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iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

theguardian.com

211–220 of 363 posts

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#211
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To counter the explosion of "fuck you" kind of comments, and as the father of a child with a developmental disability, thank you for pointing out this impolite and linguistically lazy behavior. People who use "retarded", "gay", "autistic", "ghetto" (and so on) in a derogatory form are showing a lack of imagination, aren't introspective enough to consider how their choice of words makes others perceive them, and trivi…

Thank you for taking the time to share. I personally am aware of zero instances where anyone associated with a developmental disability is comfortable with the use of the word 'retarded', in any context. (Please note: this is not to say such a thing does not exist!) Empathy is a worthy reason for voluntarily restricting my personal speech, and I appreciate others willing to take people like you into consideration her…

In any context ? Seriously ? (genuinely curious...)

You are suggesting that they would be uncomfortable with:

"we applied the fire retardant at the base of the flames..."

"the growth process was retarded by the application of too much nitrogen fertilizer..."

"his social development was retarded by the lack of same age peers in his neighborhood..."

Again, genuinely curious - are we expected to contort our language around these concepts now ?

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#212
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement could indicate a range of opinions ranging from ones I agree with to those that are merely a fig-leaf for blatant racism. I'm afraid you'll have to express yourself in some more detail and avoid hollow cliches. This is a complex and nuanced debate.

I find the way racism become THE WORST THING in the world wildly amusing. There are 7 000 000 000 people on the planet and all of them are racist. We people are wired to dislike people not like us.

>There are 7 000 000 000 people on the planet and all of them are racist.

Even if that was true, which it isn't, why do you think that means we should give up and speak or write carelessly? Why do you object to improvement/progress?

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often do you damage a chip on your motherboard? Or need to replace non-capacitor parts on it? This is such a problem because it's stuck to the screen, and people need to replace screens all the time.

Out of three things -- thin phone, hardware level security, and cheapness of repairs -- you get to pick two. FWIW, I've lost 2 chromebooks to TPM failure in 18 months.

I was under the impression that it wasn't hard to keep the old module when replacing a screen, just that people hadn't always done it.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#214
This seems like a deliberate move by Apple, since they could've put the secure component ("TPM") on the mainboard, where it won't be as easily damaged, instead of the fingerprint reader. It's like an organism whose brain is in one of its appendages instead of its head...

Either way, if the skills of the Chinese (and other far-East) reverse-engineers continue to be what they are, I think workarounds will be found soon enough - from what I've seen, the repair people in particular are very resourceful and clever, and come up with "tricks" to fix things that the original manufacturer never even thought about. It's their core business; you can bet they'll spend a ton of effort on figuring out how. Apple's proprietary cable authentication chips have been cloned. The infamous Thinkpad BIOS password has been circumvented. Replacements for ink cartridge authentication chips (seriously) have appeared. There is always a crack.

I continue to find it amazing how effective the "security" excuse is; it seems you can get the majority to give up anything if you can turn it into some sort of argument about how it'll make things safer. Who doesn't want to feel safe, even if it ultimately results in society where every little thing you do is controlled by some huge bureaucracy? The old quote on security vs. freedom is so relevant today, but related to what I think will happen, here's a variant on that theme: "I wish for the insecurity that gives us freedom."

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the way racism become THE WORST THING in the world wildly amusing. There are 7 000 000 000 people on the planet and all of them are racist. We people are wired to dislike people not like us.

> We people are wired to dislike people not like us. a) source? b) what do you mean by "not like us"? in some ways, no human being on the planet is "like" me, in others, everyone is.

A) Any historybook ever. There was never a point in history in which purple didn't try to slaughter green for green being green.

B) Everything. Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my cousin against the world. Likeness could be anything that a person deems important. Race, religion, football teams, harry potter vs lotr, dota vs lol.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#216
post #100
post #4

It's totally dumb that a functioning phone is bricked by an update because of repairs done in the past. Imagine the same thing happening to your car. "Sorry sir, the software update done to your car has now disabled the vehicle because in the past someone not related to x (insert name of car company here) has repaired it, your car is now junk (you can't even resell it) and you'll have to buy a new one". It's just pet…

What if that "repair" was done by NSA, CIA, etc? Should the phone boot like nothing happened? Seriously?

LOL, given how those organizations work they wouldn't do the "repair" they would ask Apple to install it for them.

I'm sure they already did that assuming they don't have better ways.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true but it does not cost me anything at all to change the text so that it does not offend and in that sense it is an improvement. At the same time I see HN slide towards reddit just one little bit more with all the 'you insensitive clod' comments lately and that is sad too.

It's less about HN vs. reddit and more about society at large. What sorts of rude and derogatory words do you feel the need to say where you can't pick a synonym?

I speak quite a few languages, and most of them badly, good enough for communications needs but not precise enough to win me any literary prizes. If we were having this discussion in Dutch I would definitely not pick on you for using words that may not be precise enough or that might be offensive to you simply because I'd assume that you must have learned your Dutch from other people speaking it and using it in your vicinity, coupled with media such as movies, books and so on.

I've seen the word 'retarded' used in the exact way I used it above in many places and I've checked the dictionary and it has a simply secondary definition ('Dumb, foolish') which is roughly what I intended to convey.

Since giving offense is not one of my pet hobbies I edited my comment but had the situation been reversed I would have definitely afforded you more leeway.

To me 'retarded' did not seem rude or derogatory until you pointed it out, judging by the number of other people that are actually native speakers that use it in that exact same way it seems to me that you have your work cut out for you.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#219
post #169

There is a strong bias, and the amazing thing is that its very difficult for the people who have this bias to realize it. As far as they can tell it is fact, and this is in large part because they live in a filter bubble where they only see things that confirm their bias. For example: Articles bashing Steve Jobs get upvoted a lot more than ones praising him. Exactly the opposite for bill Gates. Now if you look at Sla…

For me, the real question is where have all the hackers gone? Years ago, there were high quality contributors here. They all had to go somewhere. When slashdot was dying, it was clear where everyone went (HN and Digg). This time around, it's not clear at all.

The culture changed.

Tech now mostly attracts (post)collegiate millennials chasing the startup wave (don't blame them, it's where there's chance of an actual job). You only have to look at the dwindling state of open-source right now to see proof of this. Add to that the post-Snowden cynicism that killed off what was left of cyber-utopianism and the free web, and it's that pretty clear that the hackers of yore grew up and weren't replaced by the next generation.

Re: iPhones 'disabled' if Apple detects third-party repairs

#220

I'm not sure I understand what exactly happened here. Was it previously possible for non-apple engineers to replace the home button or was it not? The guardian's article seems to suggest it was: "Indeed, the phone may have been working perfectly for weeks or months since a repair or being damaged." If that is the case and it was possible to replace these sensors before, apple's narrative that the "error 53" code was…

Third-party repair shops have never been able to correctly replace the TouchID sensor.
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