Hacker Bypasses GE's Ridiculous Refrigerator DRM (vice.com) 127
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Earlier this year, we brought you the sordid tale of the GE refrigerator that won't dispense filtered water unless consumers pay extra for "official" filters from the company. This sort of digital rights management and artificial, software-enforced monopoly is a scourge on consumer rights. Now, finally, a fed up customer has found a way to bypass GE's refrigerator DRM, and has posted instructions online.
The anonymous person registered a website called gefiltergate.com, and explained that by swapping the RFID tag from an official GE refrigerator to a third-party filter they bought on Amazon, they can get the refrigerator to continue filtering water as normal. For reference, third-party filters cost as little as $13; GE filters cost $55. I'm gonna go ahead and call this a "hack," because they're bypassing an artificial software lock to circumvent DRM, which is, at least in spirit, a hack, and a cool one at that. The hack was also done by Jack Busch over at GroovyPost last month. To make your fridge use "unauthorized" filters, you need to take the old filter out, flip it over, and carefully remove the RFID chip. This chip tells the fridge that it's a "real" filter. This chip is glued down, and the person on gefiltergate suggested that rather than try to pry it up, you can simply cut around it with a Dremel or a saw. They then taped the RFID chip to the circuit board that checks whether a filter is authorized. This then allows them to use third-party filters, no problem. As Busch explains in his blog post, the refrigerator will say "not filtering," but it will dispense water that goes through the new filter, so it does indeed work.
The anonymous person registered a website called gefiltergate.com, and explained that by swapping the RFID tag from an official GE refrigerator to a third-party filter they bought on Amazon, they can get the refrigerator to continue filtering water as normal. For reference, third-party filters cost as little as $13; GE filters cost $55. I'm gonna go ahead and call this a "hack," because they're bypassing an artificial software lock to circumvent DRM, which is, at least in spirit, a hack, and a cool one at that. The hack was also done by Jack Busch over at GroovyPost last month. To make your fridge use "unauthorized" filters, you need to take the old filter out, flip it over, and carefully remove the RFID chip. This chip tells the fridge that it's a "real" filter. This chip is glued down, and the person on gefiltergate suggested that rather than try to pry it up, you can simply cut around it with a Dremel or a saw. They then taped the RFID chip to the circuit board that checks whether a filter is authorized. This then allows them to use third-party filters, no problem. As Busch explains in his blog post, the refrigerator will say "not filtering," but it will dispense water that goes through the new filter, so it does indeed work.
Perfect... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm literally going this weekend to buy a new fridge, but not a GE one. Thanks Slashdot!
Re:Perfect... (Score:5, Informative)
IMO the best way to do this is use your own RO system and bypass the fridge filter outright; they suck balls. Depends on the fridge, but usually there are tubes on the back that you can cut and join together using regular quick connect fittings that you can buy at home depot, lowes, etc. That is, of course, if you're a DIY type person. I personally use this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod... [amazon.com]
The ice comes out as clear as glass after putting that in.
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Jeebus! Why not a simple $50 single cartridge carbon filter. Do you live in Flint by any chance?
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>but usually there are tubes on the back that you can cut and join together
usually, the refrigerator comes with a bypass plug that fits into the filter socket, and you can just feed it your filtered water..
hawk
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The ice comes out as clear as glass after putting that in.
This filter removes the dissolved air from your water? Neat!
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Yes, this. When a company does this, the correct thing to do is put them in the book of grudges and ignore them from then on. I'm looking at you, Green Mountain.
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Yes, this. When a company does this, the correct thing to do is put them in the book of grudges and ignore them from then on. I'm looking at you, Green Mountain.
So it's like all those people who will no longer use Amazon because of their selling fake products or mistreatment of employees?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
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I haven't bought anything from Intuit in nearly 15 years because they're in my book of grudges.
Doesn't seem to have penalized them much.
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I haven't bought anything from Intuit in nearly 15 years because they're in my book of grudges.
Doesn't seem to have penalized them much.
Ah, so you're the one that broke their backs and forced Intuit to sell off Quicken just to stay alive.
https://fortune.com/2016/03/04... [fortune.com]
Kudos to FrankSchwab!
Re: Perfect... (Score:1)
People.
We didn't talk about humanoid livestock/drones.
Amazon certainly is a big taboo around here in Germany, from my persepctive.
Apart from that, it is a nightmare to find anything on there. The search is actively your enemy. No useful filters, no useful sorting, no freaking proper categories (WTF!). Only idiots who absolutely do not give a fuck what they are buying or if it is a good deal, buy there by choice and without pulling their hair out.
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I deleted my Amazon account a few months ago. I had been thinking about it for a while, and hearing about the mistreatment of employees was plenty reason to go through with it.
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Exactly this: I refuse to but from Amazon due to the way that it mistreats its employees [slashdot.org]. It is also becoming too big and misuses its position [globalnews.ca]; it also does not pay its taxes [cnbc.com]. I urge everyone else to avoid Amazon.
Re:Perfect... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was literally going to buy a new air conditioner this weekend, but not a GE one.
By that, I also mean [geappliances.com] not a Haier [wikipedia.org], not a Monogram, not a Cafe, not a GE, not a GE Profile, not a Hotpoint, not a Casarte, not a Leader, not a Fisher & Paykel, not an Aqua and not a Candy.
Re: Perfect... (Score:2)
Joke's on you. I live in a country where air conditioning is unnecessary, all residential windows can just be opened like a door, and all we need is central heating. :D ;)
Plus we got "blast shields" on our windows that we can roll down to turn every room pitch black.
If I ever need an aircon (Thanks Trump!(TM)), I'll build my own.
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None of that Samsung shit either. All their electronics are built cheaply and fail often. The microprocessor in your fridge has a cold solder joint on BGA chip. Nothing but a doorstop until six to eight weeks when a new board arrives from China. Then another week or two until a tech can show up.
Meanwhile the bimetallic switch inside a mechanical thermostat will last until the contacts burn out, decades later.
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>None of that Samsung
also overbuilt.
My insanely expensive samsung dryer's drum went out of round (and that's presumably why it cracked).
Over $300 for the replacement, because there made it of stainless steel, several months for it to come into the country--and the replacement was out of round, too!
We bought a rebuilt from a guy that buys and refurbs, and he told me Samsung was the second worst brand for such thing . . . behind GE.
And he didn't work hard on referring the one we got. Once he managed to pu
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Why do you bother reading this?
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I don't want to hack it, I want to give money to companies that don't try to create a monopoly on things. Filtering water isn't a new technology, and shouldn't be a thing to take advantage of anyway. The quality of water in some places is horrible.
Now, if GE designed a fridge that takes filters without an RFID tag enabling them to work, and they're roughly the same price as "knock-offs", then consumers are going to most likely buy the "real" thing rather than the knock-off. I know I would.
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I don't want to hack it, I want to give money to companies that don't try to create a monopoly on things. Filtering water isn't a new technology, and shouldn't be a thing to take advantage of anyway. The quality of water in some places is horrible.
Now, if GE designed a fridge that takes filters without an RFID tag enabling them to work, and they're roughly the same price as "knock-offs", then consumers are going to most likely buy the "real" thing rather than the knock-off. I know I would.
Problem is you likely got the GE fridge priced below competitors because they anticipated making up the difference in future filter costs.
What do the efficacy comparisons look like between the $55 filter and the $13 filter? It matters.
Some bright boy had an idea about how to improve revenue, he enlisted his research and development colleagues to implement a solution to that end. Why are you trying to put hard working professional out of a job?
There are many nuances to these situations.
But yeah cheap clean w
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I'm creating one now. GE will be the first to go on it. Thanks GE (and Ben and Jerry's) for the inspiration!
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I understand (Score:1)
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How does a filter "mess up"? It either passes water or it doesn't, and it either filters or it doesn't. Even the printer ink folks have a better argument. At least that involves something made by a third party going through something really tiny inside your printer. But this? This is really pretty silly.
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I can think of ways it could. It could, for instance, restrict flow more than the official filters, causing more backpressure, which in turn, would cause more wear and tear (or even outright failure) of the various electromechanical components. Or leaks in the assorted valves.
I suspect that if that is the case, it's because they got cheap on their design and manufacturing processes to cut costs, but it does make sense logically.
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What components? The water system in a refrigerator is literally just a tube and a valve (or two valves if there's an ice maker). Everything is passive except for the valve, and the valve doesn't care how much water flows through it.
About the only way a filter could cause problems would be if it were designed in such a way that when it failed, it suddenly dumped liquid epoxy resin and hardener through the tube....
Re: I understand (Score:2)
The off brand water filters we use in our Samsung fridge work, they just don't last as long. But you get a 3 pack for half the price of one official filter, so it more than evens out
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Well: you have the liberty to try a different brand. This is not something that GE wants to allow its customers to do.
They do this to make their fridges appear to be cheaper in the shop, but their price gouging makes them more expensive over the life of fridge.
Also: what happens when, in a few years time, GE stops selling filters that the fridge recognises - part of the fridge will stop working.
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How does a filter "mess up"? It either passes water or it doesn't, and it either filters or it doesn't. Even the printer ink folks have a better argument. At least that involves something made by a third party going through something really tiny inside your printer. But this? This is really pretty silly.
A filter could theoretically do worse than nothing if it leaches material into the water, either chemically or by shedding particulates. GE actually could make a similar argument to the printers: you're passing water through something made by a third party and then putting it in your body, so of course they're taking steps to protect you by ensuring that their fridges will only use filters that they make themselves (with their quality and material control processes).
Now, you might not find that that arg
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That's true. But nobody in their right minds would blame GE for that. They might blame GE if it somehow damaged their refrigerator, but that's utterly implausible.
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And that's exactly the kind of compliance GE was hoping for. Congratulations! You're now part of the problem.
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If you put a 3rd party filter in the machine and it messes up, most normies will blame GE. If i was GE I would require official filters too.
It's such a genius idea.
Perhaps, all manufacturers should do this for air intake filters, oil filters, oil canisters, air conditioning filters, gas, batteries, electricity, etc. /sarcasm
The system obviously does not do it in a way that a person cant overcome it.
Why do you keep defending them? This hack requires a Dremel or a saw. Who's going to do that? Also, who wants a constant error message on their brand new $2,000 smart refrigerator?
Re:I understand (Score:5, Informative)
Why does it try to disable itself after a programmed amount of time? The reason is not to help you, it's too make you buy a new filter even if the old one is fine.
There is an even simpler hack. Just have two filters and swap back and forth. It doesn't remember old filters or mark them in any way, it just resets the counter every time the serial number changes.
Re: I understand (Score:2)
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Why does it try to disable itself after a programmed amount of time? The reason is not to help you, it's too make you buy a new filter even if the old one is fine.
There is an even simpler hack. Just have two filters and swap back and forth. It doesn't remember old filters or mark them in any way, it just resets the counter every time the serial number changes.
Except that these types of filters (carbon) go bad after about six months or a certain amount of litres. The pores get clogged (after a certain amount of litres), the carbon loses it adsorbtion (is with a 'd' adsorbtion is different from absortion) propperties, and the carbon itself becomes a foundation for bacterial growth (after about 6 months).
So, if you hack the filter as described, the fridge will not be able to track the litres/months for you, and also, the fridge will not be certain that you screwed
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Is that filter able to kill virus / bacteria?
I would assume that boiling the water and then letting it cool down in a safe container would be safer.
Virus, no, bacteria, yes. That is what the NSF 53 certification is all about.
Also, boiling the water is inconvenient and ineficient. And will not do anything about the taste of the water (NSF 42) or about certain chemicals in the water (NSF 401)
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The problem is that if you need to replace the filters say every 6 months the fridge will tell you that you need to replace them every 1 month. If the fridge was trustworthy it would be a great system, but the fridge lies.
That's the dystopian future we live in now, lied to by the fridge.
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The problem is that if you need to replace the filters say every 6 months the fridge will tell you that you need to replace them every 1 month. If the fridge was trustworthy it would be a great system, but the fridge lies.
That's the dystopian future we live in now, lied to by the fridge.
That's quite easy to check for, and GEA/Haier is a nice target for a lawsuit, so, no, your GE fridge will not dare to lie to you.
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The reason GE are doing this is for the same reason companies like HP and Lexmark put chips in their printer cartridges.
Its all about protecting their profit margin on overpriced consumables by preventing cheaper alternatives from appearing on the market.
Or just don't buy their fridge. (Score:2)
Re:Or just don't buy their fridge. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or just get a normal high end fridge with a plumbed in water and ice cube dispenser and install a water-filter cartridge upstream. You don't need to resort to filling pitchers with water.
Fuck Brita. (Score:1)
Don't get that snake oil crap.
It filters out the magnesium and calcium, and other good minerals, so if water is your main source, you're going to be in a lot of trouble!
A friend of mine's ex girlfriend, who was a stupid vegan I admit, got muscle spasms, until she stopped using it. But nuts as she was, she could not handle drinking "dirty" tap water, and started again, and the spasms came right back!
(Here in Germany, tap water is held to *higher* quality standards than bottled water. So it is generally *clea
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It filters out the magnesium and calcium, and other good minerals, so if water is your main source, you're going to be in a lot of trouble!
It does nothing of the sort. These aren't industrial RO systems.
Another ignorant post brought to you by BAReFO0t
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I bought an Internet-of-Things refrigerator made by GE and now I have Buyers' Regret, and am offended, offended, I say, that you're making me have bad feels about that, so I'm-a gonna insult you over it! NYAAAAH! :p :p :p
LOL
Why don’t the third party do this? (Score:4, Interesting)
My main problem with this is that we really do landfill an awful lot of product. In exchange for allowing DRM there should be a requirement to refurbish and sell the refurbish product. I would gladly pay for manufacturer refurbished product as third party product is all crap.
Simply put is should be illegal to prevent the use of third party parts unless you sell refurbished product. On a filter the outside plastic is perfectly reusable.
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Admittedly it could get murky whether something was "DRM" vs just unnecessarily complex. For example I'm sure GE would say this chip is needed to count the liters put through the filter to make sure it's doing its job... or something.
Re: Statists gonna State... (Score:1)
Yeah, we are against YOUR kind of liberty alright. The liberty to harm us and take away our liberty! Aka the libertarian sociopath "liberty".
And we are FOR the liberty FROM your liberty!
Two different kinds.
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No, it is the same kind for everybody — GM can put whatever they want into their product, you can choose not to buy them.
But that's not good enough for you, is it — you want to force others to do things the way you think, they should be done.
Illiberal...
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You do realize that the only way that vendors can effectively block 3rd party parts is by leaning on "statist" statutes like patent laws and the DMCA?
You call that liberty?
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I don't really care about that — and I'm not talking about enforcement here. If GM creates a shitty product — shitty in my opinion — I'm just not going to buy it.
For example, back in 1992 I concluded, Microsoft is an asshole — then switched to Unix, and haven't purchased any of their software since.
Illiberals, on contrast, continue denouncing disagreeable vendors, but still use their wares — whil
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I don't really care about that
Then you're a fucking hypocrite.
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Any bets on when GE sues the guy? (Score:2)
DMCA (Score:1, Interesting)
(to the tune of Y-M-C-A) (Thanks Rhombus for posting this in 2002)
Young man, you've been writing some code, I said,
Young man, think it ought to be showed, I said,
Young man, but what you shoulda knowed, is some
Things... must... be... left... un-said
Young man, there's a law that's been passed, I said,
Young man, we hoped it wouldn't last, but now,
Young man, if you break it, your ass will be
Hauled... a-way... to... Club Fed
We cannot stay with the DMCA
Get hauled away with the DMCA
You cannot circumvent
Any music o
Just like Keurigs (Score:2)
Back when the K cups started using DRM to identify their pods, a nice company came out and made "Freedom Clips" to bypass the DRM.
I can honestly say, I've never bought anything from Keurig. I have had some of their K-Cups at other peoples houses, and some of the pod flavors were actually not bad.
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"Back when the K cups "
K-cups? Methinks the lady has laaaaaarge...parts of land.
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"Back when the K cups "
K-cups? Methinks the lady has laaaaaarge...parts of land.
*tracts
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There have been other Keurig hacks [chzbgr.com]
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Keurig cups are *okay* but I'm much happier with the off brand Nespresso pods I use in the original style Nespresso machine I bought, flavor and strength wise. Say what you want about Nestle, but at least they didn't throw a fit when their pod patent expired and 3rd parties started making cheaper pods.
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Illy pods for my nespresso. Cheaper and nicer.
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Agreed, Illy are very nice. I also pick up Lavazza pods when they're on special at the corner drugstore.
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Most Amazon filters are garbage (Score:2)
Which, by the way, is usually perfectly OK (unless you live in Flint MI).
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inert pellets or grit
If you are lucky. I do stick to the manufacturer's branded filters actually made by 3M and NSF certified (for what that is worth). Although the new packing no longer has 3M located anywhere on it, so who knows, its all downhill towards pellets and grit :(
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If they're carbon block filters they're the same thing. You think GE sanctioned filters aren't cheap chinese made crap either? Read the print, the GE MWFP is made in China.
Dremel or a saw? (Score:2)
I love the spirit of this hack. It does make me laugh. Most of the people I know that live in a city don't have a hammer and screw driver much less a Dremel.
Of the very few that actually have Dremel's, they have a sanding attachment and have never cut anything and certainly never "carefully." Out of those folks, you might get 1% that would dig the Dremel out of a closet, buy a new cutting disc and then learn how to neatly cut an RFID chip out of a filter.
Cool hack but I don't think GE has much to worry
Lexmark lost (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess what: DMCA makes unauthorised _copying_ in the right (wrong) circumstances illegal. But no copying has happened. Therefore, Lexmark back then and GE today cannot use the DMCA to stop you.
Now if someone copied GE's RFID chips, that could be copyright infringement if there was anything copyright worthy in them. In the Lexmark case, the printer would _require_ a certain sequence of bytes to be present or it would refuse to work. But that made the sequence of bytes lose its copyright: The bytes had to be exactly the right ones, without any choice, therefore there was no creativity involved. The same might be true for these RFID chips.
And then there would be the question whether any DRM measures were circumvented. If I can just copy the chip, making an identical copy without trying to decode its contents, then no DRM measures might be circumvented, and again DMCA wouldn't apply.
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Now if someone copied GE's RFID chips, that could be copyright infringement if there was anything copyright worthy in them.
Nope. RFIDs like this are typical dumb devices that do little more than publish information when requested, in this case it just spits out a serial number. A serial number is a fact, and not copyrightable.
You can clone such RFID tags all you want.
Re: Lexmark lost (Score:1)
That's why the Horse-Penetrated logged each used chip in an internal blacklist once it was determined to be "empty" (aka 50% full), so it could never be re-used again.
Barring a change, GE offers a bypass for free (Score:2)
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"a whole-house RO system"? RO filtration for the "whole-house"? Could you use a filter bypass if your RO is only in your kitchen? How many homes have RO for the entire house, and why?
Next up: Unauthorized Bread (Score:2)
Swapping the RFID tag? (Score:2)
So not only is GE greedy, they are also too stupid to hire some real security people to implement this....
Only somewhat related but... (Score:3)
I've been in the market for a color laser printer recently, and I'm having trouble finding a non-evil printer. Most of them seem big on this exact DRM strategy for the toner (and/or other parts), which I outright refuse to support. Another issue I keep running into is printers which are poorly supported in Linux.
Any tips on where I could find something reasonable? It doesn't have to be the cheapest, as long as it is consumer friendly.
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Best bet would be to buy used, and verify it is supported in Linux.
I picked up a new Canon imageCLASS LBP612CDW Color Laser Printer for less then $200 a few years back.
I haven't used a toner refill kit yet you'll want to make sure they are available before you buy your printer.
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Buy evil printer.
Swap in 3rd party toner.
When it refuses to work, sue manufacturer for violations of the anti-tying provisions of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act.
PROFIT!
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I dunno...that sounds like a lot of work...and money, and risk.
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Your plan involves lawyers.
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I've been in the market for a color laser printer recently, and I'm having trouble finding a non-evil printer. Most of them seem big on this exact DRM strategy for the toner (and/or other parts), which I outright refuse to support. Another issue I keep running into is printers which are poorly supported in Linux.
Any tips on where I could find something reasonable? It doesn't have to be the cheapest, as long as it is consumer friendly.
My HP Color LaserJet Pro M452mw takes non-HP toner cartridges. I think the first time I put one in, it warned me but also told me how to turn off the warnings in the menu settings. I have never had a problem with after-market HP toner cartridges which are plentiful.
Re: Only somewhat related but... (Score:3)
We have a Brother MFC- L8690CDW in our office. Works perfectly with CUPS (there was a bug with the PPDs) but they actually published a new version when told about the issue.
It accepts compatible toner, although the ones we bought were dumping toner everywhere (the build quality wasn't great) so we've stuck with genuine toner as we don't do much printing. The drum says it's needed replacing for about 4 months now, but it's still printing perfectly and I'm not convinced it will ever refuse to print. I'm holdi
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Your best bet would probably be to buy a used corporate/office printer. Something that's popular so you'll have plenty of aftermarket/parts support, and has a good reputation for being well built. Like an older HP before they all went to shit.
I see what you did there.... (Score:2)
Funny.
I would have just returned it. (Score:1)
For racketeering and fraud and being defective due to a predetermined breaking point.
And had they been upfront about that, then I'd never have bought it.
This here means that GE still got their money for the fridge. So they'd see it as a success. So thanks a fucking lot.
Don't buy it (Score:2)
Garbage Electronics (Score:2)
Every single GE appliance I had, failed in a major way within 5 years. Absolute trash. And adding BS restrictions like filter RFID tags is too much. F--- GE.
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What really sucks is being old enough to recall when GE actually made good stuff at a fair price. Roughly speaking, back when Nixon was in office.
Ditto for most other American brands, if not all of them. Basically the entire Fortune 500.
In my head . . . (Score:2)
I keep pronouncing gefiltergate like gefilte fish.
If only there were a way ... (Score:2)
I suppose there are out-of-town dwellers who want to mismanage their own well-water filtration and sterilisation because it's cheaper than being in the water mains. We have a word for them
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What's the matter with you, don't you like Progress?
Me neither.