[HN Gopher] British right to repair law excludes smartphones and...
___________________________________________________________________
British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers
Author : sidcool
Score : 446 points
Date : 2021-07-01 14:06 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (9to5mac.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (9to5mac.com)
| zaysan01 wrote:
| I just want to be able to put a new battery in things like my
| phone, and sonicare.
| oneplane wrote:
| I want to be all positive here and say "maybe it is just a
| stopgap while they work on solving those issues in a later
| stage"... but I'm most likely completely wrong.
| swiley wrote:
| I remember thinking that about the iPhone. I regret giving
| Apple the benefit of the doubt.
| tudorw wrote:
| hopefully the beginning of this movement not the end, good to see
| the need for this recognised in legislation, as someone who would
| like to see more progression along this route this is a
| meaningful event.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Can anyone research by whom, and in what reading was that
| exception added?
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| _" From Thursday, manufacturers will have to make spares
| available to consumers, with the aim of extending the lifespan of
| products by up to 10 years, it said"_
|
| Whoah. Can you imagine trying to make sure your iphone 4 still
| worked today?
|
| I'm all for right to repair, but that seems a bit excessive, no?
| aembleton wrote:
| > I'm all for right to repair, but that seems a bit excessive,
| no?
|
| No. We need to be able to repair devices so that they continue
| to function for longer without throwing them away.
| emouryto wrote:
| Well, smartphones must be updated to include better spyware.
|
| And newer computers are also better locked down to allow better
| surveillance.
|
| So, the older ones can't break down fast enough!
|
| You don't want a repairable computer so creeps install, like, a
| Linux distro. You want disposable TPM machines with Windows 11
| Home Edition and unstoppable "telemetry".
| ezconnect wrote:
| My Windows 10 Pro just got updated to Windows 11 for free via
| an update and I have no TPM module.
| hvdijk wrote:
| Windows 11 previews do not require a TPM module, but the
| final Windows 11 will. Quoting from
| https://blogs.windows.com/windows-
| insider/2021/06/28/update-...:
|
| > In support of the Windows 11 system requirements, we've set
| the bar for previewing in our Windows Insider Program to
| match the minimum system requirements for Windows 11, with
| the exception for TPM 2.0 and CPU family/model.
| alerighi wrote:
| So I can install Windows 11 previews, then when the
| definitive version comes out I would need to downgrade if I
| don't have a TPM hardware (or if I don't want to enable it
| for not loosing the possibility to dual boot Linux)? It's
| nonsense.
|
| I want the old Windows back, couldn't Microsoft just stop
| making OS and support Windows 7 forever? The last Windows
| version that just worked, buy a license and use it, no
| updates every 6 months, no requirement for secure boot, TPM
| and stupid stuff, no apps, or whatever other stupid thin
| they invented.
| plainnoodles wrote:
| To be fair, TPM's are really cool from a hardware perspective.
| They're HSM's which can fundamentally change what threat models
| on your OS look like.
|
| Unfortunately, the purpose here will be to use the fact that
| most users use a non-free OS to turn these TPMs against the
| user in order to make DRM harder to break.
| alerighi wrote:
| I don't trust storing keys in the hardware. The hardware can
| fail and you loose everything, or the hardware can have
| backdoor. It's not difficult to make and memorize a strong
| password in the end to use it for disk encryption.
| bserge wrote:
| I've been using laptops with TPM for a decade now. Never
| enabled the damn thing because if it failed, I'd be
| completely locked out of my computer. I'm not a CIA agent,
| I'm not a threat to any state, I don't even work for some big
| corp, why do I need that level of security?
| fsflover wrote:
| TPM does not necessarily lock you out in case of problems.
| It depends on the software. In Purism laptops, it just
| warns you if something unexpectedly changes. (see the link
| in my other comment)
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Unfortunately, the purpose here will be to use the fact
| that most users use a non-free OS to turn these TPMs against
| the user in order to make DRM harder to break._
|
| Stallman[1] and others[2] have talked about just this issue
| for over a decade now.
|
| [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html
|
| [2] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Just in case someone wants to know what a TPM is:
|
| _Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, is a unique hardware-based
| security solution that installs a cryptographic chip on the
| computer 's motherboard, also known as a cryptoprocessor._
|
| _This chip protects sensitive data and wards off hacking
| attempts generated through a computer 's hardware. Each TPM
| holds computer-generated keys for encryption, and most PC's
| nowadays come with TPM chips pre-soldered onto the
| motherboards._
| toast0 wrote:
| I see the value in using a TPM to protect a disk encryption
| key; but also the downside of it being harder for me to
| recover data when the TPM fails before the disk (or if the
| motherboard fails and the TPM is tamper resistant and doesn't
| want to be moved to another board, etc). For me, data
| recovery is more important.
|
| Boot time security sounds kind of useful, but I don't have
| time or desire to audit and sign everything I run, and
| Microsoft doesn't either; they have historically signed all
| sorts of garbage that undermines the system security, and I
| expect that will continue.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I feel like there's a large subset of people who don't
| understand what TPM does, so just assume the worst and hand
| wave about how it [somehow] causes [random bad thing].
|
| In this case I guess TPM causes telemetry?
| zwarag wrote:
| If history is an indicator for anything, we're talking about
| when. Not if.
| rocqua wrote:
| TPM used for secure boot, (hypothetically) used to block
| installing non-windows OS, means the owner is forced to using
| an OS that has telemetry.
|
| That is the argument I suppose OP was making. The secure boot
| locking is hypothetical, but it is often feared. I get why,
| because it seems like something Microsoft would love to do.
| my123 wrote:
| TPM is used for measured boot, to not release a
| secret/operate on a key if measurements do not match.
|
| It doesn't block you from running anything.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| >It doesn't block you from running anything.
|
| Yet
| rocqua wrote:
| Dang your right.
|
| I figured the TPM was part of secure-boot validation. But
| given some extra thought, it is clear that verifying a
| signature does not require any secrets.
| gravstar wrote:
| Lol I think MOST people don't understand what TPM is/does...
| okennedy wrote:
| A TPM is a chip on some motherboards that serves two
| purposes:
|
| 1. Using something not too dissimilar from blockchain/git
| repo hashes to attest to the the execution stack (BIOS,
| bootloader, kernel, userspace). 2. Providing cryptographic
| primitives that are only unlocked when the stack exactly
| matches a particular value.
|
| It's a handy tool for avoiding spyware, as any change in the
| attestation chain gets immediately flagged. It is also, in
| principle, useful for tying DRM keys to a particular
| execution stack that's known to be trusted... although it's
| very worth noting that the TPM's threat model does not
| include an attacker having physical access to the hardware.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I thought TPMs also prevent physical attacks by being
| configurable to require password for unlock and physical
| anti tamper features.
| als0 wrote:
| The bus between the CPU and the TPM is exposed, so there
| are plenty of physical attacks that you can do, assuming
| a certain level of skill and tools.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Right, for configurations where the tpm automatically
| releases keys, they can be sniffed. It can be configured
| to only release it's secret once a correct password is
| given. It also rate limits I believe.
| als0 wrote:
| With a physical bus reset attack you can also set PCR
| values without any authentication, which essentially
| breaks attestation. Also only some TPMs have anti tamper
| features and security certification (best ignore the ones
| that don't).
| okennedy wrote:
| It's been a while since I looked at the technology, but
| the basic premise is very simple. The TPM basically keeps
| around a stack of hashes. The BIOS pushes a hash of the
| bootloader onto the stack. The bootloader pushes a hash
| of the kernel onto the stack. Then there's a handful of
| ring 0 cpu instructions for pushing and popping all but
| the bottom-most entries of the stack that allow the
| kernel to do whatever it wants, including pushing hashes
| of application code, hashes of passwords (as in your
| example), or opening up a similar ability to push/pop
| upper levels of the stack to the application.
|
| The only check the TPM does when deciding whether to
| allow the key in one of its registers to be used is
| whether the stack is in a particular configuration. The
| TPM doesn't (and in fact can't) directly require
| passwords (since it has no direct line of communication
| to the user). However, the BIOS, bootloader, kernel,
| etc... can all be configured to mix user-provided
| information like a password into the hash they push into
| the TPM.
| als0 wrote:
| TPM keys are protected by policies. A policy can be based
| on the system state (hashes), a password, or both. There
| are also complex policies using the Extended
| Authorization feature. If you don't care about platform
| state or configuration, then you can just set a key
| policy with just a password. The TPM will lock you out if
| you make too many incorrect guesses.
|
| You can in fact put passwords on most TPM internal
| objects. See this example https://github.com/tpm2-softwar
| e/tpm2-tools/blob/master/man/...
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Stallman[1] and others[2] wrote about TPMs nearly 15 years
| ago, and the former revisited the topic in 2015.
|
| Trusted Platform Modules can be used enforce app DRM,
| ensuring that only "approved" apps are able to run on a
| system.
|
| That's already the reality for iPhones and iPads. We see
| desktops converging on this reality with systems like Apple's
| M1 which won't run unsigned binaries at all, and makes it
| difficult to nearly impossible to run apps that weren't first
| approved by Apple through their notarization process.
|
| [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html
|
| [2] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
| fsflover wrote:
| TPM can be based on free software and controlled by the
| user: https://puri.sm/posts/purism-integrates-heads-
| security-firmw....
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Thanks for the link, I wasn't aware of Purism's work in
| this space.
|
| Is an open and flashable TPM something rights holders
| would be comfortable with? Or would they treat it like
| SafetyNet treats an Android phone with an unlocked
| bootloader?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The main point (and only differential) of a TPM is
| protecting secrets against the person with physical
| possession of the device.
|
| About every time something like this is placed on a
| consumers product, it is to exploit the consumer some way,
| so, no it's just bad.
|
| There is the very rare exception of it being a product
| intended for the owner to lend it to other people, and the
| very common exception of it being disabled by default, but
| being cheaper to include on every product than just the
| business ones. But well, Windows 11 Home edition computers
| are neither of those.
| Aeolun wrote:
| No, no, don't mistake correlation with causation. They just
| _always_ come together.
|
| Note: I have no idea what TPM even is.
| jandrese wrote:
| A TPM is just a bit of memory that is "hacker proof" so you
| can store a private key with a guarantee that it can't leak
| out. You can then sign, encrypt, or decrypt using the key.
|
| They were controversial because it was originally thought
| they would be used to lock parts of your computer away from
| you, being used to do DRM and the like. At the end of the
| day the chips were hard to use, slow, and flaky enough that
| it didn't really pan out. A lot of the braindamage came
| from a secondary feature where you could theoretically
| create "secure enclaves" where the entire execution chain
| down to the bare metal was signed to prevent viruses and
| rootkits from executing. In theory this is neat, but in
| practice it's basically impossible on PC hardware and
| caused a lot of problems. This functionality is the reason
| BitLocker had the reputation for randomly locking you out
| of your machine, even though it doesn't use the feature
| directly. The configuration registers were maybe a mistake.
| meowface wrote:
| I know it's super easy for anyone to Google, but I feel
| like at least one reader will find this useful since I
| didn't see it mentioned anywhere in the discussion
| thread: TPM stands for Trusted Platform Module.
|
| ("TPM is an international standard for a secure
| cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to
| secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys." -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module)
| tremon wrote:
| A TPM is much more than "just a bit of memory". It is a
| cryptographic coprocessor, with its own microcode and its
| own security domain.
|
| And I don't think a fully-secured future for PC's is as
| impossible as you think. The primary reason this is
| impossible right now is because TPM's aren't ubiquitous
| (none of my machines came with one installed). That
| problem will be solved by Windows 11.
| jandrese wrote:
| The fundamental problem with the secure enclave on PC is
| that to make it work you have to basically lock out all
| of the untrusted hardware on the box, which is pretty
| much all of it. So while you are doing your secure
| computation nobody is servicing the PCIe bus. The
| graphics card drivers aren't getting any CPU cycles. Ring
| buffers on your network cards aren't emptied. From the
| perspective of everything else on the machine the whole
| thing just crashed.
|
| If your computation is quick you might be able to get
| away with this sometimes, but the potential for problems
| is almost unlimited. The fact that the TPM itself is
| pretty slow throws another monkeywrench into the plan.
|
| In order for it to work the whole system needs to be
| designed from the bottom up to support it, which means
| you need to touch every layer of the PC stack. It's a lot
| of work. It is a lot easier on something like a cellphone
| where you can control the hardware from top to bottom and
| don't have to consider the case where someone installs
| additional hardware to suit their needs.
| cmxch wrote:
| Secured for the benefit of Microsoft or DRM providers,
| not necessarily for the benefit of the end user.
|
| Unless they're willing to allow the end user to override
| the wishes of the vendor (and without any diminished
| functionality), TPM is just another way to turn computers
| into appliances.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| It's what Apple calls a "secure element", essentially a
| mini-HSM or multi-feature smartcard. "Put keys on it and it
| lets you use it with a PIN and rate limit" seems to be the
| main use case (they can implement FIDO2 with that too for
| instance).
|
| These things are very useful for authentication and have
| been on business laptops for this very reason forever.
| chadlavi wrote:
| thank goodness those never need repairing and aren't essential,
| heavily-used pieces of hardware /s
|
| This is as toothless/pointless as passing a law that says you
| have the right to a discrimination-free workplace, except that
| racism and sexism are ok. These exclusions make the law useless
| for most people.
| jrkfkgmfmr wrote:
| I don't want a right to repair if that means a bulky phone/laptop
| with terrible water sealing.
|
| Typing from a 4 year old non-repairable phone (Samsung S8).
|
| If you want a repairable phone, good, but don't take away my
| choice of slim water resistant phones.
|
| Get off my lawn HNers keep on complaining about big screens, non
| removable batteries, and lack of headphone ports, but nobody
| cares because people actually want those things.
| theHIDninja wrote:
| You will still have a removable backplate on your hermetically
| sealed phone. All Right to Repair means is that companies will
| be unable to enter part exclusivity deals with manufacturers.
| alias_neo wrote:
| What I want, is to be able to find a repair shop locally that
| would repair the glass on my Oneplus 8 Pro that I smashed in
| the first week of owning it. It fell all of 4 inches from the
| arm of the sofa onto the side table, and smashed because of
| shitty design wrapping the glass round the edge which was
| totally unnecessary.
|
| Oneplus will repair it for PS200 for the part PLUS tax PLUS
| shipping PLUS labour and I'll have to ship it out of the
| country somewhere and wait a number of weeks they won't
| disclose to have my phone back. Heck, they won't even tell me
| how much the labour cost _might_ be.
|
| If they'd sell the parts and allow one of the many phone repair
| shops in the UK to fix it, I could have it within an hour or
| two for little more than the cost of the screen itself.
|
| This isn't about making your devices shitty, fat and not-
| waterproof, it's about enabling people with the wills and the
| skills to buy the tools and the parts to do the job.
|
| Heck, under a good right-to-repair, I could buy the screen
| myself and fit it if I wanted.
|
| So many people miss the point of right-to-repair. It's not
| about making things less this or less that, it's simply about
| giving you the RIGHT to buy the parts you need and the tools
| you need to repair the thing you own.
| Silhouette wrote:
| If you're in the UK and an expensive phone really did break
| just from falling 4 inches after one week, I'd be tempted to
| try returning it to the seller. There must be a credible
| argument that it's unfit for purpose if it can be broken that
| easily due to a design flaw. It's not as if you carelessly
| dropped it from a pocket at waist height onto a concrete
| floor or something.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I tried, it was from Amazon and neither they nor Oneplus
| cared how or why it happened, I tried arguing that it was
| ridiculous that it happened but again, deaf ears, so I just
| let it be.
| tremon wrote:
| Next time, perhaps try a reputable seller?
| Silhouette wrote:
| For that kind of money, you might want to get a bit of
| advice on the right words to use before giving up. The
| thing about "Your statutory rights are not affected" is
| that your statutory rights are not affected, whether they
| care or not.
|
| Even if you decide not to fight this one, please consider
| informing one of the major consumer rights organisations
| so if there is a design flaw and others are experiencing
| the same problem the manufacturer can't bury their head
| in the sand and try to avoid responsibility. Other big
| tech firms have allegedly done this in the past and bad
| publicity is often what brings them round in the end.
| alias_neo wrote:
| Although I understand, and I have done so in the past and
| won, after speaking with both OnePlus and Amazon I came
| away feeling that it was my fault.
|
| I had a case on the phone which I removed just an hour
| earlier because it was dirty underneath, and wit lockdown
| and working from home I wasn't leaving the house, I saw
| no need to put it back on, felt like Karma.
|
| Yes I believe the design contributed significantly to it
| breaking, it just wasn't the time for me to add more
| stress trying to fight it.
|
| I'm a strange way, it was a good thing, I'm a
| perfectionist, and having a broken screen put me off
| wanting to use my phone, that's a good thing in a weird
| way.
| Silhouette wrote:
| That's totally fair enough. You have to pick the fights
| you think are worth taking, and if it's just going to
| cause you stress then maybe this one simply isn't. I hope
| you manage to sort your phone out one way or another.
| ajkdhcb2 wrote:
| It seems to me that it is a purely propaganda that these things
| are mutually exclusive. Like how all smartphone manufacturers
| had phones that were fine with removable batteries, but then
| suddenly that was gone from literally every brand in the world
| because it is so powerful for planned obsolescence
| jrkfkgmfmr wrote:
| Funny how I was replacing my old phones with replaceable
| batteries every year, yet I am replacing the newer ones with
| non replaceable ones only every 3, 4 years.
|
| Hint: it's not the non-replacable battery why people upgrade
| phones.
| ajkdhcb2 wrote:
| Opposite for me, I still hold onto my old phone with
| replaceable battery for when my new phone dies and i cant
| swap in a fresh one. Still works after 7+ years
| crazygringo wrote:
| People want thin phones. A non-removable battery allows for
| thinness you simply cannot get otherwise.
|
| And while you can argue about whether thin _laptops_ are
| necessary, for people who carry their phones in their pants
| pockets, an extra couple millimeters gone is genuinely a
| meaningful difference.
|
| There's no propaganda there.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > People want thin phones
|
| [Citation needed]
|
| My "thin" phone double in volume with the require case, so
| "thinness" is really a joke...
| ajkdhcb2 wrote:
| >A non-removable battery allows for thinness you simply
| cannot get otherwise.
|
| I doubted this so I looked up dimensions. Samsung Galaxy S6
| from 2015 is 6.8mm thick, with removable battery. S10 from
| 2019 is 7.8mm thick. So your theory doesn't seem to match
| reality.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Wikipedia says the S6 did _not_ have a user-replaceable
| battery:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S6#Battery
|
| In any case, it's apples-to-oranges and doesn't mean
| anything. Cell phones can have functionality _added_ that
| takes up the difference in thickness -- e.g. keeping the
| phone the same thickness instead of it getting _even
| thicker_.
|
| But main point is, they're thinner basically by
| definition. There are necessarily more layers of
| materials.
| ajkdhcb2 wrote:
| Oh yeah seems I saw an incorrect site, S5 was the last
| one with removable battery.
|
| Of course there are some tradeoffs but it just doesn't
| seem so significant that EVERY brand refuses to offer
| even one model with a removable battery. There are
| definitely some people that want it despite the
| tradeoffs. As other commenters said, people have huge
| phones now and use cases. So I think manufacturers have a
| special interest in maintaining the situation for planned
| obsolescence.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't think it has anything to do with planned
| obsolescence.
|
| I've had an iPhone battery replaced 3 times now. It's not
| a big deal to have the store do it for me, nor is it that
| expensive.
|
| The bigger use case for swappable batteries is to have a
| spare, but these days people just carry an external
| battery pack with them that's the capacity they need,
| which is far more flexible (hold 10 full charges if you
| need, not just 1!) as well as not tied to any particular
| model.
|
| So I just don't see any special interest -- it's just
| giving people the thinness they want.
| alerighi wrote:
| Yes, they made thinner phones but they made more huge and
| heavy. Nowadays it's nearly impossible to find a phone that
| has a screen smaller than 6". I mean, to me it's too much,
| it can even fit in some of my pockets!
|
| Give me back the old phones, removable battery, more thick,
| but more compact in the end, and more easy to carry around.
| The bigger screen it's in the end useless to me.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Smaller screen size is what the iPhone SE is for! It's
| what I use, precisely because pockets :)
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| we can have both. iPhones are quite easy to repair everything,
| but iPads aren't. They're glued together, and they really don't
| need to be. Lot of design decisions that have nothing to do
| with making the product better but just making it hard to
| repair.
| aand wrote:
| Hard to repair =/= impossible to repair.
|
| Also I've had my S8 fixed twice (motherboard change).
| willvarfar wrote:
| Does it covet "smart" appliances too?
|
| Computers are everywhere and in everything, often whether they
| seem to be needed or not.
| Proven wrote:
| It should exclude everything, because the legislation is
| nonsense.
|
| a) People have always had the right to do whatever they want with
| their property
|
| b) They didn't have the right to perform unsupported repairs and
| use unauthorized parts _if_ they wanted to keep the warranty.
| This was always known, or could be known, to all buyers at the
| time of purchase.
|
| Now you get the fake "right" to screw up a product and then send
| it for free servicing or parts replacement because it's under
| warranty. What happens next?
|
| Of course, the manufacturer will raise price or exit the hostile,
| centrally planned "market".
|
| Where do political parties find all those idiots to vote for such
| destructive legislative acts?
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57665593
|
| This doesn't sound very exciting to me. From experience spare
| parts from the manufacturer cost a fortune.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Even if they are overpriced, I still want them _available_. If
| for no other reason, to ensure that battery replacement is
| possible. My last two phones were fine when I retired them,
| except for the battery. In the laptop world, I have kept some
| of my old devices in service for a long, long time by getting
| cheap battery replacements on ebay.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| China makes spares of EVERYTHING for pennies.
| mnouquet wrote:
| which is gonna be useless if the part require write-only
| firmware which you cannot extract from the original part, eg.
| macbook's SMC.
| hunta2097 wrote:
| Apple solve this by making spares super expensive and only
| available from partners.
|
| The legislation needs to stipulate what a "component" or "part"
| is, i.e. not the entire motherboard.
| nradov wrote:
| As a practical matter some motherboards are now so tightly
| integrated that component level repair is no longer feasible.
| xroche wrote:
| > Apple solve this by making spares super expensive and only
| available from partners.
|
| This is even more hilarious: they sell you a "spare part"
| which is the logic board, for nearly the price of the laptop.
|
| But they (1) do provide spare parts and (2) sell them at a
| ""reasonable price""
| danpalmer wrote:
| In my experience with Apple parts they are roughly in line
| with my expectations based on a) the price of the computer,
| and b) not being designed for any part to be replaced
| independently. These aren't great factors of course, but
| I'm not sure the problem is expensive parts.
|
| I've usually found logic boards to be ~1/3-1/2 of the price
| of the machine, which considering they have the RAM/SSD
| soldered on, feels like ~1/3-1/2 of the value of the
| machine to me. Similarly, screens are often in the same
| sort of ballpark and I'd say that matches my expectations.
|
| If you start from "how much does a motherboard cost" or
| "how much does a screen cost", that's going to miss a lot
| of the legit costs of additional components, higher quality
| components, or laptop form factor costing more.
| shadilay wrote:
| Having a price even if ridiculous allows researches to
| write papers like "What brand has the most affordable
| repairs".
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Dear god that's a stretch of the word "researcher" if
| ever I've seen one. Yes, that article would take some
| "research" (as in, finding stuff) but nope, the person
| writing it wouldn't be a "researcher" for it. They'd be a
| journalist. At 9to5 or such probably.
| milesvp wrote:
| I'm not sure it is. What verb does someone do when they
| collect and collate data about products at consumer
| reports, tom's hardware, or even the low bar of linus
| tech tips?
|
| I'd say while the primary role may be journalist at most
| of these types of orgs, there is definitely a role for
| people who focus on the research side of things, and if
| you're actively running experiments and benchmarks, you
| are definitely moving out of the realm of simple
| observation. I certainly would like to benefit from the
| data of which phone is cheapest to repair. iFixit already
| does the research to grade repairability of devices.
| als0 wrote:
| What you describe sounds like the role of an analyst e.g.
| like the famous Patrick Moorhead
| 14 wrote:
| also even if the price is really expensive, I would pay
| it if it meant recovering my lost data on a phone.
| Silhouette wrote:
| Indeed, though effective regulations requiring phone
| manufacturers and app developers to stop trying to lock
| your data into their device or software wouldn't be a bad
| thing either. The ability to back up your own data on
| your own terms would be a good start. Some recent legal
| changes, such as the GDPR in Europe, have attempted to
| guarantee this access when services have your data. But
| apparently having your own device lock you in is still OK
| for some reason.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| In my province, landlords cannot terminate a periodic
| tenancy except for a small number of causes, but they are
| free to change the rent price to whatever they want once a
| year. Result: if the landlord wants you gone, they just
| tell you your 2k per month rent is increasing to 20k per
| month and voila, gone!
|
| No user protection is effective unless it comes with some
| sort of price cap. This is why GPL requires the source code
| to be made available _" for a price no more than your
| reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of
| source"_. Otherwise, a company could use GPL'd code in
| their product and say they are more than happy to give you
| a copy of the source code for 100 billion dollars.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| NJ statewide has is no cap on increases in rent, but
| there is a requirement for good cause to terminate a
| lease. An unconscionable or unreasonablerent increase is
| illegal
| smnrchrds wrote:
| That's a sensible approach. My province does not have a
| cap, period.
| undfg wrote:
| That's okay - if people care about this they will stop
| buying Apple products.
| fsflover wrote:
| Only in case there is a reasonable alternative.
| smoldesu wrote:
| By that logic, we shouldn't bother recalling cars either
| since people will just stop buying the broken ones.
|
| Another problem solved!
| spamizbad wrote:
| Apple isn't the only manufacturer doing this. It's also
| quite common among PC manufacturers. And consumers aren't
| exactly provided this information openly to weigh this as
| a factor. The market cannot currently solve this problem
| because there's not enough transparency.
| oneplane wrote:
| That is part of the problem: a lot of people just don't
| care.
| nradov wrote:
| Is that a problem? Should customers care?
| Silhouette wrote:
| Given the awful environmental cost of "disposable tech",
| everyone should care about reducing waste and extending
| the working life of our hardware if only for that reason.
|
| Of course it's also bad for society that we have so
| little effective competition in tech markets now that
| users think substandard products and user-hostile
| behaviours are normal. The race to the bottom is bad for
| everyone, and everyone being sold those products is being
| abused in the name of profit, whether or not any given
| individual is aware of how much it is happening to them
| or understands that better alternatives exist.
| oneplane wrote:
| I don't know for a fact if in isolation this is a problem
| or not a problem.
|
| But from the perspective of the compound problem of
| getting repairability on track, this is an element within
| that compound that is lacking the drive of customer
| attention.
| undfg wrote:
| That's exactly my point. If customers don't care then
| who's this regulation serving?
| oneplane wrote:
| Look up tragedy of the commons. It is for the end-user,
| they just don't know it yet, believing that it is 'not
| their problem'.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Just because you don't care that the environment is
| suffering, and resources are being wasted, because
| instead of fixing things people throw them away doesn't
| mean that helping to mitigate those problems doesn't
| benefit you.
|
| Or to use a crude analogy: just because babies don't care
| about having their nappy (ie diaper) changed doesn't mean
| it doesn't help them.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Do they? I think most consumers assume if a 40 cent part
| breaks on their computer they will pay 40 cents plus
| labor plus some part markup - the same way car, HVAC, and
| other repairs work.
|
| That's why when people's computers break they take them
| to get repaired in the first place. Otherwise, consumers
| would just be tossing their broken devices and buying a
| new one.
|
| If you're fairly well-heeled you certainly have the
| privilege of forgoing repairs and just buying new ones.
| Lots of tech enthusiasts who cycle through devices every
| year probably aren't bothered. But normal people who
| don't get excited at the prospect of purchasing a new 3
| or 4 figure device appreciate being able to get their
| machine back in working order for a few hundred max.
| ivoras wrote:
| It's all fun and games until your fridge gets reclasiffied as a
| computer.
| ShaneMcGowan wrote:
| Trying to find a good non smart tv is impossible now, I want
| dumb tv and dumb fridge
| Smithalicious wrote:
| TV design decisions baffle me. Why no displayport? Why only
| optical audio out and no jack?
|
| I just have mine hooked up to my pc with a long hdmi cable so
| my use case might be unusual, though.
| midasuni wrote:
| How do you define TV
|
| There's the LCD screen
|
| A driver to convert an input (hdmi, vga, ntsc, DVB/ATSC,
| MPEG, HLS)
|
| A speaker (or more), with input (from driver or not)
|
| A control plane of some sort to control the other bits
| (brightness, gamma, input, volume)
|
| It seems that people who want dumb TVs want most of that,
| including different inputs, but just a specific driver and/or
| control plane
|
| A computer monitor will do most of this just fine, especially
| if matched with a separate speaker.
| cesarb wrote:
| > How do you define TV
|
| By the presence of a built-in TV receiver (DVB, ISDB, etc).
| If it doesn't have such a built-in receiver, it's a
| monitor.
| bogwog wrote:
| Computer monitors are (typically) significantly more
| expensive than TVs (smart or not).
| alerighi wrote:
| Monitors have other purposes of TVs, the things that are
| important on a monitor are not the same on a TV, and a good
| monitor doesn't necessary mean that it's a good TV or vice
| versa.
|
| See the same difference in the audio world: there is
| monitor/studio equipment that has the purpose of
| reproducing the sound as closely as possible to the
| original media, and then there is listening equipment that
| is meant to make the sound more enjoyable for the listener.
|
| Monitors also doesn't include a TV receiver. While that can
| be an advantage in countries like mine for people that
| wants only to look at internet content since if you have a
| TV with a receiver you have to pay a tax, it doesn't work
| for people that just want's to watch TV, meaning connecting
| the power and aerial cable to the TV and use it. You need
| an external decoder, that needs to have a separate remote
| control, you then need two power outlets, more cables, you
| then have to install the decoder somewhere, it's not as
| clean as having it integrate in the TV itself.
|
| I think especially at my grandma, that doesn't have
| internet, and wants a TV that is as simple as possible,
| press 1 on the remote and the TV turns on at the channel 1.
| Press volume up/down and the power button. Nowadays it's
| difficult to find TV with that requisite, modern remotes
| have a ton of buttons what will bring up functionalities
| that then are difficult to exit, especially for an 85 years
| old woman that never used a computer or a smartphone or
| anything other than a TV and the landline phone.
| nerdawson wrote:
| TV manufacturers are responding, often clumsily and based on
| their self-interest (data collection), to what consumers
| want.
|
| Trying to find a dumb TV is like trying to find a car without
| a built in radio. You're welcome to leave it switched off.
|
| Smart TVs are dumb if they aren't connected to the internet.
| Some may be slow. Some may have a poor interface. I'd worry
| about solving for that rather than expecting manufacturers to
| cater to a very niche group.
| handrous wrote:
| Part of it _might_ be that consumers want smart TVs, but it
| 's definitely the case that consumers are very price-
| sensitive when it comes to TVs, and that selling ad space
| (and selling/leveraging data gained by stalking your users
| --why this shit is legal is beyond me) on an integrated OS
| lets you sell at, or even under, the cost to deliver the
| hardware, and remain profitable.
|
| This is also why it's really, really hard to build a Roku
| competitor starting from 0, without _a lot_ of starting
| capital. You won 't be able to match them on price, and
| also won't yet have the scale to subsidize your own devices
| with ad sales, so you'll need to sell at a loss (remember:
| you also need to get onto shelves in stores to compete, and
| they'll have harsh price requirements, calibrated by what
| your ad- and spyware-subsidized competitors are selling
| for, if you want shelf-space with an unknown brand) for
| quite a while.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Smart TVs are dumber than a dumb-TV if they aren't
| connected to the internet. My Samsung TV stays disconnected
| from the internet, but to change the input between devices
| I have to scroll past ads that were preloaded onto it in
| 2018. If I accidentally press the channel up/down buttons
| on the remote it switches inputs, takes 10 seconds to
| realize it isn't online, and then tells me "Samsung TV Plus
| is not available".
| alerighi wrote:
| They are not. Smart TVs are slow as hell. I don't want a TV
| that has "to boot" and takes time to turn on because it has
| to load a full Android OS, takes 10 seconds to load the
| channel guide, have a ton of buttons that you didn't ask to
| open Netflix or other services for which I don't have a
| subscriptions to press by mistake (and each time you loose
| 10 seconds or so of the programs you where watching).
|
| Really, I find modern smart TV too lagging, it's like you
| press a button on the remote and the TV responds even 1
| seconds after, it gives you the impression that the remote
| is not working properly, but it's not there the problem.
|
| A TV has to do one thing, and do it well, let me watch some
| TV programs, from external sources or from the aerial, with
| a good image and sound quality (but the last one it's
| impossible to find on any TV these day and you need always
| an external sound system). I don't need Netflix or other
| video streaming services, if I need that I just plug a
| media center PC in the HDMI port, why complicating the TV
| with stuff that still doesn't work well and it's slow as
| hell?
|
| Speaking about car radios... car radios these days are
| horrible. They present you DAB radio as the primary choice,
| that has an terrible sound quality. FM reception is still
| bad. The quality of the speakers either as bad. And I'm
| taking about the car radio of a Mercedes car that costs 40k
| euros. The stock car radio of my 2010 Volkswagen Golf is
| far better, better sound quality, better radio reception,
| better responsiveness of the radio (physical knobs and
| buttons that I can operate without looking at them VS
| unresponsive touch screen interfaces that are dangerous to
| use when you drive).
|
| And the worse thing? You cannot update the radio in every
| modern car. They destroyed the market of aftermarket car
| stereos, how can you replace the radio if it's not only a
| radio but it's the interface that you use to control all
| the car functions?
| asdff wrote:
| I just want a TV that actually responds quickly to button
| presses. With the latency you experience hitting the volume
| buttons or navigating menus on flat screen TVs, it feels
| like they haven't touched the hardware since 2002, and with
| the computing gains over those nearly 20 years you'd think
| a TV could at least turn instantly on and off like a
| desktop monitor by now.
| bogwog wrote:
| You can! You just need to replace your Smart TV every
| couple of years to keep up with the software updates.
|
| The expensive LG TV I bought ~5 years ago was snappy and
| fast when I got it, but today it's extremely slow and
| unresponsive. That's my fault for being a bad consumer
| and not buying the latest model every year.
|
| On a serious note, I wonder if there's a jailbreak scene
| for smart TVs? It'd be awesome to be able to replace
| their spyware garbage with a basic OS that only lets me
| change inputs, or maybe something like Kodi if I'm
| feeling fancy.
| Arrath wrote:
| There was a really interesting article posted to HN a few
| months ago now, detailing a deep dive into the firmware
| of a new Samsung smart TV and what would be required to
| jailbreak it and run your own firmware.
|
| I wonder if part 2 ever came out.
|
| E: Ah ha!
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25934286
|
| Unfortunately, the TV proved to be quite secure it seems.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Smart TVs are dumb if they aren't connected to the
| internet.
|
| Unless they find an open WiFi network.
| bkallus wrote:
| With TCL TVs, it's not hard to remove the wifi card. In
| the ones I've taken apart it's always just connected with
| USB internally.
| fsflover wrote:
| Unless they implement some kind of hardware check against
| removing it.
| bkallus wrote:
| The ones with Roku OS don't do this. Can't vouch for
| Android TV though.
| GrayShade wrote:
| Or they start shipping with SIM cards.
| gryn wrote:
| or come integrated with an unremovable sim card that
| connects to a private Corporate APN.
| nerdawson wrote:
| There are a million things TV manufacturers _could_ do
| that would be a problem but I think we should be focusing
| our attention on what they actually are doing.
|
| Hardcoding DNS for example which makes Pi-hole
| ineffective. That is increasingly happening and should
| quite rightly be criticised.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _I think we should be focusing our attention on what they
| actually are doing._
|
| It's absolutely necessary to try to anticipate the
| future, because the future always becomes the present. If
| we don't try to anticipate, we will be stuck with
| whatever is given to us. Like the introduction of ads on
| Android TV.
| nerdawson wrote:
| Automatically connecting to an open WiFi network without
| being instructed to do so seems reckless to say the
| least.
|
| Are you aware of any TVs that are doing that?
| jkingsman wrote:
| Not directly a TV, but Amazon Sidewalk is building a mesh
| network in residential areas for pretty much this
| purpose.
| asdff wrote:
| cant wait until we read articles about someone using
| sidewalk connected unpatched TVs and fridges to mine
| crypto
| Forbo wrote:
| Last I heard Samsung devices were doing this, I'll need
| to see if I can find the source again.
|
| Found it: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6x
| s/if_you_choo...
|
| Ugh. Looks like the contents of the post got deleted.
|
| But here's another example of devices getting sold with
| their own cellular connectivity preinstalled.
|
| https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/01/huawei-reportedly-
| plans-f...
| fouric wrote:
| > Ugh. Looks like the contents of the post got deleted.
|
| Fortunately, some thoughtful person saved it in the
| Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/202010031414
| 48/https://old.reddi...
|
| Contents:
|
| _So I just had a rather annoying experience. I own two
| Samsung Smart TVs, which honestly gave me the heebie
| jeebies to purchase. With that said, at the end of the
| day I decided that as long as I didn 't hook it up to the
| net, I'd be good to go. I've been using them for a few
| years, and have felt pretty comfortable with the
| situation, so imagine my surprise when I sit down to
| watch something on the living room tv (which I don't use
| all that often) and my show is interrupted by a
| notification that "SmartHub" had updated.
|
| After digging around in settings for a moment, I realized
| that one of my next door neighbors had installed an open
| router with internet, and my tv had silently
| automatically connected to it and began doing its normal
| internet stuff. I have no idea how long it was connected
| like that.
|
| After looking though the settings and a few Google
| searches later, I realized there was no actual way to
| disabled the wireless connection on that TV. It expected
| an internet connection, and intended to get one.
| Ultimately, I managed to get it to stop what it was doing
| by letting it connect to my router and then blocking it
| via access control. I then followed up by going into "IP
| Settings" and setting that to manual, while leaving all
| the values at 0. It complained, but allowed me to keep
| the setting.
|
| Anyhow, figured I'd share, since I imagine quite a few
| people here are also not keen on a smart tv connecting to
| the net, given some of the history surrounding them._
| [deleted]
| BackBlast wrote:
| Or if they have Alexa, it should be able to mesh to the
| next Amazon device in range and use their connected
| internet to do it's thing.
| Silhouette wrote:
| Someone says this every time smart TVs get discussed, but
| has anyone ever cited a verifiable case of it actually
| being done, noting that it would clearly be illegal to do
| it in much of the world?
|
| Now, if we're talking about the danger of devices
| incorporating their own wireless communications and
| phoning home on a network of their manufacturer's own
| choosing without the knowledge or consent of the owner,
| that is a serious risk, and one that IMHO should be
| mitigated by regulating it out of existence before it has
| any chance to become established practice.
| z2 wrote:
| The worry I have with these TVs is that basic functions
| like channel seeking or brightness controls now rely on a
| computer running Android. It feels like a 1000-fold
| increase in complexity and risk for something to hobble the
| TV part of the TV. Say the CPU overheats due to poor heat
| design after 3 years--it doesn't seem like manufacturers
| have a dumb mode to fall back on. Similarly, I'd be very
| worried if a car's radio prevented the car from driving.
|
| It is sad that wanting a simple, modular display that we
| can upgrade peripherals around is niche these days. In a
| way, car makers took a step in the right direction with
| more radios adopting CarPlay & Android Auto, acknowledging
| that their own radios can't outsmart an evolving mobile
| ecosystem.
| bruce343434 wrote:
| Just get a seperate signal box and a big monitor?
| jrkfkgmfmr wrote:
| The TV part of the TV requires a CPU anyway these days,
| because most cable signal or HDMI inputs are digital.
| apk17 wrote:
| I hope very much that that CPU isn't running android,
| though.
|
| I can't clock it, but our current TV seems to take longer
| to, well, turn on, than the tube tellys of yore.
| bdamm wrote:
| The TV of my childhood took so long to warm up, you'd be
| standing there for at least 5 seconds wondering if it had
| turned on at all before seeing something. Usually it was
| the click of a relay and the hum of a capacitor soaking
| up a field that was the real clue.
| drivers99 wrote:
| > You're welcome to leave it switched off.
|
| Funny you should say that. My car defaults back to radio on
| when you start it.
| fouric wrote:
| > Smart TVs are dumb if they aren't connected to the
| internet.
|
| Until manufacturers start selling TV's that don't work at
| all if they're not connected.
|
| Or, as is the case with my Samsung TV, they could just be
| arbitrarily annoying until you do connect - pepper the user
| with requests to connect and put up modals everywhere until
| they finally relent.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > TV manufacturers are responding, often clumsily and based
| on their self-interest (data collection), to what consumers
| want.
|
| No, they're not. They're collaborating to eliminate choice.
| The vast majority of the market being taken by smart TVs is
| a theoretical result of the market. The fact that no
| manufacturers slip in to clean up the 5% of the market who
| are willing to pay a slight premium not to have a smart TV
| is evidence of tacit collusion.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Literally everyone I know except for me uses and enjoys
| their smart TV features. Many people I know are
| programmers or other technical people.
|
| I think you may be over-estimating how typical you are.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Or evidence that it is nowhere near 5% of the market that
| would actually pay more for that.
| kleiba wrote:
| I don't own a smart TV, so this question is probably a bit
| naive - but what happens if you don't connect your smart TV
| to the internet?
| apocalypstyx wrote:
| Some brands/models can't even be setup without an internet
| connection and setting up accounts (and sometimes credit
| card information). Eventually, they'll probably have their
| own independent 5g connection.
| rocqua wrote:
| Source / link?
|
| I would love to dive into such an example.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| It depends strongly on the brand. LG is well known to be
| good in that situation. I bought one on the recommendation
| of HN comments and it seems to work great to me.
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| Sometimes they will seek out nearby open WiFi networks to
| join. There's concern that in coming years with the spread
| of 5G availability that smart TVs may start packaging a 5G
| modem and connecting to cell networks, bypassing the need
| to be connected to a WiFi network.
| deadbunny wrote:
| > Sometimes they will seek out nearby open WiFi networks
| to join
|
| [Citation Needed]
| fouric wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27701977 which links
| to https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/bpr6xs/if_yo
| u_choo... which is archived at https://web.archive.org/we
| b/20201003141448/https://old.reddi...
| deadbunny wrote:
| So one Reddit post with zero evidence that has since been
| deleted? While I understand the distrust I'll take some
| repeatable evidence (which would be excedingly easy to
| do) over a random, now deleted Reddit post.
| fouric wrote:
| > which would be excedingly easy to do
|
| False. You would need to buy (or just randomly happen to
| have) a smart TV model that exhibits this characteristic,
| which would be very difficult to find, as there is a very
| wide spread of smart TV models and features, and
| obviously this "feature" wouldn't be advertised. This is
| neither easy nor free.
|
| You're also clearly moving the goalposts. You first asked
| for evidence, and then discarded the evidence because "it
| wasn't good enough".
|
| Nor is this capability either technically difficult to
| implement, illegal, easily-noticed by the average
| consumer, or abnormal for companies like Samsung, which
| already engage in highly-intrusive ad-surveillance
| activities[1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24662353
| tshaddox wrote:
| Why would 5G make that be a more viable choice for the TV
| manufacturers than existing widespread cellular networks?
| handrous wrote:
| It's supposed to enable much-cheaper options for IoT
| applications. If the cost of the chip + the cost of low-
| bandwidth access drops below the profit gained by
| ensuring _all_ your TVs can always reach an unfiltered
| network, they 'll start adding them.
| ectopod wrote:
| As I understand it, the standard allows a single tower to
| offer different quality of service levels so operators
| can sell cheap low bandwidth connections to IoT
| manufacturers. TVs wouldn't have modems before because no
| TV manufacturer wanted to pay for a full 3G or 4G
| connection.
| rocqua wrote:
| Because 5G is intentionally marketed as having this
| functionality. It helps by allowing more efficient low-
| speed connections, and simpler radio design for very
| simple implementation. It also has 'slicing' which would
| make it much easier to provide a wide 5G network to e.g.
| all LG devices without LG building towers.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I can't wait to figure out how to run rtorrent on my
| 5G-enabled TV.
| bombcar wrote:
| It will work but it will have junk it really doesn't need
| complaining now and then, and be generally slow.
|
| Your best bet for a "non smart TV" is either a
| commercial/industrial one, or just use a monitor instead.
| sersi wrote:
| or a videoprojector. JVC videoprojectors are really
| great, extremely high image quality and are dumb :)
| alerighi wrote:
| Not something I would install to my grandma. Really, she
| doesn't of course have internet, just the old analog
| landline phones, doesn't know how to use a computer or a
| smartphone or anything like that, I want a TV that is
| simple, just press a button and it powers up on the
| specified channel.
|
| Next year they will switch off DVB to migrate to DVB-T2,
| and of course I must buy her a new TV (using a decoder
| it's not an option, too complex having to manage two
| remotes controls), and it seems that nobody produces dumb
| TVs anymore...
| axelthegerman wrote:
| Yea a monitor is not a bad idea but they don't come in
| very large sizes or are way overpriced. Also if you'd
| want a decent speaker build in, monitors are not always
| the best
| c0nfused wrote:
| Look into conference room monitors they run around 1k USD
| and typically are available for reasonable tv Sizes. I
| think the Dell ones are Up to 55 inch
| axelthegerman wrote:
| It still takes forever to turn on, has a bunch of menus
| nobody needs and probably keeps bugging you to connect it
| to the Internet :(
|
| Takes me a minute to turn on my stupid smart TV and switch
| it to HDMI in
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I find Sony TVs to be pretty quick. I use it them in
| conjunction with Apple TV, and I never have to deal with
| the TV itself, and it is quick to turn itself off and on
| via HDMI CEC.
|
| They are not the high end models either, I have a $630
| one from 2016 and a $600 one from 2020.
| handrous wrote:
| My Roku-built-in TV is usable in maybe 3-4 seconds--when
| it's in sleep mode. A cold boot (say, if it's lost power
| for any reason) does take tens of seconds.
|
| Meanwhile, my dumb LCD TV from ~2008 _only_ does cold
| boots and comes up in maybe 2 seconds, no matter what.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume Roku does not have the sufficient resources to
| properly equip their products with the necessary hardware
| to cope with their software, resulting in a compromised
| product that manifests as slow start times.
|
| Unfortunately, I do not see how some of these smaller
| players can come close to being competitive with the big
| players seeing how small the profit margins are on
| physical devices.
|
| Unless they have a reputation for very high quality, I
| assume there are lots of compromises being made on the
| hardware side to be able to compete on price.
| handrous wrote:
| > I assume Roku does not have the sufficient resources to
| properly equip their products with the necessary hardware
| to cope with their software, resulting in a compromised
| product that manifests as slow start times.
|
| I dunno--this TCL Roku TV's the best-performing smart TV
| I've used, including some very expensive ones. It's
| really fast except for cold boots (again: these only
| happen if the power's actually been interrupted, or,
| rarely, on updates). Roku's OS helps, since it's way less
| resource-hungry than, say, Android-derived operating
| systems. I've done some work with Roku devices so I've
| used lots of them, and even the very low-end ones have
| always performed really well. The OS is weird, but you
| can't say it's not (relatively) resource efficient and
| responsive.
|
| ... I _do_ have a much-worse brand of Roku TV that _is_
| badly under-powered. It sucks. It 's the brand that
| replaced TCL at our local Costco--Hisense, it's called.
| Looks almost the same, costs almost the same, but is
| terrible. Fine if you treat it as a dumb panel and just
| use stuff plugged in to it, but terrible if you intend to
| use the built-in Roku OS for anything other than
| switching inputs. Frequent (apparent) out-of-memory
| crashes, many less-well-made (but major) streaming "apps"
| are laggy, and so on.
| asdff wrote:
| Its not just Roku. Every single TV sold is like this from
| every single manufacturer. They are all slower and
| shittier at being a TV screen than my 720p screen from
| like 2005. What's with that? It's like a giant cabal of
| an entire industry deciding that their customers aren't
| worth the hardware, no matter of its some Walmart only
| entry level TV or the top of the line thousands of
| dollars screen from a major brand. The only way to get a
| competent TV is to not even buy retail, but buy the same
| exact panels without the dumb hardware from the
| commercial market.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am sure there are plenty of qualified people doing the
| necessary due diligence to figure out which features, or
| perception of features, customers are willing to pay for.
|
| I doubt the executives at Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio,
| Hisense, etc are sitting there and consciously choosing
| to keep people away from fast, dumb TVs for the hell of
| it. It is a cutthroat business with razor thin margins,
| no one is obviously making much money, so after all these
| years, I would surmise they are making decisions that
| allow them to stay in business after all these years.
|
| Personally, I am biased towards Sony, and I am happy with
| the speed of the two consumer line TVs I have purchased.
| However, I only use them in conjunction with Apple TV, so
| I have no idea with changing channels or inputs or any of
| that is like.
| handrous wrote:
| > I doubt the executives at Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio,
| Hisense, etc are sitting there and consciously choosing
| to keep people away from fast, dumb TVs for the hell of
| it. It is a cutthroat business with razor thin margins,
| no one is obviously making much money, so after all these
| years, I would surmise they are making decisions that
| allow them to stay in business after all these years.
|
| Again, at least _part_ of why this is happening is they
| can 't sell ads and spyware-data with dumb TVs. Features
| that consumers want _may_ be a factor, but I can
| guarantee you (as in: I 've had some actual insight into
| the industry) that a big reason is that they can monetize
| their customers' data and eyeballs with smart TVs, and so
| undercut any competitors who choose not to do that. Price
| matters _a lot_ to TV buyers, so this is effective at
| driving sales (and so, keeping your product on store
| shelves, and avoiding a product death-spiral).
| asdff wrote:
| Nothing like a good race to the bottom to ruin an entire
| industry
| asdff wrote:
| You would think that somewhere in the market there is a
| price point that means you get more powerful hardware in
| the TV. It really seems like the TVs at the entry level
| have the exact same hardware as TVs that cost 5 times as
| much or more. Surely that markup should afford hardware
| that is slightly faster and still produce a profit
| margin. If people are willing to pay 5x more for a panel
| their eyes can barely percieve the differences in, surely
| they'd be happier with a smoother UX experience compared
| to a competitors offering.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >surely they'd be happier with a smoother UX experience
| compared to a competitors offering.
|
| Apparently not? That's my point, that these large TV
| manufacturers must have enough insight to know if
| something simple like that would be economical.
| driverdan wrote:
| I have Sony and Samsung "smart" TVs that aren't connected
| to the internet. Both turn on almost instantly.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I have a Samsung and it's slow but not _that_ slow. It's
| a 2014 I think and I probably get picture (DVB-T) in
| around 10 seconds.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| I have mine going via pihole, and every few days it
| basically comes crashing to a halt and needs turning off/on
| at the plug.
|
| I guess keeping it totally off would be better, but then it
| kinda defeats the point of getting a smart tv
|
| edit: It's a Roku, so probably worse than others.
| brewdad wrote:
| Some (Sony) pop up random nag screens in the middle of the
| movie or show you're watching. Even if that show is being
| streamed on a different smart device or you are watching
| OTA TV where internet is completely unnecessary.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| If the incentives stay strong enough, they'll likely just
| build in 'free' mobile data to bypass your network.
|
| Faraday cage or soldering iron, anyone?
| apk17 wrote:
| Our TV started to complain that the Wifi module was
| unplugged (which apparently is on the main board).
| Problem: This happened regularly with a dialog box.
| 'Solution': Put a Wifi dongle in the USB port.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| It's expensive, but certainly not impossible. What you are
| looking for is a "commercial monitor".
| https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Flat-Panel-
| Displays/ci/16...
| bserge wrote:
| Get a laser projector, it's life changing.
| adflux wrote:
| Plenty of dumb projectors on the market, ofcourse not
| suitable for many rooms, but maybe worth considering
| alkonaut wrote:
| I don't want to pay a premium for dumb TV though. Just like a
| laptop without crapware is more expensive because the
| crapware actually subsidizes it, a dumb TV can be more
| expensive.
|
| But if you pick a good (quick, without annoying UI, allows
| USB upgrade and offline configuration and so on) smart TV and
| just don't connect it, I think that's probably a better idea
| than getting a commercial monitor for example.
| kevindong wrote:
| I bought a mid-range Vizio about two years ago. Vizio has
| progressively made its OS more and more laggy every few
| months and filled it to the brim with unblockable ads.
| Software updates would regularly break things for a few
| days/weeks at a time until the changes get rolled back.
|
| When Apple came out with their new Apple TV, I bought one,
| connected that to my TV, and disconnected my TV from the
| internet. Now life is good since the Apple TV is buttery
| smooth and does not have ads.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The TV shows _ads_? In menus? Or while watching TV
| channels? Or at startup? Or, when? I'd pull the internet
| cable in a heartbeat if I saw an ad on it, and I'm on my
| second smart TV for the last 10 years (although my
| current one is 7 years old).
|
| I mean I don't actually _use_ any of the "smart" stuff.
| No Apps or anything. Not sure why anyone would want to? I
| watch my TV channels on the built in receiver (90% or
| more of what I watch is regular scheduled TV, I love my
| old fashioned TV channels!), and I cast stuff to it when
| I want to stream Netflix or sports.
| mycall wrote:
| More like computer with heavy duty cooling system.
| userbinator wrote:
| Keeping an insulated box at a constant temperature with
| refrigeration has been something that was reliably possible
| over a century ago, so it puzzles me what the
| electronics/computers in a fridge would be necessary for,
| besides decreasing reliability and planned obolescence.
|
| My late 30s Frigidaire has no electronics at all...
| Hamuko wrote:
| Aren't there already fridges that run Android?
| RussianCow wrote:
| I've seen at least one fridge running Windows 10.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes:
|
| https://gadgets.ndtv.com/others/news/samsungs-t9000-smart-
| re...
| jaywalk wrote:
| Samsung fridges haven't run Android in a while though. They
| run Samsung's own OS called Tizen.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's 'cool' (pun intended), they'll be hacked while
| still in the cardboard shipping container. Tizen is about
| as leaky as it gets.
|
| Anyway, GP asked if there were fridges running Android,
| yes there are. Even if they are not being sold by Samsung
| in the present, it is a safe assumption that not all of
| these have died in the line of duty.
|
| "Aren't there already fridges that run Android?"
|
| Can be confidently answered in the affirmative.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I was simply adding more information, not refuting your
| answer, so "chill" out a little.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| Of course. We have kitchen range venthoods with screens and
| Android now a days.
| varispeed wrote:
| Why journalists don't call it as fraud?
|
| They spent money on drafting this legislation and this is not fit
| for purpose.
|
| But by the looks of it, big money must be behind it so it ticks
| the box, but does not actually change anything.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why journalists don't call it as fraud?
|
| Because it's not fraud.
|
| Fraud requires obtaining a valuable security by deception.
| That's not what's going on here. So it's not fraud.
| varispeed wrote:
| Fraud - wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in
| financial or personal gain.
|
| It's very much what's going on here.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| There's absolutely no way you could convince a judge that
| this was fraud. You can't just pick some legal term that
| sounds familiar and say that's what's going on. These terms
| have very specific meanings based on extensive case law.
| cmendel wrote:
| Right, so not to put words in varispeed mouth. But their
| claim is that Right-to-repair that doesn't give you the
| Right to repair what they want the right to repair is
| deliberately deceptive and, thus, fraudulent.
|
| The damages would be that the product that they wish to
| repair are irreparable.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I don't know what to tell you apart from that's not what
| 'fraud' is in practice. Things being not what you want
| and someone having spent money does not equal fraud. You
| can't just pick a legal term and interpret it as literal
| English without any knowledge of the actual precedent
| around it.
|
| I don't know if you think the entire legislation is the
| words 'right to repair'? It obviously isn't - it's far
| more nuanced than that.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > Why journalists don't call it as fraud?
|
| Because those who write these laws are the same signing the
| journalists' paycheck.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| The article mentions Apple likely did behind the scenes lobbying,
| but is there any proof of this?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| translation: this "right to repair" law appears to exclude
| everything you'd actually want the right to repair.
|
| Rather a lot of the right to repair fight in the US comes down to
| ECUs and data formats and readers for things like OBD ports on
| vehicles, or firmware for your farm equipment, or lots of other
| things that certainly have computers in them.
| tuukkah wrote:
| Here, a computer might be interpreted as a laptop or a desktop,
| not an embedded system "with a computer in them".
|
| Anyway, the list is very short and exclusive (for now?): _" For
| now, the right to repair laws only cover: Dishwashers; Washing
| machines and washer-dryers; Refrigeration appliances;
| Televisions and other electronic displays"_
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| IME washing machines, dishwashers, washer-dryers all have
| relatively good repairability and good parts availability
| already (fridges too, though I've less experience of that).
| You even see them being scored on repairability or repair
| costs.
|
| Have they addressed a problem that is largely absent?
|
| It's hard to choose to repair when a secondhand replacement
| is as cheap though. Replaced a plastic pipe, and a hose on my
| dishwasher, delivered cost ~PS50; same as a newer secondhand
| dishwasher. But at least I've kept it out of the waste stream
| for a couple more years.
|
| Source: fixed all the white goods in my house several times
| over. I don't have anything recent though, so more recent
| products might be worse. There is a lot of part reuse, which
| is good.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I live in a London new-build flat. Mine and several of my
| neighbours washing machines gave out at the same time, all
| in the same month, all roughly 3 years in. These came with
| the flats of course.
|
| I would repair it, but having watched a YouTube video on
| how it's done, the cost in tools, parts and effort (it's a
| full disassembly) to make the relatively simple repair I
| cannot justify over buying a better model of my choosing.
| tremon wrote:
| Right-to-repair laws aren't about you personally
| repairing every item you need. It means you have the
| freedom to buy the support and maintenance you need from
| the entire market, rather than being beholden to
| expensive options "blessed" by the original manufacturer.
| alias_neo wrote:
| I know what it means. I'm an engineer though and a
| practical person so I -will- choose to repair something
| myself where practical, that wasn't the point I was
| trying to make.
|
| Unfortunately, although the parts to repair the washing
| machine are inexpensive, the design means a sizeable
| labor effort (and thus cost) to get at the problem part,
| so repairing it isn't practical, even for a repair shop,
| because it's hours of work.
|
| The fact that several of my neighbors had the same
| machine fail at the same time suggest it's designed to
| fail early.
|
| Between that and being designed to make a simple bearing
| change several hours of work, is was designed to be
| thrown away, not repaired, by anyone.
| vinsci wrote:
| The right to modify needs to be protected, just as the right to
| repair anything without exclusion.
| thysultan wrote:
| Oh you mean that, yeah that's not a computer, that's an
| electronic heat generator.
| roody15 wrote:
| Building a surveillance state.
|
| Want direct data devices locked down and proprietary (TPM and
| apple T2).
|
| Want devices directly tied to the user. Want to prevent "hacks"
| that detect snooping or other low level background "proprietary"
| services that may be running.
|
| My two cents. We are rushing to emulate china.
| swayvil wrote:
| Oh yes. The oligarchs over here look at China and think,
| "That's a pretty good system".
| mnouquet wrote:
| It is actually a pretty good system for the CCP "politburo".
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Upwards of 90% of the population of China are CCP members.
| roody15 wrote:
| Kind of. They look at China and see a new super power
| emerging rapidly. Attempting to copy what has worked in china
| ASAP.
| yarcob wrote:
| It's a pity that this law has apparently been so watered down,
| and basically just cements the status quo. Spares for dishwashers
| and washing machines are already available, and 10 years doesn't
| really sound that long for big appliances.
|
| I don't see whether the law addresses the problem of overpriced
| spares. For example, I don't see why an original Miele heating
| element for a washing machine costs 100EUR, while an unbranded
| compatible part costs less than 20EUR.
| aeorgnoieang wrote:
| I can understand (in a very vague, general sense) why spare
| parts might be relatively expensive - it's probably fairly
| expensive to make, store, and maintain a distribution network
| for the parts, i.e. the price isn't just for the price of the
| part, but the entire system (e.g. customer support) to send it
| to a customer in response to their request. I'm _sure_ there's
| also an 'original manufacturer' premium too, and maybe that
| _is_ in fact most of the difference compared to 'unbranded
| compatible' parts.
| magneticism wrote:
| Auto manufacturers manage this quite well. Some more than
| others, but if you bought something like a Honda or a Toyota
| back in the '80s or '90s, you can still find affordable OEM
| parts for it today, and the manufacturer will still service
| things like electronics clusters.
|
| Why not expect something similar from a much simpler and less
| dangerous $1-10k appliance?
| cunidev wrote:
| Not even mentioning the hardware bits, I have been collaborating
| with postmarketOS for a while now, and believe that the main
| thing we need to make those devices longer-lasting would be an
| unlockable bootloader by law.
|
| This sounds so logical (why cannot I run, by voiding the
| warranty, any code I want on my machine, whatever it is?), yet
| apparently so hard to make openly illegal, since the problem is
| barely acknowledged in general.
| bluGill wrote:
| You can't do that because someone (probably not you) will then
| unlock the phone and [insert something evil here - perhaps
| involving the radio]
| jaywalk wrote:
| Make it require a connection to a computer and disallow the
| stock OS from running at all when the bootloader is unlocked.
| I think those two hurdles should be more than enough to
| satisfy security concerns.
| foolmeonce wrote:
| Most phones secured bootloaders are hacked in less than 6
| months if there is sufficient interest in the model. So if
| treatment of this as a huge security threat that makes other
| rights moot is valid then most of us should be able to return
| our improperly secured phones before their warranty is up.
| my123 wrote:
| Not the case, it takes significantly longer... if it
| happens at all.
|
| Much longer. It took until 2019 for checkra1n to become a
| thing to unlock Apple A7 to A11 devices. Apple A11 is a
| 2017 SoC.
|
| A12, A13, A14 remain uncracked today.
|
| In Android lands, bootloaders starting from quite some
| years ago are quite solid too, with no bypasses except when
| the device maker provides you the possibility to unlock it.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| None of which is relevant to the premise that someone is
| going to do [insert something evil here - perhaps
| involving the radio]. Because if _any_ device is cracked
| after _any_ period of time then someone wanting to do
| [insert something evil] will just buy that device in
| order to do it.
| alerighi wrote:
| The radio firmware is something that is at another level.
| Even if you end up unlocking the bootloader, that doesn't
| give you access to the radio firmware, that is proprietary
| and needs to be signed, and cannot be modified. It's
| basically seen by the OS as a modem to which they talk trough
| AT commands (yes, they are still in use), the same thing that
| you would obtain by plugging in an USB modem to a normal PC.
|
| For Wi-Fi you can tweak the driver, if you want. But you can
| do the same with a network card that you buy for a couple of
| dollars so what's the point? Transmitting on the 2.4Ghz is
| something everyone can do if he wants.
|
| It's nonsense what you said. There nothing evil you can do by
| unlocking a phone. In Android an unlock triggers a factory
| reset, that will prevent accessing people personal data (and
| it's not really necessary if you have disk encryption, that
| every modern phone has as a default), so the concern of
| accessing people data doesn't exist.
|
| The concern about: but then a criminal can steal your phone
| and use it. Yes, there is. We can require to unlock the phone
| requesting a code from a website of the manufacturer so they
| can prove that you bought the phone, as some manufacturers
| do. But in reality, does it make sense? You can nowaday get a
| phone that is more powerful than the PC that I used 5 years
| ago for 200$, I mean 8 core CPU, 8Gb of RAM, 256Gb internal
| flash, in the following years the price will probably go even
| lower. Should I care? They only thing that I care is that
| whoever stoles the phone cannot access my personal data, and
| this is achieved by the disk encryption, everything else to
| me is useless, I would just buy another phone, but in reality
| is more probable that I will loose or break my phone that
| someone steals it.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| This is not always true. There are chips where the radio
| DSP cores have their program loaded into main memory and
| it's unsigned. You talk to them with mutexes and shared
| memory pages. There is also no legal basis for requiring
| radio controllers to have signature enforced firmware
| loading.
|
| He's being sarcastic. It's think of the children but with
| electronics and PII.
| alerighi wrote:
| I don't think that is the case of any smartphone SOC.
| Even for questions about power management you tend to
| implement radio function with a dedicated hardware, so
| that for example the CPU can go to sleep and be waked up
| when a phone call arrives (for examaple). It would be too
| expensive to have the main CPU implement the 4G radio in
| software, they don't do so, it would also require precise
| timing that a non real time OS cannot provide.
|
| Typically you have the modem that has its own
| microcontroller inside that runs its own firmware, that
| is encrypted. On Android phones you have a partition for
| the radio firmware, that you should really never touch
| (since doing so you can brick your device). Of course
| there will be a shared memory area between the radio and
| the main CPU to talk, but that is only for communication,
| then the radio microcontroller has its own RAM to
| implements its functions.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _There is also no legal basis for requiring radio
| controllers to have signature enforced firmware loading._
|
| If someone actually tried to write their own radio
| firmware and made a mistake, there very soon would be.
|
| Messing around with radio transmission is not a game.
| Make enough noise on the wrong frequency and now you're
| interfering with communications for emergency services
| responding to a disaster or air traffic control guiding
| flights in crowded airspace, with a very real danger of
| loss of life. And there is no way for anyone to stop you
| until they've physically tracked down the source of the
| bad transmission, which can take hours.
|
| I am very much in favour of rights to repair and against
| _almost_ any restriction on what individuals can do with
| their own hardware, but giving people who don 't know
| what they're doing unrestricted access to a radio
| transmitter on that basis is a bit like giving everyone
| in your city a button that detonates the nuke because you
| believe in a right to bear arms. At some point, you need
| to draw a line and say only qualified people past this
| point, or very bad things start to happen.
| jsight wrote:
| People can buy software defined radios and effectively
| already have that access.
| jolmg wrote:
| Are you missing an /s or are you saying that it shouldn't be
| done because it would enable e.g. use of radio hardware that
| goes against radio regulation?
|
| If you're really expressing concern, what do you think of
| e.g. modem modules for regular computers or SDR hardware?
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| No, even if this is not the optimal response to the issue
| it's at least a popular concern to cite.
|
| Our ubiquitous radio devices only work because the
| invisible commons that is the radio spectrum noise floor is
| aggressively and totally managed. Intentional emitters can
| only be sold after testing to ensure that their output is
| within regulated power levels and frequencies. It is
| trivial for an end user with a high-power transmit-capable
| SDR or amateur radio to unintentionally, unknowingly, and
| invisibly pollute this resource, denying nearby devices
| (scaled to your transmit power and depending on the
| frequency/bandwidth) the ability to communicate. This could
| be some noise on your neighbor's FM car radio, or it could
| be the communicators used by emergency services.
|
| Honestly, I think radio spectrum management is one of the
| greatest success stories of the 20th century - if air or
| water pollution were as effectively regulated the world
| would be a very different place! To be clear, I don't think
| that smartphones with unlockable bootloaders, likely
| reusing the stock radio binary blob, are actually going to
| bring about the apocalypse and set us back to the telegraph
| era.
|
| There was a process where Apple or Samsung or whoever
| brought that device with their bootloader to an expensive
| laboratory to get their CE mark, and that process proved
| that combination of hardware and software to be compliant
| with regulations. That process may have involved modifying
| some hardware filters and EMI shields, and almost certainly
| involved adjusting parameters in radio firmware/software,
| which are subsequently fixed for the lifetime of the
| product. If you give end users the ability to modify these
| parameters, you're inviting them to break the law. While
| enforcement is currently highly effective by requiring this
| certification process for OEMs, it wouldn't scale if you
| give everyone the ability to modify their certified
| emitters. You at least have to consider the possibility
| that someone could create a "High Power Radio" app or OS
| that would make smartphones running it have higher-power,
| faster access to cell towers and cause nearby devices to
| lose connection; no one wants that outcome.
|
| Personally, I think the harm caused by preventing this
| through locked bootloaders and disposable smartphones is a
| tragedy. However, I don't know what a comparably effective
| alternative would look like, and the current state of
| affairs has both inertia and the backing of major
| institutions with strong conflicts of interest, and will
| continue to be very hard to advocate against.
| jolmg wrote:
| > However, I don't know what a comparably effective
| alternative would look like
|
| I don't know what the current state of affairs is with
| regards to radio modem firmware, but I would think that
| if radio-controlling software should be certified (as
| following regulation), that should be limited to the
| firmware, and the modem should only accept firmware
| updates cryptographically signed by the manufacturer (and
| possibly the regulator). The firmware should provide an
| interface that only permits legal use through technical
| means. IOW, regulation should be limited to the hardware
| module and the software running inside it. It shouldn't
| be possible for software residing on any other part of
| the device to run afoul.
|
| If that's impossible for some reason (which I don't think
| it should be), then I would argue that other alternatives
| like focusing on prosecuting violations (like the app and
| OS you mentioned) or modifying the regulations so they
| can be contained within the firmware while still meeting
| goals should come before any idea of locking down whole
| devices for the regulation of a specific module.
|
| Also,
|
| > You at least have to consider the possibility that
| someone could create a "High Power Radio" app or OS that
| would ...
|
| If that's possible then, it's possible now. I mean, you
| don't even have to consider phones. Bootloaders and OSes
| in regular computers are open source and unlocked. If
| that's a problem that can arise from unlocked devices,
| then it already would have been a problem since long ago.
|
| Additionally, the discussion was not whether there should
| be unlocked devices, which there already are. The
| discussion was whether locking should be illegal.
| bluGill wrote:
| > Are you missing an /s or are you saying that it shouldn't
| be done because it would enable e.g. use of radio hardware
| that goes against radio regulation
|
| Great question. I'm intentionally not answering it because
| I am not sure what I think. There are valid points on both
| sides. In part what I think depends on how evil evil people
| get.
| jolmg wrote:
| AFAIK, anything phones can do on a hardware level can be
| done on more open platforms. What could unlocking phones
| enable evil people to do? What's one of these valid
| points of the other side?
| TylerE wrote:
| Phones are ubiquitous. A phone sitting on a desk is
| invisible, in a way a random enclosure with a fire wires
| sticking out of it isn't.
| [deleted]
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| On the other hand, a Pi/ESP32/whatever shoved into a
| plastic case instantly becomes _almost_ as inconspicuous
| once again.
| tehbeard wrote:
| A WiFi pineapple in a backpack is pretty innocuous
| beerandt wrote:
| Or run it on an actual wifi router or usb stick in plain
| sight.
| jfk13 wrote:
| However evil you expect people to be, someone will exceed
| it. That's why we can't have nice things.
| pessimizer wrote:
| [abuse children and drugs, or be racist.]
| bluGill wrote:
| That are the current choices. That could change in the
| future, it has changed in the past. At one time not of the
| right Christian sect was in the list, today nobody cares -
| just one example that I won't get into trouble for
| mentioning.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| Android phones triggers wipe on unlock. So use unlock
| bootloader to stole data simply don't work.
|
| Besides that, some phone will add a unremovble giant red
| exclamation mark on boot screen to notate the phone being
| unlocked to warn you `the phone is already unlocked, don't
| trust it unless it is done by you.`
| robertlagrant wrote:
| People start their phones rarely.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Would be nice if they provided a way to backup your phone
| before unlocking the bootloader, or at least put a warning
| that your phone is about to be wiped. I have personally
| lost data because of this, and there really is no way to
| backup an android device without having unlocked the
| bootloader _first_.
| thebean11 wrote:
| Don't all modern phones encrypt user data on disk anyway?
| bosswipe wrote:
| The wipe on unlock thing is not about preventing others
| from getting your data, it's about preventing you from
| getting app data.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The radio is a completely separate sub system that is not
| affected by unlocking the boot loader of the main computer.
| bitwize wrote:
| That's not always true. If it's possible to shave pennies
| off the BOM by having the radio driven by, or sharing
| memory with, the main CPU -- and it _is_ possible -- there
| will be phones in the wild with that configuration.
| alerighi wrote:
| Yes the radio can be on the same physical chip, but still
| they are two different systems. Unlocking the bootloader
| you get the ability to run an unsigned kernel on the main
| CPU, but still it doesn't give you access to the radio
| part, that has a completely different firmware (stored on
| a partition of the same flash memory, yes, but you see it
| as a black box) that is signed and checked and you cannot
| modify it. See it as the microcode of the CPU, something
| that is loaded at boot time but you cannot alter, patch,
| or even see what it does.
|
| The kernel can only talk to the modem trough AT commands,
| the same commands that you would use with a 4G USB modem
| that you plug into any computer. The fact that are
| physically on the same SOC doesn't implicate nothing in
| terms of security.
|
| In fact there are no security implication on unlocking a
| bootloader, if there were, well we would be in trouble
| since it's a relatively easy operation, that in most
| cases it's a matter of running a command from a CLI tool,
| and the only drawback is voiding the warranty.
| waych wrote:
| While it is certainly possible, it isn't true for any
| modern phone with an app store.
| swiley wrote:
| Many SoCs let you burn a hash for the second stage
| bootloader. If your threat model includes this then build a
| copy of uboot that will only load kernels signed with your
| keys and burn the hash into the fuses of your device.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| In the US, at least, unlocking devices is legal as of 2015(?)
| through DMCA exemptions, which has been huge for recyclers and
| refurbishers.
|
| Still couldn't get game console unlocking through, but at least
| phones / tablets / other devices that are locked can be
| unlocked and resold.
|
| https://resource-recycling.com/e-scrap/2018/11/01/digital-de...
| bserge wrote:
| How was it that the US version of the Note 9 (with a Qualcomm
| SoC) had a locked bootloader while the EU version (with an
| Exynos SoC) had an unlocked one? Is that still the case?
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| The DMCA exception only means that the manufacturer can't sue
| you for unlocking a device they meant to be unlockable. So,
| of you find a way to do it, it is not a crime to hack a
| device you own.
|
| Right to repair laws are (would be) a whole different beast,
| it would mean the manufacturer would have to sell the devices
| unlocked or provide the unlock method themselves.
|
| In other words, DMCA exception removes a legal hurdle for
| repeatability, but Right to Repair legislation would remove
| the technical hurdles (and some other legal hurdles).
| bosswipe wrote:
| It's meaningless if hackers can't bypass the security, which
| is true more and more as the companies get better with their
| security. What we need is bootloader unlocking provided by
| the manufacturers.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| These exemptions have to be renewed every 3 years. The 2018
| exemptions for "jailbreaking" phones and tablets are still in
| force, but they will expire if not renewed.
| saurik wrote:
| This was changed in the last cycle or so so if there aren't
| people challenging petitions they get semi-automatic
| renewals. Honestly, for unlocking bootloaders (note I
| initially wrote this comment in the mental context of
| carrier unlocks and then immediately went and edited it as
| I realized) we probably never needed the exemptions anyway,
| as there is a standing exempting for interop (which still
| does most of the work: the argument for the extra exemption
| is to provide one last step for the end-user as in 2009 it
| wasn't clear they could run the result, but currently
| everyone things they should be).
| celestialcheese wrote:
| There's work happening to make these permanent. [1] Until
| that happens, there are tireless volunteers and
| organizations lobbying for these exemptions every 3 years.
|
| [1] - https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/06/29/copyright-
| office-begin...
| bluescrn wrote:
| User-replaceable batteries by law might be a better first step.
| Heck, maybe even some standard sizes for mobile device
| batteries (and while we're at it, also EV batteries... some
| sort of standard 'battery module' used by most/all vehicles
| would hugely help reuse/repair/recycling/upgrades).
| onethought wrote:
| ... that's unique r&d for some companies. Why does it need to
| be standardised?
|
| Apple batteries are typically much smaller than what is in
| androids, because their chips are less power hungry... same
| goes for Tesla, their cars are more efficient... so standard
| battery packs would harm their overall product
|
| Don't buy a device with a non replaceable battery if you
| don't want one... why do you need the government for that?
| samatman wrote:
| User-replaceable has nothing whatsoever to do with right to
| repair.
|
| Zero, zip, nada.
|
| A right to repair law might mandate that any device with a
| battery also have the battery sold, by the manufacturer, for
| a reasonable period of time. That gives you a _practical_
| right to repair the device by replacing the battery, and it
| 's well-defined.
|
| "User replaceable" is not well defined. Does it mean you need
| to be able to do this with no tools at all? If not, what
| tools make it _not_ 'user replaceable'? That no glue is used?
| Solder?
|
| My watch is literally a cell phone, and I don't welcome law
| which might make it bulkier or more awkward, to mollify
| people who want a plastic hinge to pop out their smartphone
| battery and swap in a new one in the field.
|
| The battery in my smartphone (and watch!) can be replaced by
| the manufacturer. Right-to-repair is about making sure that
| the owner of a device can do things themselves or from a
| third party, without licensing from the manufacturer: so
| selling consumable parts to all comers, providing some
| manuals maybe. It is _not_ about whether you have the manual
| dexterity or special tooling to perform the replacement! If
| you want to optimize around that part being very easy, buy a
| product where it is, like the Dragonbox Pyra.
| bluescrn wrote:
| But there's not much point having the _right_ to repair if
| products are designed to be non-repairable and spare parts
| are unavailable.
|
| A battery is a consumable and should be user-replaceable.
| It might be a bit fiddly, with tiny screws and fragile
| connectors, but shouldn't require heat guns and chemicals
| to remove adhesives...
|
| (And if we're about to replace billions of vehicles with
| EVs, perhaps consuming the entire planet's supply of
| lithium, we should be thinking _very_ carefully about how
| those batteries will be constructed, replaced, reused,
| recycled - and ensuring that we don 't let capitalism
| create EVs that after a few years are almost as disposable
| as few-year-old iPhones...)
| shkkmo wrote:
| > But there's not much point having the right to repair
| if products are designed to be non-repairable and spare
| parts are unavailable.
|
| There is some nuance you are missing here. Mandating some
| design decisions, such as "user replaceable batteries"
| limits the products that make be made and sold and
| unfairly adversely affects users with different
| priorities (such as water proofness, durability or bulk.)
|
| However, there are design decisions that we should outlaw
| because they impose an unreasonable burden on
| repairability. I think it is reasonable to prohibit
| companies from attempting to detect non-OEM or
| refurbished components and bricking devices. I think it
| is also reasonable to prohibit companies from usong IP
| laws to legally attack refurbished component suppliers
| and third party repair services.
|
| I think pressure to make devices more repairable could he
| accomplished by mandatinf inclusion of standardized
| repairabilitu scores so the consumera have better
| information available when making purchasinf decisions.
| spoonjim wrote:
| User-replaceable battery means that entire product
| categories like wireless earbuds e.g. Airpods cannot
| exist.
|
| A better solution is that the manufacturer must provide
| battery replacement services at a cost specified at the
| time of purchase and only allowed to increase at the rate
| of inflation.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| > User-replaceable battery means that entire product
| categories like wireless earbuds e.g. Airpods cannot
| exist.
|
| Acceptable, why turn an entire device into ewaste for a
| single component dying, especially one with a known
| limited service life, like a battery.
|
| 10 year warranties minimum on all electronics. Regardless
| of size and fragility. Any electronic device that can't
| last 10 years in service is unnecessarily contributing to
| ewaste and should not be allowed.
|
| User replaceable batteries with the warranty covering any
| damage caused by replacing them, to avoid using battery
| life decay as a means to drive sells of "new" versions,
| something that causes e-waste.
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| User replaceable means you can replace it during warranty
| and have the OEM repair/replace it if you broke anything
| while replacing it.
| swiley wrote:
| Can have people turning off the panopticon/propaganda screens.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-01 23:01 UTC)