Monday, September 28, 2015

Hewlett Packard printer ink Region Code a national security feature?

The blogster has let go of many people and many things in life, friends, family, lovers, haters, pets, books and more.

Hewlett Packard (HP) printer ink is not one of those things.

Here's what happened.

The blogster bought a new HP printer before moving to Europe. Having had fun with HP printers for years, this seemed like a good idea. The machine has international features, it handles the different paper formats, the power supply does both 110 and 240 V, so all was taken care of.

Settled in Germany, papers were printed - until the spare ink was out, too.

With the cartridge numbers in hand, a quick trip to the electronics store would get fresh ink.

Well, no.

They didn't have cartridges with my numbers. But they had cartridges for the same printer model.

Bought, replaced, printer ON - and the message "illegal cartridges" appeared.

To make a long story short: HP uses "Region codes" for ink cartridges. The cartridges are identical except for a chip on the underside. At the time, this HP support page did not exist.

But the HP corporate site had a nice contact form to get in touch with the chief.

A piece of advice from the blogster's farming days of growing food in dirt and raising adorable baby animals for slaughter has come in handy in the corporate world.
The advice is this:

When you deal with a heap of steaming manure, there is only one place you want to be  - on top.

24 hours later, a German HP support person calls and sends instructions for changing the Region Code, warning that it can be done only once. Well, it didn't work, which is okay because we simply make any visitor from the U.S. bring ink and explain at customs as needed.

Until yesterday, the blogster considered the Region Code feature modeled after movies and audio DVDs a total rip-off, yet another example of hyper capitalist greed. Especially because in the old days, printer ink was like car tires. Once used up, you'd go and buy new ones from a maker of your choice.

What changed between yesterday and today, you ask?

The blogster had totally overlooked the patriotism of current GOP presidential candidate and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina. The deep involvement of many leading American tech companies in keeping the country safe from threats must be the explanation for using Region Codes.

If an American ink cartridge falls into hands of mid-East bad guys, it is useless to the badies without HP support! If the bad guys can't print their newsletters, they are stuck.

What an elegant move.

Don't ask me why this is not done with guns. Maybe it is because upsetting printer users is a lot less dangerous than upsetting someone who has a gun? Greater minds will need to solve this question.

The blogster is still waiting for HP to chip its printer paper, thus forcing users to use only overpriced HP branded bleached wood pulp. RFID chip sizes have shrunk drastically, prices are down to next to nothing, making chipping individual sheets of paper feasible. **

One more thing:
In case you happen to be an HP employee working in a country where all buildings' glass doors are adorned with big orange adhesive dots, the blogster has a fun story about those, too.

** The blogster put this idea forward almost three years ago.

[Update] Added for clarification "The cartridges are identical except for a chip on the underside."
Added note on RFID.

[Update 10/27/2015] The joys of software updates. The printer just said a cartridge was "refilled or depleted". Nice one.

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