


Cryptography To Frustrate Printer-Ink Piracy 305
Zack Melich writes with news of a new front about to open in the war printer manufacturers wage with cartridge counterfeiters, refillers, and hardware hackers. A San Francisco company, Cryptography Research Inc., is designing a crypto chip to marry cartridges to printers. There's no word so far that any printer manufacturer has committed to using it. Quoting: "The company's chips use cryptography designed to make it harder for printers to use off-brand and counterfeit cartridges. CRI plans to create a secure chip that will allow only certain ink cartridges to communicate with certain printers. CRI also said that the chip will be designed that so large portions of it will have no decipherable structure, a feature that would thwart someone attempting to reverse-engineer the chip by examining it under a microscope to determine how it works. 'You can see 95 percent of the [chip's] grid and you still don't know how it works,' said Kit Rodgers, CRI's vice president of business development. Its chip generates a separate, random code for each ink cartridge, thus requiring a would-be hacker to break every successive cartridge's code to make use of the cartridge."
Piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it will really work. The technique itself will be patented and will come at a cost to printer manufacturers to implement, whereas it will make the printers particularly unattractive to anyone on a budget.
Everybody, even my grandma, knows that the real cost is in the consumables. People can easily make the calculation, eg: "let me see, I spend $30 more for printer Y but I get to refill, which costs me $15 less each time. Hmmm, what a tricky decision - not!"
Re:Piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's wishfull thinking. You can easily make chips for a very small fraction of the price of these cartridges. So much so that any "piracy" that is being stamped out will mean more profit for the original manufacturer.
Chips in mass production have two mayor cost components: design and die-size. Now I don't know how much IP overhead there will be, but rest assured that the variable costs (related to die-size) will be extremely low. Especially since some of these cardridges tend to already contain electronics.
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But I think the wider issue is, the continuing attempts to prevent 3rd party printer cartridges, shows blatant violation of antitrust laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitru st_law/ [wikipedia.org]
Its about time legal action was taken against these companies.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitr
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But I think the wider issue is, the continuing attempts to prevent 3rd party printer cartridges, shows blatant violation of antitrust laws. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitru [wikipedia.org] st_law/ Its about time legal action was taken against these companies.
Yup. Controlling the aftermarket ink and toner cartridges is a blatant violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Also, the standard practice of scaring consumers into thinking that their warranties are going to be voided by even looking at the refilled cartridges is in direct violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.
So, why are things so screwed up? HP, Lexmark, Canon and Epson have much larger legal departments than remanufacturers.
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Chips in mass production have two mayor cost components: design and die-size. Now I don't know how much IP overhead there will be, but rest assured that the variable costs (related to die-size) will be extremely low. Especially since some of these cardridges tend to already contain electronics.
Still, I can't see how companies will uniformly embrace this (unless forced to - do you see that happening anytime soon?). This is not likely to impact on current technologies, I reckon, but actually it might on new methods of printing which may be protected by patent for a time. Say Kodak had a new way of making ink not bleed once printed .. say an inkjet-based method that was superior to laser. They might claim to protect consumers by forcing them to use kodak cartriges and thereby justify this DRM.
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Are you kidding. They'll up the price and even increase their margin as a result of this. "But why is the ink so expensive ?!" -> "Because people pirate the ink and we had to take protective measures".
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And actually, I can usually pack the thing back in the box and take it down to the pawn shop and get $15-20 for it thus further offsetting the cost of replacing the printer every month.
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Right now, I am wondering if I
Borat (Score:3, Funny)
Theese peoples who say not jokes, they are NOT cool.
Oh, I get eet now! Bwahaha!
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Or have the prices sunken so badly that there is no point of return anymore to selling hardware at its price?
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You cant necessarily infer any assumption of illegality from the use of that word anymore.
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Re:Piracy? (Score:5, Insightful)
>> Who said it was illegal?
>> They're just trying to minimize profit loss, and I don't blame them.
well, if printer manufacturers would just sell their hardware (and consumables) at a price that reflects the actual cost to produce (each item type) there would be no lost profits.... this whole 'make the money on ink' is bullshit.
and besides, isn't this company just wasting their time? "circumventing" restrictions in printer consumables was already ruled to not be a violation of the "it's Digital, Me Copy it Anyway" act? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int'l_v._Sta
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Because while I may agree that the pricing is obscene, I'm honest enough to admit that it doesn't rise to a level that I really give a crap about. Have a problem with inkject cartridges being so expensive? Do what I do - use a laser printer, and forego all the pretty colors that cost so much.
Voila, problem solve
Anti trust? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Anti trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
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hacked in 3 seconds: (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up (Score:2, Funny)
"Watch your competitors take suicide: priceless."
Re:hacked in 3 seconds: (Score:5, Insightful)
Defective by Design (Score:5, Insightful)
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Off-topic my ass... he hit the damned nail! (Score:5, Interesting)
This firm has designed hardware/firmware that would let printer manufacturers digitally restrict your use of their product, i.e. the printer, by preventing OEMs from making alternative cartridges and you from having choices. Isn't that rights management? If a competitor actually succeeded in creating a knockoff, you'd see a repeat of the stunt Lexmark pulled with toner cartridges: they'd sue in court under the provisions of the DMCA. In this case, this sleazebag Cryptography Research would no doubt jump in with a patent infringement suit, as well.
It's bad enough that average people are such a complete disappointment; when I see people here mod like that, even Slashdot disappoints me.
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Uhh yea (Score:2)
Or they go out and buy a laser and give the finger to printer manufacturers.
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Yeah! Let's zap those evil printer manufacturers and zap them with laserbeams!
misquoted (Score:5, Insightful)
The company's chips use cryptography designed to make it harder for customers to use off-brand and counterfeit cartridges.
Fixed that for you.
Re:misquoted (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for ya.
Restricting or Denying Consumers Choice? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's like saying I can only use Dodge Brand gas in my car, and my wife could only use Toyota.
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My opinion of these kinds of lock-ins has always been that their just trying to alienate their own customer base, and the more you try to force people into an artificial business model the more incentive they have to find alternate solutions.
So I say to manufacturers: the game is over. Sell your printers at cost, please,
Cryptography instead of Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought an EPSON CX 5200 and it turned out to be a lemon. There was no fix, no refund, it just sucked after about a year. It was a hundred-dollar Jackson Pollock(sp?) machine, and the reason was that the experimental ink cartridge design was crap. My printer would work just fine if the business model were not to use cheap printers to lock you into expensive ink cartridges. My printer would print, if that were the goal of the printer-makers.
I will never buy another EPSON, and I'm glad to say so to so many people. Unless, of course, they were to come out against this encryption nonsense.
I will never buy another EPSON (Score:2)
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Cannon, Xerox, IBM, Kodak,...
I personally will never buy another HP, because of their crap software
Don't use their software. I use Gimp and Ghostscript. Check the hardware compatibility list. All in one units and many scanners are doorstops as in the days of Winmodems.
My next printer will be a laser (Score:2)
Right now my Epson is more: "Print test page to see if it's going to work, spend twenty minutes wasting paper and squirting expensive ink into a sponge just to get it flowing, finally get to print a page."
I don't need the hassle. I don't need the expense.
A color laser printer costs about $300 and will print thousands of pages with the included toner. If I need to print photos the print shop 50 yards from here will do a better job then my inkjet f
not in the EU (Score:2)
It's also possible that putting chips in disposable consumables such as printer cartridges is illegal in the EU - I recall some discussion about this during the Lexmark fiasco a few years ago.
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Perhaps the BPI, or its international counterpart might.
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They have a lot of cause to purchase laws all over the world, since a copy made in EU is as much "damage" to them as a copy made in the US. The raid on The Pirate Bay would not have happened unless MPAA would have pushed, which is well documented and something that MPAA even boasts about.
Here is their problem. Their business idea relies on the rest of the world to do exactly as they are being told.
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You could also just reuse them, using off the shelf refill kits, but it's not going to be the same ink your printer prefers, so it's not going to have the same drying speed, and possible not the exact color, but in most cases, this is more than adequate.
Btw, I see
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never buy a bubble jet (Score:2, Funny)
Go right ahead. (Score:2)
RIAA and Epson in the same tree (Score:5, Insightful)
If they had ink cartridges with aggressive pricing in the first place, people would buy the factory-made ink simply because it would sound like a safe choice. At least I would.
Joke, and problem with joke (Score:2)
When I first saw the summary, my first thought was to post a joke about, "... and after that, they're fixing DRM". But then I RTFA'd (which I for some reason do before I post) and noticed CRI will also soon debut a similar copy-protection feature for Blu-ray video discs. So, other than getting a method of circumventing this printer technology (which presumably has value) posted on the Internet, would this have any effect? Somehow, I cannot get my head around whatever technology they are selling.
Oh, but
Cryptography Research Inc And Sony In Alliance (Score:5, Informative)
Cryptography Research Inc are also working on blu-ray BD+, the security on new blu-ray discs that will have features like:
1: expiring discs. so the media you own will need continued licence renewals to enable you to use it.
2: the ability for studios to remote disable drives permanently if yours or a line is found to be hacked/venerable.
3. usage reports to the studios of your hardware, including your location and serial number used in the fight against piracy.
http://yahoo.businessweek.com/technology/content/
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070620-blu
The loser here? The consumer. (Score:2, Informative)
Be careful, I wil buy another NEW printer (Score:4, Interesting)
From the customer point of view, it is not silly, can be called wasteful, but it is economic sound
This is what I did when the four cartridges for my laserjet 2600n did cost more than a new printer
Really, I did buy a second printer since overall I was saving 50Euros over buying the for cartridges...
When they run out I will buy something else (more linux compatible)
What makes me sad is that it is quite difficult for manufactures to actually "convince" a customer that a more expensive printer with a cheaper "refill" is worthwhile.
Maybe they should have a simple page that says "total costo over a year", where you input how many pages you plan to print and it will compare a printer against the others. This would be good for the environment, and the customers, less for sneaky companies that tends to mess up with advertising
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This is exactly the problem and I think it's human nature to go for the short term cheapest and to hell with the long term cost. There's nothing the printer manufacturers can do unless they form a cartel and agree not to sell their printers below cost.
Re:Be careful, I wil buy another NEW printer (Score:5, Interesting)
The manufactures fudge the numbers if they are published at all. Case in point, my old HP 722c printer used a large color cartridge. They came out with a newer 950c printer. You had a choice of the half full cartridge (at the same price point as the old 722 cart) or the high capacity cart for almost double the price. They touted the new cart as a bargain because it printed oh so many more pages and at higher quality.
I checked online... The first thing I noticed in the fine print is the comparison of apples and oranges.
The page count for the 722c printer is based on 15% page coverage. The page count for the 950c cart is based on 5% page coverage.
It's not that hard to adjust the 722c's page count based on using 1/3rd the ink for 5% coverage instead of 15% coverage. If I didn't pay attention to the details, I may have missed it. Needless to say, the newer 950c became a spare printer while I ran the 722c to the point the belt broke. The replacement belt is under the price of one cart for the 950c. My only problem is the color carts for the 722 are getting harder to find.
Due to the price of ink and the reduced price of photo prints, I no longer print photos at home. The printer manufactures have priced themselves out of the market and left the market wide open for photofnishers to take the market. With all the digital cameras out there, the printer manufactures are leaving lots of ink and photo paper unsold.
With the high cost of ink, many are very stingy with full color prints.
What the hell has happened to the printer market? (Score:4, Interesting)
I really don't understand the economics and consumer dynamics around the printer market these days. Surely printer technology has reached a plateau for most normal people? Is that why some corporate madman decided to adopt a blades and razors approach to the consumer printing market? I know it's been a fixture of the corporate colour copier / printer market for a long while now ... but ... why not just charge the correct price for the printer and the consumables?
A what the hell are people printing so damn much of that the consumables business is sooooo lucrative?
I've never been all that into generating large reams of paper at home. For my day job, I print documentation, reports, manuscripts, etc at the office and lug it home when I want a hard copy of something I'm editing online.
For my photography, I send files to a lab and have my images printed. I've considered printing at home - but I would expect archival inks and decent papers to be pricey. I really don't know why I'd want to keep a printer in a corner of my room waiting for those three or four colour 4x5's that I just HAVE to print then and there - and which can't wait for Apple / Kodak / Peak Imaging to deliver to my door in a couple of days. Surely iPhoto or Picasa is a hell of a lot simpler than fiddling with inkjet printers?
When I was writing more long-form pieces, I had a Brother laser printer. Cost me $100 at the time and I could print books without running out of toner. The cartridges weren't that cheap, but it took a nice long while before I had to change them out.
Surely it makes sense for most people just to send their photos off to be printed and to keep a cheap laser printer around for text?
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Either a network laser printer or a printserver makes a nice addition to a home LAN. Many printer manufactures are counting on one PC/Printer combo and for the times you need a splash of color (google maps) a color printer becomes mandantory. With network prin
I bought a printer because I could use refills (Score:2)
I think if I had bought some cheaper printe
Stop using printers then (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice business plan ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Counterfeit? (Score:2, Funny)
New genuine printer manufacturer cartridge
Refilled genuine printer manufacturer cartridge
Other brands compatible cartridge (new or refilled)
So I guess a counterfeit cartridge is a cartridge manufactured by some company which brand it with the name of another company for the purpose of ripping off the consumer.
Well that's something I never saw in my career, and
Eventually gonna shoot their own foot (Score:2)
Pirate = Terrorist (Score:2, Informative)
Just like "terrorist", it has a fuzzy meaning and can be abused to no end.
I tried several times in private email to get the author of this piece to define the word "pirate", but she would not or could not.
Laser printers (Score:2)
Printers (Score:2)
When you discov
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With Canon, empty != empty (Score:4, Informative)
The message claims that continuing to use the printer would damage it. Rubbish. Remember laser printers and photo copies before the DMCA allowed this smart chip chikanery? They'd get faint, and you'd replace the toner, and all would be ok.
Will your printer do this? It's hard to tell, because reviewers don't print enough pages to find out. This isn't declared anywhere on the advertising material. It's unethical on Canon's part, and should be illegal. But as we saw with the Sony Rootkit, big companies can break the law on a whim and not get prosecuted.
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Perhaps the same is possible with a canon?
Could we please drop the phrase *right now* (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit.... (Score:2)
CRI also said that the chip will be designed that so large portions of it will have no decipherable structure,
That happens to be impossible. It is a direct lie.
'You can see 95 percent of the [chip's] grid and you still don't know how it works,'
So what? Any competent attacker will see 100%. Seeing 95% is not much easier than seeing 100%. Not a lie, but active misdirection.
So far for clueless and dishonest marketing. However it is possible to deduce how
imagine if... (Score:3, Insightful)
This has already been outlawed in the US (Score:5, Insightful)
HP Does this already ... (Score:4, Informative)
Our re-filler got a bunch of chips from somewhere, but none of them worked. We found that if we pulled the chip off the old toner cartridge and put it on the new one, it worked just dandy..
Support Kodak and change the market (Score:4, Interesting)
Recyling is Piracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
When Will They Learn...? (Score:3, Insightful)
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* It increases the amount of waste. A whole printer is price-dumped into the market, and when the ink goes out, people buy a whole new printer.
* Waste again: Preventing cartridge refills, which is easier on the environment.
* Anti-trust: Preventing fair competition in the marketplace of ink cartridge manufacturers.
* Making devices Defective By Design, thus artificially restricting customer choice and creating artificial shortage. The devices are sold normally without any extra labels
Details... (Score:5, Informative)
* The antitrust argument might have some merit, but I'm not sure if it is good enough to take to court.
* Finally, I've found a case about DMCA and printer cartridges that has already be decided in court:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Lexmark_v_Static_C
Here, Lexmark failed with a lawsuit against a company that reverse engineered its cartridges.
The truth isn't quite out there yet... (Score:2)
The sad fact is that the average consumer has no idea that with an inkjet that they'll spend far, far more on consumables than they did on the printer itself. And when they walk into the average PC superstore to buy a printer, no salesperso
Re:The truth isn't quite out there yet... (Score:4, Informative)
Currently, the ink of some printers is going above 10% of the price of gold per gram.
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I guess the plan for printer makers is to a) hope that not too many of their customers notice that they don't have to pay these prices, and b) pray that some other printer maker doesn't come along and makes lots of noise pointing out that by paying an extra $40 for the printer you can save $200 on ink over the next year or two.
Of course some companies already lock pr
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Are there any companies out there right now that aren't scumbags? How good are Canon these days?
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see keyword openly.
Re:This has been tried Before (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Corruption becomes out of control
2. Profit!!
3. Locals get pissed, get corruption back to acceptable levels.
4. Locals become complacent, stop keeping their good eye on officials
5. Corruption becomes out of control
6. Profit!!
I'm no genius but, I can see a slight pattern developing here.
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Lexmark tried it (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/30/lexmark_l
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Nothing in the court battle they lost said that they couldn't build a better mouse trap, just that they couldn't sue cartridge manufacturers that figured out how to make replacement cheese.
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http://www.continuousink.com/ [continuousink.com]