British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers • Hacker News Board

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#81

Post by jaywalk » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #46

cunidev wrote: post #40

Not even mentioning the hardware bits, I have been collaborating with postmarketOS for a while now, and believe that the main thing we need to make those devices longer-lasting would be an unlockable bootloader by law. This sounds so logical (why cannot I run, by voiding the warranty, any code I want on my machine, whatever it is?), yet apparently so hard to make openly illegal, since the problem is barely acknowledg…

You can't do that because someone (probably not you) will then unlock the phone and [insert something evil here - perhaps involving the radio]

Make it require a connection to a computer and disallow the stock OS from running at all when the bootloader is unlocked. I think those two hurdles should be more than enough to satisfy security concerns.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#82

Post by jrkfkgmfmr » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #65

jrkfkgmfmr wrote: post #29

I don't want a right to repair if that means a bulky phone/laptop with terrible water sealing. Typing from a 4 year old non-repairable phone (Samsung S8). If you want a repairable phone, good, but don't take away my choice of slim water resistant phones. Get off my lawn HNers keep on complaining about big screens, non removable batteries, and lack of headphone ports, but nobody cares because people actually want thos…

It seems to me that it is a purely propaganda that these things are mutually exclusive. Like how all smartphone manufacturers had phones that were fine with removable batteries, but then suddenly that was gone from literally every brand in the world because it is so powerful for planned obsolescence

Funny how I was replacing my old phones with replaceable batteries every year, yet I am replacing the newer ones with non replaceable ones only every 3, 4 years.

Hint: it's not the non-replacable battery why people upgrade phones.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#83

Post by handrous » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #63

dodobirdlord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes they will seek out nearby open WiFi networks to join. There’s concern that in coming years with the spread of 5G availability that smart TVs may start packaging a 5G modem and connecting to cell networks, bypassing the need to be connected to a WiFi network.

Why would 5G make that be a more viable choice for the TV manufacturers than existing widespread cellular networks?

It's supposed to enable much-cheaper options for IoT applications. If the cost of the chip + the cost of low-bandwidth access drops below the profit gained by ensuring all your TVs can always reach an unfiltered network, they'll start adding them.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#84

Post by ectopod » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #63

dodobirdlord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes they will seek out nearby open WiFi networks to join. There’s concern that in coming years with the spread of 5G availability that smart TVs may start packaging a 5G modem and connecting to cell networks, bypassing the need to be connected to a WiFi network.

Why would 5G make that be a more viable choice for the TV manufacturers than existing widespread cellular networks?

As I understand it, the standard allows a single tower to offer different quality of service levels so operators can sell cheap low bandwidth connections to IoT manufacturers. TVs wouldn't have modems before because no TV manufacturer wanted to pay for a full 3G or 4G connection.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#85

Post by nerdawson » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

gryn wrote: post #70

fsflover wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Smart TVs are dumb if they aren't connected to the internet. Unless they find an open WiFi network.

or come integrated with an unremovable sim card that connects to a private Corporate APN.

There are a million things TV manufacturers could do that would be a problem but I think we should be focusing our attention on what they actually are doing.

Hardcoding DNS for example which makes Pi-hole ineffective. That is increasingly happening and should quite rightly be criticised.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#86

Post by alias_neo » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #69

alias_neo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I want, is to be able to find a repair shop locally that would repair the glass on my Oneplus 8 Pro that I smashed in the first week of owning it. It fell all of 4 inches from the arm of the sofa onto the side table, and smashed because of shitty design wrapping the glass round the edge which was totally unnecessary. Oneplus will repair it for £200 for the part PLUS tax PLUS shipping PLUS labour and I'll have to…

If you're in the UK and an expensive phone really did break just from falling 4 inches after one week, I'd be tempted to try returning it to the seller. There must be a credible argument that it's unfit for purpose if it can be broken that easily due to a design flaw. It's not as if you carelessly dropped it from a pocket at waist height onto a concrete floor or something.

I tried, it was from Amazon and neither they nor Oneplus cared how or why it happened, I tried arguing that it was ridiculous that it happened but again, deaf ears, so I just let it be.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#87

Post by handrous » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #44

axelthegerman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still takes forever to turn on, has a bunch of menus nobody needs and probably keeps bugging you to connect it to the Internet :( Takes me a minute to turn on my stupid smart TV and switch it to HDMI in

I find Sony TVs to be pretty quick. I use it them in conjunction with Apple TV, and I never have to deal with the TV itself, and it is quick to turn itself off and on via HDMI CEC. They are not the high end models either, I have a $630 one from 2016 and a $600 one from 2020.

My Roku-built-in TV is usable in maybe 3-4 seconds—when it's in sleep mode. A cold boot (say, if it's lost power for any reason) does take tens of seconds.

Meanwhile, my dumb LCD TV from ~2008 only does cold boots and comes up in maybe 2 seconds, no matter what.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#88

Post by ajkdhcb2 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

jrkfkgmfmr wrote: post #82

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that it is a purely propaganda that these things are mutually exclusive. Like how all smartphone manufacturers had phones that were fine with removable batteries, but then suddenly that was gone from literally every brand in the world because it is so powerful for planned obsolescence

Funny how I was replacing my old phones with replaceable batteries every year, yet I am replacing the newer ones with non replaceable ones only every 3, 4 years. Hint: it's not the non-replacable battery why people upgrade phones.

Opposite for me, I still hold onto my old phone with replaceable battery for when my new phone dies and i cant swap in a fresh one. Still works after 7+ years

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#89

Post by jrkfkgmfmr » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

z2 wrote: post #55

nerdawson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV manufacturers are responding, often clumsily and based on their self-interest (data collection), to what consumers want. Trying to find a dumb TV is like trying to find a car without a built in radio. You're welcome to leave it switched off. Smart TVs are dumb if they aren't connected to the internet. Some may be slow. Some may have a poor interface. I'd worry about solving for that rather than expecting manufactu…

The worry I have with these TVs is that basic functions like channel seeking or brightness controls now rely on a computer running Android. It feels like a 1000-fold increase in complexity and risk for something to hobble the TV part of the TV. Say the CPU overheats due to poor heat design after 3 years--it doesn't seem like manufacturers have a dumb mode to fall back on. Similarly, I'd be very worried if a car's rad…

The TV part of the TV requires a CPU anyway these days, because most cable signal or HDMI inputs are digital.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#90

Post by plainnoodles » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

emouryto wrote: post #16

Well, smartphones must be updated to include better spyware. And newer computers are also better locked down to allow better surveillance. So, the older ones can't break down fast enough! You don't want a repairable computer so creeps install, like, a Linux distro. You want disposable TPM machines with Windows 11 Home Edition and unstoppable "telemetry".

To be fair, TPM's are really cool from a hardware perspective. They're HSM's which can fundamentally change what threat models on your OS look like.

Unfortunately, the purpose here will be to use the fact that most users use a non-free OS to turn these TPMs against the user in order to make DRM harder to break.