Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the obey,-consume,-marry-and-do-not-repair dept.

Last year dozens of 'Right to Repair' bills were introduced throughout the US, but defeated. Maybe this time its time has come.

Right to Repair bills, designed to foster competition in the repair industry, require manufacturers to allow repair, and even provide manuals, diagnosic software, and parts. Manufacturers oppose these laws as it can cost them more to address devices repaired by third parties, because repairs are a source of revenue, and because repaired items are less likely to be replaced with new ones.

[O]ne of the most effective anti-repair tactics is to spread FUD about the supposed security risks of independent repairs.

Without a concerted and coordinated effort to counteract this tactic, legislators receive primarily well-heeled opposing views, and vote accordingly.

Last year, a newly formed lobbying group called the Security Innovation Center began placing op-eds in local newspapers like the Minnesota St. Cloud Times and the Illinois State Journal-Register advocating against right-to-repair bills in those states. The articles often argued, without much evidence, that the proposed laws would allow hackers to steal people's personal information and sow chaos.

Now, Right to Repair is again gaining traction with more than a dozen states, including California, considering bills, and even one presidential candidate calling for a national Right to Repair law. This time Right to Repair has its own lobbying organization to speak before legislatures considering these laws.

Enter Securerepairs.org, a new nonprofit founded by Paul Roberts, whose experts (including "Harvard University's Bruce Schneier, bug bounty expert Katie Moussouris, and ACLU technologist Jon Callas") will attend Right to Repair hearings to counter this industry [FUD] and explain how "Fixable stuff is secure stuff."

Roberts and his organization are up against an industry with deep pockets, and it's hard to know how well they will succeed in persuading lawmakers to enact right-to-repair initiatives. So far, only one repair law, targeting the auto industry, has passed in the US, in Roberts' home state of Massachusetts in 2012. But the bill had an outsize impact: After it was put in place, major car manufacturers agreed to share repair information with independent mechanics across the entire country.

The hope now is that Securepairs.org could help bring similar legislation to other places, starting with California. It's an enormous state and the home of many of America's largest technology companies. This is the second time California has tried introducing a right-to-repair bill; a previous effort failed last year. A representative from the Security Innovation Center is set to testify at the hearing, but so are experts who believe the right to repair won't pose any security risks to be worried about.

Related Stories
Apple Sued an Independent iPhone Repair Shop Owner and Lost
Jailbreak your Tractor or Make it Run OSS?
Right to Repair
Apple, Verizon Join Forces to Lobby Against New York's 'Right to Repair' Law
Washington State Bill Would Make Hard-to-Repair Electronics Illegal
Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly
The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair
45 Out of 50 Electronics Companies Illegally Void Warranties After Independent Repair, Sting Reveals
Yes, Americans, You Can Break Anti-Piracy DRM If You Want to Repair Some of Your Kit – US Govt
Apple's T2 Security Chip Can Prevent Unauthorized Third-Party Repair of Devices
Right to Repair Legislation Is Officially Being Considered In Canada


Original Submission

Related Stories

Jailbreak your Tractor or Make it Run OSS? 45 comments

Wired is running a piece about the effect of DMCA on farmers. If you think Phantom drones not flying near the White House due to a firmware upgrade is bad or jailbreaking your phone is a hassle, what would you think if your farming tractor, the one you paid some $100,000 for, does the same? Because it does!

Says Kyle Wiens:

...Over my left shoulder a massive John Deere tractor loomed. I came here to fix that tractor. So far, things weren’t going as planned.
I’m a computer programmer by training, and a repairman by trade. Ten years ago, I started iFixit, an online, DIY community that teaches people to repair what they own. Repair is what I do, and that I was being rebuffed by a tractor was incredibly frustrating.

The family farmer who owns this tractor is a friend of mine. He just wanted a better way to fix a minor hydraulic sensor. Every time the sensor blew, the onboard computer would shut the tractor down. It takes a technician at least two days to order the part, get out to the farm, and swap out the sensor. So for two days, Dave’s tractor lies fallow. And so do his fields.

...fixing Dave’s sensor problem required fiddling around in the tractor’s highly proprietary computer system—the tractor’s engine control unit (tECU): the brains behind the agricultural beast.

[More after the break.]

Right to Repair 67 comments

Nebraska is one of eight states in the US – including Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Wyoming, Tennessee and Kansas – seeking to pass "right to repair" legislation. All eyes will be on the Cornhusker state when the bill has its public hearing on 9 March, because its unique "unicameral legislature" (it's the only state to have a single parliamentary chamber) means laws can be enacted swiftly. If this bill, officially named LB67, gets through, it may lead to a domino effect through the rest of the US, as happened with a similar battle over the right to repair cars. These Nebraska farmers are fighting for all of us.

Big agriculture and big tech – including John Deere, Apple and AT&T – are lobbying hard against the bill, and have sent representatives to the Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska, to spend hours talking to senators, citing safety, security and intellectual property concerns.

John Deere has gone as far as to claim that farmers don't own the tractors they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for, but instead receive a "license to operate the vehicle". They lock users into license agreements that forbid them from even looking at the software running the tractor or the signals it generates.

Another article on the topic at Techdirt.


Original Submission

Apple, Verizon Join Forces to Lobby Against New York's 'Right to Repair' Law 34 comments

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Over the last year, we've noted the surge in so-called "right to repair" laws, which would make it easier for consumers to repair their electronics and find replacement parts and tools. It's a direct response to the rising attempts by companies like John Deere, Apple, Microsoft and Sony to monopolize repair, hamstringing consumer rights over products consumers think they own, while driving up the cost of said product ownership. John Deere's draconian lockdown on its tractor firmware is a large part of the reason these efforts have gained steam over the last few months in states like Nebraska.

In New York, one of the first attempts at such a law (the "Fair Repair Act") has finally been making progress. But according to New York State's Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Apple, Verizon, Toyota, Lexmark, Caterpillar, Asurion, and Medtronic have all been busy lobbying to kill the law for various, but ultimately similar, reasons. And they're out-spending the consumer advocates and repair shops pushing for this legislation by a rather wide margin:

"The records show that companies and organizations lobbying against right to repair legislation spent $366,634 to retain lobbyists in the state between January and April of this year. Thus far, the Digital Right to Repair Coalition—which is generally made up of independent repair shops with several employees—is the only organization publicly lobbying for the legislation. It has spent $5,042 on the effort, according to the records."

Source: techdirt.com


Original Submission

Washington State Bill Would Make Hard-to-Repair Electronics Illegal 72 comments

A number of states are considering right to repair bills, legislation which if passed would make it easier for individuals and repair shops to replace or repair electronics parts. Repair.org reports that 17 states have already introduced bills this year and while most aim to make repair parts and manuals accessible, Washington's proposed legislation would straight up ban electronics that prevent easy repair. "Original manufacturers of digital electronic products sold on or after January 1, 2019, in Washington state are prohibited from designing or manufacturing digital electronic products in such a way as to prevent reasonable diagnostic or repair functions by an independent repair provider," says the bill. "Preventing reasonable diagnostic or repair functions includes permanently affixing a battery in a manner that makes it difficult or impossible to remove."

[...] Naturally, tech groups have jumped to make their opposition clear. In a letter to Morris, groups such as the Consumer Technology Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association and the Computer Technology Industry Association said the bill was "unwarranted" and added, "With access to technical information, criminals can more easily circumvent security protections, harming not only the product owner but also everyone who shares their network."

Source: Engadget


Original Submission

Tractor Hacking: The Farmers Breaking Big Tech's Repair Monopoly 87 comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w

When it comes to repair, farmers have always been self reliant. But the modernization of tractors and other farm equipment over the past few decades has left most farmers in the dust thanks to diagnostic software that large manufacturers hold a monopoly over.

Farmers using Eastern European cracking software for their tractors, and MS, Apple, etc. want to stop them.

Related: Right to Repair


Original Submission

The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California 30 comments

California legislators are considering drafting laws that would make it easier to fix things. It is now the 18th state in the US trying to make it easier to repair or modify things, electronic or not.

Right to repair legislation has considerable momentum this year; 18 states have introduced it, and several states have held hearings about the topic. In each of these states, big tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, John Deere, and AT&T and trade associations they're associated with have heavily lobbied against it, claiming that allowing people to fix their things would cause safety and security concerns. Thus far, companies have been unwilling to go on the record to explain the specifics about how these bills would be dangerous or would put device and consumer security in jeopardy.

It's particularly notable that the battle has come to California because many of the companies that have fought against it are headquartered there. Apple, for instance, told lawmakers in Nebraska that passing a right to repair bill there would turn the state into a "Mecca for hackers." The Electronic Frontier Foundation—which is notoriously concerned about digital security—has explicitly backed this legislation in California. Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney for the EFF, said that the bill "helps preserve the right of individual device owners to understand and fix their property."

Yep. Hackers. And note that is what Apple does not want. Like many things this boils down to the issue of who controls the many computers you ostensibly own.

From Motherboard at vice.com: The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to Silicon Valley.


Original Submission

Apple Sued an Independent iPhone Repair Shop Owner and Lost 26 comments

Last year, Apple’s lawyers sent Henrik Huseby, the owner of a small electronics repair shop in Norway, a letter demanding that he immediately stop using aftermarket iPhone screens at his repair business and that he pay the company a settlement.

Norway’s customs officials had seized a shipment of 63 iPhone 6 and 6S replacement screens on their way to Henrik’s shop from Asia and alerted Apple; the company said they were counterfeit.

In order to avoid being sued, Apple asked Huseby for “copies of invoices, product lists, order forms, payment information, prints from the internet and other relevant material regarding the purchase [of screens], including copies of any correspondence with the supplier … we reserve the right to request further documentation at a later date.”

The letter, sent by Frank Jorgensen, an attorney at the Njord law firm on behalf of Apple, included a settlement agreement that also notified him the screens would be destroyed. The settlement agreement said that Huseby agrees “not to manufacture, import, sell, market, or otherwise deal with any products that infringe Apple’s trademarks,” and asked required him to pay 27,700 Norwegian Krone ($3,566) to make the problem go away without a trial.

“Intellectual Property Law is a specialized area of law, and seeking legal advice is in many instances recommended,” Jorgensen wrote in the letter accompanying the settlement agreement. “However, we can inform you that further proceedings and costs can be avoided by settling the case.”

Huseby decided to fight the case.

John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair 61 comments

Wired has published a long article about how the farming equipment manufacturer John Deere has just swindled farmers out of their right to repair their own equipment. Basically the manufacturer was allowed to write the agreement governing access to the firmware embedded in the farming equipment.

Farmers have been some of the strongest allies in the ongoing battle to make it easier for everyone to fix their electronics. This week, though, a powerful organization that's supposed to lobby on behalf of farmers in California has sold them out by reaching a watered-down agreement that will allow companies like John Deere to further cement their repair monopolies.

Farmers around the country have been hacking their way past the software locks that John Deere and other manufacturers put on tractors and other farm equipment, and the Farm Bureau lobbying organization has thus far been one of the most powerful to put its weight behind right to repair legislation, which would require manufacturers to sell repair parts, make diagnostic tools and repair information available to the public, and would require manufacturers to provide a way to get around proprietary software locks that are designed to prevent repair.

Motherboard also covered the topic about how farmer lobbyists sold out their farmers and helped enshrine John Deere's maintenance monopoly.

Earlier on SN:
The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California (2018)
Apple, Verizon Join Forces to Lobby Against New York's 'Right to Repair' Law (2017)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
Jailbreak your Tractor or Make it Run OSS? (2015)


Original Submission

45 Out of 50 Electronics Companies Illegally Void Warranties After Independent Repair, Sting Reveals 27 comments

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

When you buy a game console, smartphone, dryer, vacuum cleaner, or any number of other complicated electronics, there’s usually a sticker or a piece of paperwork telling you that trying to repair the device yourself will void your warranty. That’s illegal under the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Companies offering a warranty on their goods aren’t allowed to void that warranty if the user attempts to repair it themself, but that doesn’t stop the company from scaring customers into thinking it’s true.

It’s such a huge problem that US PIRG—a non-profit that uses grassroots methods to advocate for political change—found that 90 percent of manufacturers it contacted claimed that a third party repair would void its warranty [pdf]. PIRG researched the warranty information of 50 companies in the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)—an industry group of notorious for lobbying to protect is repair monopolies [sic]—and found that 45 of them claimed independent repair would void their warranty.

Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9k7mby/45-out-of-50-electronics-companies-illegally-void-warranties-after-independent-repair-sting-operation-finds


Original Submission

Yes, Americans, You Can Break Anti-Piracy DRM If You Want to Repair Some of Your Kit – US Govt 19 comments

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Yes, Americans, you can break anti-piracy DRM if you want to repair some of your kit – US govt

The US Copyright Office has ruled that, in certain circumstances, folks can legally break a manufacturer's anti-piracy mechanisms – aka digital rights management (DRM) – if they want to repair their own gear.

The ruling, issued Thursday, states that from this Sunday onwards "the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works shall not apply to persons who engage in noninfringing uses of certain classes of such works."

The new rules apply to smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, routers and other wireless hotspots, chatty gizmos like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, plus cars, trucks and tractors. Thus, within the next few days, they can all be repaired by anyone with the skills, and it's legal to break any DRM stopping you from doing so. Sadly the Copyright Office didn't include games consoles, aircraft, nor boats, and the copy protection systems on HDMI must remain untouched.


Original Submission

Apple's T2 Security Chip Can Prevent Unauthorized Third-Party Repair of Devices 19 comments

Apple's T2 chip will block some third-party repairs of new devices

Small repair shops and tech enthusiasts who attempt to fix their new Apple devices may be taking a serious risk in doing so. According to a report from The Verge, Apple confirmed that its new T2 security chip is designed to lock down devices after repair if it doesn't recognize certain authorized replacement parts.

Word of this new policy came out last month in an Apple document circulated among authorized service providers. In order to replace certain hardware components, such as the Touch ID sensor or the logic board on new Macs, the provider must run a specific piece of diagnostic software.

This program, called "AST 2 System Configuration," works in conjunction with the T2 security chip. If this step isn't performed on devices with the T2 chip, it could result in an inoperable machine.

[...] Apple only provides the special application to its own stores and authorized service providers. That means that unauthorized service providers, small repair shops, and individuals can't completely and properly replace certain parts of new Macs.

Also at Engadget, Notebookcheck, and MacRumors.

Previously: Apple's T2 Security Chip Prevents Linux From Installing on New Macs


Original Submission

Right to Repair Legislation Is Officially Being Considered In Canada 22 comments

A legislator in Canada has proposed a bill to ensure that individuals and indpendent shops can repair brand-name devices. If on the off chance that the bill becomes law, major hardware vendors will have to change how they sell their products.

[...] On Thursday, Coteau introduced a private member's bill in provincial parliament that, if passed, would be the first "right to repair" law for electronic devices in North America. More than a dozen US states are currently considering similar bills, but nothing is on the books yet in the US or in Canada.

The legislation proposes that tech companies make diagnostic tools, repair manuals, and official parts available to consumers at their request. The legislation would also require that any new products ship with a repair manual. Documents provided to consumers must be free unless they request paper copies, and parts, tools, and software must be provided at a fair price.

Earlier on SN:
Apple's T2 Security Chip Can Prevent Unauthorized Third-Party Repair of Devices
Yes, Americans, You Can Break Anti-Piracy DRM If You Want to Repair Some of Your Kit – US Govt
45 Out of 50 Electronics Companies Illegally Void Warranties After Independent Repair, Sting Reveals
The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California


Original Submission

Popularity of Older Tractors Boosted by Avoidance of DRM 75 comments

Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies affecting new tractors are behind the continuing rise in popularity of the models. Particularly in the midwest, farmers are finding that 40-year-old tractors do the job with less trouble and expense.

Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it's not because they're antiques.

Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren't as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.

"It's a trend that's been building. It's been interesting in the last couple years, which have been difficult for ag, to see the trend accelerate," said Greg Peterson, the founder of Machinery Pete, a farm equipment data company in Rochester with a website and TV show.

Previously;
Reeducating Legislators on the Right to Repair (2019)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair (2018)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)


Original Submission

Why Repair Techs are Hacking Ventilators with DIY Dongles from Poland 84 comments

Hacking Ventilators With DIY Dongles From Poland:

As COVID-19 surges, hospitals and independent biomedical technicians have turned to a global grey-market for hardware and software to circumvent manufacturer repair locks and keep life-saving ventilators running.

The dongle is handmade, little more than a circuit board encased in plastic with two connectors. One side goes to a ventilator’s patient monitor, another goes to the breath delivery unit. A third cable connects to a computer.

This little dongle—shipped to him by a hacker in Poland—has helped William repair at least 70 broken Puritan Bennett 840 ventilators that he’s bought on eBay and from other secondhand websites. He has sold these refurbished ventilators to hospitals and governments throughout the United States, to help them handle an influx of COVID-19 patients. Motherboard agreed to speak to William anonymously because he was not authorized by his company to talk to the media, but Motherboard verified the specifics of his story with photos and other biomedical technicians.

William is essentially Frankensteining together two broken machines to make one functioning machine. Some of the most common repairs he does on the PB840, made by a company called Medtronic, is replacing broken monitors with new ones. The issue is that, like so many other electronics, medical equipment, including ventilators, increasingly has software that prevents “unauthorized” people from repairing or refurbishing broken devices, and Medtronic will not help him fix them.

[...] Delays in getting equipment running put patients at risk. In the meantime, biomedical technicians will continue to try to make-do with what they can. “If someone has a ventilator and the technology to [update the software], more power to them,” Mackeil said. “Some might say you’re violating copyright, but if you own the machine, who’s to say they couldn’t or they shouldn’t?”

I understand that there is an ongoing debate on the "right to repair". However, many manufacturers increasingly find ways to ensure that "unauthorised" people cannot repair their devices. Where do you stand on this issue? During the ongoing pandemic, do medical device manufacturers have the right to prevent repair by third parties?

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:25AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:25AM (#837140) Journal

    The immediate free association that pops into my mind when it comes to 'reeducating legislators' is 'reeducation camps'.
    Not that I like them but I like even less the legislators.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday May 01 2019, @09:15AM (1 child)

    by stormwyrm (717) on Wednesday May 01 2019, @09:15AM (#837150) Journal

    Yeah, Schneier is a Fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, but that characterisation makes it sound like Schneier is a Harvard professor, which he is not. It would have been even better to just name him one of the world's leading cryptographers and security pundits, which is more or less the way securepairs.org describes him.

    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:02AM

    by Bot (3902) on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:02AM (#837163) Journal

    Politicians don't, or pretend not to, acknowledge the power of these laws to favor internal markets (you know, where voters are) vs. international influence (you know, were kickbacks come from).

    For example, Italy: barred by international agreements to favor internal enterprises over the foreign ones. Who cares? You make right to repair laws, and raise VAT for products which are not modular/slash VAT for those who are. Suddenly Italy is not Just another market, it costs money to adapt, and you probably don't want to squander your precioussss intellectual property to comply. OTOH you cannot accuse Italy of being anti globalism because hey we please Greta.

    Result, the italian firms (who were warned a couple years before of the change) ramp up production for the missing imports, a market for repairs flourishes again, and black market does for the items Italian want nonetheless. More pork for everybody, the environment too.

    --
    Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:10AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @11:10AM (#837169)

    The "right to repair" law will not work because manufacturers will just make hardware not repairable. And it's not only about own chips designs, which cannot be replaced by another - it's about a fused or glued hardware casings, one-piece mainboards and unrepairable software kill switches like in some Asus router, which when faced with incompatible firmware update could just blow its data line on the flash chip.
    When in EU incandescent light bulbs were banned, because EU wanted more people to put fingers into working lathes, distribute mercury in soil and buy more Chinese LED "blink-blink-burn" stuff to pollute environment even more (hey, if it will be polluted it will be possible to sell fresh air! vive le capitalism!), filament bulbs were still sold - this time as "heating apparatus". The same thing will be with "irrepairable" hardware. This will NOT be hardware, but, I don't know... toys, space filling, fishing bait, doesn't matter.
    The proper way to make it would be:
    1. To rename this law as "right to audit". The "repair" is not appealing to companies and governments who are maniacs of Chinese/Russian/American/Israeli (dependent on country) spies and suspect everyone that is spying. Don't even think about marketing this as "protecting environment". The main rule of modern economy is "steal and then sell" so environment must be "stolen" to be sold, it's only made slower not to make people do something wrong like not buying new junk every month.
    2. To specify in the law a specific support period. In this period, all hardware (schematics, matrices, chip descriptions) and firmware related information should be available in the limited range both for service and for security auditing purposes.
    3. To standardize the support. No "impossible to repair". We live with inch-thick UMPCs, it's not a problem with inch-thick smartphone.
    4. After this period, all information regarding the obsolete hardware and firmware should be released in the way that it's possible, by other companies, to reproduce the firmware components (read: compile it and run it) and substitute hardware (read: program an FPGA). This will make a nice market room for manufacturers of spare parts like was in 1980s and 90s for cars, before it was possible to ban manufacturing of e.g. triangle plastic parts as it may violate "intellecshual propyerty" and for alternative software components.
    5. To ban all other hardware as insecure and risky. The same way as many sites ban Windows XP-powered computers even if they're secured as hell and use a very secure (read: just unable to execute any code, including malware) browser.
    Now hear the squeak of all these "intellectual property" crazies! :-)
    Yes, this will slow the development down a bit, but that's a price for repairability. Maybe you won't be able to play clickers in your thoughts and think about pleasures of watching another ad, but hey, you may spend this time more creative way, as it definitely should be with such powerful tool like a computer.

    Some time ago I decided to buy only repairable hardware: Which can be disassembled easily and for which parts are universal and common enough to be accessible. It was after I was a witness of an unknown air gap breaking exploit I traced to some component on the mainboard which was just structurally impossible to remove and documentation was omitting this part.
    My 10 year old notebook is not powered by Coreboot (but I consider it when the project will be mature, maybe after 20 years or so) but has no ME, no hardware locks preventing against e.g. installation of components and replacing them as they wear - now I have a second display panel and third battery. Another 12-year-old Asus has third hinge set, second display panel and keyboard and fourth battery (but it got more cycles on it). Surprisingly the cooler is still in a good shape after 12 years of continuous work (it's Turion, it spits fire all time).
    Recently I had opportunity to try to fix one of quite high-end 2018 notebooks and I found it just impossible to disassemble it non-destructively. Parts were glued, only RAM and WLAN compartments were accessible after breaking partially fused "doors" (!) and after getting access to broken WLAN board I replaced it and... it doesn't even boot as it needs specific brands of adapters. Battery was impossible to replace. Display panel was pushed in and probably metal-formed into casing. The software loaded on it by default shown ads, but fortunately the owner asked me "to put a Linux Mint there". So why do I pay for this device, to manipulate me even more?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:15PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:15PM (#837264)

      The "right to repair" law will not work because manufacturers will just make hardware not repairable. And it's not only about own chips designs, which cannot be replaced by another - it's about a fused or glued hardware casings, one-piece mainboards and unrepairable software kill switches like in some Asus router, which when faced with incompatible firmware update could just blow its data line on the flash chip.

      In basically all modern equipment the standard "repair" procedure is this:

      Step 1) Identify which board is failing
      Step 2) Swap out the board for a brand new one.

      The service manuals for things like modern TVs basically contain some test procedures to identify the failing board, at which point you put in a new board.

      So in practice, "right to repair" will mean the service manuals and replacement boards would be made available "officially" so we won't need to get parts of questionable origin from eBay. This would still be a good thing. It's not asking too much: these things already exist they're just not usually sold through official channels.

      From an economic standpoint replacing boards makes sense, because the replacement boards cost bugger all in mass production and it is simply not worth it to pay someone, say, $50/hr to troubleshoot when you're all tooled up and the marginal cost of replacement boards is like $25.

      Gone are the days of electronic equipment coming with full schematics, theory of operation, parts lists, etc. "Right to repair" won't bring that back. But a lot of products are still built with commercial-off-the-shelf components and a lot of failures are repairable the old fashioned way.

      • (Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:16PM (1 child)

        by ElizabethGreene (6748) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:16PM (#837345) Journal

        Component level repairs are a thing and those schematic manuals do exist. Even for things as complex as a MacBook. This guy does it and teaches others how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup [youtube.com] If you have a dead MacBook with soldered-in SSD and you want to get the data back he's the guy you want to call.

        The thing is that he had to get those schematic manuals illegally. He bought them from a dubious "reseller" in Russia. For components he has to get them grey market or from scrap boards tagged for recycling, and Apple is taking overt steps to kill the grey market for components. They don't want him (or me) fixing your kit. They've fought us tooth-and-nail ever since we started replacing busted screens.

        This ignores other goatfuckery like Toner cartridges that have single-use-no-refill-burnout chips in them or John Deere transmissions with functionally identical features.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 02 2019, @01:38AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 02 2019, @01:38AM (#837631)

          Or M$ own secret APIs.

      • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:27PM

        by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:27PM (#837349)

        When the replacement boards aren't made any more, that's when the schematic diagrams really come into play.

        I repaired a ~10-year-old 28" HD TV for a family member this way. The IR receiver was busted, and didn't respond to the remote control. I couldn't find any of the receiver assemblies for sale any more, but the schematics listed the part number of the photodiode. Even though the part has been obsoleted by the manufacturer, I was able to use datasheets to find a substitute and solder it in there.

        £1 of components, but a few hours legwork to research what needed to be done.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 02 2019, @01:16AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 02 2019, @01:16AM (#837625)

        Some time ago a friend asked me to try with repairing a programmer for a machine of quite significant size. The idea was to make everything controlled under the full automation system (more expensive) or resurrect the existing one, built in 1980s and operated since then (if less expensive). Generally OK, but the surprise was on the mainboard.
        So a whole machine's driving was ran by 6 ULA chips. Types unknown, and one pin of one chip burnt.
        Generally ULA were before FPGA and they were factory-programmed. Additionally they were quite fragile electrically. Manufacturer shut down in 1990s and the manual (I expected a nice description, this is not a pair of shoes, this is an expensive manufacturing stuff) stated to "replace ULA board". Contacting a factory using similar machine, it was possible to obtain a "Technical reference manual", which was a 280-page book with a few dozens of centrefolds. The situation in which they got this manual was interesting, the manual was left by accident by a serviceman and they just quickly photocopied it.
        Fortunately this internal documentation was well enough to see that the missing signal is in fact dependent on 4 other in quite simple manner (AND, NAND and a flipflop). A breadboard with 74 chips in, and test run. In the docs, there were just details of rules implemented in machine. Great, seems to work...
        Hey stop the thing! This conveyor goes all time with small breaks, it shouldn't!
        oops, let's invert the result...
        OK, now it works. It looks like the AC driver takes the inverted signal.
        The modules are really totally OK if they are like I/O modules for industrial systems, Logika blocks, TTL 74 or 40 chips, generally standardized enough to be understood and replaced without blind faith like this ULA module.

      • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday May 02 2019, @10:32PM

        by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Thursday May 02 2019, @10:32PM (#838159)

        In basically all modern equipment the standard "repair" procedure is this:
        Step 1) Identify which board is failing
        Step 2) Swap out the board for a brand new one.

        I'm old enough to remember my father pulling out tubes from the TV, taking them in and testing them on the machine provided by most retailers, then replacing the burnt out tubes. You could go to places like Sears or Two Guys and do this, you didn't have to find a special repair shop, It would be nice to see such things surface again (I don't mean tubes, but the practice for things like the circuit boards). I suppose though that this would fly in the face of the policies of retailers like Best Buy, who only stock the very latest crap, who don't want you to repair (unless you use their crap services to do so) because that would prevent you from buying more new crap.

(1)