Europe Wants a 'Right to Repair' Smartphones and Gadgets
The European Union is seeking to help consumers fix or upgrade devices, rather than replace them, as part of a 30-year push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
LONDON — Hoping to replace that two-year-old smartphone in a few months? The European Union wants you to think twice about doing that.
The bloc announced an ambitious plan on Wednesday that would require manufacturers of electronic products, from smartphones to tumble driers, to offer more repairs, upgrades and ways to reuse existing goods, instead of encouraging consumers to buy new ones.
[ . . . ] "The linear growth model of 'take-make-use-discard' has reached its limits," Virginijus Sinkevicius, the union's environment commissioner, told reporters in Brussels as he presented the "Circular Economy Action Plan," which includes the "right to repair" initiative.
"We want to make sure that products placed on E.U. market are designed to last longer, to be easier to repair and upgrade, easier to recycle and easier to reuse," he added.
Hopefully this would put an end to the waste and cost associat... Look! Over there! A new Shiny!
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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?
A while back, retired journalist and octogenarian, Chris Biddle, had an excellent interview with author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow about digital restrictions. They speak in particular about digital restrictions technologies which have been spread within agricultural equipment through the equipment's firmware. Their conversation starts out with mention of the use of network-connected firmware to brick the tractors which were looted from dealership sales lots in Ukraine by the invading Russian army. Cory gives a detailed overview of the issues hidden away by the mainstream press under the feel-good stories about the incident.
But was the bigger picture more worrying? I speak with Cory Doctorow, author, Guardian journalist with a special interest in protecting human rights in this digital age.
He says that whilst 'kill-switches' used to disable the machinery provide a security benefit, it is possible that widely available 'hacking' technology could also be used to disrupt the world's agricultural infrastructure by those with more sinister motives.
All of which feeds into the Right to Repair cases currently going through the US courts. It is also all about who owns the tractor, who owns data, and who owns the rights to the embedded software?
Deere contends that a customer can never fully own connected machinery because it holds exclusive rights to the software coding.
Some US farmers have attempted to unlock the embedded by purchasing illegal firmware –mostly developed by sophisticated hackers based in Ukraine!
The interview is just under 45 minutes.
Previously:
(2022) New York State Passes First Electronics Right-to-Repair Bill
(2022) John Deere Remotely Disables Farm Equipment Stolen by Russians from Ukraine Dealership
(2022) A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
(2021) Apple and John Deere Shareholder Resolutions Demand They Explain Their Bad Repair Policies
(2021) The FTC is Investigating Why McDonald's McFlurry Machines are "Always Broken"
(2020) Europe Wants a 'Right to Repair' Smartphones and Gadgets
(2019)
New Elizabeth Warren Policy Supports "Right to Repair"
(2016) Sweden Wants to Fight Disposable Culture with Tax Breaks for Repairing Old Stuff
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 13 2020, @11:26PM (4 children)
Dear EU.
You have already given enough proof of the tech expertise of your staff when you forced websites worldwide to ask the user what cookies do they want instead of forcing the browsers to not track the user unless explicitly allowed.
Your right to repair will be another layer of bureaucracy for the producer, more cost for the consumer, and another bureaucratic entity for your nephews to occupy after they buy their degrees.
Try doing a simpler thing. Define a fucking PROTOCOL for repairable hardware (in one line it must resemble electronics in the late 70s), and heavily discount VAT and taxes for those who produce sell and repair that, and let the market do the rest. Note I don't say the free market, because that was already killed with the industrial revolution and the sociopolitical fallout.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 13 2020, @11:36PM
Ohhhh, I dunno. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. If they can stop phone makers from soldering and supergluing the batteries into the phones, we'll be a lot further ahead. We have the right to repair, if only we insist on it. Tell the manufacturers to stuff their silly bullshit rules.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Friday March 13 2020, @11:47PM (2 children)
OTOH, the EU is why cellphones no longer require a special snowflake charger.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 13 2020, @11:51PM (1 child)
They make special chargers for millennials?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 14 2020, @03:02AM
I remember when I got my first smartphone, it was some early form of RAZR back when before Android gained ground.
It's charger was at first glance a standard USB cable, but I realized that other USB cables wouldn't charge it. The sneaky fuckers had an integrated resistor into their proprietary cable, that the phone had to sense before charging, and they wanted $25 bucks for a new one. There are more difficult problems that splicing a resistor into a cable, but that was my first taste of the dick moves of Big Gadgetry.
How can Europeans be so smart and yet be so goddamn stupid with everything else?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 13 2020, @11:55PM (1 child)
I'm of two minds on TFA.
On the one hand, I absolutely would like them to quit fucking around and doing anti-competitive, anti-consumer bullshit like this.
On the other hand, their reasoning smacks of the anti-progress bullshit you'd have heard out of the USSR back in the day.
Thankfully the two are not in conflict since I can support someone doing something right even if it's for bloody stupid reasons.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday March 16 2020, @03:42PM
Like many regulations, it was brought about because of the behavior of the companies being regulated.
If they had any ability to police or limit themselves to some semblance of good behavior, no regulations would ever be necessary.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Saturday March 14 2020, @12:05AM (7 children)
I guess people also have issues with breaking their screens, so maybe make those easy to fix also. Me? I've never broken a screen. But I've replaced phones just because the battery gave out. It's bullshit, spending $300 instead of $30 for a battery.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @05:08AM (4 children)
It supposedly has to do with waterproofing. I guess people just have to be able to drop their phones in toilets and pools.
I do want there to be more phones with easily removable batteries. It is possible to replace the batteries even if they aren't easily removable; I've done it. It's just a chore.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday March 14 2020, @07:55AM (1 child)
The waterproofing thing is a bit of a half truth. It is true that waterproofing means the typical slide to open style battery door is not going to work. It does not mean sealing the thing so that even a decently skilled 3rd party tech can't do it without permanent damage and expensive special tools. Screws and gaskets will be just fine.
(Score: 2) by GDX on Saturday March 14 2020, @10:30AM
Well waterproofing. a phone maintaining the battery removable only add ad most 1mm and cost a couple of dollars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @11:58AM
Yet, the only people have to be able to do that is because phones aren't otherwise repairable. Make them repairable, don't need to waterproof them.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday March 16 2020, @02:04AM
There was a waterproof sony walkman in the late 80s or very very first 90s. It had replaceable batteries (like any consumer item, and standard connectors). It didn't cost much more than the usual ones. Now we forgot how to go to the moon and how to waterproof battery compartments. Sad.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2020, @10:45AM
Exactly the sort of thing this is meant so solve. Providing means by which service shops can change battery in a phone or laptop without breaking the warranty. Imagine if you were only allowed to change oil at the dealer or you lose car warranty.
Remember when you had 10 devices and 10 fucking chargers and cables for it? Yeah, same type of EU directive that fixed that shit. And also allowed standards to develop, like Quick Charge and IQ charger. Things that would probably not exist if every company was making their own proprietary charger.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 16 2020, @03:50PM
Long ago, the Samsung Galaxy S 5:
* waterproof (look for YouTube videos of people swimming with their S5's, running them through the washer, etc)
* replaceable battery (the back of the phone could be removed easily, and revealed a huge water tight gasket)
* micro usb connector had water tight seal you had to pull off to charge (but attached to the phone so you didn't lose it)
* headphone jack (because they weren't "courageous" enough (as Apple says) to remove the headphone jack)
I think they suddenly realized that making such a great phone, so long ago now, was not a way to maximize profits above all else. So the Galaxy S6 wasn't waterproof, did not have replaceable battery, and the back was made of glass like Apple, to make the phone more breakable.
But the S5 shows that it CAN be done. And the phone wasn't particularly more expensive than its contemporaries.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by kazzie on Saturday March 14 2020, @09:14AM (2 children)
Encouraging people to repair hardware and keep using it for more than two years is all well and good, but if the manufacturers / carriers stop offering security patches for the software, we've still got a problem.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by petecox on Saturday March 14 2020, @12:07PM
Galaxy S2 is finally getting mainline Linux support, 9 years after release. Tiny ripples with Purism and Pine64 on the horizon too. Less faith in corporations, more in community 'open' hardware projects.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Sunday March 15 2020, @02:23AM
Then "unlocked bootloader" needs to be part of the definition of "repairable".
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.