Slashdot Mirror
Apple vs. the Right To Repair (bloombergview.com)
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?
We pretty much lost this fight when judges upheld the right of corporations to make EULAs binding, including the ability of corporations to change them as they see fit.
Combine this with the DMCA, and the rest of the copyright/IP bullshit, and, no, you don't own it any more ... you have the right to use it according to their terms, but in no way do you own it in terms of being able to take it apart, modify it, fix it, repair it, or otherwise do anything they haven't licensed you to do.
This is the direction corporations want to go, and they've been getting lawmakers to enable them.
You, the consumer? You have no rights other than what they've chosen to give you.
Until we see lawmakers shift the other way (and they're heavily influenced by lobbying and campaign contributions), you can expect with shit like the TPP and everything else, you'll see less and less "rights" to the products you think you own.
Welcome to the awesome future, in which the corporations hold all the cards.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If I can't fix the FPU in my Pentium III... do I really own it?
Customer: "Hi, my home button stopped working, could you fit a new one for me please?"
ShadyRepairShopAssistant: "Sure, that will be $50, also I'll need you to unlock your phone for me"
Customer: "No problem, here you go" ... later ...
ShadyRepairShopAssistant: "Lol, we totally got that guy to unlock his phone so we could clone it, install compromised security hardware etc."
From what I understand and I could be wrong, but this issue isn't repairing an iPhone. I don't see how there is a problem replacing a screen or battery. It's when a shop replaces some part that is within the Apple Pay environment. Apple could have a point that using third party hardware can compromise security.
Ownership means you have every right to tamper with something. It DOES NOT mean that you have any guarantees that the hardware will continue to work if you do so. It never has, EVER, in the history of mankind, EVER meant that.
Microwaves and other electronics will frequently have tamper avoidance measures built into them for safety reasons--does that mean you don't own your microwave? An emissions control system might disable a car or generator if it discovers it's been tampered with, does that mean you don't own your car?
A biometric sensor may be tamper-proofed for security reasons (which is exactly what happened here)--doesn't mean that you don't own it.
Fine, it's vendor lock-in that makes it harder for law-enforcement to get into my phone. I'll take it.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
99.99% of customers, Apple or other, could care less about government intrusion into your devices. Here on /. it seems otherwise because we're not a fair sampling of the general population. This is nothing more than a poor excuse to force people to only repair with Apple, at a highly inflated price, or buy a new device. For the few that really care about keeping our data away from the government, smartphones should never be an option in their current form. They're a tracking and security nightmare.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Falling back to PIN is how I unlock my wife's iPhone 6s Plus when she asks me to change songs or reply to a message on her behalf while she's driving. There's no reason, absolutely none at all, why the Error 53 can't simply be a logged condition that disables the fingerprint reader; Apple should also be able to fix it by pairing the phone and fingerprint scanner.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Screw my mod points; had to answer.
"Just Works*" that Apple provide over being able to fix something that is broken.
I have had many laptops, tablets and phones over the years, including: Toshiba laptop, Dell XPS, Dell Latitude x4 over the years, Lenovo Thinkpad x2, Mac Book Pro and Air, Nokia phones galore, iPhones galore, iPad, Samsung Tab, Sony Netbook, Asus Eee, early Samsung smartphone.
Of all these, by far and away the Apple, Thinkpad, and Asus products have been problem free in terms of reliability. The rest have had different components and/or software die on them, sometimes this could be fixed and sometimes not. Overall, some of the worst offenders were Sony, Toshiba, and some of the early and the later Nokias.
The only Apple product failures I have had were due to physical damage. The Mac Air took a swim in champagne (yes), several iPhones shattered/drowned. I have mostly been able to fix these devices on my own, but I would not be angry if I couldn't as long as I could take them in to get fixed somewhere. They have still proved to be more robust than most competition.
While I appreciate that other manufacturers make things that can be fixed, I have to admit that I prefer stuff that doesn't break in the first place. Say what you will, I have lately opted to buy only Apple stuff and make sure I buy Apple Care or other insurance for the accidents that I know can happen. I'm not worried about them breaking on me. Even without serviceability, they still beat the competition on reliability.