Bambu currently has printers reachable on LAN and Cloud without much of security.

If your LAN is not secure, you have other problems. Also, the way most printers secure this is through a login and/or a token that you need to provide to your slicer to allow it to communicate.

And this is WHY so many of us do not want printers (or basically any device) exposed to “The Cloud” without it being opt-in. Because even if this IS “security” related? Bambu is not a cybersecurity company. Just look at the endless shitstorms that is qnap for why that is a problem.

So Bambu needs to somehow secure their interfaces in a way that malware cannot exploit easily, while at the same time allowing non-Bambu software to talk to the interface.

LAN is already secure. And the solution for Cloud/WAN is to make that opt-in.

Their idea seems to be, that Bambu Connect can proxy your requests to the printer, and (hopefully) verify the commands being sent are innocent enough. This will protect their userbase and themselves from financial harm.

You are SO close. Yes, this DOES give Bambu a LOT more control over what commands can be sent to a printer. No, that is not about security.

It is about controlling The Models.

A couple years back there was the big NFT rush and folk were making arguments about it being used to protect (corporate) IP. We were immediately laughed out because people are stupid.

But imagine if every single printer had a module that analyzed what you were trying to print. And if something in the database were detected, it would refuse to print without confirming you have a license.

But nah, that would be impossible. I mean, it isn’t like Twitch and Youtube can do exactly that to detect music and even video…

But hey, keep on keeping on with the caping for corporations leading the way to fuck over the industry because you like their logo or whatever.