The Way Forward - An Open Letter to Bambu Lab & Dr. Tao

Bambu Lab X1 Series General discussions
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What I don’t appreciate is the Darth Vader approach: I’ve altered the deal, pray I don’t alter it further.

I’ve had a P1S for almost a year and purchased an A1 Combo during the most recent Black Friday sale. I’m happy with both but I don’t want anyone other than me controlling how I use MY printers.

To ensure that only I controller my printers, I have placed them into LAN-ONLY mode onto a dedicated VLAN and stopped using Bambu Studio from this point forward. I’ve also disconnected Orca Slicer from the Bambu Cloud.

Going forward I will no longer purchase Bambu Lab printers, filament, or maker supplies. I will continue to purchase spare parts as needed.

Bambu Lab you have lost me as a customer since you have demonstrated that you cannot be trusted.

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Nah.
25 characters so that i could say, Nah.

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The legitimate portion of Sony’s concern was whether or not GeoHotz had been given information that was under protection. (It did unfortunately seem to have the effect you described, though Sony had always been cagey when it comes to their IP, going back to the VHS vs Betamax days… :joy:)

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They went from being the best to being the worst trash in blink of an eye !!!
Wonder if these actions are based of greedy shareholders. must see how this plays out. What do i need to do to keep my A1s runnig as they are now and wont get locked out of my printer ?

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131

They need to get rid of the ‘network’ driver (and now ‘Connect’) and just put back the network code they removed to start down this dead end. In my closed shop I should NOT have to login to my 3D printer! My equipment getting hacked is my problem.

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Apparently not Bambu Lab. I want simple, but it seems here Bambu Lab has chosen complicated.

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I would like to weigh in on the situation in the hope that it may steer BL’s decision on this, even tho I doubt it.

Last year I decided to upgrade from my dated, but rock-solid Prusa MK3S. I was presented with the choice of Prusa MK4 or BL X1. At the end of a long and hard research cycle, I leaned towards BL.
The X1 had a lot of advantages that affected my decision:

  • Automatic leveling and calibration
  • Speed of course
  • Easy and somewhat reliable multi-material system
  • The tightly integrated(but not mandatory) BL filaments

With that said some things are hard to swallow:

  • Proprietary and closed-source software
  • Intrusive, shady and at times unwelcome cloud services
  • It’s quite loud actually :smiley:

As you can see the lists are pretty close, but that was compiled early last year. Other companies especially Prusa are here. They have fast and of course, reliable machines, and multi-material systems. Prusa’s Prusament has always been S-tier IMO.

Now that the competition is strong BL decides to add a point to my naughty list. I’m sorry, but restricting our toolset and our machines is not something that this community and I are likely to tolerate. You should’ve worked in the other direction.

My X1 is going in LAN mode and I will never voluntarily update its firmware. For the future, I don’t mind going back to an old friend like Prusa.

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He better be the one directing this or I have even bigger concerns of govt interference.

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You should, as the changes brought by Bambu to the printer’s firmware will eventually affect you to in not that far future. You might want just a machine that just prints, and do not bother yourself with how it gets done, as long as it works. You might not even argue when Bambu will require a monthly subscription to be able to print. But at a point in time, Bambu will launch another firmware update, under whatever BS reason (to make it palatable for people that are gullible enough, and btw, BS doesn’t stand for Bambu Studio), which will remove or change the manner in which you can use your machine (a product you’ve paid for it, under the understanding that you’ll be able to use all features and functionalities delivered with your machine at the time of your purchase). And with that firmware update you discover certain features are no longer available, and certain functionalities have been severely changed or removed altogether. Then you’re going to come either here to complain and seek for help from people who like you don’t care, and/or submit many, many tickets to the (so called) Bambu customer support , only to discover they don’t care either.
What are you gonna do then? Care a bit more or less about why others are trying to change what Bambu is doing to our machines?!?

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This is old news. Nothing new here.

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Like… 9 days old? :rofl:

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Do a bit of research on that story, and make sure you take it with a pinch of salt (actually, make it a full large spoon) when reading it.

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Here you go :wink:

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Up-front disclaimer: This post is NOT directed to or in response to anyone or any particular post.

Like you, Dr.Nerf, I too made a decision to leave my Prusa behind and get a new Bambu printer. So far I have been happy with the output of the Bambu but… I am not too thrilled (to put it lightly) that each and every one of my prints has to leave the security of my local LAN, go out onto the net to Bambu’s servers only to be returned via the net to my secure LAN.

So my question to Bambu Labs is: How is THAT more secure than allowing me to function entirely within my own secure LAN?

(Answer hint: It is NOT.)

Someone(s) mentioned the Apple Mac. As one who was active with the Apple II family of computers (I am THAT old) & saw what happened to Apple’s market share and their third party developer community after they went from the open Apple II line to the very closed Mac line, there is a lengthy list of lessons to be learned there, not the topic of this discussion. To me, the most important lessons are (1) closing your system stifles innovation from outside sources (aka your community), and (2) some people want an appliance (the Mac) while others want an open system to tinker with (Apple II), to innovate & improve, as they see fit. There are markets for both types of systems.

For my money, the best option is to be both - allow users to decide for themselves to have either an open system in which they take full responsibility for security within their own LAN, or to implement your security system via your “cloud” system.

Is that really such an unreasonable request? Is that really such a difficult thing to develop?

Everyone here is airing their feelings not because they have nothing better to do in life, but because they have a vested interest in Bambu Labs and in their investment. So whether or not you agree with them, they are entitled to their own feelings and entitled to express those feelings. No one should be ignored.

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I for fact had a know walware site trying to connect to one of my printers went on randomly for 2 day

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@ drkenb

Es war doch jeden vor dem Kauf bewusst das es sich hier um geschlossene proprieritäre Hardware handelt. wenn du etwas quelloffenes möchtest dann hättes du die keinen Bambulab kaufen dürfen. So wie ich das im Blog heraus gelesen hab wird die zukünftige Kommunikation mit dem Drucker überBambu Connect laufen. Egal im Welchen Modus ob Cloud Lan only oder Developer Modus. Aller dings habe ich dort auch gelesen das für die Lan only und developer Modus keine Cloudanbindung nötig ist.

Und was die Sicherheit angeht die wird hier fehlinterpretiert. Es geht meineserachtens um die Sicherheit der Geräte, sprich Bambulab will verhindern das sie durch ausnutzung irgendwelcher Protokolle gesteuert werden können. So etwa wie das Panda Touch Display. Das war so nämlich von vornherein nicht so gewollt.

Also worüber beschwert ihr euch hier.

Grus der Garfield

@ drkenb

Everyone was aware before buying that this is closed proprietary hardware. if you want something open source then you shouldn’t have bought Bambulab. The way I read it in the blog, future communication with the printer will run via Bambu Connect. No matter in which mode whether Cloud Lan only or Developer mode. However, I also read there that no cloud connection is required for Lan only and developer mode.

And as far as security is concerned, this is being misinterpreted here. In my opinion, it is about the security of the devices, i.e. Bambulab wants to prevent them from being controlled by exploiting any protocols. Like the Panda Touch Display. That was not the intention from the outset.

So what are you complaining about here?

Greetings from Garfield

Translated with DeepL

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Thanks for sharing! I too go back to the Apple II days. I also had a 128k Mac when they first came out. Albeit - I was a kid :slight_smile:

(I’m discussing the Mac below, not the iPhone - that is a whole different story)

I agree that the Apple Mac is a semi-closed system. But –and here is the difference with what Bambu is now offering– most of the closed nature of the Mac is strongly encouraged but not required. This is huge. It allows extreme ease of use and class-leading security for 99.9% of users, and the power to diverge for the .1%

Examples:

  • Apple strongly encourages, but does not force me to use the App store on the mac. They may offer me security warnings when I install apps from other sources, but they don’t stop me.
  • Apple strongly encourages, but does not force me to do everything in the simple GUI they provide. At any moment I can pop open a terminal and enter “sudo rm -rf *”, enter my password and erase entire directory trees of files.
  • Apple strongly encourages, but does not force me to use the apps included with MacOS - Mail, Safari, etc… But, if I choose to use Firefox or Chrome, or something even more security minded, I can install it, and Apple even allows third-party apps to use their cloud system (iCloud) to sync data between devices so that they are first class citizens on the platform.

I am a Mac user to this day, and am happy that Apple has control over the software/hardware integration aspect of the product. That is the secret sauce that makes it an elegant pleasure to use, and easy to troubleshoot. At the same time, I am an advanced user and I get pleasure out of being able to install the software I like, hack around in the shell, and generally be able to get all the power from my purchase. And still, my machine is highly secure.

Bambu Lab is offering a false choice.

They tell us that in order to have a easy-to-use appliance-like experience with their products, they must be locked down in all aspects because only through this kind of security can come a great user experience.

This simply isn’t a true statement. Macs remain one of the most secure, and easy to use computing platforms, with great software/hardware integration. And, they make allowances for advanced users to get more out of their machines.

You can have both.

Does that mean walking a thin line. Yes. Does that mean having a real security model, with well thought out ways to offer interoperability. Yes. Do you need skilled developers in order to create this secure and also open system? You sure do. So, hire some.

Like with so many things today we are being told everything is a zero-sum game. Pick this, or pick that. In most cases that is demonstrably false.

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147

This argument is invalid. Everybody knew they were buying proprietary equipment, however the people bought the device with a known set of features and compatibilities at the moment of sale. Changing those post sale is one of elements that tick people off.

You read it wrong.

Bambu Connect is not required in “developer” mode announced.

You’ve read that, but people testing bambu connect tested it and found that it refused to work without internet connection, making “lan mode” not really a lan mode at all.

They say it’s for the security of the devices, but the existence of secure devices using open protocols with proper authentication and security proves that their ways is incorrect. Here’s a direct quote on that:

obraz
obraz760×541 101 KB

  • Removing functionality some people used as a strong “plus” in favour of choosen printers
  • modifying terms of sale post sale
  • not using industry standard ways that are proven to be both safer and more user friendly
  • introducing unnecessary friction layer in normal user flow under guise of “security”
  • said “secure” app is not secure at all and needs to be scrapped
  • the “working with” 3rd party slicer amounts to telling a single person about the change with very little up-front notification and just sending the modification without listening to any feedback
  • (my personal beef with bambu connect is more extensive: passing sliced gcode via url-encoded bambu-connect protocol is stupid and unsafe, then there’s no IPC allowing for some semblance of communication between slicer and “connect”, the app is made in js using electron making it absolute bloatware for no gain to the user)
  • removing standard control access that other manufacturers are somehow able to keep both open and secure
  • the cloud problems cited by bambu won’t be solved by any of the introduced measures (except for pissing people off, people will switch to non-“cloud” mode and will lessen the load on “cloud”) but those problems will instead be masked.
  • mischaracterise of concerns actual technically skilled people raised
  • ignoring feedback of security experts (and not hiring actual security experts in the first place)
  • gaslighting about changes (if your site is not available on archive.org, you’re trying to hide something)

Should I continue? Have I missed some points?

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I think (or at least I hope) that now he might get it. If he doesn’t get it it’s either because he doesn’t want to get it, or refuses to acknowledge the facts. In both cases, i wouldn’t continue this (useless) back and forth, as it doesn’t bring anything constructive to the debate. In the end he’s entirely entitled to his opinion(s)… so do we. He’ll manage his machine(s) the way he sees fit… so do we.
End of the story.

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