Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Apple vs. the Right To Repair (bloombergview.com)

Posted by timothy on from the but-it's-intuitive dept.

retroworks writes: Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter takes on Apple's "Error 53 Code" and the precedents being challenged by the Right To Repair movement. Apple claims that bricking the phone if it's repaired by a non-Apple certified repair shop protects you from tampering with, say, the fingerprint scanner. But the column documents how the number of "certified" repair shops is under attack. If you can't open it, do you really own it?

4 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. It really is about security, not repair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But then again, anyone could have told you that including biometric security on a smartphone was just inviting this kind of hardware signing.

    Where outside of China are you going to find the components and the equipment to repair any of these electronics, anyway? Everything's microsoldered to a circuit board the size of a credit card, and the tiniest slip of your all-too-human hands and you've ruined a trace on a different circuit.

    1. Re:It really is about security, not repair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      But since it doesn't throw the error when the repair is done but months later when an update is applied kinda makes all of this pointless. I could swap the sensor and access all the data I want the way it works now if I was trying to do so and this "security" measure would not stop me since it doesn't kick in at the time of the swap out. The way it stands now its really only enforcing "apple only" repairs and not any form of security.

  2. Property by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Property for peasants is so last century.
    Welcome to the 21st century, where property is only for corporations, copyright is eternal and everything is under license.

  3. Re:If I can't fix the FPU in my Pentium III... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are there any tamper-proofing features in the P3 that would prevent you from doing this? Or is your inability simply due to your not having the right tools, not that anyone does?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"