGPT X, everyone will live in fear until the mode of the music changes. Which it just might do.
@Canecittadino @cstross @Heterokromia @yogthos you see, there's this thing called power, which is fairly unevenly distributed, so there's always people that are beyond any inquiry and very interested in that those others aren't. this latter thing is called control. and the times we live in tell that both concepts are very much fine and well and much the same as they were in the historic times. so, yes, you should care about your privacy. 🤷
@jkmcnk @cstross @Heterokromia @yogthos All true for now, but the situation is also more fluid than it used to be, largely because of the rapid evolution of communications technologies. Compare the longevity of the Roman Catholic Church or the British Monarchy with that of the Thousand Year Reich, or the Soviet Politburo. How long do you suppose Ron DeSantis is going to last? /1
@jkmcnk @cstross @Heterokromia @yogthos The uneven distribution of power isn’t the issue. As long as human beings are what they are, that may well be inescapable. What’s different now is the turbulence introduced into control mechanisms by the inherent unpredictabily of their impact. /2
@jkmcnk @cstross @Heterokromia @yogthos “Quis costodiet ipsos custodes” is the real issue here. When the watchers operate on a scale no human agency can effectively oversee, anomalies may very well become more frequent. China’s social credit evaluation regime will be the best test case for these suppositions, I think. We shall see…. /3 END
@Heterokromia @yogthos Brother will happily take your money. https://www.theverge.com/23642073/best-printer-2023-brother-laser-wi-fi-its-fine
(Or Epson, or Canon. Any of them if you ignore their stupid ink subscription or use refilled cartridges or tanks, they'll still print.)
@uninventive @Heterokromia @yogthos FWIW Brother has started chipping their toner cartridges over the past few years. I just set up an HL-L6200DW and immediately made sure it had no internet access to make sure it stays on its current firmware and doesn’t upgrade to one that might lock-out 3rd party toner.
@zachnfine @Heterokromia @yogthos Most refills have chips.
Brother's method of a IR light shining through a semiopaque window on the side and not going through the other side had some downsides. (Want the most out of your cartridge? Stick tissue over the window, run it dry.)
Most manufacturers just stick with a count chip that disables the cartridge after X000 uses.
And to be honest, if all the businesses start going that anticonsumer across the industry, happy to sell the printer and just go paperless. Probably best for all involved. Force offices to change their processes faster, better for the planet over time, and they can stick it to the holdouts who won't change.
@uninventive @Heterokromia @yogthos Was just looking through your timeline and saw you’ve worked as a technician and serviced these things — so if I’m wrong about the sensor my apologies. I’d expect IR windows to not work for toner but maybe at best there’d be a density sensor to detect when it’s truly out. In any case I like simple brother laser printers and was sad to learn they were starting to do the same lockout stuff everyone else does.
@zachnfine @Heterokromia @yogthos Nah, it's cool.
And just a technician. Not Brother trained nor on their payroll. 👍
@uninventive @Heterokromia @yogthos And a printer lock-in accelerationist! I'll be ready for scrolls and fountain pens when-the-toner-cartridge-hits-the-fan.
@uninventive @Heterokromia @yogthos I’m referring to laser toner cartridges, there’s no IR window on those that I know of. The printer just keeps track in memory of the remaining page count and you used to be able to reset the count if the cartridge still has some toner and the printer declares it empty. Brother did not try to lock out third party toner cartridges until fairly recently.
oh I don't have one, but yeah that's quite the horror story