5 ms·

The most likely outcome of demanding software support would be the elimination of perpetual software licenses and maybe logic bombs in the hardware to destroy t

by VLM 5y ago

The most likely outcome of demanding software support would be the elimination of perpetual software licenses and maybe logic bombs in the hardware to destroy the hardware after a certain calendar date. So buy an iphone in 2023 (or really any hardware), the software license says it'll only work until 2025, after which its illegal to operate all licences revoked and only a 'computer pirate' would illegally try to run an iphone 2023 after 2025, and to enforce that if an onboard real time clock sees a date significantly beyond jan 2025, say... march 2025, it'll fire some FET transistors to crowbar the battery circuit and blow the internal fuse (hopefully thats all that happens LOL...) It'll be greenwash marketed as "making the world safe for those dangerous old lithium batteries". "Help prevent lithium battery fires while also saving the planet, by recycling your old phone every two years" A distant side effect of that will be something like forcing the adoption of something like certificate protected NTP service, because honeypot MITM types might find it hilarious to spoof a coffee shop's wifi, get everyone to connect to their fake network, then emit NTP packets claiming its 2040 thus making all equipment on the network self destruct. Imagine a cheap little $5 raspi level of hardware that can be plugged into any open ethernet port on any enterprise network, determine and take over the local NTP service via some trickery or whatever, then it bricks every piece of enterprise hardware on the LAN, LOL. Maybe it bricks unless the enterprise makes a special payment thats only 10% the hardware cost of all enterprise hardware, LOL... The future is always an exciting time for infosec workers, LOL. "We" already convinced people to replace incandescent lightbulbs that lasted a decade with "LEDs that will last forever" except home depot only sells LED products that are engineered with insufficient heatsinks such that LEDs only last two years, so now people buy new bulbs five times as often as the "bad old days" because they think they are "saving the environment" with LEDs. I'm sure we could pull this off with phones and any other equipment that uses software. Heck, put five cent microcontrollers with RTCs into each LED light bulb to make absolutely certain nobody gets more than two years life out of LED products....

Silhouette 5y ago
Somewhere after right-to-repair comes prohibiting built-in obsolescence and I suspect we'll get there eventually, as environmental awareness among younger generations becomes more influential on consumer spending if not before. But we can bet that plenty of businesses will try to play the kinds of games you're talking about first.
- VLM 5y ago
  I don't see any reason for greenwashing, or fearmongering along the lines of "think of the children", or virtue signaling in general, to decline in effectiveness, so they'll likely keep on using those strategies. Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. What I'm getting at is a societal wide trend where young people are more likely to own an e-bike but old people are more likely to be shade-tree-mechanics doing their own car brake jobs or whatever. Young people own and use iphones and streaming, old people own and use hammers and soldering irons.
  - Silhouette 5y ago
    Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. That's an interesting premise but I don't know how true it really is. Certainly today's younger generations haven't necessarily had the kind of curious exploration phase that those around GenX had and a lot of the modern technology is much more about lock-ins and walled gardens at the moment. That's a relatively recent disease, though, and breaking down some of the tech giants and their de facto monopolies might go some way towards curing it. At the same time, the digital native generations tend to have much more street smarts than their predecessors in that world. Today's teenagers are much less attached to individual personas online and change social media accounts frequently. They know not to give out their personal details or even their real name too readily. They're often more savvy about common online threats than their parents and staying safe online is routinely taught in schools now. And they are often much more willing to engage in campaigns about issues like equality and environmental concerns, which their whole generation recognises as an existential threat in the future and a sign of generational inequality, and quite knowledgable about these issues. It's not hard to imagine a near-future scenario where a big company tries on some sort of greenwashing to justify its obviously greedy strategy of forced obsolescence, it gets called out prominently by the next Greta or Malala, that message spreads virally throughout whichever social media platforms are popular with younger generations at the time, and that corporation's stock price crashes over the next few days as their PR team scramble to tell everyone that environmental protection is very important to them and their previously unannounced follow-up to the earlier announcement involves reversing it as quietly as possible.

by VLM 5y ago

Silhouette 5y ago

Somewhere after right-to-repair comes prohibiting built-in obsolescence and I suspect we'll get there eventually, as environmental awareness among younger generations becomes more influential on consumer spending if not before. But we can bet that plenty of businesses will try to play the kinds of games you're talking about first.

VLM 5y ago
I don't see any reason for greenwashing, or fearmongering along the lines of "think of the children", or virtue signaling in general, to decline in effectiveness, so they'll likely keep on using those strategies. Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. What I'm getting at is a societal wide trend where young people are more likely to own an e-bike but old people are more likely to be shade-tree-mechanics doing their own car brake jobs or whatever. Young people own and use iphones and streaming, old people own and use hammers and soldering irons.
- Silhouette 5y ago
  Younger generations understand less tech than older generations, although they use tech more than older generations. That's an interesting premise but I don't know how true it really is. Certainly today's younger generations haven't necessarily had the kind of curious exploration phase that those around GenX had and a lot of the modern technology is much more about lock-ins and walled gardens at the moment. That's a relatively recent disease, though, and breaking down some of the tech giants and their de facto monopolies might go some way towards curing it. At the same time, the digital native generations tend to have much more street smarts than their predecessors in that world. Today's teenagers are much less attached to individual personas online and change social media accounts frequently. They know not to give out their personal details or even their real name too readily. They're often more savvy about common online threats than their parents and staying safe online is routinely taught in schools now. And they are often much more willing to engage in campaigns about issues like equality and environmental concerns, which their whole generation recognises as an existential threat in the future and a sign of generational inequality, and quite knowledgable about these issues. It's not hard to imagine a near-future scenario where a big company tries on some sort of greenwashing to justify its obviously greedy strategy of forced obsolescence, it gets called out prominently by the next Greta or Malala, that message spreads virally throughout whichever social media platforms are popular with younger generations at the time, and that corporation's stock price crashes over the next few days as their PR team scramble to tell everyone that environmental protection is very important to them and their previously unannounced follow-up to the earlier announcement involves reversing it as quietly as possible.