Printers are the worst. They’re unreliable, they guzzle reportedly $12,000-a-gallon ink, and their manufacturers have been known to use dirty tricks

It fills me with glee that Canon printers now think Canon’s own toner is fake

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2022-01-12 17:30:14

Printers are the worst. They’re unreliable, they guzzle reportedly $12,000-a-gallon ink, and their manufacturers have been known to use dirty tricks, scare tactics, and DRM to strongly encourage you to buy cartridges exclusively from them. But Canon is now getting a taste of its own medicine. Some of Canon’s own toner cartridges are now being detected as fakes — and they’re forcing the company to teach customers how to bypass its own DRM (via Techdirt).

According to Canon’s own support website (Europe, Germany), the company is “currently facing challenges in sourcing certain electronic components that are used in our consumables for our multifunction printers.” In other words, Canon’s been hit by the great chip shortage, too — only the components Canon’s missing aren’t powering video game consoles or your Tesla’s USB port; they’re the DRM for its own toner cartridges.

Semiconductor shortage leads to Canon selling toner cartridges without chips which usually identify them as genuine, so Canon now instructs customers on how to override the warnings for using "counterfeit" cartridges https://t.co/rqcmXckPFp