
Five States Are Considering Bills to Legalize the 'Right to Repair' Electronics - walterbell
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/five-states-are-considering-bills-to-legalize-the-right-to-repair-electronics#
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throwaway420
I don't see how this kind of state legislation solves any issue.

In the example given...Apple has never authorized a company to repair iPhones,
but there are literally hundreds of companies out there who do it
anyway...they just can't advertise that they're certified by Apple. The big
problem seems to be the Department of Homeland Security raiding small local
businesses and harassing them over "counterfeit parts". First of all, in most
cases you're just dealing with typical small circuit boards and pieces of
aluminum or glass or plastic. Second of all...why is this a matter for the
DHS? Aren't they people who should be looking for bombs and things and dealing
with actual important stuff?

Now, this law might make some supply of official parts available, so that's
kind of positive, but there's an issue with that. Does that mean that every
repair company can now only buy parts from Apple or risk a raid? This limits
potential suppliers of commodity parts from many to just 1 and could jack up
prices. The end result is that the consumer gets a piece of "Official Apple
Glass" or "Official Apple Circuitboard" and pays much more for the privilege.
As a consumer, I don't see a significant benefit to that.

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jws
_why is this a matter for the DHS?_

The DHS was created by aggregating 22 existing agencies. Those agencies are
still responsible for their traditional functions.

The US Customs and Border Inspections is one such agency, it enforces laws
against counterfeit goods and violations of US companies intellectual property
rights.

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joshlittle
While this could turn out to be a logistics nightmare, I think this could be
absolutely wonderful for Out-Of-Warranty users. There's a desire for people to
have access to replacement parts but, for example, Apple doesn't sell their
service inventory.

Some repairs (such as iMacs) do require a substantial amount of care. Even
after 8.5 years of Mac repairs I still found myself running into issues - from
"fat fingering" connectors, to defective Logic boards that still pass all
hardware diagnostics sent to us - some of this stuff is not for the faint of
heart. Imagine using a plastic "pizza cutter" to cut off the VHB tape that
holds the incredibly fragile $800 display of an iMac, and then remembering to
connect the display back up before you put new tape on during reassembly.

My guess is Apple fought the NY bill because they know how these machines are
designed. There's a reason they charge a flat rate of $39 for Labor, but then
only when a hardware repair is actually completed.

On the other hand, the charge to backup your data is $99 for a drag/drop or a
time machine backup - something you should do yourself. :-)

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mmebane
I sincerely hope this succeeds, and is ultimately extended to recognize
software as being just another part in a modern device. Especially once a
manufacturer stops supporting a device with software updates, they should have
no right to prevent users from fixing defects in those devices on their own.

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Avshalom
Would you believe that simply loading a program into RAM with the _intent_ to
fix is copyright infringement?

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noobermin
This seems like the sort of thing FOSS advocates should lobby for (hopefully
FSF is looking at this).

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tlow
I think that this might be related to the "patent exhaustion" argument being
put forth also by the EFF towards Lexmark's case against a cartridge refilling
company. Essentially the idea of patent exhaustion is that a product, once
sold, has paid it's patent holder for their invention and so there aren't any
further rights or protections to be conferred. With that argument, the EFF
claims that "Impressions v Lexmark" was incorrectly ruled by a lower court in
favor of Lexmark.[1] [1] Impressions bought quantities of used Lexmark
cartridges, refilled them and resold them.

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pdimitar
I fail to see how "last-minute lobbying from groups backed by Apple and
others" won't stop the bill this time around again. And next year. And to
2050, for example.

Fact of the matter is, lobbying is actually legal, which is a whole different
problem from which many others stem -- including the one discussed in the
article.

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axoltl
I'm curious to see how this turns out, especially considering things like
TouchID which is paired to the Secure Enclave. Allowing anyone to perform that
pairing fundamentally undermines their security model.

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kevin_thibedeau
There's no reason for the physical sensor to be combined with the
key/credential storage other than to intentionally interfere with third party
replacement parts.

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schoen
Apple claimed to have a security reason that was in the interest of the user
and not only anticompetitive; does someone have a link to an article
explaining this? I remember reading about it at the time.

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manicdee
Here is one article I found, the basic claim is that the Touch ID sensor is
(cryptographically?) paired to the secure enclave and replacing it requires
Apple magic sauce to revslidste the sensor/enclave pairing.

[https://9to5mac.com/2016/02/05/error-53-iphone-6/](https://9to5mac.com/2016/02/05/error-53-iphone-6/)

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schoen
Thanks for the reference!

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voltagex_
FTA, repair.org is the lobby/advocacy group behind this - it's a wonderful
thing and I hope Australia looks at something similar soon.

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LordWinstanley
If any countries anywhere in the rest of the world had any balls whatsoever,
'right to repair' laws would have been put in place _before_ companies like
Apple were allowed to enter those markets. This is the kind of consumer rights
issue you'd expect organisations like the EU to take a stand on (cf. mobile
roaming charges). But everyone's so frightened of upsetting the likes of
Apple, this is allowed to continue.

I single out Apple in particular as they actively go out of their way to make
it as difficult as possible for anyone outside of Apple to undertake repairs:
Schematics are not released and have to be sourced from unauthorised channels,
many of which charge ridiculous amounts for dodgy copies, likewise with
Boardview files. Also, many components on Apple boards have no markings at
all, making it almost impossible to identify them, without reference to one of
the 'top secret' schematics.

The whole setup stinks.

Thank god for free resources like:

[http://www.apple-schematic.se](http://www.apple-schematic.se)

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pdimitar
Situations like this one make me want to travel back in time and see for
myself the first ever meetings where it was decided that people shouldn't have
a right to repair the tech they bought.

I'm really curious on when did that happen for the first time ever?

