Foss printer when?
Unironically, this is why RMS was radicalized.
RMS: gestures at GCC and the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem Look man, all I wanted to do was to print this letter to my ma…
i came across this explanation of it, haven’t verified it directly but he seems to make good content:
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZX8OaZZDlM8
he says theres identification each time you print using the yellow ink, and basically is a counterfeit currency countermeasure
id kill to have a foss print setup though
It’s a feature that can be turned on the confidential documents but I don’t think it’s actually on by default.
You can check for it anyway, just print a document then attempt to scan it, if it’s got the track marks it will refuse to scan because one of the things the track marks do is block scanning, although you can still take a photo of it because the camera probably won’t be able to see the track marks so it’s not 100% secure. In fact it’s largely considered an obsolete security method these days, along with pink flimsies.
good to know, thanks!
I know about the yellow dot thingy. Literally metadata on paper for no reason imo. I highly doubt a person could make a realistic fake through the use of a conventional printer.
In the UK, we don’t even have paper money anymore, it’s plastic… Maybe it’s more of a USA skill issue, too?
In the UK, we don’t even have paper money anymore, it’s plastic… Maybe it’s more of a USA skill issue, too?
US “paper” money has been made of cotton-linen blend cloth for over 100 years.
Closest I’ve seen was rooting a printer via a security exploit
If Brother starts playing that game, they will lose. Why bother buying their considerably more expensive printers over those of HP if they are going to be just as bad in the third party ink department?
Brother losing all competitive advantage they had via reputation. Doing a very big 180 and reversing the changes and commiting to no do t his BS is the only way to undo this
They must’ve hired some new analysts that said “hey, people are willing to accept less! Why are we doing more?”
It’s up to the people to prove them wrong, but that usually doesn’t happen :\
Losing*
These motherfuckers are actively making tech as a whole less secure by destroying any trust the public may have had in firmware updates.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched on a lot of shit because consumers are seeing more and more firmware or software updates actively making things WORSE.
Definitely true. I’ve been putting off an upgrade of my NAS because they have randomly decided to completely remove the video streaming software that came with it when I bought it. So infuriating.
Tell me you are using synology without telling me you are using synology
Time to DIY.
I use a regular Linux system and set stuff up manually, but there are options that do more out of the box if you don’t know how (and don’t want to learn) to DIY the software.
I’m working on that. I have little previous experience with Linux and self hosting but I’m slowly making progress. I now have switched my gaming PC over to Linux almost full time. I know I can switch to Jellyfin for video streaming but it’s been a lower priority to figure out compared with other services I’m trying to understand how to self host.
Rock on, you’re killing it! Please don’t hesitate to ask questions either here or a place like [email protected].
Id recommend Proxmox on a cheap n100 nuc.
Makes it easy to spin up VMs, take snapshots of them, tinker and break them, then roll back to the snapshot
That sucks.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched
I don’t understand why a printer would ever need an “urgent security fix”. Or a software update for that matter.
… Because products can contain security exploits, and if not patched could leave homes and businesses vulnerable.
This shouldn’t need to be explained, but here we are.
The fun part is the security exploits often come from things like DRM ink cartridges that allows an attack to come from the goddamn cartridge!
Wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t include a serial connection to the cartridge in the first place!
Oh hey I can think of a solution to improve security here!
Depends on whether you absolutely need your printers connected to the internet or not.
Printer manufacturers: Of course your printers need to be connected to the Internet… For… Reasons…
Any networked device can be used to gain access to the rest of the network (kind of).
“You were supposed to be the one”
“IT WAS SAID YOU WOULD DESTROY THE COMPETITION, NOT JOIN THEM”
I’m curious how this will go down in Australia. Seems like a pretty solid slam dunk refund, oh the product doesn’t work as advertised anymore?
Cool, I’ve had this for 5 years and now I’d also like a full refund under Australian Consumer Law.
Motherfuckers.
(I don’t actually own a printer)
I imagine they have some stupid note or sticker somewhere saying “to avoid damaging your printer only use genuine Brother replacement cartridges”.
Then all they have to say is “we patched a bug where unverified 3rd party ink cartriges could erroneously be used and cause malfunction or damage to the product.”I found this help article where they say “Although not all non-genuine supplies may cause quality issues”.
They said they recommend using theirs, but up until this they didn’t say you couldn’t.
Plus, it’s been universally understood that you have been able to use third-party cartridges. I really think if you’re persistent enough, you’d get a refund in Australia. Because else (in Victoria at least) you could take them to VCAT for like $70, which will cost them wayyy more in lawyer expenses than the price of a refund.
This is not legal advice, but I reckon a refund under Australian Consumer Law is extremely doable if they go down this path (for existing printers).
Yeah interesting find, and i agree plus you can always sic the ACCC onto them if they start being painful
I really hope Brother is telling the truth!
Same. My printer works fine, and I recently replaced my toner (went genuine because I found a decent deal), so I probably won’t need another anytime soon.
That said, I will no longer be recommending them until this is cleared up. I won’t be recommending against them though, because I don’t know of a better company, but I’ll just recommend people go to their local library or print shop or something and not deal with having a printer at home.
I got a 4 acre lot on Mars that I’m selling for cheap. You seem like a gulli…great fellow. $10k. Its pretty cheap right now because people don’t known the real estate trend yet. I’m taking amazon cards.
But this is a weird thing to lie about — the only reason to implement toner DRM is to get people to buy your cartridges. But if your public statement is, “it’s ok to buy off brand cartridges,” then…well… that’s kinda weird.
Not saying you’re wrong, and they could be trying to have their cake and eat it too (court the anti-DRM crowd but also scare people into sticking with their toner). I’m just saying your snarky/sarcastic response seems unwarranted here.
Its definitely HP’s way to go.
Et tu, frater?
Thats’s a shame, I always considered brother one of the better makers of paper manglers.
We seriously need a FOSS+FOSH printer
I have even thought of some names:
- Gutenberg
- Aldus
- Manutius
It’s really surprising this doesn’t already exist. It’s such a hated piece of tech, I would have thought someome would have thought they could do better! I don’t know enough to do it myself but I’d sure as hell support a project to do it!
It’s not, though. Printers are actually fairly expensive to manufacture, and they’re sold heavily subsidized by the companies in order to sell you a decade of printer cartridges where you make up for that loss. It was the first tech subscription model.
If someone made and sold a shitty inkjet printer at cost, the last time I saw something written up on this years ago, it was several times more than the current cost of printers. And consumers are stupid, so they will go for the immediate cheap thing and get locked in to buying proprietary cartridges rather than invest in saving money long term.
What we need is a Graphine OS for existing printers. A repo of firmware updates that anyone can install to jailbreak a handfull of widely sold printers to allow printing every drop of ink, and DIY refills. Let’s be real, we’re not a huge part of their market, so IMO the gains are to exist like wolves preying on the occasional sheep, rather than be wolves that try to evolve thumbs and force everyone to learn how to cook and go shopping in order to eat.
In my experience, people who are aware of open source and the like are also people who only print something when they absolutely HAVE to.
It will cost too much because they can’t get back R&D money back via sales of proprietary ink and spare parts, plus competitors will immediately take advantage of your improvements
Like a prusa (open source 3d printer) costs like 3 bambulab (walled garden closed source 3d printer that uses a fork of prusa slicer)
1000x this.
We’ve got all this figured out for 3D printers with all kinds of cool tools to make the job easier, and yet, take away a dimension and there’s crickets?
The hell?
Let’s make a 3D printable 2D printer.
Or a modular printer
As much as I love the brand, this was just obviously going to happen. It always happens, it’s the eventual outcome. All that is needed is one middle manager wanting to get an extra bones to come up with some short sighted idea that will make a little extra money in the short run and possibly bankrupt the company in the long term.
See Boeing, see Intel, see…
The only way to not have this happen is to get open source hardware. The open source eco system is amazing already but we need more focus on that, hardware. CPU’s, Computers, printers, phones, everything
What’s worse is remaining “ethical” in the world of business they exist in is a flat out detractor. A financial hindrance of the utmost.
It looks like to me as some redditor got bad quality third party ink and blamed it on firmware. Some karma whores picked it up, as dogging on printer companies is sure way to gain some free updoots.
And now Louis Rossmann picked it up and the lie spread further.
We live in a post-truth society.
Proton, Mozilla, Brother
Its not gonna stop there
😓
Every single company.
All it takes is your favorite company to suddenly be run by a CEO who wants to maximize profits or increase shareholder value, or worse, think they’re God’s Gift to the World. Or in the flip side, they’re fighting for survival so they have to make scummy decisions to keep afloat.
Pro tip: don’t have favorite companies, have favorite products. And don’t assume the next gen of your favorite product will be good.
The issues with each are very different:
- Proton - CEO sucks and for some reason is sucking up to Trump; products are still good
- Mozilla - PR team sucks, though AFAIK the product is still fine, and you can use a fork to avoid the PR/legal team
- Brother - actively screwing you
I really wish we had open source 2D printers like we have open source 3D printers. That could solve a lot of the problems I think as we could have an open spec to allow people to do whatever they want. My Prusa doesn’t care what brand filament I want to use, just as long it can drive it, melt it, and lay it down the way I need. Also why is it my 3D printers are more reliable than my 2D printers most days?
Can’t a 3D printer double as a 2D printer? It’d only have to print one “slice”; you’d replace the heated nozzle with some sort of writing stick, hey presto instant plotter!
Any brands left? 🤔😅
FedEx if you only need to print once in a blue moon…
Or the library or office supply store.
