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I believe we need new laws declaring that consumers can run whatever versions of software they want on devices they OWN. This applies to iPhones, Gaming consol
by neonihil 5y ago
I believe we need new laws declaring that consumers can run whatever versions of software they want on devices they OWN.
This applies to iPhones, Gaming consoles, and Teslas too.
Companies must allow downgrades, and consumers must be able to permanently disable update prompts.
- ineedasername 5y agoWhich jurisdiction are these laws?
- neonihil 5y agoI meant we need these new laws. (Fixed in original comment)
- passerby1 5y agoYes. By the way, the parent comment highlights an important point of having lots of countries and jurisdictions which has very different view on this. My prediction is that it will be fragmented.
- _ehqz 5y agoPretty simple fix to the problem. Just destroy any company that doesn't comply with the will of the people. (yes, I know this is problematic, but companies like Nintendo for example need to be brought to heel.)
- paulryanrogers 5y agoPerhaps a good middle ground could be that the regulation takes effect no later than when the manufacturer stops providing automated security updates.
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoAnything that allows a manufacturer to deliberately render a device that you paid for inoperable is not a compromise at all.
- judge2020 5y agoThe alternative is “you can’t provide security updates because those updates might render the device useless”, which would put us back in the 90’s and would render every iPhone not made within the last 2 years a constant exercise in navigating a minefield of spyware sites looking to exploit some WebKit vulnerability.
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoNonsense. Just provide your updates without deliberately bricking users' devices.
- akerl_ 5y agoWhy? Like I get why as a purchaser of things I would want to be able to downgrade, but under what premise is it desirable that the government should mandate how companies design and sell products? This makes far more sense to me if the pitch is that companies must include clear terms for consumers about how they’ll handle software / what the hardware will allow the user to do in terms of software downgrades. That has precedent as an extension of truthful advertising / consumer protection. But if a company says “we’re selling the Widget 9000, it updates it’s firmware automatically and irreversibly”, I don’t see a coherent reason for the government to say “no, you can’t sell that”. If people don’t want to pay for gear that behaves in that way, they’re free to not buy it.
- sslayer 5y agoThe problem is when an upgrade limits or removes features from the time of first purchase - it's akin to changing the terms of an agreement after signing it.
- AussieWog93 5y agoFor what it's worth, Sony were successfully sued when they tried this with OtherOS. I don't know of any company that's been seriously challenged for disabling hacks, though.
- wvenable 5y agoSony paid some users $10 and OtherOS functionality was never restored. Not a good precedent for consumers.
- gaganyaan 5y ago> I get why as a purchaser of things I would want to <...> That's actually all you need to say. Anything else is pro-corporate bullshit that you've been spoonfed until you regurgitate it. The rebuttal to the rest of your comment is "just try and buy a TV that isn't actively hostile to the user". But that's a side conversation, the fundamental reality is that companies are legal fiction that don't have rights. They are allowed certain privileges we grant them, and we should not grant them the ability to screw over people that don't understand what the term firmware means.
- bdcravens 5y agoI agree with the idea of full ownership, but I also know it wasn't all that long ago that the user stuck on an old version of IE was the bane of most developers, and that many security vulnerabilities come from software that was patched years ago.
- discardedrefuse 5y agoThat's funny. At this very moment I have a Windows VM open just so I can use Internet Explorer + Java8u65 to access the ILO on an HP server.
- Brian_K_White 5y agoI'll see your HP ILO and raise you an AMI MegaRAK. (ie6, activex)
- helpfulclippy 5y agoUsers weren't running IE6 for years and years because they upgraded to something newer, and decided to go back. The solution to this problem didn't come from making upgrades a purely one-way process. Device makers have become quite opinionated about how their things are used, and they are in a position to enforce their opinions. I don't know what exactly the right balance is, because there are genuine interests to be balanced... but when a piece of hardware is designed explicitly to allow the manufacturer to remove the device's ability to run the exact same software that it used to, we should meet any claim that this is primarily for the user's advantage with great skepticism. We should also take seriously the possibility that tilting the balance of power in this way creates issues at least as bad as the ones we are hoping to resolve. It's like a city so fearful of petty criminals, it allows the police the ability to do as they please. And the police are directly hired by the rich people in town.
- Aeolun 5y ago> Device makers have become quite opinionated about how their things are used I think it’s more that they realized it makes them more money, and nobody is there to stop them.
- duxup 5y agoRequired supporting of old versions of a OS for a gaming console seems to provide no sensible benefit.
- zaptrem 5y agoYou can allow a downgrade without actively supporting old OS versions.
- TheCoelacanth 5y agoAnd especially without deliberately sabotaging the user's device. Nintendo should be forced to fully refund every affected user in this scenario.
- cmelbye 5y agoSteam Deck has a very similar form factor and is way more open to hacking. It seems like the free market is working. Why should the people who develop products at Nintendo have to design around some politician’s law?
- linspace 5y agoI'm waiting for my Steam Deck. That said, the Deck is a drop in the ocean. > Why should the people who develop products at Nintendo have to design around some politician’s law? Sorry, but it must be we live in different planets. Japan has laws tailor made for the commercial interests of their gaming and media industry. Are IP protection and copyright also politician's law? I'm all against absurd legislation and bureaucracy and I'm glad creators get paid but analyse your sentence: "Why should the people who develop products at Nintendo have to design around some politician’s law?" Do you notice that you are equating People=Private Company and Consumer Protection=Politician? I could understand if you are the owner of a company trying to work around some legislative moat, otherwise, it's pure brainwashing.
- para_parolu 5y agoI think companies can get over it with licensing. They can use subscription model to force you to upgrade.
- jfnetsec 5y agoreading through the replies to this, perhaps it should instead be that if you create a method to prevent downgrades you must also provide documentation on how that prevention method works in great enough detail that it can be circumvented. Were they to document a way for you to disable the fuse check, then the user could disable the fuse check and do their own downgrades, or if writing this kind of technical documentation is too laborious then they can just provide themselves a downgrade service and just point to that in the documentation.
- chii 5y agowhat if the method involves paying the original company a fee to use the old version? Would that be considered acceptable?
- nradov 5y agoHow about on the Engine Control Modules on cars other than Teslas?
- neonihil 5y agoI have a Tesla, and I was stupid enough to upgrade to v11 without reading up first. The UI is so broken that I now literally have hate attacks while driving the car. Oh, and the update somehow broke a window controller unit, which had to be physically replaced. So: yes. I’d gladly go back to v10 if I could. I actually offered money to do so, but - unsurprisingly - I got refused.
- fay59 5y agoThe reason it’s not that easy is that platform holders have contractual obligations with content providers about their content being secure. These obligations are an incentive to content production.
- michaelmrose 5y agoActually its exactly that easy. The platform holders cannot offer something to content providers that is outside the boundaries of the law nor use a court to compel them to break the law. Making it the law is about the only thing that would work because incentives are otherwise inherently misaligned.
- fay59 5y agoAnd what are the boundaries of the law?
- michaelmrose 5y agoWe are discussing not what IS the law but what in some people's opinion ought to be the law. The comment that started this thread > I believe we need new laws declaring that consumers can run whatever versions of software they want on devices they OWN. To which you said > The reason it’s not that easy is that platform holders have contractual obligations with content providers about their content being secure. I pointed ought that if the law were modified as requested that such contractual obligations would be mooted because they cannot be obligated to implement restrictions that would fall afoul of the prospective law that commenter proposed and I agree ought to be implemented.
- eek2121 5y agoI will partially disagree with this. Irreparable hardware/software changes like this should absolutely be banned, however, I disagree that we should dictate speech, with speech in this case being how the software was written. An analogy would be telling people they can't protest vs. shooting them when they try to.
- account42 5y agoBut the core issue here is the company restricting users from running their own software so the analogy would be more that a company would not be allowed to tell their hitment to shoot protesters even though that is technically speech.
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- uKVZe85V 5y agoEven if such a law was enforced, there is a workaround: rent the consoles instead of selling them. That way, you don't legally own the console/phone/car you're playing with and they still can do whatever they want. Leasing is common for expensive items, down to cars, sometimes phones, it can be used for consoles, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lease
- account42 5y agoSuch a workaround only works with weak enough consumer protections. If it quaks like a duck the law can choose to treat it like a duck even if you insist that its actually a goose.