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The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#201

Post by lotu »

sokoloff wrote: post #196
gherkin0 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, you handle such things via deterrence. When an accident happens, the car's software can be dumped (in some cases), and criminal/civil liability can be assessed based on the results. The risk of heavy fines or jail will probably keep most people from hacking their self-driving cars to be more aggressive.

Because that threat today keeps people from modifying their cars by cutting springs, installing lift kits, putting on ridiculous wheel/tire packages, and changing to poorly "engineered" HID retrofit lighting kits. I see unsafe modified cars almost every week right now.

Realistically, the simple fact that it will be hard to modify in fashion that doesn't break the car completely is a huge deterrent. Of course it is possible for a single individual or small group to hack the software and then distribute it like consoles hacking

The economic case for hacking them is much different, the hacker risks prenablently bricking their device, in fact it might be nessacary to destroy a couple to learn about them. It is going to be harder to do this to a $20,000 device you rely on to go to work/school. Secondly the varsity of car models is going to dwarf the number of console versions. These two factor combine to make the hacking much more expensive and riskier.

It feels more prudent to wait and see if this becomes a problem and from that poin look at how/if to solve it. After all if a hack modifies a car's software to dive faster, accelerate faster, or something similar. You can do as the OP suggested and set up cammeras to record traffic and see who is driving a car that behaves out of spec and go arrest them.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#202

Post by antisthenes »

CaptSpify wrote: post #77

I used to do after-market repair medical equipment (MRI's, CT's, X-Ray, etc). One of the biggest frustrations was: $manufacturer wants $5000 to repair a CT. We'd charge $1000. We'd repair the CT, and it would pass all the built-in diagnostic tests. But then when the customer went to make a scan, a pop-up would appear saying "Unauthorized Repair! Call $manufacturer to fix!". $manufacturer repair tech would come in, pl…

Yeah, if you need an example of why the health care costs in the US are fucked up, look no further than this post.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#203

Post by lotu »

Frondo wrote: post #184
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for the…

"In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for their car to always favor the people in the car no matter what?" Wait a sec....isn't this what human drivers do already, favor their own vehicles?

Realistically no. Human drivers react based on instict often on a subconscious level where they don't have time to think about all the possible outcomes.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#204

Post by lotu »

CaptSpify wrote: post #116
FiatLuxDave wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you do an after-market repair on a medical device, and a patient dies as a result of poor device performance, who does the FDA usually come after, you or the device manufacturer? I suspect the liability for medical device mess-ups is at least partially responsible for that situation. The tech who didn't run any diagnostics would be in serious shit if a patient died after he did nothing aside from typing in the…

To be honest, I'm not sure. I was a level-of-separation away, so I never really had to worry about it personally. I'd imagine both will end up in the lawsuit, at least partially. FWIW, we did keep updated records on all the work that was done on the machine, for this exact reason. We also had to have records of passed diagnostics.

I would also have to imagine that is is extremely difficult to fix an MRI such it produce incorrect scan results with being obviously broken.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#205

Post by Silhouette »

stale2002 wrote: post #122
patrickmay wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as cars belong to individuals they have the responsibility to favor the interests of those individuals as far as law permits. Well put. I would not buy a car that wasn't designed to protect its occupants first and foremost. My family is more important to me than abstract, unlikely to occur ethical dilemmas. Having that choice programmed in actually makes it easier for self-driving cars to predict the behavi…

Have you even been in a Taxi? Or a bus? Or any situation where someone who is not you is driving the car? You have put your life into their hands when you do this. No matter what algorithm the self driving car is running, it is going to be 100 times safer than you driving the car. Yes, YOU are a worse driver than a self driving car, NO MATTER what "ethics algorithm" it is running, because any of the ones that could b…

No matter what algorithm the self driving car is running, it is going to be 100 times safer than you driving the car.

And yet, I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles over many years under all kinds of road conditions without ever having an accident. Statistically my record is better than many, but it's hardly a unique achievement among experienced drivers who are careful.

Tesla's Autopilot probably has done more than 100x the miles I have by now, but it's also had several accidents, some of them fatal. As I understand it, it has also only been used on highways, which are statistically much safer and have much less challenging driving conditions than places like winding rural roads or inner city residential areas.

As another example, Google's self-driving cars have apparently done less than 10x the driving miles I have, but under somewhat more challenging conditions than highways. They too have had accidents, and they too reportedly still can't cope with anything close to truly realistic driving conditions on their own.

So no, it appears that the state of the art in self-driving technology today is not 100x safer than me driving a car. If anything, it's looking considerably more dangerous. Of course there is potential there -- no matter how skillful and careful I am, I still only have two eyes and human reaction times -- but automated driving is still a long way from outperforming good human judgement as things stand today.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#206

Post by CaptSpify »

lotu wrote: post #204
CaptSpify wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I'm not sure. I was a level-of-separation away, so I never really had to worry about it personally. I'd imagine both will end up in the lawsuit, at least partially. FWIW, we did keep updated records on all the work that was done on the machine, for this exact reason. We also had to have records of passed diagnostics.

I would also have to imagine that is is extremely difficult to fix an MRI such it produce incorrect scan results with being obviously broken.

Right. The tests they have are pretty "by the book". Readings and diagnostics have to be pretty tight.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#207

Post by wfo »

twblalock wrote: post #179
ksk wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So first, you produce an example that literally has nothing to do with repair. Then your point about the gun is even more absurd. Depriving somebody else of their right to life has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about here. Sorry, you will have to excuse me as I have better things to do and do not wish to engage you further.

You are very good at missing the point. Those examples demonstrate that ownership does not automatically give one the right to do whatever they want with the things they own. Therefore, one cannot assume that any right, including one to repair the things you own, is in the category of rights automatically granted by ownership. After all, not even making copies is in that category. Why would repair be?

Shooting someone is not "doing whatever you want with the things you own". Neither is copying a book. Both require that you commit an unrelated crime -- one by creating an entirely new object which violates the law, the other by committing assault with this object as you could with any other.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#208

Post by wfo »

twblalock wrote: post #162
ryandrake wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "right" to repair one's own stuff is as made-up as the "right" to encumber products with repair-resistant features. This is not a question of what's etched into stone tablets somewhere, it's a question of what we value as society. When what people want to do conflicts with what companies want people to do, who gets to win? The simplistic answer is to just throw your hands up and "let the market decide." But the m…

All rights are manmade. Rights are social constructs. I'm not looking for stone tablets anywhere. But simply saying that a right exists does not make it so. If that is all it takes, please excuse me for a moment while I go declare, and then exercise, my right to rob a bank. Like any social construct, a right exists when it is broadly accepted as a fact and is operational within society. It helps if you make it a law,…

For the entire history of the United States, it has been the case that when you buy a product, you may repair it. You may disassemble it. You may do as you like with devices that you purchase. It was never illegal to take apart a musket. It was never illegal to fix a broken wheel on a carriage. It was never illegal to replace a piece of the electronics on a radio with a new piece. But now it is. What is "broadly accepted as fact" is that if you purchase an item, it belongs to you, and you may take it apart, fix it, modify it, as you like. It is fundamentally "weird" and new to people (and the only people aware of these laws are the ones unlucky enough to run up against them), the notion that you can simultaneously own an item and be locked in a cage for taking it apart. It disassembles and redefines ownership in a fundamental way, and ownership is a fundamental concept in our society and has been for hundreds of years. We should not let companies redefine it for their profit overnight without our notice or a fight.

That's what this fight is.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#209

Post by The_Hoff »

blastrat wrote: post #155
The_Hoff wrote: post #11

For me, Apple devices are always what come to mind when thinking about ability to repair and modify. I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily. Today however, when something as trivial as a computer memory upgrade is restricted, and the Genius Bar is overloaded with iPhone screen repairs, I fi…

Even when others cared and decried the walled gardens... ... I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily ... ...then when I started to need to care, there were no brands left that cared for me.

Haha, thank you for this :')

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#210

Post by whyenot »

waterphone wrote: post #34
mikeash wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can replace your battery, it just takes a bit of time and effort. Ditto the screen. RAM is tough because it's soldered in, but at least they have a good excuse for making the batteries and RAM that way: they want to make their stuff smaller. Right to Repair did show up pretty loudly with Apple devices when the Error 53 controversy happened, where people's phones would refuse to boot after having the home button r…

iPhones are reasonably easy to repair some of the major components still, but Apple laptops have been getting worse in that regard, with batteries glued in and unserviceable, etc.

Right or wrong, if consumers have the choice between a thinner, lighter laptop with better battery life and a more clunky laptop that is easier to repair, most appear to be choosing the former over the latter.
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