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British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

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Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#361

Post by Silhouette »

netr0ute wrote: post #356
Silhouette wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're new here, so I will gently point out that this isn't Reddit and it certainly isn't Slashdot. Asking everyone for proof of everything or implying that they are shilling is boring and unconstructive. I've been on HN for more than a decade. You can check my comment history to see that I contribute sensibly. I have no reason to make anything about this up, but I'm obviously not going to doxx myself by providing th…

I'm just interested in substantial discussion by wanting to know what exactly happened with modification of some radio device.

OK. You might like to consider adopting a less confrontational tone when commenting on HN in that case, as it generally doesn't go down well here.

The answer to your question is that I once spent some time working with a network operator and on a day when I happened to be around their operations centre there was an active incident like this.

If memory serves, it turned out that the rogue device was a relatively new model that a customer had bought and was trying to use normally but something wasn't reliably operating within spec. That model would have had to pass certification to be permitted on the network but apparently this specific unit had drifted and as a result it was dumping bad data all over a control channel that was in use across a large geographical area, causing severe disruption to connectivity for everyone.

At that time some safety-critical services were using this network for communications in the field so this kind of outage was a very big deal. There were multiple vehicles with detection equipment on the road, systematically trying to narrow down the source of the interference, but of course they had trouble coordinating with the operations centre themselves because of the same disruption. I don't know everything that was going on, but I did learn that in my country there is a legal power to gain access to premises in this kind of situation and it sounded like the required formalities and officials were being arranged just in case.

As I recall, it took most of an afternoon to track down the source of the interference and get it switched off. In the end it was mostly dumb luck that it was found. I didn't quite follow what happened but possibly a detection vehicle that was out of contact with the operations centre had decided to patrol in its area until it could find another way to call in and while it was doing that it drove right past the building where the rogue unit was located and its detection equipment lit up like a Christmas tree.

The customer was entirely innocent and had no idea it was their unit causing all the trouble nor any reason they should have known. I don't know exactly what happened to that model, the manufacturer or the certification process it had managed to pass despite the defect. For sure there were serious repercussions.

This all happened some time ago and the protocols and networks have since changed but the physics hasn't. That's why I have such strong views about regulation and only allowing people who know what they're doing to have full control over transmission equipment. As the above incident shows, things can still go badly wrong even without that. If there had been a major incident requiring coordination between first responders in the field during that downtime it could have been disastrous. Minimising the risk of similar failures due to carelessness by someone who didn't fully understand their equipment and the systems and protocols they were working with just seems like common sense to me.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#362

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

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…

Thank you for your work.

I absolutely agree with you on bootloader. I wanted to try PostmarketOS and found several Moto G4 play (well supported by pmOS) in the used market but alas Motorola has arbitrarily removed unlock codes for older devices from their website! Since Motorola was giving unlock codes by revoking warranty officially, there were no attempts to unlock it elsewhere and so all older Motorola phones which haven't been unlocked earlier are useless for any aftermarket use.

As for this law,

Considering repairability is the easiest and most accessible way to address e-waste and that phones, computers are a major contributor, There doesn't seem to be a rational explanation behind their exclusion other than briefcases exchanged courtesy of Trillion dollar fruit company.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#363

Post by heavyset_go »

danuker wrote: post #340
dan-robertson wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman has quite a particular view on security, e.g. [1]. I think it is important to understand where he’s coming from. I think the last 30 years have shown that, in some sense, even competent computer users can’t really be trusted to keep their systems secure. I’m not saying that the only solution is to have a totally locked down system, but I’m also not saying that having an HSM is a bad thing. I understand that…

Oh, can the best-in-business CPU manufacturers be trusted to keep their systems secure? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerabilit... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerabili... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Securi... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Platform_Security_Processo...

There have been exploits for ARM's TrustZone implementations, as well.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#364

Post by shkkmo »

cwkoss wrote: post #283
shkkmo wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there's not much point having the right to repair if products are designed to be non-repairable and spare parts are unavailable. There is some nuance you are missing here. Mandating some design decisions, such as "user replaceable batteries" limits the products that make be made and sold and unfairly adversely affects users with different priorities (such as water proofness, durability or bulk.) However, there…

off topic: interesting that your last sentence has 4 off-by-one-to-the-left (on qwerty) typos on final letters of the words I think these were just typos, but my initial assumption was that a cipher was embedded in this text for a minute.

Hah, nope. Just fat thumbs and poor proofreading.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#365

Post by aaronfitz »

Silhouette wrote: post #361
netr0ute wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just interested in substantial discussion by wanting to know what exactly happened with modification of some radio device.

OK. You might like to consider adopting a less confrontational tone when commenting on HN in that case, as it generally doesn't go down well here. The answer to your question is that I once spent some time working with a network operator and on a day when I happened to be around their operations centre there was an active incident like this. If memory serves, it turned out that the rogue device was a relatively new m…

It sounds like the device was defective, not modified. This is a poor example for your assertion.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#366

Post by netr0ute »

Silhouette wrote: post #361
netr0ute wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just interested in substantial discussion by wanting to know what exactly happened with modification of some radio device.

OK. You might like to consider adopting a less confrontational tone when commenting on HN in that case, as it generally doesn't go down well here. The answer to your question is that I once spent some time working with a network operator and on a day when I happened to be around their operations centre there was an active incident like this. If memory serves, it turned out that the rogue device was a relatively new m…

That's not intentional modification, just bad quality control from the manufacturer.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#367

Post by MrStonedOne »

greyhair wrote: post #353
MrStonedOne wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User-replaceable battery means that entire product categories like wireless earbuds e.g. Airpods cannot exist. Acceptable, why turn an entire device into ewaste for a single component dying, especially one with a known limited service life, like a battery. 10 year warranties minimum on all electronics. Regardless of size and fragility. Any electronic device that can't last 10 years in service is unnecessarily contr…

So basically, drive the cost of all products up to the point that only rich people can afford them, and disenfranchise an entire slice of the population. If you want to have the ability to purchase ten year warrantied devices, that is a separate issue. And no one, no one, is going to 'reset' your ten year warranty at the time of repair/replacement. Never going to happen.

Wealth inequality existing is not a valid reason to pollute the earth with disposable products, and both issues can be tackled simultaneously.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#368

Post by Silhouette »

aaronfitz wrote: post #365
Silhouette wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. You might like to consider adopting a less confrontational tone when commenting on HN in that case, as it generally doesn't go down well here. The answer to your question is that I once spent some time working with a network operator and on a day when I happened to be around their operations centre there was an active incident like this. If memory serves, it turned out that the rogue device was a relatively new m…

It sounds like the device was defective, not modified. This is a poor example for your assertion.

Which assertion is that? My contention since my very first comment has always been that messing around with radio transmission when you don't know what you're doing is dangerous. My anecdote was an illustration of what actually happened when incorrect transmission broke a system for real, how dangerous the situation became, and how difficult it was to fix.

Maybe you disagree but I think the fact that the cause of the incorrect transmission was a hardware fault in that particular anecdote is relevant only if we don't think a user with the ability to freely modify firmware as we were discussing could cause exactly the same effect either negligently or maliciously. Otherwise, the argument being made is merely that not many people actually modify firmware in dangerous ways, in which case I refer you to the nuclear analogy in my original comment.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#369

Post by Silhouette »

netr0ute wrote: post #366
Silhouette wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. You might like to consider adopting a less confrontational tone when commenting on HN in that case, as it generally doesn't go down well here. The answer to your question is that I once spent some time working with a network operator and on a day when I happened to be around their operations centre there was an active incident like this. If memory serves, it turned out that the rogue device was a relatively new m…

That's not intentional modification, just bad quality control from the manufacturer.

The point is that exactly the same outcome could be caused by intentional modification. As I said in my reply to bluGill earlier, the goal is not to eliminate all risk of interference, but to reduce the risk as much as reasonably possible by controlling the potential sources where you can. Given that interference potentially causes catastrophic loss of life in this scenario, not to mention inconvenience to huge numbers of people, that seems like a good idea.

Put another way, you're not trying to prevent people who know what they're doing and follow robust processes from developing radio transmitters, even though in extreme cases such as my anecdote that might still not be enough to prevent a system failure. Nor can you realistically stop a sufficiently resourceful adversary from using radio interference as a form of attack. What you can do is stop an enthusiastic newbie who read an article about radio once from accidentally causing people to die because their experiment meant emergency responders at an incident down the street couldn't talk to each other except face to face.

Re: British right to repair law excludes smartphones and computers

#370

Post by pbhjpbhj »

alias_neo wrote: post #93
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME washing machines, dishwashers, washer-dryers all have relatively good repairability and good parts availability already (fridges too, though I've less experience of that). You even see them being scored on repairability or repair costs. Have they addressed a problem that is largely absent? It's hard to choose to repair when a secondhand replacement is as cheap though. Replaced a plastic pipe, and a hose on my dis…

I live in a London new-build flat. Mine and several of my neighbours washing machines gave out at the same time, all in the same month, all roughly 3 years in. These came with the flats of course. I would repair it, but having watched a YouTube video on how it's done, the cost in tools, parts and effort (it's a full disassembly) to make the relatively simple repair I cannot justify over buying a better model of my ch…

I'm not sure how it works with something someone else bought, but the Consumer Rights Act might cover this situation, especially if it's a manufacturing fault. Washing machines would be reasonably expected to last at least 10 years, so you'd be entitled to a free repair, a like-for-like replacement or a 70% refund. Maybe soak to Which? or Citizens Advice (or a lawyer of you have one).
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