Issue 01 · August 2026 itsowrong.com
It’s So Wrong Claims, objects, practices — not people

Bad Design

The printer that learned to reject the ink you already bought.

HP publishes the feature. A firmware update, then a cartridge that was fine yesterday is contraband.

CHIP
ONLY

Staff art. No photos of strangers. No scraped listings.

What looks wrong

A home printer you own, and a third-party or refilled cartridge that physically fits.

What’s actually going on

HP documents a firmware system it calls Dynamic Security. Many of its printers authenticate cartridges and are 'intended to work only with cartridges that have new or reused HP chips.' A software update can block a cartridge that was working. HP says this protects quality, system integrity, and intellectual property. The design question is whether a printer you bought should brick a tank you also bought.

You can own a printer and still lose a fight with a cartridge. HP's own support pages describe Dynamic Security: the printer talks to a chip on the cartridge. If the chip is not an HP chip — new or reused — the printer is designed to refuse the job. Original HP cartridges that keep the original chip can be refilled, HP says. A lot of aftermarket tanks cannot.

That is not a rumor from a forum. It is HP's published product behavior. The company says the feature protects the customer experience, the printing system, and its IP. Firmware updates have extended the lock to more models. On some older machines HP later offered a way to turn the feature off. On many newer ones, public support answers say there is no switch.

This is a design fail or a property-rights stance, depending on the vote. We are not naming a customer whose magenta ran out on a Sunday. We are voting on a machine that can change the deal after the till has closed.

Source: HP Support, Dynamic Security enabled printers (company description of the practice). We quote the public record. A settlement is not always an admission.

The Wrong Letter

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