Last week, we told you about a nasty ploy by Hewlett Packard to disable non-HP ink cartridges in certain inkjet printers. They did this by placing a time bomb of sorts in a routine firmware update last March, set to do its dirty work six months later.
Reaction to HP’s clever scheme was quick. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sent an open letter to HP’s CEO calling on the company to:
Apologize to your customers, and restore the original functionality of their printers with a firmware update that rolls back the self-destruct sequence; Publicly commit that you will never again use your software update process to distribute anti-features that work against your customers’ interests; Publicly commit that the effects of any software updates will be fully disclosed; Prominently disclose any capability or plan to remove features from devices in your sales literature, so customers know what they’re getting before they buy; Promise to never invoke Section 1201 of the DMCA against security researchers or competitors who make legitimate aftermarket products.
A day later, an Alabama consumer with one of the affected OfficeJet printers that suddenly stopped printing filed a class action lawsuit in federal court against HP claiming this was an anti-competitive move by the printing giant.
Then, a day after that, HP’s CEO apologized (sort of) to affected users:
We should have done a better job of communicating about the authentication procedure to customers, and we apologize.
You’ll note he didn’t apologize for disabling competing ink cartridges, but rather just for doing it secretly.
In any event, HP promises a new firmware update in a couple of weeks to reverse the problem they created and allow third party cartridges to once again work in the affected printers.
