You deliberately misrepresent this as one $80 printer; in reality it is the sum total of all printers bricked by this, plus price gouging the printer owners who don’t want their printer bricked.
If even a few dozen printers were bricked by this it would represent more lost value than the threshold for grand larceny in many jurisdictions; do you propose we let people who steal, say, $1600 of goods walk away scot free? And don’t waste your breath on fines —- those will only be passed on to the captive consumers as the “cost of business.”
I'm curious if this violates U.S. code 1030(a)(5) [0]
"(5)
(A)knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causes damage without authorization, to a protected computer;
(B)intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage; or
(C)intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage and loss.[2]"
We should absolutely use every tool available to us. I anal and I don’t quite understand if this is CFAA but it is my personal conviction that that the CFAA is both overly broad and unnecessary and must be repealed.
Meanwhile, it is a miscarriage of justice that prosecutors don’t seem to use CFAA against large corporations.
Are we even sure that the customers legally own the printers? For instance, has anyone bothered to read the EULA that came with whatever bundled software someone installs now days to get the printer driver working?
Even if there isn't surreptitious transfer of the hardware, they could certainly have a clause in there that authorizes them to do such things.
That's not how sale of physical products work. If you go to a store and buy a box and take it home, without the people at the store making you read and sign a contract, you own it.
At some point in the recent past, people's ideas of what constitute a contract changed. Previously, it was a firm agreement between two parties, who had met and discussed it, and made a formal declaration that the agreement had been reached (not necessarily by signing papers, but at least some gesture/voiced assent). Now?
Now people seem to think that the other party doesn't even have to be present. It's one-sided. No discussion or agreement need take place. No evidence need to be preserved that there was a discussion or agreement. It only protects one side of the deal, not both, and can be amended by one side with no recourse to the other. If you listen carefully, you catch wind of this idea all the time in daily life. Talking about gym memberships, cell phone plans, cable tv, etc.
The people talking about it are on the losing side, too. They don't seem hurt or angry or confused, they accept it as if it's the way things should be or have to be.
It's not entirely clear to me why this switched. It's not clear to me how no one ever seemed to be outraged over it.
I don't think it could be fixed. Sure, I can imagine legislation that might cut out the worst aspects of it (no, gyms can't demand that people sign year long contracts unless they also prove that they're using the existence of the contracts to justify the purchase of new equipment or the like). But without people at least grumbling about these things, there'd never be pressure for any legislation anyway. Let alone the likelihood that this is more of a matter for the courts than legislatures.
Given all this, I don't think that people are buying physical products anymore. How many exercise bikes or treadmills out there are cloud-connected and will stop working if the company goes out of business? Or if your "subscription" ends and you don't let it auto-renew?
The ship has sailed, I think, on the concept of personal property.
Yes, non-proud HP InkJet owner. You own the printer. However, you MUST be subscribed to their HP Whatever Program and pre-pay them the amount of pages you’d like to print on a monthly basis. You cannot print unless you are on the program. I did read these terms because it was insane, and I’m paraphrasing.
It looks like they updated their program terms to force you to buy their ink. Honestly I thought that was already the case since I had tried using cheaper ink and the printer rejected it.
I have a HP PhotoSmart C3180 that predates that program. It did not work well with third party ink cartridges, but it could be that HP did something in the firmware to sabotage them. I have since stopped buying ink cartridges. I only print using laser printers now. The HP is nothing more than a high resolution scanner at this point.
I doubt you have have any problem convincing that printers are goods that you own and the EULA is meaningless. Eulas already are questionable from a legal standpoint as they don't really meet the standards of a contract.
If we ever want customers to have a fighting chance at protecting their rights against the interests of corporations, we must drastically narrow what rights can be 'waived' in an EULA. It's absurd that today you can buy a physical good and somehow some non-negotiated piece of legalese that you don't even get to read until you open the box can somehow 'authorize' them to choose what kind of ink you are allowed to put in it. This notion must die and any castles built upon it must fall.
Did they misrepresent the printer? They advertise “dynamic security” in their marketing as if it were a good thing. If it was in the advertising and documentation, how is that misrepresentation?
That being said, HP seems to mostly rebadge Canon printers loaded with their firmware, so I am not sure why people are still buying them. HP is just a middle man these days.
What would happen if you went around to every house in your neighborhood and smashed everyone's printers? Would you be fined 0.01% of the cost of damaged items, or would you go to jail?
If even a few dozen printers were bricked by this it would represent more lost value than the threshold for grand larceny in many jurisdictions; do you propose we let people who steal, say, $1600 of goods walk away scot free? And don’t waste your breath on fines —- those will only be passed on to the captive consumers as the “cost of business.”