from the locks-mostly-keep-honest-people-out dept.
Spotted on Techdirt an update on the Onity locks case where Onity appear to have won in court.
To summarise: Onity sells electronic locking systems to hotels. In 2012 Cody Brocious demonstrated a trivial way of reading out a 32 bit key code from an exposed port on the lock and playing it back, unlocking the door in seconds. There have since been several allegations of the exploit in use in the wild.
Onity offered a "temporary" mechanical cap, to cover the vulnerable port, but wanted to charge for a replacement circuit board. The hotels were less than thrilled, claiming the locks are "unfit to perform the basic security function for which they were designed and warranted" and attempted to form a class action suit to sue Onity, and this is the claim that was recently dismissed by the court.
The Techdirt article links to a more detailed Forbes article, which states that the hotels will be appealing. The ruling itself is available in plain text and also as a pdf
One of the particularly confusing points in the ruling is the statement by the court in supporting the dismissal, that future injury "could occur only if third parties engaged in criminal conduct to enter Plaintiffs' hotel rooms." Or as Techdirt put it:
in what sort of insane world do we live in when a manufacturer that makes a product designed to prohibit illegal behavior can get out of paying to repair its product that doesn't stop illegal behavior because the behavior its product isn't stopping is illegal?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 14 2014, @06:27PM
Time to sell expensive 'security systems' with burned out parts inside. As long as nobody does anything illegal, the device won't cause any harm!
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday September 15 2014, @05:33AM
Done. http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/man-jailed-for-fake-detectors-scam [msn.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 14 2014, @06:45PM
It sounds like all this ruling prevents is the use of a class-action to pursue liability.
I don't have a big problem with that because members of the "class" would have been mostly big hotel chains. They've got the resources to organize serious legal firepower on their own. If the class were individuals like home owners who had purchased just one or two locks each, then a class-action would be much more reasonable.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 14 2014, @06:46PM
"new super duper wooden peg will stop burglers."
but anybody can remove the peg and open the door, how is this supposed to stop burglers?
well if they don't remove anything then they're not burglers, so we didnt lie...judge agrees.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday September 14 2014, @06:48PM
An appeal has already been filed.
But still the last paragraph quoted from Techdirt, while certainly hyperbolic, is hardly an accurate description of the case.
They had a warranty claim that they tried to over-play by alleging the locks subject the hotels to "Certain and Impending" injury from break-ins. The court merely stated that break-ins are neither certain nor impending due to these locks any more than break-ins are certain and impending due to the fact that glass windows can be broken, or bump keys exist for other locks, or the fact that people might trip and fall on stairways. All of those are insurable risks that hotels accept every day.
The deadbolt or the safety chain prevent this exploit from working while you are in the room, leaving the largest risk to be that of theft from the room, which the hotel absolves itself from routinely. In short, the hotels weren't worried about the impending injury from break-ins, they were worried about the impending injury from cost of replacement just to keep their guests happy.
Onity has pretty much lost their best customers, and should have supplied the circuit board replacements immediately, and will probably have to
do some form of replacement in the future after the appeal has worked its way through the courts.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by WizardFusion on Sunday September 14 2014, @08:28PM
That's it right there. Even if they win this lawsuit, and any others that may come after it, they have still lost.
No one will want to do business with them again
If they had said "Oops, sorry. Here's an software update or replacement board", this whole thing might have blown over.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 14 2014, @09:36PM
No worries. Obummer will just get a law passed mandating that hotels buy Onity's locks ir face penalties. Worked for ObummerCare why not here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @12:33AM
I remember when I was growing up, and even for the first decade or so after I started working, the mantra was: "the customer is always right". What the hell happened to this country?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @08:11AM
People started to think Ayn Rand and similar are right or worse - experts on how things should be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @08:42AM
dude, shitty court rulings aren't a fault of capitalism
free markets depend on enforcement of contracts and prosecution of fraud
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @02:06PM
You could argue in this case that she *IS* right.
One you have a court agreeing that the customer is wrong. (She railed against bad gov and bad judicial governance)
Two you have a company that will be out of business in 3-5 years. As who would buy from someone who can not be bothered to fix their locks? Under warranty no less! Even if they win they lose. (The invisible hand of the market)
People who rail against Ayn Rand fail to see she had good points. She also had many overly exaggerated points. Which is a staple in speculative fiction especially with dystopian undertones. I personally thought she could drop about 3/4ths of most of her stories and still got the point across.
I can see why the company probably tried to pull this off. The cost to replace probably would have ruined them. They have nothing to lose either way. This way they have enough assets to offload to some other company and move onto the board of another. Pretty much the only one screwed are the hotels customers and the the employees of the lock company. Just like most rich people want it. If you had paid attention to Ayn Rand stories you would have noticed she railed against jerks like that too who tilt the table in their favor using courts and law to do so. She was looking for 'heros'. They dont exist.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday September 15 2014, @11:05AM
They should have sued for the cost of replacing the locks and reputational damage. Why would they want new locks from these guys again?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)