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Brother accused of locking down third-party printer ink cartridges via forced firmware updates, removing older firmware versions from support portals [see comments] (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Brother deny the claims:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/brother-denies-using-firmware-updates-to-brick-printers-with-third-party-ink/

via https://startrek.website/comment/15279250

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[–] 81 points 2 years ago (14 children)

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.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] -5 points 2 years ago* (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    ... 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.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    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!

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