Hacking DRM coffee makers
The American manufacturer of coffee makers Keurig has built into one of the models a kind of “DRM”, which was supposed to prevent the production of the “wrong coffee” produced by another company. The protection was based on the mechanism of loading the coffee into the machine - it is necessary to insert a coffee briquette with a sticker into the special device and, if the sticker turned out to belong to another manufacturer, the coffee maker reported that she refuses to work.
The task of “hacking” the coffee maker turned out to be a matter of principle - there was even a special website created with the talking name keurighack.com , where the procedure is fully shown on video.
In fact, hacking, of course, turned out to be more than trivial. Taking a sticker from the packaging of "licensed" coffee briquettes, an unknown attacker found that if you attach it on top of a "pirated" briquette, the optical scanner of the coffee maker, embedded in its cover and responsible for recognition, is easily misled, and the device agrees to make a drink.
After a little research, the hacker offered a universal way to bypass the protection of the coffee maker by simply sticking a piece of sticker directly to the scanner, thus avoiding the need to perform complex manipulations each time.
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Wired reviewers appealed directly to the manufacturer Keurig, asking to confirm the "vulnerability" and whether it leads to a loss of warranty on the device, but received no response. It is interesting to note that the company has already faced several lawsuits, accusing it, at least, of an “unfriendly attitude” towards the consumer. Now she has every reason to worry about the public access to the “hack” - the business of selling “licensed” coffee briquettes brought her $ 3.2 billion last year alone.
The task of “hacking” the coffee maker turned out to be a matter of principle - there was even a special website created with the talking name keurighack.com , where the procedure is fully shown on video.
In fact, hacking, of course, turned out to be more than trivial. Taking a sticker from the packaging of "licensed" coffee briquettes, an unknown attacker found that if you attach it on top of a "pirated" briquette, the optical scanner of the coffee maker, embedded in its cover and responsible for recognition, is easily misled, and the device agrees to make a drink.
After a little research, the hacker offered a universal way to bypass the protection of the coffee maker by simply sticking a piece of sticker directly to the scanner, thus avoiding the need to perform complex manipulations each time.
')
Wired reviewers appealed directly to the manufacturer Keurig, asking to confirm the "vulnerability" and whether it leads to a loss of warranty on the device, but received no response. It is interesting to note that the company has already faced several lawsuits, accusing it, at least, of an “unfriendly attitude” towards the consumer. Now she has every reason to worry about the public access to the “hack” - the business of selling “licensed” coffee briquettes brought her $ 3.2 billion last year alone.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/364281/
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