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Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

arstechnica.com

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Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#141

Post by rumanator »

perl4ever wrote: post #137
manfredo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. One is intentionally, secretly, and illegally introducing flaws to defraud an employer. The other is managing tradeoffs based on technical constraints.

I don't think that planned obsolescence is unintentional. If it's not completely secret , it's not admitted to either, and it's not illegal because it's not illegal. Is it particularly that you think that there isn't a continuum from legal actions to illegal actions? Isn't it possible and common that two instances of similar actions can be on the right and wrong sides of the law?

> it's not completely secret, it's not admitted to either, and it's not illegal because it's not illegal.

No, your assertion is quite wrong. All engineered products have service lives, because they all have failure modes that are taken into account in the design process. If a phone's failure mode consists of the battery dying the the battery will be designed to ensure it will likely work well for a minimum of x time following a typical usage pattern. Likewise an airplane failure mode is the fuseage breaking off due to fatigue, thus it is designed to be flown X times (takeoff/landing counts, number of hours in flight) taking onto account the likelihood of cracks forming and propagating. Targeting a certain service life in a design does not mean there is mischief in play. It only means engineering.

Thus obviously planting time bombs has absolutely nothing to do with engineering a product.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#142

Post by rumanator »

ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #103
mgleason_3 wrote: post #37

Wow, does 6-months in jail seem a little severe? How does one even get someone prosecuted for this crime? We hired a licensed plumber on 2 occasions - to install a sink and later a shower. We just had a different plumber out because the sink was plugged up. He pointed out that the prior plumber had installed the sanitary-t upside down basically guarantying it would eventually become clogged. We also had him look at t…

No he shouldn't. We need to stop sending people to jail for all but the most heinous of crimes. He should be ordered to pay you back twice for what it cost to install and repair.

It sounds like you're confusing criminal liability with civil liability.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#143

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

manfredo wrote: post #138
perl4ever wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that planned obsolescence is unintentional. If it's not completely secret , it's not admitted to either, and it's not illegal because it's not illegal. Is it particularly that you think that there isn't a continuum from legal actions to illegal actions? Isn't it possible and common that two instances of similar actions can be on the right and wrong sides of the law?

Planned obsolescence is not at all unintentional, it is highly deliberate. Every product needs to plan for it's intended lifespan, from phones to nuclear reactors. Planned obsolescence and what this contractor did are not on any sort of continuum. This contractor was not making a trade-off, he deliberately sabotaged his work. This is not on any sort of continuum with optimizing phone's battery life for a certain numb…

I agree with you to the extent that companies design their products to become obsolete in a way that actually considers all of the trade-offs in a way that makes optimal use of the resource at hand and does not intentionally shorten the lifespan of its products in an attempt to boost sales at the expense of generating additional waste and reducing the value of the finished product. Once you start doing that, you ARE being intentionally destructive.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#144

Post by rustybolt »

MertsA wrote: post #106
rustybolt wrote: post #22

Shows the importance of code reviews. I wonder why this is illegal but it's legal for hardware to deny service or even break stuff when they detect you're using something they don't like (I'm referring to printers, but I also remember a case where a microcontroller would try to brick something when it detected a counterfeit cable).

>I also remember a case where a microcontroller would try to brick something when it detected a counterfeit cable You might be thinking of the big FTDI scandal where they published a driver update for their chips that would attempt to detect a counterfeit FTDI chip and if it found one it would reconfigure the counterfeit chip with a bogus VID and PID thus rendering it essentially bricked. Bricking the cables using co…

Yes, I was thinking of FTDI :)

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#146

Post by ufmace »

perl4ever wrote: post #131
ufmace wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the specifically designed logic to fail at a certain date is the reason. If stuff breaks because of a screwup, or at least something that people can be convinced is a routine screwup, that's one thing. Actually creating a new module to make something fail is something else. It's like if the plumber designed, built, and installed a device specifically to make your plumbing leak or clog or something at a speci…

"It's like if the plumber designed, built, and installed a device specifically to make your plumbing leak or clog or something at a specific point in the future, instead of just installing a normal and expected device incorrectly." Intent is what matters. The distinction you're describing just affects whether it's deniable.

Well yeah. Doing something that makes it easy to prove that your intent was malicious does tend to change things a bit.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#147

Post by nerdponx »

rumanator wrote: post #141
perl4ever wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that planned obsolescence is unintentional. If it's not completely secret , it's not admitted to either, and it's not illegal because it's not illegal. Is it particularly that you think that there isn't a continuum from legal actions to illegal actions? Isn't it possible and common that two instances of similar actions can be on the right and wrong sides of the law?

> it's not completely secret, it's not admitted to either, and it's not illegal because it's not illegal. No, your assertion is quite wrong. All engineered products have service lives, because they all have failure modes that are taken into account in the design process. If a phone's failure mode consists of the battery dying the the battery will be designed to ensure it will likely work well for a minimum of x time…

You're talking about 2 different things. The implication with "planned obsolecence" here is that the device becomes nonfunctional or less-functional because the manufacturer simply designed it to fail after a while. See for example the Phoebus Cartel, who actually fined manufacturers who made lightbulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#148

Post by nerdponx »

rumanator wrote: post #142
ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he shouldn't. We need to stop sending people to jail for all but the most heinous of crimes. He should be ordered to pay you back twice for what it cost to install and repair.

It sounds like you're confusing criminal liability with civil liability.

Does it matter? Practically, what seems more just to you: jail time, or remuneration with additional penalties?

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#149

Post by ropiwqefjnpoa »

rumanator wrote: post #142
ropiwqefjnpoa wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he shouldn't. We need to stop sending people to jail for all but the most heinous of crimes. He should be ordered to pay you back twice for what it cost to install and repair.

It sounds like you're confusing criminal liability with civil liability.

No, I just don't think jails solve the problems besides costing taxpayer money. Maybe more things should be considered civil.

Re: Contractor admits planting logic bombs in his software

#150

Post by rumanator »

nerdponx wrote: post #147
rumanator wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not completely secret, it's not admitted to either, and it's not illegal because it's not illegal. No, your assertion is quite wrong. All engineered products have service lives, because they all have failure modes that are taken into account in the design process. If a phone's failure mode consists of the battery dying the the battery will be designed to ensure it will likely work well for a minimum of x time…

You're talking about 2 different things. The implication with "planned obsolecence" here is that the device becomes nonfunctional or less-functional because the manufacturer simply designed it to fail after a while. See for example the Phoebus Cartel, who actually fined manufacturers who made lightbulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours.

> because the manufacturer simply designed it to fail after a while.

You're missing the whole point. Everything fails after a while. Everything. It's the engineer's job to ensure that it fails only after X amount of use, which can be expressed in time of normal usage. There are no time bombs, only the fact that designers picked a small service life.

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