Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?
-
FOSSForce brings up an important question... has HP crossed into criminal grounds by crippling printers that they do not own after the fact? Likely they did not, unethical as it is there was probably a lot of legal review before their latest actions were taken. But depending on how the actions were taken, HP's latest firmware might constitute vandalism.
http://fossforce.com/2016/09/hp-retrofits-ink-cartridge-drm-printers/
Is disabling printers remotely vandalism? Is it a security breach?
-
I think the biggest blowback should come from end users. Perhaps we should send those printers back to HP HQ, like people did with AOL discs. I, and my workplace, will not be buying another HP printer in the foreseeable future, so that's one home and one business customer less for HP.
It's hard to tell whether they violated any laws, but perfectly working printers will not work anymore. Before buying their printers nobody really knew they would pull such a dick move. Firmware updates are not mandatory, so nobody is forcing anybody to intentionally cripple their printers, but most people don't read release notes. It's a grey area, but I think it needs a lot of publicity, and HP deserves really huge financial hit.
-
I agree, can you rollback, do they disclose... those things matter a lot as far as how legal things are goes.
-
No question, though, HP just made themselves a non-viable vendor in my mind. And I wonder how much HPE is going to suffer from people not being able to figure out which one is HP and which one is HPE. This is so bad, if I was HPE I'd consider a lawsuit to block HP from this for sullying their shared identity.
-
@scottalanmiller I thought all the store shelf printing things went to HP, did HPE keep more of that business?
-
@travisdh1 said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
@scottalanmiller I thought all the store shelf printing things went to HP, did HPE keep more of that business?
He meant that HP and HPE are the same thing to consumers.
there is not clear brand separation at this point.
-
@JaredBusch said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
@travisdh1 said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
@scottalanmiller I thought all the store shelf printing things went to HP, did HPE keep more of that business?
He meant that HP and HPE are the same thing to consumers.
there is not clear brand separation at this point.
Exactly, even most IT pros can't tell them apart.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
No question, though, HP just made themselves a non-viable vendor in my mind. And I wonder how much HPE is going to suffer from people not being able to figure out which one is HP and which one is HPE. This is so bad, if I was HPE I'd consider a lawsuit to block HP from this for sullying their shared identity.
I understand that neither company wanted to give up the good will that the HP name gave them, but things like this make me wonder how they ever thought they could get away with names so close to each other?
-
@Dashrender said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
@scottalanmiller said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
No question, though, HP just made themselves a non-viable vendor in my mind. And I wonder how much HPE is going to suffer from people not being able to figure out which one is HP and which one is HPE. This is so bad, if I was HPE I'd consider a lawsuit to block HP from this for sullying their shared identity.
I understand that neither company wanted to give up the good will that the HP name gave them, but things like this make me wonder how they ever thought they could get away with names so close to each other?
I guessing that HPE will be sorry quickly.
-
Time to call themselves Compaq again.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
Time to call themselves Compaq again.
Oh god, please NO.
-
It was a silly name, but a great company and reputation.
-
@scottalanmiller said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
It was a silly name, but a great company and reputation.
I never dealt at the high end, maybe it was great on their enterprise stuff, but their desktops, even business class desktops left something to be desired
-
HP hasnt made a good printer in over a decade. Their hp 4200 series desktop printers were the last thing they made worth buying. We had a dozen of those at my last job and they just printed, all day, every day, hundreds of thousands of pages without requiring maintenance except for toner.
Current job there /was/ a hp6830 color scanner/printer. Bought less than a year ago by someone else. Hasnt worked since i started here in January. Doesnt accept off-brand toner, always says hp toner is damaged. 100 pages of prints costs 100 dollars in toner. Takes 15 minutes to start up. Just a pile of diarrhea.
I say /was/ because I shattered it in the parking lot as soon as the new Brother 9340 cdw showed up last week. -
I switched to Brother a few years back. Never been happier!
-
@Dashrender said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
@scottalanmiller said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
Time to call themselves Compaq again.
Oh god, please NO.
Want to discuss the joys of working on a Compaq compared with a Packard Hell back in the day?
-
NO THANK YOU!! I worked for Compaq (bench services- well ok I was their Executive Assistant but I worked on crap, crap being the operative word).
-
@Minion-Queen said in Did HP Break the Law Vandalizing Your Printer?:
NO THANK YOU!! I worked for Compaq (bench services- well ok I was their Executive Assistant but I worked on crap, crap being the operative word).
Oh how I wish I had pictures of my hands after replacing add in cards in either of them! I'd be able to give all the small children nightmares
-
Well Webroot believes fossforce.com is a malware site therefore I cannot read the story.
-
