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DMCA exemption for repairs, modifications, research on your vehicle takes effect
- dev_throw 10y agoThis is great news. It is alarming to realize that a majority of devices built after 2020 will be connected to the internet without the choice for us to vet their security. Securing these devices must be a proactive endeavor.
- jacquesm 10y agoOnly if you buy them.
- dev_throw 10y agoNot really... There will be (already are) tons of devices that we do not own that can affect our safety, health or quality of life. For example: traffic lights controls or ventilation systems. Left insecure, they can/will be dangerous.
- ethbro 10y agoOr someone else buys them... http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/10/double-dip-internet-of-things-botnet-attack-felt-across-the-internet/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/10/double-dip-internet-...
- eternalban 10y agoThey will be built into infrastructure (including up to your property line), building structure, & appliances. I suppose one can go to a wood cabin in the woods, off grid (unless that sort of lifestyle flags you as "radical").
- otakucode 10y agoIt's OK though, the US has a good track record of prosecuting executives of companies for criminal negligence when they do things like ignore their engineers, give nontechnical people authority over deciding when a product ships, staff themselves with the least experienced and cheapest engineers they can find in positions whose job description doesn't even include the word 'security' and things like that. Oh, we're talking about systems that involve computers? Damn, guess we're on our own.
- douche 10y agoThere is going to be a huge market in refurbished, older non-computerized machinery and automobiles. With farm and heavy equipment, this tends to be true already, since it is effectively indestructible, as the depreciation is significant, while the costs to replace with a brand-new model is astronomical, and so stuff gets rebuilt, welded up, patched up, and reused until it is completely kaput, often decades after it was built. Automobiles are trickier, especially if you are in an area that gets snow and uses a lot of salt in the winters, since the bodywork rots out quickly, much faster than the expensive mechanical components, like the engine and tranny, wear out.
- maxerickson 10y agoBodywork got a lot better sometime around 1995. (I live in the vast barren norths of Michigan where roads are constantly salted during the winter months and you don't really see that many rust buckets anymore)
- jacquesm 10y agoNon computerized automobiles are those before fuel injection became common, which dates back to the early 80's. One option would be anything with mechanical diesel injection pumps, but those will at some point be harder to get past emissions inspection. Keeping a car that old on the road is going to be tricky, the engines do wear out at some point and bodies will go faster depending on the climate. Anything from that era will soon be a classic with associated spare parts prices. Tractors from the 1940's still run pretty good though, there's plenty of them and they were built to last.
- taneq 10y agoThere are different levels of 'computerised', though. An early 90s car with EFI and ABS does have some processors in it, but they're standard modules (so can just plug a new one in if one fails) running from EPROM and have very limited communication. Unless you're worried about it being EMP-proof, that's not really a problem. Modern cars where everything is controlled by a central internet-connected computer are a whole different proposition.
- kobayashi 10y agoFor those who don't take the time to read the (short) article, here's the most important part (IMO): >The downside: In 2018, advocates will have to ask for permission to repair their cars again—a daunting process that costs a massive amount of time, effort, and legal fees. >But we’re trying to change that. Yesterday, iFixit and Repair.org submitted comments to the Copyright Office in support of carving out a permanent exemption for all repair and security research—for cars and everything else. Hopefully, fixing your tractor or hunting for security vulnerabilities in your car won’t be a jailable offence ever again. >If you want to help make the world safe for repair, join Repair.org—they’re on the front lines every day, fighting for your right to fix everything you own.
- ethbro 10y agoIn the spirit of hyperlinks, https://repair.org https://repair.org
- AKifer 10y agoI agree, that's the most important point in this article. It's typical lawyers tactic to let the case sleep for a few years for the momentum to fade, then retry to enforce it again. In such a situation, better kill the beast once and for all.
- imode 10y agowoo! right to repair is something I never want to go away. I'm thankful for these kinds of organizations fighting a battle that I can't. the least I can offer is a good shout of approval!
- shaan7 10y agoand a donation to EFF ;)
- philfrasty 10y agoIs this like a non-profit wing / initiative of the ifixit.com company?
- kwiens 10y agoiFixit is a social mission driven company. Just about everything we've done over the last ten years has been to expand the right to repair and make it possible for everyone to fix every thing they own. But there are a whole lot of other organizations also interested in making repair more legal and affordable, and they wanted to start contributing time and funds. So we started Repair.org with them. There's a bunch of awesome organizations involved — ISRI (the recycling association), IAMERS (the medical device repair association), EFF, and a bunch more. http://repair.org http://repair.org
- philfrasty 10y agoThanks so much for taking the time to clarify!
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoHow did the DMCA ever get passed? It's an absolutely insane, ludicrous set of laws. I'm going to start selling shirts that say "Today I Broke The DMCA". No matter who wears it, it's probably true.
- redial 10y agoOnly if you don't get sued out of business using the DMCA before even selling your first shirt.
- userbinator 10y agoThe power which the pro-DRM industry groups have is immense.
- cmurf 10y agoIt's the aftermath from inventing intellectual property. Patents were once called monopolies. What I find amusing is, you get this staunchly anti-government/libertarians who are also incredibly pro-IP. And yet IP is all based on governments granting monopoly power over ideas, with violations enabling the owner to engage in all kinds of punative behavior with the government as the strong arm. Ironic. I think there's something valid about a government protected temporary monopoly. But in the case of copyright, for example, it's life plus 70 or more years. It is ridiculous, as in, worthy of ridicule. Medical patents are 20 years, which itself is too long, but it's made worse by rather permissive ways in which they can be effectively renewed by barely changing the medicine. You know what it is? It's a way to get white collar work to continue to pay out more than, and longer than, the actual amount and duration of work on a thing takes. It's an incentive to do that kind of work. But I agree that it's grossly lopsided when you can't do repair or research on that same material - that's one of the original points of patent and copyright law. Put your ideas on paper so that you not only get protection for a while, but others can create derivatives that are better, and thereby we learn more about it all.
- tiglionabbit 10y agoI thought patents were an incentive to invest in research and development. Without patents, anyone who invests in research is at a disadvantage because when they come up with something good, their competitors can copy them at no cost.
- novaleaf 10y ago"No user serviceable parts inside"
- foxfired 10y agoOne thing that I thought was funny about the hackers remotely hacking the Jeep, is that after the article was published and posted here, an HN user went on and reported them to them to High Way patrol. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9921987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9921987
- analogj 10y agoNot really that funny if you watch the actual video. You can watch it from 2:00 onwards: http://dp8hsntg6do36.cloudfront.net/55ad80d461646d4db7000005/9aca04ce-083b-4756-bda9-a37a148bf90flow.webm http://dp8hsntg6do36.cloudfront.net/55ad80d461646d4db7000005...
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoYup. I like how people asks if the setting was necessary. Would they have got off their asses if it wasn't done on public roads?
- scoot 10y agoOkay, so what did the High Way Patrol (is that seriously a thing?!) do about it?
- hueving 10y agoAnd the HN user that reported them did the right thing IMO. Ethical research is a thing. The user reported them to hi-po not because they were 'hacking', but because they intentionally created a dangerous situation on a highway by stalling a car, which could have gotten multiple people killed. It's similar to the guy that decided to connect to the turbofan with his laptop on a populated passenger airplane in flight.
- macintux 10y agoI argued at the time that no matter what actions they took on the highway, they were placing other cars at risk. There are so many interactions in a vehicle that the researchers have no way of knowing with absolute certainty what will happen whenever they twiddle a bit. Yes, 99 times out of 100, things may go as expected. The 100th time one of the O2 sensors happens to be misbehaving and suddenly your car is accelerating unexpectedly because software. (Warning: the above example is probably complete bullshit but listen to John Hughes talk about property testing the CAN bus and you'll get nervous about ever driving again.)
- trhway 10y agobefore DMCA - "whatever is not prohibited is permitted", in the DMCA world - "whatever is not permitted is prohibited". New generations wouldn't even know it the other way.
- awqrre 10y agoIf something like the DMCA was illegal, it would make sense.
- pitaj 10y agoI was under the impression that only the distribution of any changes you make including the original code would be unlawful in this regard. Can someone clarify?
- rocqua 10y agoYou are 'circumventing copyright protections' by changing the code. Something somewhere in these systems is supposed to stop 'tampering' avoiding that breaks the DMCA just like breaking the DVD encoding broke it.
- intrasight 10y agoOnly the wise men in congress would say "being able to fix your own car is a great idea, so we're going to allow that - for three years"
- rms_returns 10y agoThe power of DMCA is only because of Google. The day we find an alternative to this great search engine of our times, DMCA will render itself toothless.
- nercht12 10y agoI fail to see how you think Google is responsible for the DMCA power. Google fought against acts like SOPA because it would have seriously hurt their business. The real people pushing DMCA power are Sony, RIAA, Warner Bros, and the entertainment industry who have the most to lose when it comes to this issue.
- rms_returns 10y agoThen why do they remove the results from their so-called organic search based on DMCA requests? I can also understand if the results are removed just from the USA based (google.com) site, but they are also removed from google.co.uk, google.co.in, etc. Since US Govt. has no jurisdiction over these other countries, I think its improper to apply DMCA blacklisting over there.
- johncolanduoni 10y agoHow does that equate to google search results being the only reason the DMCA has teeth? Do you think they're funding Jon Deere's legal team?
- ommunist 10y agoAnd what is going to happen after three years of freedom? Back to jail again?
- silon7 10y agoThis applies to my computer as well. I use it to drive on the information superhighway.
- xg15 10y agoI haven't kept track, but last time I read about it, DMCA lobbyists managed to get a pretty absurd restriction into the exemption: Cars may only be repaired by their owners, so handing your car over to a repairman or to researchers would still be illegal. This means in practice the excemption would only change things for people who are both highly skilled in the relevant technology and are interested in fixing their own cars - a very small subset of the initial group of people affected by the DMCA restrictions. Does anyone know if that restriction is still present?
- elcct 10y agoCould you temporarily transfer the ownership to the garage? Absurd indeed
- mindslight 10y agoIf the common law fundamentalists are to be believed regarding "title" versus "manufacturer's certificate of origin", you aren't even actually the owner of "your" car.
- eru 10y agoWhat's the deal with that? Do the car companies try to say that you are only licensing the car (just like software companies only sell you a license, not actually software you can own)?
- mindslight 10y agoThe issue isn't with the manufacturers, but the state. I can't do it justice and the whole subject is a bit crackpotty, so you're going to have to read up on your own. For example - Rights vs Privileges by Michael Badnarik. I say "common law fundamentalists" because there is a whole community of people who have ran with these ideas and believe that the key to restoring their rights is just asserting them harder. While it would be great if true, I don't subscribe to this view and think it's much healthier to view such legal reasoning as explanations of exactly how things decayed to the point we're at.
- wslh 10y agoI don't get how it was illegal before since reverse engineering was always legal [1]. What is the difference with DMCA? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality
- ClashTheBunny 10y agoIf it's encrypted, possibly?
- ubernostrum 10y agoThe DMCA only allows reverse engineering for a very narrow "interoperability" purpose. "I wanted to fix my car" isn't "I wanted to achieve interoperability with something else", so it was illegal.
- sdfjkl 10y agoObQuote: "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." -- Thomas Jefferson
- ex3ndr 10y agoWell, this is common rule for russia - disobeying stupid laws, but, believe me, you don't want this. In such conditions everything is simple - you are always guilty.
- sdfjkl 10y agoI certainly didn't want this, but it seems we've had it for some time now. And I see no reason to celebrate winning back a small, limited exception from an unjust law that should never have existed.
- rocqua 10y agoWon't this just lead to manufactures using better crypto to lock us out from changing things? I mean, secureboot-like practices can be pretty effective at preventing modifications. They can also be sold as 'security' rather than 'fuck you we want as much control as possible'.
- phkahler 10y agoWhy just cars? I'd like to be able to "repair" my printer when it runs out of ink.
- shmerl 10y agoThere needs to be a stronger push to completely repeal DMCA 1201.