5 ms·

I strongly believe, after 5 years, every device with more than ~10,000 units shipped should have its bootloader unlocked, and its microcode/any necessary driver

by mouse_ 4y ago

I strongly believe, after 5 years, every device with more than ~10,000 units shipped should have its bootloader unlocked, and its microcode/any necessary drivers opened up. Failure to open up should result in your license to sell new devices suspended. Unless we do something like this, we're headed towards potentially infinite e-waste. You can make the argument that everything should be a black box for security's sake, but x86/Apple laptops for example have unlocked bootloaders while maintaining security by means of OS encryption. The idea that security and privacy are fundamentally at odds is in my opinion industry gaslighting. People should have 100% control of the hardware they own, and 100% choice of the software they run on it.

RedShift1 4y ago
The same should go for cars. I've got some bugs I want to fix on my in car entertainment system...
EvanAnderson 4y ago
While I agree that this sound nice this will virtually guarantee DRM-encumbered features of devices reaching their legally-required unlock date will be set to fail immediately. That'll force those devices to become e-waste anyway. No more streaming videos, no more using your bank's app, etc.
- RainaRelanah 4y ago
  I miss the days when computing was focused on trying to protect the user from developers. These days it's more and more protecting the developer from the users.
- mouse_ 4y ago
  I can still use my bank's "app" (read: web site) and stream videos on my desktop, which has an entirely unlocked bootloader.
  - EvanAnderson 4y ago
    That's coming. Just wait.
    - stuaxo 4y ago
      See Windows on ARM based PCs.
- Teever 4y ago
  Sounds like you've stumbled on another thing we need to regulate. We should do this sort of iterative thought experiment w.r.t. regulations all the time. It's sort of like compiling a big package of code. Just keep trying to compile and fixing the errors that come up until it compiles.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    Yes, regulating everything someone doesn’t like has a long storied history of success.
    - Teever 4y ago
      Do you feel that the level of regulation that we have in the tech sector is sufficient? Why/why not?
3-cheese-sundae 4y ago
Where's this license to sell new devices that you speak of? And if it's hypothetical, what's the definition of a device that such a license would restrict?
- belltaco 4y ago
  Here https://www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/laboratory-division/general/equipment-authorization https://www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/laboratory-divisi...
hummus_bae 4y ago
> Failure to open up should result in your license to sell new devices suspended Isn't that a bit like death by a thousand cuts?
judge2020 4y ago
But unlocking the bootloader, even only once official major updates has stopped, is a risky business move due to activation lock and Find My iPhone. If they did this, there's a good chance phone theft creeps back to high levels, since thieves could just 1. wait until Apple releases new firmware that unlocks the bootloader 2. use that new firmwaare to wipe the memory that handles activation lock 3. re-install a fresh iOS 4. resell the phone iPhone 8's still go for over $100 on eBay, so it's not unprofitable to 'inventory' stolen phones by throwing them in a desk drawer to sell within a few years.
- jefftk 4y ago
  Thieves are not known for their patience. Stealing things that won't be valuable for several years is not a very good business.
- bigape911 4y ago
  That's a lot of risk for $100 in 5 to ten years.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    It might be for a small-time thief, but the more likely scenario is that they ship it to China (like they already do when they snatch an activation-locked phone and sell it for parts) and get $100 now, and the long-running shops in China do the long-term inventory for these phones instead of disassembling them for parts.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Android already has a solution to this. Unlocking the bootloader requires disabling activation lock. Even back on the nexus line, if the phone was stuck in activation lock, you’d have to unlock with the google account and then with the phone unlocked you’d use adb to unlock the bootloader.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    Unless I'm misunderstanding, a big point of contention is activation lock specifically. Unless you're buying $50-100 iPhone 7's and 8's off marketplace, chances are tons of devices you see in landfills are activation locked phones that either had their battery cut out, got cracked to the point where the user couldn't use the device, or were so badly damaged they just threw it away with no thought to reuse. In this case the iPhone(/iPad/Mac) is still locked, but enabling scrapyards to repurpose them by disabling activation lock would either allow criminals to do this as well, or if you had some vetting process to be able to remove the lock, it might just then the scrapyards de-facto dumps for stolen iPhones (since the scrapyards will like pay more for each phone once they can repurpose and sell them).
jrgd 4y ago
> potentially infinite The moment we run out of rare minerals to build touch screens, there wont be an infinite e-waste problem anymore, unless we find some other fancy uses. It’s a finite resource logic that is needed; that mindset should be adopted globally and there should be a general agreement on how to best manage these finite resources…
tzs 4y ago
As far as e-waste goes from discarded smartphones goes, it is not clear to me that it is a problem we have to solve now, as opposed to just storing the discarded phones somewhere until it becomes economical to break them down for recycling. Given the number of smartphones currently sold world wide per year, and allowing for reasonable growth, if everyone discarded their phone every year and those discards were all just dumped into a 1 km x 1 km pit, if you made that pit 30 m deep it would be able to hold well over a century's worth of phones.

by mouse_ 4y ago

RedShift1 4y ago

The same should go for cars. I've got some bugs I want to fix on my in car entertainment system...

EvanAnderson 4y ago

While I agree that this sound nice this will virtually guarantee DRM-encumbered features of devices reaching their legally-required unlock date will be set to fail immediately. That'll force those devices to become e-waste anyway. No more streaming videos, no more using your bank's app, etc.

RainaRelanah 4y ago
I miss the days when computing was focused on trying to protect the user from developers. These days it's more and more protecting the developer from the users.
mouse_ 4y ago
I can still use my bank's "app" (read: web site) and stream videos on my desktop, which has an entirely unlocked bootloader.
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  That's coming. Just wait.
  - stuaxo 4y ago
    See Windows on ARM based PCs.
Teever 4y ago
Sounds like you've stumbled on another thing we need to regulate. We should do this sort of iterative thought experiment w.r.t. regulations all the time. It's sort of like compiling a big package of code. Just keep trying to compile and fixing the errors that come up until it compiles.
- kortilla 4y ago
  Yes, regulating everything someone doesn’t like has a long storied history of success.
  - Teever 4y ago
    Do you feel that the level of regulation that we have in the tech sector is sufficient? Why/why not?

3-cheese-sundae 4y ago

Where's this license to sell new devices that you speak of? And if it's hypothetical, what's the definition of a device that such a license would restrict?

belltaco 4y ago
Here https://www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/laboratory-division/general/equipment-authorization https://www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/laboratory-divisi...

hummus_bae 4y ago

> Failure to open up should result in your license to sell new devices suspended Isn't that a bit like death by a thousand cuts?

judge2020 4y ago

But unlocking the bootloader, even only once official major updates has stopped, is a risky business move due to activation lock and Find My iPhone. If they did this, there's a good chance phone theft creeps back to high levels, since thieves could just 1. wait until Apple releases new firmware that unlocks the bootloader 2. use that new firmwaare to wipe the memory that handles activation lock 3. re-install a fresh iOS 4. resell the phone iPhone 8's still go for over $100 on eBay, so it's not unprofitable to 'inventory' stolen phones by throwing them in a desk drawer to sell within a few years.

jefftk 4y ago
Thieves are not known for their patience. Stealing things that won't be valuable for several years is not a very good business.
bigape911 4y ago
That's a lot of risk for $100 in 5 to ten years.
- judge2020 4y ago
  It might be for a small-time thief, but the more likely scenario is that they ship it to China (like they already do when they snatch an activation-locked phone and sell it for parts) and get $100 now, and the long-running shops in China do the long-term inventory for these phones instead of disassembling them for parts.
Gigachad 4y ago
Android already has a solution to this. Unlocking the bootloader requires disabling activation lock. Even back on the nexus line, if the phone was stuck in activation lock, you’d have to unlock with the google account and then with the phone unlocked you’d use adb to unlock the bootloader.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Unless I'm misunderstanding, a big point of contention is activation lock specifically. Unless you're buying $50-100 iPhone 7's and 8's off marketplace, chances are tons of devices you see in landfills are activation locked phones that either had their battery cut out, got cracked to the point where the user couldn't use the device, or were so badly damaged they just threw it away with no thought to reuse. In this case the iPhone(/iPad/Mac) is still locked, but enabling scrapyards to repurpose them by disabling activation lock would either allow criminals to do this as well, or if you had some vetting process to be able to remove the lock, it might just then the scrapyards de-facto dumps for stolen iPhones (since the scrapyards will like pay more for each phone once they can repurpose and sell them).

jrgd 4y ago

> potentially infinite The moment we run out of rare minerals to build touch screens, there wont be an infinite e-waste problem anymore, unless we find some other fancy uses. It’s a finite resource logic that is needed; that mindset should be adopted globally and there should be a general agreement on how to best manage these finite resources…

tzs 4y ago

As far as e-waste goes from discarded smartphones goes, it is not clear to me that it is a problem we have to solve now, as opposed to just storing the discarded phones somewhere until it becomes economical to break them down for recycling. Given the number of smartphones currently sold world wide per year, and allowing for reasonable growth, if everyone discarded their phone every year and those discards were all just dumped into a 1 km x 1 km pit, if you made that pit 30 m deep it would be able to hold well over a century's worth of phones.