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

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#221

Post by alerighi » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:40 PM UTC

R0b0t1 wrote: post #210

alerighi wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The radio firmware is something that is at another level. Even if you end up unlocking the bootloader, that doesn't give you access to the radio firmware, that is proprietary and needs to be signed, and cannot be modified. It's basically seen by the OS as a modem to which they talk trough AT commands (yes, they are still in use), the same thing that you would obtain by plugging in an USB modem to a normal PC. For Wi-…

This is not always true. There are chips where the radio DSP cores have their program loaded into main memory and it's unsigned. You talk to them with mutexes and shared memory pages. There is also no legal basis for requiring radio controllers to have signature enforced firmware loading. He's being sarcastic. It's think of the children but with electronics and PII.

I don't think that is the case of any smartphone SOC. Even for questions about power management you tend to implement radio function with a dedicated hardware, so that for example the CPU can go to sleep and be waked up when a phone call arrives (for examaple). It would be too expensive to have the main CPU implement the 4G radio in software, they don't do so, it would also require precise timing that a non real time OS cannot provide.

Typically you have the modem that has its own microcontroller inside that runs its own firmware, that is encrypted. On Android phones you have a partition for the radio firmware, that you should really never touch (since doing so you can brick your device). Of course there will be a shared memory area between the radio and the main CPU to talk, but that is only for communication, then the radio microcontroller has its own RAM to implements its functions.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#222

Post by crazygringo » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #219

crazygringo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia says the S6 did not have a user-replaceable battery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S6#Battery In any case, it's apples-to-oranges and doesn't mean anything. Cell phones can have functionality added that takes up the difference in thickness -- e.g. keeping the phone the same thickness instead of it getting even thicker . But main point is, they're thinner basically by definition. There are nec…

Oh yeah seems I saw an incorrect site, S5 was the last one with removable battery. Of course there are some tradeoffs but it just doesn't seem so significant that EVERY brand refuses to offer even one model with a removable battery. There are definitely some people that want it despite the tradeoffs. As other commenters said, people have huge phones now and use cases. So I think manufacturers have a special interest…

I don't think it has anything to do with planned obsolescence.

I've had an iPhone battery replaced 3 times now. It's not a big deal to have the store do it for me, nor is it that expensive.

The bigger use case for swappable batteries is to have a spare, but these days people just carry an external battery pack with them that's the capacity they need, which is far more flexible (hold 10 full charges if you need, not just 1!) as well as not tied to any particular model.

So I just don't see any special interest -- it's just giving people the thinness they want.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#223

Post by cameronh90 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #108

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…

> TV manufacturers are responding, often clumsily and based on their self-interest (data collection), to what consumers want. No, they're not. They're collaborating to eliminate choice. The vast majority of the market being taken by smart TVs is a theoretical result of the market. The fact that no manufacturers slip in to clean up the 5% of the market who are willing to pay a slight premium not to have a smart TV is…

Literally everyone I know except for me uses and enjoys their smart TV features. Many people I know are programmers or other technical people.

I think you may be over-estimating how typical you are.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#224

Post by thescriptkiddie » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:53 PM UTC

mmis1000 wrote: post #94

bluGill wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Android phones triggers wipe on unlock. So use unlock bootloader to stole data simply don't work. Besides that, some phone will add a unremovble giant red exclamation mark on boot screen to notate the phone being unlocked to warn you `the phone is already unlocked, don't trust it unless it is done by you.`

Would be nice if they provided a way to backup your phone before unlocking the bootloader, or at least put a warning that your phone is about to be wiped. I have personally lost data because of this, and there really is no way to backup an android device without having unlocked the bootloader first.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#225

Post by bluescrn » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

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…

User-replaceable batteries by law might be a better first step. Heck, maybe even some standard sizes for mobile device batteries (and while we're at it, also EV batteries... some sort of standard 'battery module' used by most/all vehicles would hugely help reuse/repair/recycling/upgrades).

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#226

Post by thescriptkiddie » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

mnouquet wrote: post #206

swayvil wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes. The oligarchs over here look at China and think, "That's a pretty good system".

It is actually a pretty good system for the CCP "politburo".

Upwards of 90% of the population of China are CCP members.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#227

Post by als0 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

milesvp wrote: post #34

black_puppydog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear god that's a stretch of the word "researcher" if ever I've seen one. Yes, that article would take some "research" (as in, finding stuff) but nope, the person writing it wouldn't be a "researcher" for it. They'd be a journalist. At 9to5 or such probably.

I’m not sure it is. What verb does someone do when they collect and collate data about products at consumer reports, tom’s hardware, or even the low bar of linus tech tips? I’d say while the primary role may be journalist at most of these types of orgs, there is definitely a role for people who focus on the research side of things, and if you’re actively running experiments and benchmarks, you are definitely moving o…

What you describe sounds like the role of an analyst e.g. like the famous Patrick Moorhead

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#228

Post by roody15 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:58 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #146

roody15 wrote: post #74

Building a surveillance state. Want direct data devices locked down and proprietary (TPM and apple T2). Want devices directly tied to the user. Want to prevent “hacks” that detect snooping or other low level background “proprietary” services that may be running. My two cents. We are rushing to emulate china.

Oh yes. The oligarchs over here look at China and think, "That's a pretty good system".

Kind of. They look at China and see a new super power emerging rapidly. Attempting to copy what has worked in china ASAP.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#229

Post by okennedy » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:00 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #188

als0 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bus between the CPU and the TPM is exposed, so there are plenty of physical attacks that you can do, assuming a certain level of skill and tools.

Right, for configurations where the tpm automatically releases keys, they can be sniffed. It can be configured to only release it's secret once a correct password is given. It also rate limits I believe.

It's been a while since I looked at the technology, but the basic premise is very simple. The TPM basically keeps around a stack of hashes. The BIOS pushes a hash of the bootloader onto the stack. The bootloader pushes a hash of the kernel onto the stack. Then there's a handful of ring 0 cpu instructions for pushing and popping all but the bottom-most entries of the stack that allow the kernel to do whatever it wants, including pushing hashes of application code, hashes of passwords (as in your example), or opening up a similar ability to push/pop upper levels of the stack to the application.

The only check the TPM does when deciding whether to allow the key in one of its registers to be used is whether the stack is in a particular configuration. The TPM doesn't (and in fact can't) directly require passwords (since it has no direct line of communication to the user). However, the BIOS, bootloader, kernel, etc... can all be configured to mix user-provided information like a password into the hash they push into the TPM.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#230

Post by bdamm » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 9:02 PM UTC

apk17 wrote: post #116

jrkfkgmfmr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I hope very much that that CPU isn't running android, though. I can't clock it, but our current TV seems to take longer to, well, turn on, than the tube tellys of yore.

The TV of my childhood took so long to warm up, you'd be standing there for at least 5 seconds wondering if it had turned on at all before seeing something. Usually it was the click of a relay and the hum of a capacitor soaking up a field that was the real clue.