20 ms·

Demon-Haunted World

768 points by drabiega 9y ago

walterbell 9y ago
See efforts to pass Right-to-Repair laws in several U.S. states: https://repair.org https://repair.org & https://ifixit.org/right https://ifixit.org/right From http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a25246/right-to-repair-legislation-under-fire-in-nebraska/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a2... "... farmers have worked on their own equipment "for decades, generations even." Brasch also pointed to the emerging DIY sources of information in the world as a way that farmers and others who want to make repairs can learn about their equipment: "You can go to a YouTube for something as simple as baking a cake to repairing or operating an item. I think that's the way the market is moving. We'd like this market to move with the rest of the world." This is one of the IP/copyright issues being negotiated in the new version of NAFTA (US, Canada, Mexico), as many farmers are affected.
- droopyEyelids 9y ago
  The sad part of the "right to repair" laws is that they're going to force Apple to stop doing the "Activation Lock" feature that has been a real boon to everyone who doesn't steal consumer electronic devices.
  - SolarNet 9y ago
    Why? Being able to repair a device doesn't mean being able to circumvent anti-theft features; mechanics would be morally obligated to report a device brought in for repairs with such a lock activated.
shmerl 9y ago
Yeah, repealing DMCA 1201 and CFAA would be very useful. Also, conditional cheating reminded me The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
dclowd9901 9y ago
Counterpoint: software such as thermostats that control our energy consumption or phones that lock themselves while you're driving are better if people can't consume in a responsible manner. Is it nanny-state? Yes, but maybe some people need a nanny.
- alansammarone 9y ago
  While it is true that some people probably need a nanny, I feel like forcing everybody to have a nanny is highly unfair and not a viable solution.
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    Well, if some people need a nanny, and most don't, how do you make those who need a nanny to buy the version of the product that has the nanny? Either you force everyone to get the nanny version (heavy-handed, especially to those who don't need it), or you rely on people who need the nanny version getting it (which only helps those who can admit that they have a problem). The only other alternative is something like having some objective event trigger a legal requirement to have the nanny version. For example, a driving-while-texting ticket could trigger a legal requirement to have the nanny version of a phone that won't text while you're in a car.
    - alexanderstears 9y ago
      Same system as DUI ignition interlocks. When people mess up, slap restrictions on them.
    - pdonis 9y ago
      > having some objective event trigger a legal requirement to have the nanny version The problem with this is, who gets to decide which objective event is the trigger? There is no real solution to this problem; it always ends up with a hodgepodge of arbitrary rules that benefit certain people (those with wealth and power), but are a net loss for society as a whole.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
adrianratnapala 9y ago
Hmm, I suspect the article is not really news to the people who frequent sites like this, and perhaps not even to the readership of a science-fiction mag like locus. But I would like a nice readable article like that to appear in more mainstream publications. It should make a good story, being both true and sensationalist and important at the same time.
- AceJohnny2 9y ago
  > being both true and sensationalist and important at the same time Doctorow has been sensationalist for as long as I've been reading him (15 years?), I think even moreso as time goes on. Too often, it detracts from his point, but sometimes he hits the nail on the head. Also recommended by him, The Civil War over General Purpose Computing" (2012): https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html It's even truer in hindsight.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I really enjoy Doctorow, but he's been getting into territory where the hyperbole becomes factually inaccurate. His coverage of the Wells Fargo debacle featured some headlines that simply weren't true, which really put me on edge for reading his other stuff.
- astrodust 9y ago
  It's nice seeing a Doctorow article that isn't full of hyperbole and hypotheticals. This one seems pretty grounded and reasonable.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
This is what I think about at the pump. More and more I see gas pumps ask if you want a receipt BEFORE the gas is dispensed. This seems risky. If you decline the receipt and then dispense gas, the pump could cheat on the amount of gas dispensed with less risk, as a papered record of the purchase amount and price is not produced. If on the other hand, the pump waits to ask if you desire a receipt until after the gasoline is dispensed, the dispenser will not know if a written record will be requested, and cheating the customer is riskier. Therefore, I always request a receipt if asked prior to dispensing my gasoline.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  Pair that with cameras to classify whether it is being pumped into a car or into a portable tank.....eesh
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- to3m 9y ago
  But according to this theory, it sounds as if one should ask for the receipt afterwards?
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    By one do you mean the consumer? Gas pump software seems to come with two variants: 1) Ask before pumping gas. 2) Ask after pumping gas.
  - computator 9y ago
    I see the misunderstanding. You're thinking that the pumps should be designed to always give the receipt afterward. Yes, that would be the ideal way to reduce the possibility of cheating. However, in the pumps he's talking about, the machine prompts you beforehand: "Click here for a receipt". The receipt decision (yes or no) is always before. There is no way to ask for a receipt afterwards. He always asks for a receipt (even if he doesn't need the receipt) because he figures that the machine is less likely to cheat him in that case.
ehsankia 9y ago
I'm curious about the WannaCry situation. If the killswitch was truly to detect being in a VM, could they still not have bought the domain and just left unresponsive, or even better, just generate a random new domain every single time. I guess they just didn't foresee someone buying the domain.
- ineptech 9y ago
  > or even better, just generate a random new domain every single time. I'm no expert, but I do recall reading in one of the WC write-ups that there is known malware that does this.
  - clwg 9y ago
    It's called a DGA or domain generation algorithm, I believe Conficker was one of the first botnet's to use this approach about 10 years ago, it's pretty standard trade craft nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_generation_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_generation_algorithm
    - ehsankia 9y ago
      Well this is slightly different. DGA seems to actually use it as a rendez-vous host, whereas in this case, it literally is a dummy domain that they didn't even bother registering, with the only purpose of checking if they were in a VM. In which case, generating any long hash domain would most likely not be registered and would do the job.
- Kostic 9y ago
  Buying a domain would make deanonymizing them easier and would take energy from the main effort.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  And how effective is that defense, anyway? I mean, couldn't you just clone the VM, and start responding or not responding to different domains until you hit on the right one? Or hell, have your VM check a domain and respond correctly if the domain isn't registered?
captaincrowbar 9y ago
Doctorow mentions the cases where a printer company has made their software lie about how much ink was left in a cartridge to make consumers replace them more often. I always wondered why a manufacturer would want to do that. I mean, I understand the motive of making consumers buy ink more often, but from the manufacturer's point of view, why would they want to throw perfectly good ink away? Colour ink isn't as expensive to manufacture as they like to claim but it's still worth something. Why didn't they just put less ink in the cartridge to begin with (and maybe lie about how much was in it), instead of lying about how much was left toward the end of its life and throwing ink away?
- nikanj 9y ago
  Having the device lie based on the age of the cartridge makes for a more predictable sales volume in the future. See also, inkjets that "clean" the heads by running ink through them on every power cycle.
  - 20after4 9y ago
    This is every inkjet I've ever owned or operated. I believe that this accounts for something like 50% of the ink consumed by most printers.
- kbsletten 9y ago
  It's probably to avoid/mitigate lawsuits. It's possible that this would still be covered under false advertising but there's something to be said about the feasibility of testing a lot of unopened packages to show the ink level is low vs having to run all those packages down within the parameters of the device (so the testers aren't seen as the cheaters, over-using the cartridges to make the problem seem worse than it would be for "regular folk"). They'd be dead-to-rights under-filling but they have a better shot (and a better potential settlement) with the under-reporting.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    There's a lot a wiggle room in saying that your ink is almost out. The simple defense is that they don't want people to have wasted prints, which might happen if the ink for one color actually runs out, so they notify a little earlier. That "little earlier" is vague and relative, giving a lot of defensible ground for a lawyer to work with if it comes to that. Stating you are selling a certain amount of something and not actually delivering that amount is illegal, and fairly cut and dry at that. It's not hard to see why one is more likely to be attempted than the other for a company.
zaroth 9y ago
Why do our phones, which certainly felt damn snappy the day we bought them, inevitablely seem to slow down to the point of unusability after a couple dozen months? Even after a factory reset and installing no apps at all... I know it didn't take that long to open/close the built in apps when I bought that iPhone 4, 5, 5s... The only thing I can think of is the flash drive is slowing down as it wears. Or, the CPU clock rate is programmed to progressively lower itself the longer it runs. Has anyone done the performance analysis on used phones to prove this isn't just my brain moving the goalposts as hardware improves, or apps just slowing down as they bloat, but that the old devices really and truly are running the same software significantly slower than when they were new?
- lostmsu 9y ago
  How about this simple hypothesis: Android is suffering from the same problems all Windows had prior to Windows 7 - drive fragmentation. Cheap flash will not give you nice access times when data is fragmented, and over time fragmentation accumulates.
  - badloginagain 9y ago
    I have fond memories of several hour defrag sessions on old Windows machines.
    - thedailymail 9y ago
      Those were the days.
  - andai 9y ago
    I thought fragmentation was a non-issue on solid state storage?
  - chc 9y ago
    Why wouldn't flash memory give good access times with fragmented data? It's not like it needs to move a head around like a hard disk. Shouldn't one block be as accessible as any other block?
bluetwo 9y ago
What I worry about is the regulations and certifications many other industries have to curtail cheating may someday be needed in our domain. I do not look forward to the day that happens.
MrZongle2 9y ago
FTA: "Dieselgate killed people" What's the source for this claim?
- iak8god 9y ago
  Every year a shocking number of people die from illness caused by air pollution [1]. While it might be difficult or impossible to put a head count on "Dieselgate," the increased emissions certainly killed some. [1] http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e...
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    If you go down that route, you farting contributed methane to the atmosphere, increasing global warming and thus contributed to killing someone somewhere. So are we going to start banning the passing of gas at the dinner table?
    - SolarNet 9y ago
      The problem is that it cheated the air quality standards society has set. Our government (regardless of how representative) decided on an amount of acceptable illnesses (regardless on whether you agree with it or not) due to industry in general, and transport in specific, and the company cheated it. The implicit social contract assigns the government the responsibility for deaths due to societal issues like this, once a company violates the law, they have broken that contract hence, they are no longer protected by the government's shouldering of the burden. They killed people.
    - gotbeans 9y ago
      Why are you totally obviating the ridiculously huge scale difference, and therefore impact, of the two mesures in your comparison?
    - titzer 9y ago
      > So are we going to start banning the passing of gas at the dinner table? No, we are going to enforce the existing pollution control laws and punish cheaters.
zackmorris 9y ago
Startup idea: Form a company that explores new markets in legal liabilities. It could bring lawsuits with little risk where the payoff could be billions of dollars. Off the top of my head: * Research whether channels were engineered into smartphones to allow water to leak in (since they have no moving parts and should self-evidently be watertight). * Find the planned-obsolescence parts in things like car doors that were engineered too thin or out of plastic so that door and window handles fail after a certain number of uses. * Find evidence that companies opted to use proprietary battery and charger form factors which drove up prices and prevented interoperability. ...the list is nearly endless. Most of these seem like they depend on research or whistleblowers. If the free market and regulations won't prevent this kind of widespread hacking then maybe lucrative opportunities could be found working within the courts!
- anyfoo 9y ago
  Minor nitpick: Speakers and microphones are moving parts. The speaker has even been used to expel water.
  - keville 9y ago
    Not a minor nitpick at all. Physical buttons are also moving parts.
    - sliken 9y ago
      Not to mention headphone ports, usb ports, and charging ports. Also most phones have a vibrate function which uses an electric motor.
      - middleorigin 9y ago
        Wait, ports are considered moving parts?
        LeoPanthera 9y ago
calinet6 9y ago
Hat tip to Carl Sagan reference in the title.
throwawaymaroon 9y ago
The solution is to gruesomely and conspicuously 'kill' the corporations that cheat. Volkswagen should be disbanded, everyone who held shares in it should see them evaporate into nothingness, and no misbehavior of these not-people should be tolerated. We'll get there. Or we'll be doomed to servitude. One or the other.
Opossum 9y ago
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Tesla in this context. Not only do they make it almost impossible to get a Tesla car repaired anywhere but their service centers, but they also collect a ton of data [1]. [1] https://www.tesla.com/about/legal https://www.tesla.com/about/legal
- zeroxfe 9y ago
  Pretty much any new high-end vehicle is unserviceable outside of their service centers due to requiring custom diagnostic and programming equipment. However, body and other simpler mechanical work can be done outside service centers (for Teslas too.)
donatj 9y ago
> Dieselgate killed people What? Is he being metaphorical or does he mean via the environmental impact? That's a stretch IMHO. Or alternately am I simply missing something?
- pcr0 9y ago
  https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did-volkswagens-deception-cause-in-us.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths...
- RachelF 9y ago
  Environmental impact. However, thus far only the programmer at VW has been prosecuted and sentenced to jail. His "following orders" defense did not work. All the high-level executives will probably walk away with VW paying a fine.
  - kilotaras 9y ago
    If you're referring to this story[1] person sentenced was engineering executive. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sentencing/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-month-prison-term-in-diesel-case-idUSKCN1B51YP http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sente...
    - astrange 9y ago
      Literally every comment I’ve read about this article was by someone who didn’t read far enough in to learn the person really was an executive ;(
eridius 9y ago
> like the iTunes and Kindle ‘‘updates’’ that have removed features the products were sold with Anyone know what iTunes update he's talking about? I don't remember anything that fits this description.
- RachelF 9y ago
  I don't know about Apple, but Sony is an excellent example. They removed the ability to use Linux on the PS3. This is probably one reason they have been consistently targeted by hackers.
  - eridius 9y ago
    I remember that one, although IIRC they did it because Linux-on-PS3 was being used as a way to get around the copyright restrictions on the PS3 and pirate games. Basically, the pirates ruined it for everyone.
    - middleorigin 9y ago
      I feel comfortable in blaming Sony for this. At one point I would have paid for an open ps3, say without the gpu, but these are lost sales now.
      - eridius 9y ago
        Sony didn't really have a choice. They have to protect the integrity of their system as best they can, which means closing any holes that are used to circumvent the copyright restrictions. Besides just being important to protect sales on their platform, it wouldn't surprise me if there aren't contractual obligations here as well.
        loup-vaillant 9y ago
        The integrity of the Win-tel platform is not preserved at all, yet games are still being sold there.
mirimir 9y ago
> There must be anti-trust enforcement with the death penalty – corporate dissolution – for companies that are caught cheating. This was the norm in the US until the late 1800s. Indeed, corporations had to act in the public interest. And if they didn't, they were dissolved. But then, the railroad corporations got wealthy enough that they were able to buy favorable Supreme Court rulings. Basically, they got human rights. After former male slaves, but before women.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > This was the norm in the US until the late 1800 Source? Let's say a company owning a factory was thusly dissolved. What would you do? Parcel bricks out to shareholders? We got rid of this for a good reason. It nukes long-term investment by laying the road for expropriation.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    See http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/ http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history... The American Revolution was just as much against Crown Corporations as against British rule.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      This Harvard Business Review article [1] interviews a reputable professor on the topic. America adopted English law corporations, replacing the Crown with the states. Early corporations were limited compared to today's because early enterprise was fairly limited--the American Revolution occurred on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. You are correct in stating that it took political capital to form a corporation in Revolutionary times. But that didn't mean they existed at the pleasure of the state. Furthermore, the close nexus between corporate chartering and political proximity showed its seams in the 19th century. That's why states moved the chartering process to independent bureaucracies. [1] https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html
jordigh 9y ago
There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Community_packages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Communi... Plus, people tend to act more morally when they think they might be watched, whether they actually are watched or not. Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  The privilege of copyright must come with disclosure.
- computator 9y ago
  > Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something useful and are functionally equivalent. Program A is closed source. Program B has source code available for inspection. Suppose on inspection, program B's code turns out to be bloated, ugly, poorly organized, and with many potential bugs or defects. B's reputation is screwed. However, for all you know, A's code is just as bad or worse. But you don't know for sure. Bloggers and reviewers will write that no source is available for A. Bloggers and reviewers will write that program B's code sucks. The consumer reads that "program A doesn't give you source code" and that "program B's code is garbage", but are otherwise functionally equivalent. Which do you think will have greater influence on most consumers and their purchasing decision? That's one major reason why more developers don't release source code. I wish I knew a way out of this dilemma.
  - daurnimator 9y ago
Nomentatus 9y ago
This isn't a new demon-haunted world, this is the old, demon-haunted world before nineteenth-century progressive politics, back when "milk" that wasn't half chalk still might have a fish in it (see famous Thoreau quote on evidence.) We aren't enforcing the laws we have and our grandfathers and mothers had. (Three guesses why.) Not on monopolies, contracts, patent misuse... nothing. Just this week I and Hearthstone came to a stop - Blizzard's new policy insists on a credit card and that I owe them for purchases made if they leak the card no! I can't sign in to play "my" cards 'till I agree this is totally cool. Sure, the old policy said they could revise it as they liked, but the law says otherwise and always has. They don't care - it'll be years before the law is enforced against them, as it was with Steam and refunds. No cops - so to speak - on the beat, and Trump vowing to fire more regulators, that's what's changed. The number of potential demons is more of a constant.
- ryanx435 9y ago
  Why are you blaming Trump when you yourself admit that this has been going on since the 1800s?
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    1980's more like, this time 'round. Trump's just the last to pile on, I agree.
  - CamperBob2 9y ago
    Because the Trump administration has promised to do what it can to make it even harder for consumers to fight back.
  - deepnet 9y ago
    Because, currently the buck stops there. Those in charge ultimately bear the responsibility. Not criticising leaders is the road to ruin, and senseless jingoism. National humility trumps national pride as a useful virtue.
- glaberficken 9y ago
  > back when "milk" that wasn't half chalk still might have a fish in it (see famous Thoreau quote on evidence.) This also famously happened with bread. You can read about it for example in Bill Bryson's "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/712524-because-bread-was-so-important-the-laws-governing-its-purity https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/712524-because-bread-was-so... “Because bread was so important, the laws governing its purity were strict and the punishment severe. A baker who cheated his customers could be fined £10 per loaf sold, or made to do a month's hard labor in prison. For a time, transportation to Australia was seriously considered for malfeasant bakers. This was a matter of real concern for bakers because every loaf of bread loses weight in baking through evaporation, so it is easy to blunder accidentally. For that reason, bakers sometimes provided a little extra- the famous baker's dozen.” ― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life
visvavasu 9y ago
Very nice article, thank you for sharing.
carapace 9y ago
Systems of elements that can trust each other are more efficient than systems of elements that must expend energy to check each other.
titzer 9y ago
This is an extremely important article. In a world populated by IOT devices full of software (as discussed previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034955), we'll end up in a post-scientific world where the underlying rules that govern a device's behavior are so complex and arcane that we'll have little chance of reverse engineering how basic devices work anymore. I think in practice it will mean that devices become bricks relatively quickly, and when people realize they have been cheated, there will be a strong backlash: imagine "paleo diet" but for devices.
hutzlibu 9y ago
The bigger issue with this, than beeing cheated in the casino, to me is, the increasingly amount of technology around us, we depend on. In a few years robots in the household will be common. I really want to have my robot servant - but only if he really is MY servant and controlled by ME and not someone else, I do not trust ...
- mcguire 9y ago
  Anybody remember Runaway?
mathattack 9y ago
HP is an egregious cheater, and this kind of cheating is in the DNA of any company that makes its living selling consumables or service at extremely high markups – they do their business at war with their customers. This is a very strong statement. Asking for high margins puts you at war with your customers?
- pixl97 9y ago
  Yes. Normally in a functioning economy competition drives out high margins, unless innovation is occurring. To protect against competition HP uses things like DRM in printer cartridges. Anti-consumer behavior occurs when your ink cartridges stop working because you didn't use them fast enough and are forced to buy a new set.
  - mathattack 9y ago
    I was focused on the middle. "this kind of cheating is in the DNA of any company that makes its living selling consumables or service at extremely high markups"
Dove 9y ago
I wonder if we can require software to be open source for the same reason that food has to list its nutritional information and ingredients. Information asymmetry makes a deal unfair.
letlambda 9y ago
>instead, it tries to trick the reviewers, attempting to determine if it’s landed on a Car and Driver test-lot, and then switching into a high-pollution, high-fuel-efficiency mode. This has actually been the case for some time. The car magazine wouldn't just go borrow a car, they would get one directly from the manufacturer. And the manufacturer would send a ringer, a vehicle with an EPA test-exemption that doesn't have to comply with any emissions regulations. I suppose the era of Youtube car review channels is bringing that method to a close though.
otakucode 9y ago
History repeats itself. Car makers tried to lock out third party parts decades ago. Claimed you only had a license to operate the vehicle, no ownership. Music and movie companies argued against First Sale doctrine similarly. Courts wouldn't have it. They will stop this too. Digital property will be declared property, not licenses. No limits on resale transfer or rental and the like. Companies will howl like stuck pigs. And it will benefit them, as well as consumers, tremendously.
sshanky 9y ago
Can anyone elaborate on his comment on this sort of technology "proliferating to smart thermostats (no apps that let you turn your AC cooler when the power company dials it up a couple degrees)?
- sshanky 9y ago
  I read about a program where owners of some Honeywell smart thermostats will be able to authorize their utilities to turn their AC a few degrees warmer during times of unusually high demand, in exchange for some sort of compensation. But this would be voluntary.

768 points by drabiega 9y ago

See efforts to pass Right-to-Repair laws in several U.S. states: https://repair.org https://repair.org & https://ifixit.org/right https://ifixit.org/right From http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a25246/right-to-repair-legislation-under-fire-in-nebraska/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a2... "... farmers have worked on their own equipment "for decades, generations even." Brasch also pointed to the emerging DIY sources of information in the world as a way that farmers and others who want to make repairs can learn about their equipment: "You can go to a YouTube for something as simple as baking a cake to repairing or operating an item. I think that's the way the market is moving. We'd like this market to move with the rest of the world." This is one of the IP/copyright issues being negotiated in the new version of NAFTA (US, Canada, Mexico), as many farmers are affected.

droopyEyelids 9y ago
The sad part of the "right to repair" laws is that they're going to force Apple to stop doing the "Activation Lock" feature that has been a real boon to everyone who doesn't steal consumer electronic devices.
- SolarNet 9y ago
  Why? Being able to repair a device doesn't mean being able to circumvent anti-theft features; mechanics would be morally obligated to report a device brought in for repairs with such a lock activated.

shmerl 9y ago

Yeah, repealing DMCA 1201 and CFAA would be very useful. Also, conditional cheating reminded me The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

dclowd9901 9y ago

Counterpoint: software such as thermostats that control our energy consumption or phones that lock themselves while you're driving are better if people can't consume in a responsible manner. Is it nanny-state? Yes, but maybe some people need a nanny.

alansammarone 9y ago
While it is true that some people probably need a nanny, I feel like forcing everybody to have a nanny is highly unfair and not a viable solution.
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  Well, if some people need a nanny, and most don't, how do you make those who need a nanny to buy the version of the product that has the nanny? Either you force everyone to get the nanny version (heavy-handed, especially to those who don't need it), or you rely on people who need the nanny version getting it (which only helps those who can admit that they have a problem). The only other alternative is something like having some objective event trigger a legal requirement to have the nanny version. For example, a driving-while-texting ticket could trigger a legal requirement to have the nanny version of a phone that won't text while you're in a car.
  - alexanderstears 9y ago
    Same system as DUI ignition interlocks. When people mess up, slap restrictions on them.
  - pdonis 9y ago
    > having some objective event trigger a legal requirement to have the nanny version The problem with this is, who gets to decide which objective event is the trigger? There is no real solution to this problem; it always ends up with a hodgepodge of arbitrary rules that benefit certain people (those with wealth and power), but are a net loss for society as a whole.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

adrianratnapala 9y ago

Hmm, I suspect the article is not really news to the people who frequent sites like this, and perhaps not even to the readership of a science-fiction mag like locus. But I would like a nice readable article like that to appear in more mainstream publications. It should make a good story, being both true and sensationalist and important at the same time.

AceJohnny2 9y ago
> being both true and sensationalist and important at the same time Doctorow has been sensationalist for as long as I've been reading him (15 years?), I think even moreso as time goes on. Too often, it detracts from his point, but sometimes he hits the nail on the head. Also recommended by him, The Civil War over General Purpose Computing" (2012): https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html https://boingboing.net/2012/08/23/civilwar.html It's even truer in hindsight.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I really enjoy Doctorow, but he's been getting into territory where the hyperbole becomes factually inaccurate. His coverage of the Wells Fargo debacle featured some headlines that simply weren't true, which really put me on edge for reading his other stuff.
astrodust 9y ago
It's nice seeing a Doctorow article that isn't full of hyperbole and hypotheticals. This one seems pretty grounded and reasonable.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

This is what I think about at the pump. More and more I see gas pumps ask if you want a receipt BEFORE the gas is dispensed. This seems risky. If you decline the receipt and then dispense gas, the pump could cheat on the amount of gas dispensed with less risk, as a papered record of the purchase amount and price is not produced. If on the other hand, the pump waits to ask if you desire a receipt until after the gasoline is dispensed, the dispenser will not know if a written record will be requested, and cheating the customer is riskier. Therefore, I always request a receipt if asked prior to dispensing my gasoline.

SubiculumCode 9y ago
Pair that with cameras to classify whether it is being pumped into a car or into a portable tank.....eesh
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
to3m 9y ago
But according to this theory, it sounds as if one should ask for the receipt afterwards?
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  By one do you mean the consumer? Gas pump software seems to come with two variants: 1) Ask before pumping gas. 2) Ask after pumping gas.
- computator 9y ago
  I see the misunderstanding. You're thinking that the pumps should be designed to always give the receipt afterward. Yes, that would be the ideal way to reduce the possibility of cheating. However, in the pumps he's talking about, the machine prompts you beforehand: "Click here for a receipt". The receipt decision (yes or no) is always before. There is no way to ask for a receipt afterwards. He always asks for a receipt (even if he doesn't need the receipt) because he figures that the machine is less likely to cheat him in that case.

ehsankia 9y ago

I'm curious about the WannaCry situation. If the killswitch was truly to detect being in a VM, could they still not have bought the domain and just left unresponsive, or even better, just generate a random new domain every single time. I guess they just didn't foresee someone buying the domain.

ineptech 9y ago
> or even better, just generate a random new domain every single time. I'm no expert, but I do recall reading in one of the WC write-ups that there is known malware that does this.
- clwg 9y ago
  It's called a DGA or domain generation algorithm, I believe Conficker was one of the first botnet's to use this approach about 10 years ago, it's pretty standard trade craft nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_generation_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_generation_algorithm
  - ehsankia 9y ago
    Well this is slightly different. DGA seems to actually use it as a rendez-vous host, whereas in this case, it literally is a dummy domain that they didn't even bother registering, with the only purpose of checking if they were in a VM. In which case, generating any long hash domain would most likely not be registered and would do the job.
Kostic 9y ago
Buying a domain would make deanonymizing them easier and would take energy from the main effort.
cortesoft 9y ago
And how effective is that defense, anyway? I mean, couldn't you just clone the VM, and start responding or not responding to different domains until you hit on the right one? Or hell, have your VM check a domain and respond correctly if the domain isn't registered?

captaincrowbar 9y ago

Doctorow mentions the cases where a printer company has made their software lie about how much ink was left in a cartridge to make consumers replace them more often. I always wondered why a manufacturer would want to do that. I mean, I understand the motive of making consumers buy ink more often, but from the manufacturer's point of view, why would they want to throw perfectly good ink away? Colour ink isn't as expensive to manufacture as they like to claim but it's still worth something. Why didn't they just put less ink in the cartridge to begin with (and maybe lie about how much was in it), instead of lying about how much was left toward the end of its life and throwing ink away?

nikanj 9y ago
Having the device lie based on the age of the cartridge makes for a more predictable sales volume in the future. See also, inkjets that "clean" the heads by running ink through them on every power cycle.
- 20after4 9y ago
  This is every inkjet I've ever owned or operated. I believe that this accounts for something like 50% of the ink consumed by most printers.
kbsletten 9y ago
It's probably to avoid/mitigate lawsuits. It's possible that this would still be covered under false advertising but there's something to be said about the feasibility of testing a lot of unopened packages to show the ink level is low vs having to run all those packages down within the parameters of the device (so the testers aren't seen as the cheaters, over-using the cartridges to make the problem seem worse than it would be for "regular folk"). They'd be dead-to-rights under-filling but they have a better shot (and a better potential settlement) with the under-reporting.
- kbenson 9y ago
  There's a lot a wiggle room in saying that your ink is almost out. The simple defense is that they don't want people to have wasted prints, which might happen if the ink for one color actually runs out, so they notify a little earlier. That "little earlier" is vague and relative, giving a lot of defensible ground for a lawyer to work with if it comes to that. Stating you are selling a certain amount of something and not actually delivering that amount is illegal, and fairly cut and dry at that. It's not hard to see why one is more likely to be attempted than the other for a company.

zaroth 9y ago

Why do our phones, which certainly felt damn snappy the day we bought them, inevitablely seem to slow down to the point of unusability after a couple dozen months? Even after a factory reset and installing no apps at all... I know it didn't take that long to open/close the built in apps when I bought that iPhone 4, 5, 5s... The only thing I can think of is the flash drive is slowing down as it wears. Or, the CPU clock rate is programmed to progressively lower itself the longer it runs. Has anyone done the performance analysis on used phones to prove this isn't just my brain moving the goalposts as hardware improves, or apps just slowing down as they bloat, but that the old devices really and truly are running the same software significantly slower than when they were new?

lostmsu 9y ago
How about this simple hypothesis: Android is suffering from the same problems all Windows had prior to Windows 7 - drive fragmentation. Cheap flash will not give you nice access times when data is fragmented, and over time fragmentation accumulates.
- badloginagain 9y ago
  I have fond memories of several hour defrag sessions on old Windows machines.
  - thedailymail 9y ago
    Those were the days.
- andai 9y ago
  I thought fragmentation was a non-issue on solid state storage?
- chc 9y ago
  Why wouldn't flash memory give good access times with fragmented data? It's not like it needs to move a head around like a hard disk. Shouldn't one block be as accessible as any other block?

bluetwo 9y ago

What I worry about is the regulations and certifications many other industries have to curtail cheating may someday be needed in our domain. I do not look forward to the day that happens.

MrZongle2 9y ago

FTA: "Dieselgate killed people" What's the source for this claim?

iak8god 9y ago
Every year a shocking number of people die from illness caused by air pollution [1]. While it might be difficult or impossible to put a head count on "Dieselgate," the increased emissions certainly killed some. [1] http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-early-deaths-each-year-in-the-us-0829 http://news.mit.edu/2013/study-air-pollution-causes-200000-e...
- cr0sh 9y ago
  If you go down that route, you farting contributed methane to the atmosphere, increasing global warming and thus contributed to killing someone somewhere. So are we going to start banning the passing of gas at the dinner table?
  - SolarNet 9y ago
    The problem is that it cheated the air quality standards society has set. Our government (regardless of how representative) decided on an amount of acceptable illnesses (regardless on whether you agree with it or not) due to industry in general, and transport in specific, and the company cheated it. The implicit social contract assigns the government the responsibility for deaths due to societal issues like this, once a company violates the law, they have broken that contract hence, they are no longer protected by the government's shouldering of the burden. They killed people.
  - gotbeans 9y ago
    Why are you totally obviating the ridiculously huge scale difference, and therefore impact, of the two mesures in your comparison?
  - titzer 9y ago
    > So are we going to start banning the passing of gas at the dinner table? No, we are going to enforce the existing pollution control laws and punish cheaters.

zackmorris 9y ago

Startup idea: Form a company that explores new markets in legal liabilities. It could bring lawsuits with little risk where the payoff could be billions of dollars. Off the top of my head: * Research whether channels were engineered into smartphones to allow water to leak in (since they have no moving parts and should self-evidently be watertight). * Find the planned-obsolescence parts in things like car doors that were engineered too thin or out of plastic so that door and window handles fail after a certain number of uses. * Find evidence that companies opted to use proprietary battery and charger form factors which drove up prices and prevented interoperability. ...the list is nearly endless. Most of these seem like they depend on research or whistleblowers. If the free market and regulations won't prevent this kind of widespread hacking then maybe lucrative opportunities could be found working within the courts!

anyfoo 9y ago
Minor nitpick: Speakers and microphones are moving parts. The speaker has even been used to expel water.
- keville 9y ago
  Not a minor nitpick at all. Physical buttons are also moving parts.
  - sliken 9y ago
    Not to mention headphone ports, usb ports, and charging ports. Also most phones have a vibrate function which uses an electric motor.
    - middleorigin 9y ago
      Wait, ports are considered moving parts?
      - LeoPanthera 9y ago

calinet6 9y ago

Hat tip to Carl Sagan reference in the title.

throwawaymaroon 9y ago

The solution is to gruesomely and conspicuously 'kill' the corporations that cheat. Volkswagen should be disbanded, everyone who held shares in it should see them evaporate into nothingness, and no misbehavior of these not-people should be tolerated. We'll get there. Or we'll be doomed to servitude. One or the other.

Opossum 9y ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Tesla in this context. Not only do they make it almost impossible to get a Tesla car repaired anywhere but their service centers, but they also collect a ton of data [1]. [1] https://www.tesla.com/about/legal https://www.tesla.com/about/legal

zeroxfe 9y ago
Pretty much any new high-end vehicle is unserviceable outside of their service centers due to requiring custom diagnostic and programming equipment. However, body and other simpler mechanical work can be done outside service centers (for Teslas too.)

donatj 9y ago

> Dieselgate killed people What? Is he being metaphorical or does he mean via the environmental impact? That's a stretch IMHO. Or alternately am I simply missing something?

pcr0 9y ago
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths-did-volkswagens-deception-cause-in-us.html https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/upshot/how-many-deaths...
RachelF 9y ago
Environmental impact. However, thus far only the programmer at VW has been prosecuted and sentenced to jail. His "following orders" defense did not work. All the high-level executives will probably walk away with VW paying a fine.
- kilotaras 9y ago
  If you're referring to this story[1] person sentenced was engineering executive. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sentencing/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-month-prison-term-in-diesel-case-idUSKCN1B51YP http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sente...
  - astrange 9y ago
    Literally every comment I’ve read about this article was by someone who didn’t read far enough in to learn the person really was an executive ;(

eridius 9y ago

> like the iTunes and Kindle ‘‘updates’’ that have removed features the products were sold with Anyone know what iTunes update he's talking about? I don't remember anything that fits this description.

RachelF 9y ago
I don't know about Apple, but Sony is an excellent example. They removed the ability to use Linux on the PS3. This is probably one reason they have been consistently targeted by hackers.
- eridius 9y ago
  I remember that one, although IIRC they did it because Linux-on-PS3 was being used as a way to get around the copyright restrictions on the PS3 and pirate games. Basically, the pirates ruined it for everyone.
  - middleorigin 9y ago
    I feel comfortable in blaming Sony for this. At one point I would have paid for an open ps3, say without the gpu, but these are lost sales now.
    - eridius 9y ago
      Sony didn't really have a choice. They have to protect the integrity of their system as best they can, which means closing any holes that are used to circumvent the copyright restrictions. Besides just being important to protect sales on their platform, it wouldn't surprise me if there aren't contractual obligations here as well.
      - loup-vaillant 9y ago
        The integrity of the Win-tel platform is not preserved at all, yet games are still being sold there.

mirimir 9y ago

> There must be anti-trust enforcement with the death penalty – corporate dissolution – for companies that are caught cheating. This was the norm in the US until the late 1800s. Indeed, corporations had to act in the public interest. And if they didn't, they were dissolved. But then, the railroad corporations got wealthy enough that they were able to buy favorable Supreme Court rulings. Basically, they got human rights. After former male slaves, but before women.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> This was the norm in the US until the late 1800 Source? Let's say a company owning a factory was thusly dissolved. What would you do? Parcel bricks out to shareholders? We got rid of this for a good reason. It nukes long-term investment by laying the road for expropriation.
- mirimir 9y ago
  See http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/ http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history... The American Revolution was just as much against Crown Corporations as against British rule.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    This Harvard Business Review article [1] interviews a reputable professor on the topic. America adopted English law corporations, replacing the Crown with the states. Early corporations were limited compared to today's because early enterprise was fairly limited--the American Revolution occurred on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. You are correct in stating that it took political capital to form a corporation in Revolutionary times. But that didn't mean they existed at the pleasure of the state. Furthermore, the close nexus between corporate chartering and political proximity showed its seams in the 19th century. That's why states moved the chartering process to independent bureaucracies. [1] https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html

jordigh 9y ago

There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Community_packages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Communi... Plus, people tend to act more morally when they think they might be watched, whether they actually are watched or not. Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something.

Nomentatus 9y ago
The privilege of copyright must come with disclosure.
computator 9y ago
> Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something useful and are functionally equivalent. Program A is closed source. Program B has source code available for inspection. Suppose on inspection, program B's code turns out to be bloated, ugly, poorly organized, and with many potential bugs or defects. B's reputation is screwed. However, for all you know, A's code is just as bad or worse. But you don't know for sure. Bloggers and reviewers will write that no source is available for A. Bloggers and reviewers will write that program B's code sucks. The consumer reads that "program A doesn't give you source code" and that "program B's code is garbage", but are otherwise functionally equivalent. Which do you think will have greater influence on most consumers and their purchasing decision? That's one major reason why more developers don't release source code. I wish I knew a way out of this dilemma.
- daurnimator 9y ago

Nomentatus 9y ago

This isn't a new demon-haunted world, this is the old, demon-haunted world before nineteenth-century progressive politics, back when "milk" that wasn't half chalk still might have a fish in it (see famous Thoreau quote on evidence.) We aren't enforcing the laws we have and our grandfathers and mothers had. (Three guesses why.) Not on monopolies, contracts, patent misuse... nothing. Just this week I and Hearthstone came to a stop - Blizzard's new policy insists on a credit card and that I owe them for purchases made if they leak the card no! I can't sign in to play "my" cards 'till I agree this is totally cool. Sure, the old policy said they could revise it as they liked, but the law says otherwise and always has. They don't care - it'll be years before the law is enforced against them, as it was with Steam and refunds. No cops - so to speak - on the beat, and Trump vowing to fire more regulators, that's what's changed. The number of potential demons is more of a constant.

ryanx435 9y ago
Why are you blaming Trump when you yourself admit that this has been going on since the 1800s?
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  1980's more like, this time 'round. Trump's just the last to pile on, I agree.
- CamperBob2 9y ago
  Because the Trump administration has promised to do what it can to make it even harder for consumers to fight back.
- deepnet 9y ago
  Because, currently the buck stops there. Those in charge ultimately bear the responsibility. Not criticising leaders is the road to ruin, and senseless jingoism. National humility trumps national pride as a useful virtue.
glaberficken 9y ago
> back when "milk" that wasn't half chalk still might have a fish in it (see famous Thoreau quote on evidence.) This also famously happened with bread. You can read about it for example in Bill Bryson's "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/712524-because-bread-was-so-important-the-laws-governing-its-purity https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/712524-because-bread-was-so... “Because bread was so important, the laws governing its purity were strict and the punishment severe. A baker who cheated his customers could be fined £10 per loaf sold, or made to do a month's hard labor in prison. For a time, transportation to Australia was seriously considered for malfeasant bakers. This was a matter of real concern for bakers because every loaf of bread loses weight in baking through evaporation, so it is easy to blunder accidentally. For that reason, bakers sometimes provided a little extra- the famous baker's dozen.” ― Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life

visvavasu 9y ago

Very nice article, thank you for sharing.

carapace 9y ago

Systems of elements that can trust each other are more efficient than systems of elements that must expend energy to check each other.

titzer 9y ago

This is an extremely important article. In a world populated by IOT devices full of software (as discussed previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034955), we'll end up in a post-scientific world where the underlying rules that govern a device's behavior are so complex and arcane that we'll have little chance of reverse engineering how basic devices work anymore. I think in practice it will mean that devices become bricks relatively quickly, and when people realize they have been cheated, there will be a strong backlash: imagine "paleo diet" but for devices.

hutzlibu 9y ago

The bigger issue with this, than beeing cheated in the casino, to me is, the increasingly amount of technology around us, we depend on. In a few years robots in the household will be common. I really want to have my robot servant - but only if he really is MY servant and controlled by ME and not someone else, I do not trust ...

mcguire 9y ago
Anybody remember Runaway?

mathattack 9y ago

HP is an egregious cheater, and this kind of cheating is in the DNA of any company that makes its living selling consumables or service at extremely high markups – they do their business at war with their customers. This is a very strong statement. Asking for high margins puts you at war with your customers?

pixl97 9y ago
Yes. Normally in a functioning economy competition drives out high margins, unless innovation is occurring. To protect against competition HP uses things like DRM in printer cartridges. Anti-consumer behavior occurs when your ink cartridges stop working because you didn't use them fast enough and are forced to buy a new set.
- mathattack 9y ago
  I was focused on the middle. "this kind of cheating is in the DNA of any company that makes its living selling consumables or service at extremely high markups"

Dove 9y ago

I wonder if we can require software to be open source for the same reason that food has to list its nutritional information and ingredients. Information asymmetry makes a deal unfair.

letlambda 9y ago

>instead, it tries to trick the reviewers, attempting to determine if it’s landed on a Car and Driver test-lot, and then switching into a high-pollution, high-fuel-efficiency mode. This has actually been the case for some time. The car magazine wouldn't just go borrow a car, they would get one directly from the manufacturer. And the manufacturer would send a ringer, a vehicle with an EPA test-exemption that doesn't have to comply with any emissions regulations. I suppose the era of Youtube car review channels is bringing that method to a close though.

otakucode 9y ago

History repeats itself. Car makers tried to lock out third party parts decades ago. Claimed you only had a license to operate the vehicle, no ownership. Music and movie companies argued against First Sale doctrine similarly. Courts wouldn't have it. They will stop this too. Digital property will be declared property, not licenses. No limits on resale transfer or rental and the like. Companies will howl like stuck pigs. And it will benefit them, as well as consumers, tremendously.

sshanky 9y ago

Can anyone elaborate on his comment on this sort of technology "proliferating to smart thermostats (no apps that let you turn your AC cooler when the power company dials it up a couple degrees)?

sshanky 9y ago
I read about a program where owners of some Honeywell smart thermostats will be able to authorize their utilities to turn their AC a few degrees warmer during times of unusually high demand, in exchange for some sort of compensation. But this would be voluntary.