Have you been reading a different Boingboing to the rest of us? Companies threatening individuals who report defects in their security under DMCA 1201 is a thing that gets reported on this blog a bit. If HP have or have not done it up to this point is neither here nor there. They’re simply being asked to promise not to. A promise would say nothing about past behaviour, nor imply it; it would just be a commitment to not doing it in future. When you swore allegiance to the flag in school (assuming you’re American), were you up to that point a filthy communist fifth columnist who planned to overthrow the government, one school grade at a time?
Bear in mind that we’re talking about a company that just put out an upgrade to brick their printers if their users had the temerity to use ink not made by HP. A company may be a human being for certain legal purposes, but we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking of them as gentlemen.
