Hacker News Reader

That was my first thought, crackers will be glad about it.

Not only can they publish torrents targeted at the sysadmins willing to pirate the updates, they can also setup fake websites that look legitimate and offer them for free.

> they can also setup fake websites that look legitimate and offer them for free.

Especially easy considering the mess that HP support URL are.

Aren't firmware updates signed?

Yep, HP made it a policy to sign all their vulnerable firmwares. The procedure remains the same: please print this document to commence firmware upgrade. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGEnakrx9o