4 ms·

And sadly it's only going to get harder and harder. More stuff is going to get locked down - not just PCs and PC-adjacent stuff like PS/XBox/etc. It's already

by dmoy 7mo ago

And sadly it's only going to get harder and harder. More stuff is going to get locked down - not just PCs and PC-adjacent stuff like PS/XBox/etc. It's already somewhat involved to get new firmware on a lot of network connected home devices you buy, but it'll become even more difficult. 3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via legislation. Tractors.... gestures wildly at Deere You can't fix software problems in your dishwasher or fridge. Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/

wolrah 7mo ago
> Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/ That's the official line a lot of the vendors responsible will push, but the evidence for that is...lacking. Compare that to the simple reality that doing this is more profitable and devices that can't be easily repaired lead to more consistent sales. Capitalism gonna capitalism.
- dmoy 7mo ago
  Yea I don't doubt that capitalist greed goes into it too. And in the case of true fear of liability lawsuits, even that also has capitalist greed undertones: Imagine you're building random-iot-device-with-a-lithium-battery. You could: 1. Build the whole thing so it's easily hackable Your lawyers point out prior art in liability cases around exploding/burning lithium-powered-devices and won't really approve release without some precautionary measures 2. Properly isolate and test the battery and related systems, ensure they can't possibly overheat even in the face of arbitrary input from the rest of the system, if modified. Lock down the battery parts, leave everything else open. 3. Do some testing on the whole-ass system to assuage your lawyers, and then lock the whole thing down 3 is typically cheaper, a lot of companies then open door 3 instead of 2. Capitalism and liability lawsuits tag teaming here imo Side note, the reason we have a litigious society imo is because most companies reach for door #4 4. Yolo, release unsafe product even with company's own firmware, fires and explosions ensue, people are maimed and die, lawsuits follow. Because lawsuits are the only recourse, we don't hold the companies criminally liable or anything.
  - hapless 7mo ago
    You don't have to actually do #3. What most companies do is just get a UL certification (to reassure consumers) and put the label "no user-serviceable parts inside" on the case (to meet UL mandates for safety) That's more than enough to avoid civil liability for user stupidity Locking shit down is something you do for other reasons entirely
- drnick1 7mo ago
  > Capitalism gonna capitalism. Then respond with more capitalism and don't buy devices that are not user-serviceable. - Buy a PC instead of a PS5/Xbox - Buy appliances that are compatible with Home Assistant, or stick to "dumb" devices - Refuse to connect to the Internet devices such as TVs and cars that do not strictly need it, regardless of "convenience" - Reject proprietary software and apps - Only buy phones whose bootloader is unlockable, so that the stock OS can be replaced by something user-controlled
  - johnnyanmac 7mo ago
    I've done all those at some point. But the lions share of people aren't even aware these issues exist. Many when brought up don't care. This isn't really an issue where capitalism prevails in favor of the user like with some privacy issues. We need legislation to pass.
    - drnick1 7mo ago
      > We need legislation to pass. Laws don't prevent firms from doing illegal things. Without public awareness, nothing will change.
      - riddley 7mo ago
        Do laws serve any purpose? If so, what?
        drnick1 7mo ago
        They do, when they are enforceable and the punishment for violations is credible. But in the tech world, punishment for things such as privacy violations and market abuse most often amounts to a trivial fine, and business then continues as usual.
      - johnnyanmac 7mo ago
        Laws aren't the fine step, but the biggest one. You'd be surprised how many companies comply without any coaxing once they are made aware of new legislator. And for those that don't: we now have a legal channel to report them to. Having the government enforce its laws is more effective than trying to arrange a general boycott.
segmondy 7mo ago
well, not if this AI stuff pans out. AI will be reversing engineering and making things easy. ;-)
- MrGilbert 7mo ago
  If the current trend continues, there won’t be much left to reverse engineer, as your appliances will use the internet for computation, as RAM and processing power are consumed by AI data centers, so…
  - segmondy 7mo ago
    nah, if AI dream comes to fruition, then we can rewrite all the code and system to be better. I mean, we are pretty wasteful from resource perspective. We would need 1/20th the CPUs and ram. Your intel 586 cpu will be as good as your computer today with 1gb of ram since everything will be regenerated in the most optimal low level code.
mikkupikku 7mo ago
I think what happens is corporate lawyers know their job is to make the boss happy and look good, so once in a while they have brainstorming sessions where they think of ways to use their toolset (knowledge and authority in legal matters) to accomplish that goal. And that usually takes the form of telling the boss he can screw customers or workers in some way, with a legal pretext as rhetorical cover, to save the company a nickel. > Hey boss, as your attorney I think we should ban employees from ever leaning on things because what if one of them got a spinal injury from leaning too much? We could be liable for permitting leaning when they could be cleaning.
hedora 7mo ago
More customers need to sue for the right to repair things that have substandard firmware. That should especially include cars and phones, with 10x min damages if a vendor or insurance company falsely claims firmware modifications were at fault if problems arise. (So, if you turn off unnecessary cabin beeping, and then get in an accident and the insurance company rejects because of “unauthorized modifications”, then they pay you and the other party at least 10x actual damages if they end up losing in court.) Vendor retaliation (undismissable nag screens, force pushed regressions and compatibility breaks) should have even higher damages. This would immediately enable people to run secure, open variants of android, and also mod their iPhones.
- fsflover 7mo ago
  Suing requires to much effort; it's better to delegate it to a non-profit fighting for our rights. Support eff.org, if you care.
redbell 7mo ago
> It's already somewhat involved to get new firmware on a lot of network connected home devices you buy, but it'll become even more difficult. We now have the network effect affecting devices too :)
Duwensatzaj 7mo ago
> 3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via legislation. That’s specific to Democrat controlled states, unlike age verification requirements. They’ve decided to treat everyone like prisoners rather than imprison criminals.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
> Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/ Are we sure about this? I always thought that if you modify something and the modification injures you then the OEM shouldn't be liable. This sounds like a shallow dig at liability.
- Aurornis 7mo ago
  It’s unfortunately true. Network equipment vendors were forced to lock down hardware when it was easy to do things like modify transmit power or usable channels.
Razengan 7mo ago
But but what if children were to bypass age controls??? Do you not care about children?

by dmoy 7mo ago

wolrah 7mo ago

> Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/ That's the official line a lot of the vendors responsible will push, but the evidence for that is...lacking. Compare that to the simple reality that doing this is more profitable and devices that can't be easily repaired lead to more consistent sales. Capitalism gonna capitalism.

dmoy 7mo ago
Yea I don't doubt that capitalist greed goes into it too. And in the case of true fear of liability lawsuits, even that also has capitalist greed undertones: Imagine you're building random-iot-device-with-a-lithium-battery. You could: 1. Build the whole thing so it's easily hackable Your lawyers point out prior art in liability cases around exploding/burning lithium-powered-devices and won't really approve release without some precautionary measures 2. Properly isolate and test the battery and related systems, ensure they can't possibly overheat even in the face of arbitrary input from the rest of the system, if modified. Lock down the battery parts, leave everything else open. 3. Do some testing on the whole-ass system to assuage your lawyers, and then lock the whole thing down 3 is typically cheaper, a lot of companies then open door 3 instead of 2. Capitalism and liability lawsuits tag teaming here imo Side note, the reason we have a litigious society imo is because most companies reach for door #4 4. Yolo, release unsafe product even with company's own firmware, fires and explosions ensue, people are maimed and die, lawsuits follow. Because lawsuits are the only recourse, we don't hold the companies criminally liable or anything.
- hapless 7mo ago
  You don't have to actually do #3. What most companies do is just get a UL certification (to reassure consumers) and put the label "no user-serviceable parts inside" on the case (to meet UL mandates for safety) That's more than enough to avoid civil liability for user stupidity Locking shit down is something you do for other reasons entirely
drnick1 7mo ago
> Capitalism gonna capitalism. Then respond with more capitalism and don't buy devices that are not user-serviceable. - Buy a PC instead of a PS5/Xbox - Buy appliances that are compatible with Home Assistant, or stick to "dumb" devices - Refuse to connect to the Internet devices such as TVs and cars that do not strictly need it, regardless of "convenience" - Reject proprietary software and apps - Only buy phones whose bootloader is unlockable, so that the stock OS can be replaced by something user-controlled
- johnnyanmac 7mo ago
  I've done all those at some point. But the lions share of people aren't even aware these issues exist. Many when brought up don't care. This isn't really an issue where capitalism prevails in favor of the user like with some privacy issues. We need legislation to pass.
  - drnick1 7mo ago
    > We need legislation to pass. Laws don't prevent firms from doing illegal things. Without public awareness, nothing will change.
    - riddley 7mo ago
      Do laws serve any purpose? If so, what?
      - drnick1 7mo ago
        They do, when they are enforceable and the punishment for violations is credible. But in the tech world, punishment for things such as privacy violations and market abuse most often amounts to a trivial fine, and business then continues as usual.
    - johnnyanmac 7mo ago
      Laws aren't the fine step, but the biggest one. You'd be surprised how many companies comply without any coaxing once they are made aware of new legislator. And for those that don't: we now have a legal channel to report them to. Having the government enforce its laws is more effective than trying to arrange a general boycott.

segmondy 7mo ago

well, not if this AI stuff pans out. AI will be reversing engineering and making things easy. ;-)

MrGilbert 7mo ago
If the current trend continues, there won’t be much left to reverse engineer, as your appliances will use the internet for computation, as RAM and processing power are consumed by AI data centers, so…
- segmondy 7mo ago
  nah, if AI dream comes to fruition, then we can rewrite all the code and system to be better. I mean, we are pretty wasteful from resource perspective. We would need 1/20th the CPUs and ram. Your intel 586 cpu will be as good as your computer today with 1gb of ram since everything will be regenerated in the most optimal low level code.

mikkupikku 7mo ago

I think what happens is corporate lawyers know their job is to make the boss happy and look good, so once in a while they have brainstorming sessions where they think of ways to use their toolset (knowledge and authority in legal matters) to accomplish that goal. And that usually takes the form of telling the boss he can screw customers or workers in some way, with a legal pretext as rhetorical cover, to save the company a nickel. > Hey boss, as your attorney I think we should ban employees from ever leaning on things because what if one of them got a spinal injury from leaning too much? We could be liable for permitting leaning when they could be cleaning.

hedora 7mo ago

More customers need to sue for the right to repair things that have substandard firmware. That should especially include cars and phones, with 10x min damages if a vendor or insurance company falsely claims firmware modifications were at fault if problems arise. (So, if you turn off unnecessary cabin beeping, and then get in an accident and the insurance company rejects because of “unauthorized modifications”, then they pay you and the other party at least 10x actual damages if they end up losing in court.) Vendor retaliation (undismissable nag screens, force pushed regressions and compatibility breaks) should have even higher damages. This would immediately enable people to run secure, open variants of android, and also mod their iPhones.

fsflover 7mo ago
Suing requires to much effort; it's better to delegate it to a non-profit fighting for our rights. Support eff.org, if you care.

redbell 7mo ago

> It's already somewhat involved to get new firmware on a lot of network connected home devices you buy, but it'll become even more difficult. We now have the network effect affecting devices too :)

Duwensatzaj 7mo ago

> 3D printers are about to get pushed over the edge via legislation. That’s specific to Democrat controlled states, unlike age verification requirements. They’ve decided to treat everyone like prisoners rather than imprison criminals.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago

> Liability lawsuits drive a lot of this :/ Are we sure about this? I always thought that if you modify something and the modification injures you then the OEM shouldn't be liable. This sounds like a shallow dig at liability.

Aurornis 7mo ago
It’s unfortunately true. Network equipment vendors were forced to lock down hardware when it was easy to do things like modify transmit power or usable channels.

Razengan 7mo ago

But but what if children were to bypass age controls??? Do you not care about children?