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Oh how the mighty have fallen

When I was a young and enthusiastic electronics engineer, the name Hewlett Packard was one of the most respected in the business.

Their electronic test-gear and related products were the duck's guts. Great quality, always reliable and accurate to a fault. The company stood behind these products with a wealth of service data and spares, making them a preferred choice for anyone who was designing, building or servicing electronic equipment back in the day.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Today, HP seems focused on churning out cheap tatty printers that create a pile of misery for anyone unfortunate enough to waste their money on them.

Long gone are the days when the original HP Laserjet printer was the "go to" for anyone seeking long-term reliabilty and low cost of operation. Today it's all about inkjets and their voracious appetite for a liquid that costs more than gold.

And now they're lowered the bar even more, by making a very worrying statement.

According to this Arstechnica story, users of HP printers could be exposing their computers, indeed their entire networks, to malware, viruses and hacking.

What the?

Apparently, if HP's CEO is to be believed, the use of third-party printer cartridges could wreak havoc with a user's IT systems due to the potential for malware to be contained in the chips used by knock-off consumables.

OMG!

What are they smoking in the HP boardroom?

This was the most unwise statement I think I've heard a CEO make in a very long time. Let's examine why.

Firstly, if it is true then it is basically an admission by HP that they simply have no clue when it comes to designing and implementing the relatively trivial software associated with page-counting in a printer.

In essence, all the chip on an injet cartridge has to do is tally up the total activiation time for each tank and then make it available "on demand" when queried by the printer -- perhaps with a little encryption to make life harder for those who would create knock-offs.

At no time does the printer's CPU need to run *any* code from the chip on the cartridge. All it needs to do is interact through a clearly defined API that involves presenting commands and reading back data from the cartridge's microcontroller.

If HP can't design that interface in a way that is totally immune to *anything* that might run on the cartridge microcontroller then they should hang their heads in shame. If this is the case then we can only shudder in fear at how many other huge gaping security vulnerabilities exist across the range of HP products and services.

Secondly, if this is just a lie then HP is, in my honest opinion, fraudulently representing the facts in an attempt to fend off competition from third-party consumable manufacturers. This is totally unacceptable and speaks to a lack of morals and ethics. I would not want to do business with any company that would engage in BS tactics like this and they certainly won't be getting any of my money, as a consumer.

How sad it is that a name that once garnered such respect now seemingly either admits to incompetence or telling lies to try and protect its bottom line.

This is a tragedy and brings a tear to the eyes of all those who remember when HP was actually a name you could trust.

Carpe Diem folks!

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