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You may have thought that if you owned your digital devices, you were allowed to do whatever you like with them. In truth, even for possessions as personal as your car, PC, or insulin pump, you risked a lawsuit every time you reverse-engineered their software guts to dig up their security vulnerabilities—until now.
Last Friday, a new exemption to the decades-old law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act quietly kicked in, carving out protections for Americans to hack their own devices without fear that the DMCA's ban on circumventing protections on copyrighted systems would allow manufacturers to sue them. One exemption, crucially, will allow new forms of security research on those consumer devices. Another allows for the digital repair of vehicles. Together, the security community and DIYers are hoping those protections, which were enacted by the Library of Congress's Copyright Office in October of 2015 but delayed a full year, will spark a new era of benevolent hacking for both research and repair.
Unfortunately, the exemptions are only temporary and will need to be re-approved the next time the Copyright Office reviews its exemptions, in 2018.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @05:31PM
The tune software I was looking at for a GM vehicle will advance the timing curve, boost the turbo, give you better gas mileage and more power. The drawback is you have to run premium gas or the pistons will become screen tops. It will still pass the California smog test both at the tailpipe and computer, it's a hidden software update not seen from a scan tool.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:32PM
Why is it so many people complain about "having" to run premium when they modify their car?
Would you get a new spray job, and then park it under a tree to allow it to be covered in sap and birdshit?
Would you buy a $5k suit, and then sew Megadeth patches all over it?
Buy a toilet and then proceed to just shit in the bath tub?
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday November 02 2016, @10:59PM
Buy a toilet and then proceed to just shit in the bath tub?
Hell ya! The dog drinks from the toilet.... duh! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---