Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

ifixit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 206 posts

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#71

Post by vikingerik »

myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

Let's interpret this the right way: this doesn't mean "we're not going to handle motor vehicles or medical", it means "motor vehicles and medical are out of scope for this measure." They can be handled separately, and that's reasonable given the greater safety concerns of those industries.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#72

Post by mikepurvis »

teh_klev wrote: post #64
mikepurvis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think past a certain point it's reasonable to expect that your repair operation may also involve some scrounging for the parts— for example, the classic frankenstein procedure where a laptop with a dead motherboard is married to another of the same model where the screen is cracked. I think for most electronics, past 5-10 years is pretty reasonable for this kind of thing. I mean, the GameCube came out in 2001-2002,…

> the real trick with this of course is forbidding the serial number based lockouts. Yeah, that is just downright spiteful scumbaggery.

I mean, they position it the same way— "we're protecting customers from those unscrupulous overseas ebay vendors who will sell them a half-capacity battery that they install and then forget about, later blaming the device and OEM for poor performance."

But obviously that's super suspect when the end result is still granting themselves a razors-and-blades monopoly over key replacement parts.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#73

Post by valine »

fitchjo wrote: post #59
myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired cou…

Also right to repair obviously can't apply to an implanted device. Those devices are hermetically sealed and disposed of after explant.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#74

Post by syshum »

fitchjo wrote: post #59
myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired cou…

Public Safety is never a reason to oppose Right to Repair, to the extent there are safety concerns they can be elevated with out needing to curb independent or self repair

That said, Safety is red herring that the industries use to justify their anti-consumer actions with zero actual data to back their position.

The Record are cars is clear and estiblished people self repair and use independant repair all the time to fix mechnical safety systems like breaks with no systemic issues or damage to public safety

For medical devices I have yet to see any data the independent repair causes any harm, in fact I believe the the US Government has a study that states Independent Repair of Medical Equipment is critical to maintaining the US Health System, so in the case of Health Care prohibitions on independent repair may CAUSE public health issues by taking critical equipment out of service waiting on "authorized" repair or parts

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#75

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

valine wrote: post #73
fitchjo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired cou…

Also right to repair obviously can't apply to an implanted device. Those devices are hermetically sealed and disposed of after explant.

Medtronic insulin pumps are routinely hacked by their owners:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-...

Sorry for the Google amp link.

There’s also this kind of medical device hacking (again not black hat):

https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/diy-dongle-breathes-life-int...

And open-source ventilator software:

https://hackaday.com/2020/03/30/professional-ventilator-desi...

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#76

Post by ghaff »

dopidopHN wrote: post #27
hellbannedguy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians use e-waste as the reason use for these RTR bills, but my concern is simple. I'm tired of my closet of broken devices. I don't like spending money on a new item when I was happy with the old model. I am tired of not seeing all the trouble codes on my car when it breaks down. I don't like spending money on electronics because a company won't let me fix their product, restricts information, or spare parts.…

My work want to force me to update my PERSONAL phone because apple do not support very old Iphone anymore. ( they gave me another phone for work stuff, 2FA and what not... ) this old phone works really well still. I do not conduct any work related activities on it. But they see it as a attack vector I guess?

If you don't do any work-related activities on it and you have a work phone, how/why are they requiring you to get a new personal phone?

If one does do work things on their phone and, especially if you have MDM installed, it is of course reasonable to require you to be on a current OS. And Apple is pretty good about length of support but it's not forever.

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#77

Post by JAlexoid »

fitchjo wrote: post #59
myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired cou…

These laws obligate the manufacturer to release maintenance and repair manuals, like the ones they provide to the authorized service centers; and ban all litigation related to someone providing unauthorized services, etc...

Depending on the law, it may also require more documentation, ban on total lockdown of devices and obligation to sell spare parts(but you often can buy genuine spare parts through service centers)

Right to fix also doesn't cover warranties, as you will loose your warranty when doing it yourself.

For cars or medical equipment - that's clearly political influence, masquerading as "public safety".

There's nothing stopping me from modifying my car to be very dangerous right now, without even affecting my warranty. The difference - I cannot install a third party keyfob, because the protocol is locked down.

The kind of medical equipment that hospitals require, already comes with multi-decade support. And your CPAP device can be serviced by someone without manufacturer specific training(that costs a fortune, for little practical value).

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#78

Post by joshspankit »

fitchjo wrote: post #59
myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired cou…

You’ve used a grey argument. Apple themselves have argued that one of the reasons they have to limit repair is for public safety (someone could have a battery explode if they pierce it, for example), whereas we could also argue the other side: that if someone modifies their own medical device and gets hurt because of it that they legally only hurt themselves because they had the right to make that choice.

IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual?

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#79

Post by inops »

TruthSHIFT wrote: post #65
myfavoritedog wrote: post #52

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

So, what is actually included? Isn’t everything electronic now?

It's "digital electronic product...found in medical settings", I'd imagine

Re: New York Senate passes Right to Repair bill

#80

Post by salawat »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #18
salawat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Designwise, it's about waterproofing. You have to undersize parts for a watertight fit, which can result in undesirable characteristics when deformation or dropping of a device does happen. There's also an increasing tendency to use the outer shell of a device as a heat-sink/radiator. Adhesives enable this type of design but make it darn near impossible to maintain. I'm not going to say there isn't a mustache twirler…

I'd be ok with certain smart phones as the exemption, but not electronics in computers, home electronics, cars, tractors, etc. And if it's truly about waterproofing, the companies better include water damage in their measly warranties.

Cars and tractor PCB's as far as I'm aware tap into the vehicle's electrical subsystem, therefore living off the battery. This is why if you don't drive a vehicle or use a tractor regularly, you should be keeping the battery on a maintainer. Most control units have parasitic load to retain ECU state between engine on states, and to keep vehicle security systems doing their thing. They don't usually have dedicated batteries beyond maybe a button for cmos, but again, I haven't seen that in an automotive context. That'll flatline a lead acid battery if you don't drive it or run it for a couple weeks. Guess how I know?

Now, a lot of cars increasingly DO have dedicated antennas for OTA updates, phoning home telemetry and things like that. There might be some wireless CANBUS(It's either that or CAN, I don't have it on the top of my head at the moment).

The real culprit for me is bloody tablets and laptops. No excuses. The ultra-thin form factors are nothing but regressions in maintainability to me. Smartphones I don't even grudgingly accept anymore. The material selection and designs have biased only achieving realistic resilience through off loading that facet of design to accessory manufacturers. Anybody with a "naked" handset should know that current marketing/consumer quality metrics are not aligned on durability in normal chaotic human usage at all.

Post reply on HN