If you haven’t actually used a Keurig coffee machine, then you’ve probably at least seen one. They are supposed to make brewing coffee simple. You just take one of the Keurig “k-cups” and place it into the machine. The machine will punch a hole in the foil top and run the water through the k-cup. Your flavored beverage of choice comes out the other side. It’s a simple idea, run by a more complex machine. A machine that is complicated enough to have a security vulnerability.
Unfortunately newer versions of these machines have a sort of DRM, or lockout chip. In order to prevent unofficial k-cups from being manufactured and sold, the Keurig machines have a way to detect which cups are legitimate and which are counterfeit. It appears as though the machine identifies the lid specifically as being genuine.
It turns out this “lockout” technology is very simple to defeat. All one needs to do is cut the lid off of a legitimate Keurig k-cup and place it on top of your counterfeit cup. The system will read the real lid and allow you to brew to your heart’s content. A more convenient solution involves cutting off just the small portion of the lid that contains the Keurig logo. This then gets taped directly to the Keurig machine itself. This way you can still easily replace the cups without having to fuss with the extra lid every time.
It’s a simple hack, but it’s interesting to see that even coffee machines are being sold with limiting technology these days. This is the kind of stuff we would have joked about five or ten years ago. Yet here we are, with a coffee machine security vulnerability. Check out the video demonstration below.
This isn’t the kind of stuff we joked about – this was the kind of stuff we WARNED about…
A better hack… http://youtu.be/r_EZrVFTaLI
This is what I was looking for. Thanks!
yep apple and their batteries and people buying in meant this was inevitable.
Overpriced wasteful crap in the first place. Hacking it is a marginal improvement.
Eh, at least doing this would allow easier use of re-fillable k-cups.
So, playing devils advocate, and also demonstrating my limited knowledge of US law, but doesn’t this post contravene the DMCA by explaining how to circumvent a copyright/encryption/protection/lock/thingy?
Coffee can’t be encrypted.
Best answer I’ve seen to a post in aaaaaaaaaaaaages. +1 for you :)
Perhaps..
But the software in the machine is unlikely to be plaintext. And that’s copyright.
And using “rebel” cups is specifically avoided by the normal use of the copyrighted material. Access to using the alternate capability copyrighted material is protected via a physical protection technique. Avoiding that protection to change the function of the program is violating the product’s protectio system.
That is increadibly similar to locking functionality up in an oscilloscope program and only unlocking it if you insert a key that says a specific number (note that numbers are not copywritable except in certain circumstances)
And the image on the top of the k-cup is copyright. Copying or reusing that is likely to be infringing.
So you are using an item someone else owns the copyright to (and you may not have first sale doctrine rights to reuse if made outside the USA) to bypass a security feature on an embedded microprocessor running copyrighted, protected code to unlock a function (“make coffee”) that specifically avoids the intended protection framework.
DMCA away!
It’s not a copyright, it’s a trademark. If they used something like a barcode that would be copyrighted and the copyright would (eventually) expire. But they use the Keurig trademark, so defeating this commercially would be impossible – unless their sensor has a weakness that allows false positives on other shapes.
But none of this involves the DMCA, because none of it is breaking copyright.
Neat, from reading another article today on Hackaday, I learned that the Nintendo Game Boy’s copyright protection scheme also attempted to use their trademark as a key. Apparently, this court case made that strategy legally ineffective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
Does taking the dust cover off one book and putting it on another book you own violate copyright?, Is cutting the copyrighted logo and putting it in a place of “honor” like a mantel over the fireplace illegal?
RE-USING is not the same as COPYING
you gonna sue me for reloading my one time use disposable camera?
HAHAH!!! your loss!!! i never signed any LEGALLY BINDING document saying i promised not to reload my camera/coffe machine!
oh, and coffe is not encrypted… the logo is, but you paid for it once so its yours, you could even tape it to your front door and publically display it for anyone to re-use!!!!!!
sue me
???????i bought it and not selling it how is anyone gonna know? people take motors out of things all the time to put in other things and make them work? so how is reusing the label or modifying the machine anyone’s business ? the guy on eBay selling the modified machines could be sued and the non-kerig cup makers could be sued if there is or will be trademarked or copyrighted. in our own homes what we do is our business. can I as an artist not paint a Disney scene on my wall?
don’t be so militant and righteous!!!!! have you never sinned? I don’t even believe this would be a sin!! if I buy a table and use it as a chair or step stool am I going to be sued for not using it for what it was designed for??? you need to get a life and quit trying to police the world!!!!!!!!!!
We’ll just see what Monsanto has to say about that …… sadly I say that only half jokingly :/
That’s patented, but still fu**ed up. The fact that people can patent “seeds” and sue you over keeping the left over crops to reseed the next year….. I can’t even say how f’d up that is. Talk about a field where people need to pirate, hack, mimic, clone, etc.
“You wouldn’t download a coffee.”
No, only tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Computer, some Jestral tea, please.
What is this? Petrokian sausage?
Tea. All I wanted was a cup of tea.
Oh, dear, I think your replicator’s having a nervous collapse.
pretty sure that a coffee machine does not fall under the digital millennium copyright act. it basically only applies to media. so as long as a keurig coffee maker doesnt play any drm protected media and then someone posts something on how to get around that, im pretty sure this is perfectly legal.
I could image how some good lawyers could read the Millenium copyright act in a way that it would also hold the case for this situation. Or some lobby work in that direction could change things too.
LOL. you said “good lawyer.”
A more direct comparison is chipped inkjet cartridges/toner cartridges. In Lexmark Int’l v. Static Control Components the Supreme Court ruled circumvention of Lexmark’s ink cartridge authentication does not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). I would suspect that this could be considered a binding precedent
From what I understand, the DMCA is vague enough that it can be applied to just about anything that has some sort of digital control circuitry. For example, cell phone carriers have been using the DMCA to try to fight jailbreaking. I don’t believe that there’s any leagal reason that a coffee machine can’t be protected by the DMCA. I imagine that when the internet of things nonsense really takes gets going it will be hard to buy anything that isn’t protected by the DMCA.
Anyway, as Indyaner mentioned, Keurig could probably make it illegal if it pays its lawyers (or the relevant lawmakers) enough.
“Keurig could probably make it illegal ”
Make WHAT illegal exactly?
Are they going to have search warrants executed on the homes of their customers? Are they going to further invoke the streisand effect by attempting to suppress the information?
“From what I understand, ”
As Chris say above: ” In Lexmark Int’l v. Static Control Components the Supreme Court ruled circumvention of Lexmark’s ink cartridge authentication does not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).”
Maybe it’s your understanding that needs adjustment!
But then again maybe you CAN explain what legal remedies that Keurig might have at their disposal…
Nevermind the Star Wars Theme from the London Symphony Orchestra being used to excessive volumes and different volumes throughout the video. Cool hack. Another cool one is audio normalization which will smooth out those rough volume swells ;)
It’s that SOB Bill Brasskey!
I remember Bill Braski! I remember back at Verdun, ol’ Bill and I were on the front line, when the Jerries went over the top. Now, we were putting up a good fight, and the Germans were about to break, but they had this Kaiser holding the line together. I mean, here he is, dagger in his mouth, gun in one hand, and he’s swinging around his spiked helmet in the other hand, and he’s singehandedly keeping these German boys together.
Well, Bill sees that, and he’s not going to have any of it. So he goes over the top, marches right up to the Hun bastard, grabs both his arms and rips them clean off. The Kaiser goes down screaming, and everyone stops. Dead silence.
Bill, calm as you please, bends down, picks up the helmet, puts it on his head, and says, “I’m the new Kaiser now, boys!”.
We lost over 100 men trying to stop Bill that day, let me tell you!
One could argue that this post is “For Educational Purposes Only”, which would be a way to sidestep copyright infringement litigation.
Coffee was certainly essential to passing my education.
I hate keurig coffee, but good for you for sticking it to the man. French press for life! (well, at least to wake up)
“Wake up to?” I lived my life around a french press in college. Love those things. Though my friend would look at me weird when I say it taste better.
Thank you for not littering the world with a huge plastic machine and thousands of little aluminium capsules and just use a french press that worked 20 years ago and will the next 20 years.
My Wife is using one of these every morning since college with her fair trade cofee:
http://www.oncoffeemakers.com/images/what-is-an-italian-coffee-maker-21485270.jpg
No waste, other then the coffe bag and that thing last forever. But I guess out there everyone is a fife star coffee castigator par exelance and can not drink a coffee when it does not come out of a aluminium sealed capsule in the flavor of “cream and sugar”… absurd.
I agree. I have a GE percolator from the 70s. No moving parts, nothing to throw away, and now I can add “no manufacturer lockout” to my list. I’m sure with cleaning and maintenance it will still be bubbling 40 years from now.
Too bad you’ll have to fill it with the reamed out innards of a dozen Keurig cartridges once they’ve saturated the market.
if you can call the toxic industrial solvent that percolators make “coffee” :-) But yeah ours is a 20-year old Proctor-Silex that has exactly one control: an on-off switch…
@Brucedesertrat , what are you talking about. Stovetop perculators are THE traditional way of making espresso coffee. They ONLY make espresso coffee, but done right they make damn amazing espresso coffee. Yeah I guess you could do other styles (And coupled with a steam cappucino frother or one of those new-fangled agitation frothers a pretty decent cappucino or flat white) , but when making espresso, nothing shy of those $2K monster machines will make a better cup. They can over-perculate however, so the trick is to just leave it on the stove enough to push the coffee through it and no longer. This will make you an ideal coffee.
I like the mocha pot a lot as well. Great coffee. The French Press is a lot easier to maintain though!
I heard they have one that is basically a k-cup french press. Best of both worlds I guess…? I still rather keep my two french press. Hell, I might just buy another one just to stick it too them.
Some people value convenience over being a humblebrag hipster everywhere they go in the internet.
+1
+1 French press
Agree with the french press/aeropress. The original single-cup coffee brewers are still the best.
Just to clarify what Indyaner posted, that contraption pictured is called a moka pot, if anyone were interested in looking one up (though I’m sure it would pop up in an Amazon search for french press…). My grandmother has been using one of those to make coffee for probably as long as she’s be able to make coffee.
That moka pot is a crummy aluminum one, if you look around you can find ones made from 100% stainless steel. Ever noticed how aluminum pots and pans pit and corrode over time? Where does the aluminum go? Into your food! Don’t cook with aluminum.
I hope you’re not still uninformed about the long disproven Alumin[i]um-Alzheimers link.
+1, You can buy a good coffee and spend few cents per cup. For example 4€, 250gr of natural (not burnt) arabiga.
moka pot for the win!
I love me some French Press coffee… but I hate cleaning the press afterward.
http://www.aeropress.com/
Same results as french press but easier to clean
Something to look at would be the RJ-11 jack on the bottom, I wonder if it’s a USB or Serial interface of some sort. Maybe the DRM could be disabled?
Could it be a standard Microchip ISP port?
How’s that a _security_ vulnerability???
because it defeats the security, therefore it makes it vulnerable, just because it’s a physical vulnerability and not a code one doesn’t mean it’s any less of a security problem (for the mfr of keurig).
If an attacker has physical access, no security measure is enough.
Someone needs to launch one of these things through Keurig’s front window with their cutesy error message on it.
I wonder why Keurig’s done this. Have they been getting a lot of complaints about broken machines because users have been putting ground coffee right into the cup holder? Are they simply trying to do what printer manufacturers are doing (i.e., give away the machine and make most of their money from coffee “cartridges”)?
If you check prices, you will see they aren’t giving them away.
They don’t want you using off brand cups.
Purely because they want the coffee profits. If a counterfeit product damages the coffee machine, I’d be worried about such a flimsy design being on the market.
It is pretty much exactly like the printers and the ink cartridges. that and they only want you to buy cups they’ve produced or cups that someone has paid them extreme amounts of money to license/get included in the bar code thing – so they are getting your money either way…so it all comes down to greed, not ensuring a “better coffee experience” like they are advertising… If i wanted a better coffee experience, i’d get to have what i want they way i want it.
We got one of the v1 kuerigs last year, and we won’t be upgrading when this one dies. we’ll be going back to brewing our own. I heard and tasted great things coming out of a simple french press that it will be what i get next.
I support a local family run business that owns a coffee plantation in Venezuela. They do roasts and flavours on site in our town – you have to order it in advance, as they only set up certain flavours to do small batches every once in a while, and the rest of the time it is set up for their regular roasts. my favourite is a nice butter pecan coffee!
….will they ship it? Can I get it in the US?
$$$$$$$$$
Money. The patent on the original KCup expired, and 3rd party manufacturers could make them without paying a license fee.
The new design requires their chip to bypass the security, so requires will require licenses to manufacture even after the new patent expires. Green Mountain will make money on every KCup, whether they make it or someone else does.
What chip? There isn’t any chip inside or on the KCup pods. If you look at the article, you’ll see it is some kind of optical check on a portion of the foil lid.
It’s actually a little of both.
The machines are sold close to at cost. They do make money mostly off of the coffee.
The bigger issue is that Keurig has no ability to control quality in third party K-cups. These third party cups can be inferior, in that the coffee can be ground too coarsely, too finely, or unfiltered, all of which have the ability to damage the machine. People were RMA-ing their broken machines, expecting them to fix it, not realizing that the problem was their poor quality K-cups. They’d continue to use the bad cups in the new machine, eventually wearing that one out as well.
It’s clear (and totally legitimate) that Keurig would want to do something about this. The chosen implementation is sketchy. A better solution might have been to put big letters in the manual saying “warranty void if used with third party coffee”, but there’s no good way to test for that. Another possibly better solution is to do what motherboards do, and say something like “clogged needles not covered by warranty”. Either solution lets users take the risk for themselves.
Having had this clogging issue on one of the first production run machines, you can easily fix it yourself by running it without a K-cup for a few cycles, clearing the needles with a paperclip, running it with diluted vinegar instead of water, then finding a disassembly guide, in that order. My machine still runs like a champ, and I’ll be at a loss when it finally does kick the coffee can.
It’s actually a little of both.
The machines are sold close to at cost. They do make money mostly off of the coffee.
The bigger issue is that Keurig has no ability to control quality in third party K-cups. These third party cups can be inferior, in that the coffee can be ground too coarsely, too finely, or unfiltered, all of which have the ability to damage the machine. People were RMA-ing their broken machines, expecting them to fix it, not realizing that the problem was their poor quality K-cups. They’d continue to use the bad cups in the new machine, eventually wearing that one out as well.
It’s clear (and totally legitimate) that Keurig would want to do something about this. The chosen implementation is sketchy. A better solution might have been to put big letters in the manual saying “warranty void if used with third party coffee”, but there’s no good way to test for that. Another possibly better solution is to do what motherboards do, and say something like “clogged needles not covered by warranty”. Either solution lets users take the risk for themselves.
Having had this clogging issue on one of the first production run machines, you can easily fix it yourself by running it without a K-cup for a few cycles, clearing the needles with a paperclip, running it with diluted vinegar instead of water, then finding a disassembly guide, in that order. My machine still runs like a champ, and I’ll be at a loss when it finally does kick the coffee can.
@smwittman
Yeah, I’d prefer the big red letters approach. The problem is that once your machine breaks there’s nothing really to lose by sending it in and hoping they don’t figure it out, so that’s what a whole lotta people will try to do.
There’s one simple reason Keurig’s doing this: the patent on the K-cup’s design has expired. Hence their “2.0” upgrade complete with the lockout tech. They just want to continue to make their royalties on those little things that millions of people feed those Keurig machines each and every day. So why not do what inkjet printer makers have been doing for years? Of curse the best thing to do: don’t buy one of those 2.0 brewers and stick with the older ones. Tell Green Mountain to fuck themselves.
So could I just print out a label if I want to use the office Keurig without fishing a used Kup from the garbage?
@ Jeff and Rolly – Have you tried a vacuum coffee pot? It’s great, but you have to use the proper filter or it WON’T work!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4vPG7CPX4g
The difference here would be the lack of precise brewing temperature control that’s possible with a Keurig or a press (if you choose to control water temperature). Coffee brewed hotter is more bitter, cooler is more sour.
Physics drives the brewing temperature with a siphon pot, so it’s fairly repeatable and precise enough. Combine that with freshly roasted coffee beans properly ground and the coffee it makes will kick the shit out of anything from a Keurig. I will say that ultimately the driving factor is having coffee freshly roasted (as in, still whole bean and between 2 – 7 days old) and then ground right before it goes in whatever you are using. So I guess you could get good coffee out of a Keurig, but you can easily make good coffee without spending the that kind of money.
Speaking of temperature control, I would like to have a decent drip machine with a temperature control if anyone knows where I can get one.
Also, my siphon pot has a cloth filter that’s washable. It lasts for a few months until I decide I need a new one. Might last longer if you’re careful with it.
There’s glass filter sticks for those that work well and are really easy to clean.
http://baharris.org/coffee/Filters/CorningRod.jpg
Ok, I’ll be the gutter minded jerk here…
If you’re the kind of scummy, wasteful human being that needs your flavored water created from a single serving disposable container, you deserve to have your coffee DRM-locked.
And probably your air, too.
What the actual shit is wrong with people…
laziness…. and not having the forethought to only brew what they are actually going to drink, so as to not waste a whole pot of coffee when they only want one cup. that is likely where it started from.
I’ve been using my 1st gen Keurig with a set of refillable pods for a few years now. I fill a pod with ${LOCAL_COFFEE_ROASTERS} grounds the night before and pop a cup in just before I’m ready to head out the door. The roaster grinds it just a little finer than drip, which seems to be the secret for this setup. I use exactly the amount of coffee I need, unlike my older drip coffee maker which makes slightly brown mud water unless it’s brewing 6 cups, and the quality is better due to the Keurig’s digital temp control.
The only waste product is the spent grounds. I suspect that it may be more energy efficient than other options due to the serving-size insulated heater tank and lack of a carafe warmer.
It’s not the best coffee, but beats the other options I have at home and in my opinion is better tasting than the pods.
“The only waste product is the spent grounds.”
I have the same setup with refillable pods. And the grounds are put to use, too. They are collected and used for tree growth.
People have the right to waste as much coffee as they choose IMO it’s best for your own piece of mind to not get upset by this, nor to judge them, lest you know what.
Peace man.
“People have the right to waste”
Morally: no.
Legally, in some countries: yes.
What a troll. It not like anything else comes in “single serving disposable container” such as:
Soda cans, tea bags, soup cans, ramen cups, bottled water, yogurt, and dang near everything else.
But I’m sure you don’t buy anything in a disposable container. I guess you grow your own coffee and water it with only organic water that is ten times the cost and need to show off how your so much better than everybody else.
Well lets see:
– I dont buy soda, sometimes I buy myself a bottle of sprite/coke and drink from it for 3 days and the last day its so flat in taste that I have to gove the last rest to the drainage Hint: We have in germany something called Normbrunnenflasche (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normbrunnenflasche) and is a glass enclosure that has a capacity of 0.7 Liter because:
“The bottle has deliberately a capacity of 0.7 liters , so the last remnant of the drink if desired contains carbonic acid , which no longer exists in 1.0- or 1.5 -liter bottles due to the frequent opening and closing operations” (google translate from the wikipedia)
– Teabags. No thanks. I buy my Tee from Tee Gschwendner in 500g or 1000g units, sealed in a aromatic bag that can be reused for spices.
– Soup cans. Seriously? A pot of Water, Celery, Carrots, Allium, Onion, etc and you have yourself a soup. Canned soup is something that I eat the last time while I was on a festival camping.
– Ramen Cups, I guess you talk about Ramen Noodles here? Not on my food plan.
– Bottled Water. We have a very good Water-Quality in Germany and If I had to buy Water, I would (and could) only buy it in recycling-containers. I prefer the glas-bottles as I imagine I can taste the softener in the PVC bottles. It tastes better from a Glas bottle (coke as well)
Yoghurt. Guilty. Altho my wife sometimes gets a huge glas from her grandma that will last days. But yeah, its a product that can go bad very quickly, thats why it still has to be bought in small quantities.
You can change if you want. There will always be stuff that has to come individually packed. I’m not a saint, but I want to encourage you to buy your bread unsliced and it will hold longer fresh, buy olive-oil in liters from a known source and store it at a coldish spot and will last month (my 5 Liter Canisters usally last 1.3 Years) or buy rice in bigger quanities. You will need this stuff anyway at some point in the next 4 Years and you can make a difference…
I only use K-Cups made from baby seals.
I only use a single K cup made from a single baby seal. One seal, one cup. I pay extra for the audio tape of the seal crying out.
I’m not even mad, thats impressive. If we are able to create aluminium from flesh and skin, we should incorporate this methode and convert dead bodys into aluminium. Everbody could have his own milk-can for byuing loose milk from the market.
Do you look them in the eyes and club them yourself, though? (c:
LOL +1
I’ve been doing it all wrong. A rich German with access to nice things tells me that I can change. Instead of drinking well water that is run off from a coal mine or buying cheap plastic bottles, I could have been buying expensive glass bottles of water then driving forty miles to return them to the closest recycling center. The same recycling center that is also the local landfill and just pushes the recycle pile into the landfill. Then after working a twelve hour day, I can make soup from scratch. An added bonus is that as an IT worker, I don’t get paid overtime. But I’m sure this is all my fault because I didn’t vote for the right person. So the obvious answer is we should all move to Germany.
Change is a hard. Time, money and convenience (laziness) are all factors. My original points were that k cups are an insignificant part of the problem and it is scummy to label people as wrong just because you don’t agree with them.
You aren’t very smart. Most other disposable containers either:
a) provide greater utility to the product contained within, either through prolonged shelf life, greater mobility, physical protection to the product, or convenient dispensation
b) contain far in excess of a single serving, especially of products which do not require sterility of the serving (i.e. eye drops)
c) can be recycled or upcycled easily
It has nothing to do with being ‘organic’ or ‘fair trade’ or any other wanky byword for moral superiority. It is literally just me being ethically opposed to the wasteful, slothful laziness that leads to a silly product like these coffee machines, being marketed for nothing more than to rape money out of the pockets of consumers too lazy, ignorant, and gullible to make their flavoured water in a more efficient manner, like a french press. Or literally every single other method of making coffee, ever invented. The outrage of wastefulness is inversely proportional to the additional utility the wastage allows.
I don’t even drink coffee, ffs.
Your original post seemed to have a lot of outrage disproportionate to the utility of this. People wouldn’t buy them if they didn’t think it had utility in it. They last a long time, have a large variety and are easy. I only drink coffee a few times a year so not opening a larger package and exposing it to air is especially convenient.
So you decide it is unethical that other people are “lazy, ignorant, gullible” because they don’t use a French press. So you say they deserve DRM on their coffee “And probably your air, too”. If have people suffocating is in the ethics that you have then you have no business preaching your ethics.
Also attacking my intelligence just shows you think your so much smarter and should get to decide that others are doing it wrong. As my previous post said, you sir are a hypocrite.
In my family’s case, a wife who needs her coffee first thing in the morning, and has limited time. She doesn’t need a whole pot, doesn’t want to mess with coffee, filters and water, just wants to push and go.
Yep, it’s wasteful and bad for the environment, but we’re not dumping cyanide-laced sludge into a river, or piling up mine tailings above a town, so it’s more on the scale of “something I’d rather not to, but can live with”.
I do recycle my plastics and I give all my deposit containers to the Boy Scout troop in town. Maybe that makes up for the lost karma points.
But if you had some cyanide laced sludge wouldn’t you dump it in the river if it was more convenient?
You may not be personally dumping sludge in the river, but the factory that makes your K-cups might be.
Every scrap that you need to recycle is something that is wasted and you shoud change your habits to have it be something less toxic that needs to be recycled.
As is said “convenient” is the problem here.
Actually they can pay off. If you pick up the correct cups for say espresso, you can then use a frothier, some mocha, some milk, etc. and create a comparable cup of coffee to other coffee shops, for about 50cents a cup(8oz)
This is the kind of thing that can make it onto hackaday?
Shit, I should have submitted an entry last year.
I can’t recall the brand, but I did the same thing. I got the machine for free but only a few of these doughnut shaped cartridges…turns out the cartridges have a barcode printed on the top the machine reads. Tape the barcode to the reader and you’re good.
Oddly enough it was more than a DRM-type thing. Depending on the bar code the water temperature and amount of water dispensed was altered, keurig might do something similar depending on the logo.
I’m guessing that’s a Tassimo you’re talking about. Those are the ones with he barcodes.
Fortunately it isn’t a network vulnerability in HTTCP. You need physical access to perform this hack.
It IS a network vulerability, the virus spreasd over the internet and reprograms a human being to enable the effect of the virus.
delete all files in the folder called windows
I use a Melita cone and filter under one of the older auto cartridge loaded “highbrau” types. Pushbutton easy.
Anytime anything more than a red light is needed on a coffee machine it’s too much. Fresh ground doesn’t mean sitting open for hours while a timer ticks off.
There ought to be a law of full disclosure when any product or service does this.
Bean to cup super automatic espresso machine is where it’s at.
Yeah I’ll make a point of bringing one of those along on my next camping trip instead of a melitta cone.
Is there some kind of RFID involved? no word about that… THAT would be the interesting part…
They use a proprietary ink that is supposed to be difficult to reproduce, although I heard claims that another company had managed to copy the ink. The machine shines an infrared light and measures the wavelength, which suggests that they spent a lot of money on the concept before considering how easy this would be to circumvent.
It is to stop other manufacturers from selling ready to use pods with the logo on the top. It isn’t designed to stop the end user from messing about with the lid.
If they get sued like lexmark did, they might lose very very big if the court asserts that competitors are allowed to use the keurig logo on their cups. Just like how the lexmark clones were allowed in the end to put “(C) Lexmark” in their ROM! It kind of waters down your intellectual property rights when you are required to allow others to use them.
The rumor I hear from someone close to the company is that most yellow highlighters fluoresce in the right way to fool the sensor, and are what they used internally during development. But I haven’t tried this myself.
I can’t wait for this fad to end and for “k cup” to become a punchline.
So the next Keurig v3.0 includes a unique, digitally signed ID on each coffee capsule and it also requires the ID to be verified over the internet to thwart those pirate bastards who shared their ID. And quite likely the DRM thing costs more than the coffee.
Like DivX for coffee? Please, no. This is terrible enough.
And it came to pass in those days, that a band of suits and a band of hackers did meet. As they traveled the same way, they talked of the future, and how they might build it. And they agreed that all Things should be Internetted (For in those days there were no Things Internetted, save Computers, and Goatses, and the Cats of Lol.) And when they saw that they agreed, they were all astonished, for all knew of the wars between hackers and suits, and that on nothing did they agree.
And when they were come to the end of their journey together, they stopped for refreshments, they did meet a man, whose name was Average Joe, and being overjoyed with their newfound agreement, did tell him of their plan for an “Internet of Things”.
Average Joe said “Huh?”
They said “So thou canst have thy coffee machine Internetted…”
The hackers thought of HTCPCP, and smiled, waiting for Joe to get it.
The suits thought of server-based DRM , and smiled, waiting for Joe to get it.
Average Joe said “I don’t get it.”
Then spake the hackers and the suits with one voice, saying “Well, wait till thou seest it, for verily it shall be awesome.”
And they departed and went their ways, marvelling at the spirit of accord they had found that day.
when i have coffee i just use instant. i can make mud if i really need a jolt. then i just started popping no doze, its safer.
But think of the Columbian peasants — Juan Valdez and his burro! You’re forcing Juan to go back to farming coca leaves, because you’re not buying his beans…
Maybe you should think about the fine US citizens who grow coffee right here in the USA and how you can throw some of your business at them.
Reminds me of the marker that defeated Sony’s CD DRM scheme: http://slashdot.org/story/02/05/22/1439253/felt-tip-marker-defeats-copy-protected-cds
Bloody hell – won’t someone run a reflectance IR spec on a legitimate top and tell us a target frequency? Ours is broken and I don’t own a Keurig anyway.
It wouldn’t be rocket science – most likely a band-gap filter and a specific polymer/dye overprint.
Perhaps a couple of other experiments are waiting to happen:
1.) See if Keurig learned the “Betamax lesson” – that clamping down on technology kills your market.
2.) Wait for the lawsuit/returns/consumer uproar when genuine Keurig cups aren’t properly read because of aging machines (or lazy pod copackers who don’t get the print/coat right).
Also, since they mention the mint, it may be a UV frequency rather than IR – shine a black light on a $5+ bill to see what I mean. Strip of fluorescent material in the paper.
“REBEL” KEURIG K-CUPS
Come to the dark roast side. We have coffee.
I’ll never understand people who buy Keurigs.
I guess the question now is, since the K-cup patent has apparently expired… why not just wait for someone to make a coffee maker that just accepts any K-cup. I would think that would be the next inevitable step especially with Keurig getting all pissy and trying to DRM their machines.
Cuisinart already makes a compatible machine I believe.
I hate coffee, but received one of these machines for winter solstice last year. I bought one of the reusable filter cups and put standard tea bags or loose leaf inside. It brews (steeps) it pretty well, quickly. At the minimum it’s a good hot water machine.
This.
While I do still buy pods at the store they are usually a rarity. Most of the time I use this for bulk tea in a reusable filter pod.
And on top of this I found my current Kuerig for $20 at the Goodwill because people don’t understand how to clean them :-)
What a stupid wasteful design
nonsense, adding useless value to products is the very foundation of economy
Funny, I WOULD be the target market for this, as my wife does not drink coffee, and I won’t brew a whole pot for me.
That said, this authentication of OEM coffee requirement basically just pisses me off, That’s not cussin’ it’s a technical term.
I wouldn’t give this coffee maker room on the counter, Hacked or not.
…so is using regular cake mix in an Easy bake oven a violation? … I see non-branded lockout technologies appearing on the toy future horizon…
A great hack would have been removing the display and putting the rest in a dumpster.
Any truth to the rumor that the Sony Pictures hack occurred via an executive’s Keurig?
I didnt see this mentioned in any comments so: you can do it the hacka-way while you wait on your free solution in the mail. https://www.gourmet-coffee.com/Keurig-DRM-Freedom-Clip.html then you can 3d scan and 3d print this nifty piece of plastic and glue authentic lids to them , mass produce them so the whole world can enjoy non authentic k cups, without the ‘special ink’
A third-party coffee manufacturer cracked the code in a few hours. The K V2.0 uses a sensor to look for ultraviolet ink. A simple office supply store marker fixes the issue permanently.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/keurig-s-coffee-supremacy-challenged-by-canadian-firm-1.2787075
I want to see someone take keurig and 3 or so old printers and hack them together into a functional 3d printer using little more than duct tape, paperclips and rubber bands.
I bought one of these Keurig 2.0 machines (the K560 from Costco), with the intent to take it apart, see what microcontroller’s inside (and find out why the touchscreen interface takes so damn long to refresh), and also see how easy it would be to defeat the IR authentication mechanism electronically.
Reviewing some of the “damage to the machine” thoughts on this list shows that few have looked at how this machine actually works.
Hot water is pumped through a little plastic cup and directed to the users coffee cup.
How can this damage a machine that has all the working parts BEFORE the second last and last stop of the flow of hot water.
If the working parts of this machine breaks, the little plastic cup can NOT have played any part in that failure.
If you boil water of the stove in a kettle and pour that hot water in a cup, will the stove be at blame for water being spilled on the table ??
I have a V1 Keurig and enjoy having one (1) cup of hot coffee at a time.
I am down from a pot every morning and a wasted pot in the afternoon.
Having to re-fill my DIY cup with self-ground beans make the entire process painful enough to only have 1 or 2 cups a day.
I even feel better talking about it.
Thanks to all those that “cracked the code”.
When I need to get another single serve machine, I have better options.
So, my #Keurig 2.0 hack is done… I used a 39 cent K&J magnetics B228 1/8″ square by 1/2″ long NEODYMIUM block magnet placed as shown in the picture (the silver bar) to enable all the menus and options (the magnetic attraction holds it firmly in place), and the free Rogers Family bypass clip to disable the #DRM check on the pods (https://www.gourmet-coffee.com/Keurig-DRM-Freedom-Clip.html).
Slightly related: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/23/us-keurig-green-recall-idUSKBN0K10XK20141223
“Keurig Green Mountain Inc (GMCR.O) is recalling about 7.2 million single-serve brewing machines, the coffee company announced on Tuesday, warning that the machines could overheat and injure users by spraying hot liquids on them.”
“Keurig has received about 90 reports of injuries caused by hot liquid escaping from the machines, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said.
Health Canada said Keurig had recorded 17 incidents of minor burns in Canada. ”
Let the class action law suits begin!
I’d leave a comment, but it would probably only be deleted again. But I laugh at the fact that Keurig was forced to recall 7-million machines today for scalding customers.
> I’d leave a comment, but it would probably only be deleted again.
Not seeing anything from your IP, your email, or any of your handles in the spam folder or the trash. If you’re going to accuse us of something, you better back it up.
Could you do us all a favor and start deleting them?
Now, the Keurig 3.0 will come with RFID chips that each have an individually programmed code, and each can only be used once. Your Keurig will need internet, of course, so it can receive periodic updates, patching any hacks that come along, and also verifying the new cup numbers…
Meanwhile in China, Xiaomi is working on a cup-based coffee machine…