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It has been demonstrated that refilled HP cartridges can use a man-in-the-middle attack to bypass HP’s strict digital rights management (DRM) that prevents consumers from using regular cartridges. YouTube creator Jay Sammet shared a video (via Hackaday) demonstrating this particular attack, which allows users to bypass HP’s unfriendly DRM methods.
Cartridge hacks are common in the cartridge market, especially when HP and other printer manufacturers sell cartridges at exorbitant prices (perhaps to recoup their initial investment in the printer) that they reportedly sell at a loss. Because of these high prices, many people are forced to use third-party cartridges, and printer manufacturers try to prevent this by embedding chips in them.
Printers now need to detect these embedded chips before they can recognize the cartridge, so third-party ink manufacturers can bypass this security feature by only refilling older cartridges; original ink cartridges are then equipped with page limiters that require the end user to replace the ink after a certain number of pages have been printed, even if there is still some ink left in the cartridge.
This is where the man-in-the-middle attack occurs – the ink refill adds a flexible circuit board to the original contacts of the cartridge and routes a signal to the chip. This then modifies the original signal to tell the printer that it has not reached its page limit, and is then rerouted to another set of contacts that cover the original contacts. This way, the printer thinks it is communicating with the original, unmodified cartridge.
The chip hack is the latest attempt by third-party ink makers to soften the negative consumer experience with printers, especially HP brand printers. The company has defended its move to restrict the use of such third-party inks by claiming that it is due to security issues, and even advertised that its printers are “made less annoying.” However, the company’s anti-consumer actions, especially in the printer segment, are forcing consumers to buy regular ink cartridges. In fact, there are many lawsuits against printer DRM and so on. But since such cases take time to work through the legal system, users have to resort to creative solutions to keep their printers affordable without having to pay exorbitant prices for ink.
Jovi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of industry experience. Since 2021, he has been writing for several tech publications with an interest in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
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Post time: Jan-23-2025