EFF Warns TI Not To Harass Calculator Hobbyists

Ponca City, We love you writes "The EFF has warned Texas Instruments not to pursue legal threats against calculator hobbyists who perform modifications to the company's programmable graphing calculators. TI's calculators perform a 'signature check' that allows only approved operating systems to be loaded, but researchers have reverse-engineered signing keys, allowing tinkerers to install custom operating systems and unlock new functionality in the calculators' hardware. In response, TI has unleashed a torrent of demand letters claiming that the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act require the hobbyists to take down commentary about and links to the keys. 'This is not about copyright infringement. This is about running your own software on your own device — a calculator you legally bought,' says EFF Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick. 'Yet TI still issued empty legal threats in an attempt to shut down discussion of this legitimate tinkering. Hobbyists are taking their own tools and making them better, in the best tradition of American innovation.'"

Comments

Re:Perfectly valid

[bsDaemon]

Because in the case of direct tv, you're paying for the service, not the hardware. If i go down to Best Buy and shell out $200 or whatever for a new TI-89 Titanium (my classic TI-89 is starting to look somewhat stayed...), then I never need anything from TI again. I take that thing, and I'm done. No real need to plug it into anything; TI doesn't beam the CAS down via CDMA wireless signal like some sort of Kindle thing.

Basically, with the calculator, the hardware itself is the FINAL PURCHASE, whereas with DirectTV, you're basically renting the hardware as a means to access a service, which is what you're actually paying for in the end. Cheating on what you're paying for as far as channels go is clearly wrong. Modifying a piece of hardware that once bought never needs to have any interaction with the mother company again is completely different.

What about the need for uniformity?

[matzahboy]

Although a Ti-83 can definitely be enhanced by a custom OS, the usefulness of a Ti-83 would greatly decrease for students if custom OS's existed. On many standardized tests, including the SATs and ACTs, the tests specify which calculators are permitted for the test. They have a very specific list, based on which ones they think are not too powerful and would give an unfair advantage to a test taker. All ti-83's are allowed on either test for example. But if the makers of the test knew that people could have ti-83's that had undocumented, unfair functions (such as symbolic algebraic solving as in the ti-89), the test makers would most likely disallow these calculators. Why do you think TI still sells the Ti-83 plus, a calculator created in 1999? Certainly hardware abilities and processor speeds have greatly increased in the last 10 years. The reason is that test makers will not accept calculators with very powerful abilities. They want the student to solve the problem and not the calculator. When browsing calculators at education.ti.com, each calculator has a page called "exam acceptance" (ex. http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/productDetail/us_ti83p.html?bid=2). That is because TI sells a large number of its calculators to students. The custom OS's could greatly hurt TI's reputation in the eyes of its biggest supporters: the test makers.

Re:What about the need for uniformity?

[CodeBuster]

The custom OS's could greatly hurt TI's reputation in the eyes of its biggest supporters: the test makers.

Well cry me a river, why is that the problem of hardware hackers who have already PAID for their devices? If we had a law against every activity which might damage somebody else's business model then we would be living in a police state already. If the test makers don't want "powerful calculators" used on their exams then why not simply ban all calculators? If they are interested in testing mathematical knowledge rather than rote arithmetic or button pressing ability then why not simply design the test along those lines in the first place and enforce the suggested ban against electronic assistance? Technology is a moving target which will change over time; attempting to fix it in place by law, for whatever reason, is both destructive and counter-productive.

Re:Nonsense.

[werewolf1031]

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so"
~some skinny bald pacifist guy...

Point being, of course, that just because something is codified into law, doesn't necessarily make it right.