• penquin@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        That’s the first one that came to mind. They started every shitty trend in the industry

          • penquin@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Nah, fuck those mother fuckers. As a former farmer myself, I can tell you that fixing my own shit was an almost life or death situation. I can’t just leave my crops without my machines more than a day. Shit needs to work right away. I used to grow rice and it needed constant flow of cold river water for 6 months straight up. I had two diesel water pumps on the river, one is running 24/7 and the other is back up in case the other broke. If that shit broke and I waited for a day or two without giving the rice cold water, it all dies. Completely dies

            • theneverfox@pawb.social
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              3 months ago

              And what’s the alternative? You learn to maintain your own equipment and take operation of your powerful and dangerous tools into your own hands, like you do when operating it? You find a local mechanic, like you would with a car, plane, or boat? You keep using the same equipment without paying the manufacturer more until it deteriorates too much to repair?

              That’s insane. There’s not even a subscription involved, it’s deranged. Forget your rice, the shareholders need bigger made up numbers!

          • supamanc@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Yep, according to the article, they have a strong enough lobby bribe machine to win exemption.

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          I feel like printers started it. Everyone I had used to setup came with some insane cable. Not to mention the actual cartridge

        • Leviathan@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It’s the legacy that stinky piece of shit Steve Jobs left behind. That, skirting foreign labor laws, treating your own child like shit and stabbing your friends in the back.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        3 months ago

        Agreed. But other companies like Samsung and Google that dunked on Apple for their shitty practices, then completely adopt them a few generations later are fucking pathetic.

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    3 months ago

    Some products — like devices powered by combustion engines, medical equipment, farming equipment, HVAC equipment, video game consoles, and energy storage systems — are excluded from Oregon’s rules entirely.

    It’s interesting to me that Game Consoles get an exception… Not sure whats up there, other than straight up bribery lobbying.

    HVAC makes sense when you consider environmental concerns (some refrigerants are really terrible pollutants).

    Medical equipment, particularly equipment in public health care should be held to high standards. Authorized, properly trained repair; peoples lives depend on it.

    Energy storage when attached to public infrastructure (you back-feeding the grid) can be a saftey concern for workers and the supply/load needs to be balanced to prevent damaging that infrastructure and other private equipment attached to it. Not sure preventing repair is the right move here; you can still buy and install new without oversight. Perhaps it’s again a saftey concern (for the person performing repair).

    Vehicles, farming or otherwise, I’m on the fence about; there’s an argument to be made for public saftey/roadworthness, but I’m not sure that’s enough of an argument to prevent home-repair. Again seems more to do with lobbying than anything else.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      The farming equipment exemption smells like John Deere’s lobbies have been involved.

      • BoscoBear@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        There are lots of loyal green customers who are really pissed about the ability to not be able to repair their own stuff, but yet keep buying it. (Similar to a lot of iPhone users)

    • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      John Deere probably bribed lobbied hard for that carve out. It was their practices that helped drive the right to repair movement. Giving them a pass really diminishes the accomplishment.

      Smaller farms are going to get screwed over with all the fees and mandatory maintenance that can be imposed.

      Everyone gets angry about printers needing a debit card on file but manufacturers like John Deere do similar stuff. If they think you’ve tinkered with it, they can disable the equipment remotely.

    • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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      3 months ago

      Cars have been home repaired since cars existed. It has never been a notable safety concern. Somehow it suddenly is?

      • Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca
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        It’s always been a concern; just not enough of one to explicitly forbid working on a vehicle without specific training/licensing. Hence vehicle inspections/roadworthy tests; someplaces more strictly than others.

        It’s possible that concern was part of the justification for not requiring manufacturers to make it easier. Spitballing.

        As I said, I’m on the fence about it myself. Thing is, a vehicle on public roads has a lot of opportunity to injure or kill someone if a repair was made incorrectly. It’s about more than just a person and the thing they own.

      • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        Even cheap cars now have hundreds of processors. Modules can throw errors, send the car into limp, or deactivate the vehicle entirely.

        Plus, emissions.

        It’s a different game now.

          • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 months ago

            Don’t take my word for it. Tear into any one of the dozens of black boxes in your car and take it apart. Analyze the chips soldered on the boards. You might get lucky and find all standard chips with information available from suppliers.

            Try looking at the data going across any one of the several buses transiting your vehicle. OBD is easy. The others are usually encrypted and much higher speed.

            Cars are legitimately complex. Don’t just listen to the manufacturers and scoff. Look up some research into breaking the communication protocols that MB or BMW use. Compare that with GM’s newest standard. Go ahead and practice your reverse engineering skills, because these things aren’t published.

            • Montagge@lemmy.zip
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              3 months ago

              They’re made that way so you can’t repair them. They don’t need to be that complex and nothing on a car needs to be encrypted.

              • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 months ago

                Idk person, encryption on cars has a valid place.

                If nothing else, it increases the time to attack and own the system. Networked modules are more efficient and higher performing than old systems. This is the price of progress.

                Just one example is the ECU. Old analog engines were crude and inflexible. Simple environmental changes would cause engines to run out of their efficient zones and dump more or less fuel than is appropriate for the conditions they’re experiencing. Modern engines take pressures and temperatures (from several locations) into account, along with throttle desired by the user and calculated load to change the engine parameters on the fly. This is why a modern Mustang can hit 30 mpg on the highway with 500hp and the 80’s model struggles with 20mpg and less power than a current Civic.

                These ECUs can be the difference between safely driving and unsafe unintended acceleration into a truck in front of you. We haven’t seen any attacks which turn ordinary occupied vehicles into missiles… yet. I have absolutely no doubt that we will experience one in the next 10 years. Encryption and security may be the difference between this being a rare occurrence conducted by powerful nation state actors and something script kiddies can perform with a laptop and a weekend.

            • GreyBeard@lemmy.one
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              3 months ago

              Sounds like the problem is lack of regulations, not people repairing their own stuff. We are letting companies create unmanageable products then blaming owners for trying to take ownership. Encryption is a solved problem, and doesn’t require a black box to be secure, in fact is more secure when it isn’t. And this isn’t the first time that Cara breaking on the road a risk. If someone put after market breaks on their car and they failed, people would die too, yet somehow we allowed that. Car manufacturers are being allowed to make anti-consumer decisions and are blaming us for them.

              • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 months ago

                I’m not getting the feeling that you actually know what you’re talking about.

                This isn’t a discussion about encryption, it’s about pairing modules. Encryption is absolutely necessary and is already used widely across the industry. It might not be transparent (open, published standards), but it’s there.

                Illegitimate and low quality parts have always been a concern. You don’t seem like you are a car enthusiast, so go on any car forum or facebook group and ask about some fake wheels or eBay special turbos. You’ll get roasted and start a real stupid discussion on if knockoffs are great for the money or if you’ll die in a fiery wreck. These are simple physical objects which you can fake by casting a mould and pouring something vaguely metallic inside. Fake car electronics can be cheaply remade in a similar fashion. How do you know if a replacement ECU is actually taking in one of the hundreds of datapoints in order to calculate the exact fuel trim to safely use in the millisecond you’re polling? How do you know if your rebuilt or replacement transmission is equipped with the proper logic modules to not cause you to drop into first on the highway, causing you to destroy your engine and probably cause a serious accident?

            • Hule@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Encryption is a must if your car has anything-by-wire on it.

              Acceleration is already commonly used this way.

              If the car has internet, even more so.

              I know, cars don’t need internet, but it’s there and it’s convenient and it’s easier to collect data that way…

          • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            This thread is literally the difference between someone who knows what they talk about getting downvoted because people don’t like facts and someone who doesn’t know they talk about getting upvoted because they appeal better to emotions.

            Social media has ruined us.

            • Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 months ago

              Yeah, Lemmy is usually pretty tech savvy, so this is kind of surprising.

              It’s “some basic evidence and appeals to do some research to change your view” versus “I don’t think so and car manufacturers are just bad” with no real counter argument

            • BoscoBear@lemmy.sdf.org
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              3 months ago

              So much of Lemmy is this way, and I guess most of social media. I expected more from the Lemmy crowd.

            • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              “What could the overwhelmingly technically skilled audience of Lemmy possibly know about electronics repair and embedded programming?”

              Huh I wonder where the downvotes are coming.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      HVAC makes no sense to me considering the only real hazard in there is the actual refrigerant gas.

      unless they mamage to pair the gas, im sure they would if they could

      • EarthBoundMisfit@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        You joke but we’re almost there. Refrigerants are getting more and more proprietary. I work in the industry and with the push to go to lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants manufacturers have developed their own formulas here. It varies from manufacturer to manufacturer even amongst almost identical equipment. Getting the right refrigerant will only become more and more expensive the more boutique it is. The equipment can already tell what kind of refrigerant is in there based on the system pressures and temperatures.

        • NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml
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          I’ve been watching Hyperspace Pirate on Youtube and he talks about how hard it is to get commercial access to some basic refrigerants (like ethylene) as someone who isn’t a Pro HVAC tech, and he uses it as an excuse to to create them himself for part of his content.

    • vrek@programming.dev
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      I work for a medical device manufacturer and you are missing a important reason for that exception. Yes human lives are on the line. In addition WE (meaning my company) are responsible for finding out why it broke and how we will prevent other devices we make from breaking.

      We make a device and say it will last 10 years, 2 years later it stops. We have to replace it, We have to investigate to the best of our ability, We have to report our findings to the government, if several cases happen We need to come up with a prevention for the future dailures(or prevention if severe enough). We have entire departments for this. It is our burden not the consumer and it’s our burden so we have enough evidence to determine root cause and final solution so we can prevent further failures.

      • maryjayjay@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        As long as you offer a 10 year replacement warranty that’s perfectly fine. Tandem was great about replacing my daughter’s failed insulin pump.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      HVAC also makes sense because some idiots do things like using propane as a refrigerant in systems not designed for it, and then get a literal flamethrower next to their house.

  • aleph@lemm.ee
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    It’s funny that this article doesn’t mention the one company that pretty much single handedly created the need for this legislation in the first place.

  • ddh@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 months ago

    From the article, parts pairing is “a practice manufacturers use to prevent replacement components from working unless the company’s software approves them.”

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      It’s the practice of preventing you from even using genuine parts. If you buy two identical iPhones, you can’t even use parts from one to repair the other. The one phone won’t accept the genuine part from the other because it’s not paired to that phone by the manufacturer’s proprietary tool.

      • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        This stops theft significantly.

        iPhone were one of the easiest devices to steal and sell. Even conventional anti theft measures wouldn’t deter theft significantly. Because they are so popular and common stealing an iPhone just to sell parts would still be worthwhile. Making stolen iPhone parts worthless reduces incidence of theft significantly.

        This is less of an issue for other manufacturers. They often have more models serving a small customer base, with significantly less retail value.

        • Mango@lemmy.world
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          I’d rather stop the company from stealing from me in unpreventable ways than the random petty thief who I can beat senseless.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      And since the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, they just put copy protection on the software (sometimes laughably weak - still counts!) and if you try to get around the hardware lockout you’re officially breaking the lawwww

    • invertedspear@lemm.ee
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      Hope this applies to cars as well. Bust a taillight in your Ford and get your own replacement, you still have to have a dealer configure the integrated BLISS sensor.

      • n2burns@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        From the article

        Some products — like devices powered by combustion engines … — are excluded from Oregon’s rules entirely.

      • Mango@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Fuck that sensor. It’s a made up need so I’m more dependent on the manufacturer.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Makes attention a good market for honest business doesn’t it? I’ll move there.

      • BoscoBear@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        Oregon has some really great laws. Some are working well, some need adjustment.

        In this case I think manufacturers will just say “not for sale in Oregon” and people in Oregon will continue to buy them. California had an advantage with it’s huge market size.

        • Mango@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Those Oregon people will now at least all find out why they’re going out of state for the garbage and be informed.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has now signed one of the strongest US right-to-repair bills into law after it passed the state legislature several weeks ago by an almost 3-to-1 margin.

    Oregon’s SB 1596 will take effect next year, and, like similar laws introduced in Minnesota and California, it requires device manufacturers to allow consumers and independent electronics businesses to purchase the necessary parts and equipment required to make their own device repairs.

    Oregon’s rules, however, are the first to ban “parts pairing” — a practice manufacturers use to prevent replacement components from working unless the company’s software approves them.

    According to iFixit, “The exemption list is a map of the strongest anti-repair lobbies, and also of the next frontier of the movement.” However, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens also said in the statement, “By applying to most products made after 2015, this law will open up repair for the things Oregonians need to get fixed right now.

    Another similarity between Oregon’s and California’s right-to-repair laws is that both push manufacturers to make any documentation, tools, parts, and software required to fix their devices available to consumers and repair shops without overcharging for them.

    But while California’s law requires this support to be available for seven years after production for devices over $100, Oregon hasn’t mandated any such duration.


    The original article contains 400 words, the summary contains 217 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • hemmes@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I have no issue with security devices requiring some sort of approval (which should be made available to self service), but devices like the screen, camera, battery, buttons, memory/storage, ports, speakers, etc, should be allowed whether or not they are factory.

    • WanderingCat@lemm.ee
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      In the eyes of apple the screen on an iPhone would act as a security device as it contains the fingerprint sensor.

      • FierySpectre@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Same with the camera, and probably something can be said about the ports too.

        Should apple be allowed to completely close those off though? Nah

      • jayandp@sh.itjust.works
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        Just FYI, iPhones don’t have fingerprint sensors in the screen. Older models with fingerprint sensors have a capacitive sensor in a physical home button/capacitive pad.

        Newer iPhone’s exclusively use FaceID for biometrics, which uses the camera array at the top of the device.

      • RogueBanana@lemmy.zip
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        Forget the sensors, they can say it’s a security related since it can display private info and their fans would defend that. You can bet they would make some excuse for almost everything and fight for it in court.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      We need to eliminate the DMCA. From printer ink to abandon ware to simple ownership of products we purchase, the DMCA stands in the way at every step.

  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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    Be careful what you wish for though. Electronics, and software in particular, rapidly drop in reliability as the parts stray from tightly restricted boundaries and become open to anyone. “Hey, this app crashes on my phone now.” Repairing a phone too wouldn’t be cheap either, you’d have to have someone soldering and resoldering a very fine circuit board. I think most people would just replace it.

  • pelley@lemmy.world
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    “We need to cut down the insane cycle of churning through personal electronics”

    Translation: We need to slow down the pace of innovation!