Slashdot Mirror
The iPhone 7 Has Arbitrary Software Locks That Prevent Repair (vice.com)
Jason Koebler, reporting for Motherboard: Apple has taken new and extreme measures to make the iPhone unrepairable. The company is now using software locks to prevent independent repair of specific parts of the phone. Specifically, the home buttons of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are not user replaceable, raising questions about both the future repairability of Apple products and the future of the thriving independent repair industry. The iPhone 7 home button will only work with the original home button that it was shipped with; if it breaks and needs to be replaced, a new one will only work if it is "recalibrated" in an Apple Store.
...so this'll continue unabated. Just like how gamers bitch and moan about unfinished games being released, and then still go out and buy the latest call of duty on release day.
to never buy apple products.
Nuff said.
This does not seem unreasonable. I say this because the home button is also a fingerprint reader, which is a security device. If a shop installs some kind of 3rd party button there, the security of the device could be compromised.
Apple's garden is walled. It keeps the users in, but also keeps the bad things out.https://apple.slashdot.org/story/17/04/07/1734249/the-iphone-7-has-arbitrary-software-locks-that-prevent-repair#
You mean the fingerprint scanner that interacts directly with the secure enclave chip outside the OS? The one that could be misused by various actors if replaced with act-alike hardware? I'm not sensing the problem here - Feature not a Bug.
...and laws that establish fair-use guidelines for software that's required for hardware to function. Unfortunately this is something that would have to be grassroots and widespread, no one party would ever make any headway on this unless there were an outcry from constituents, and even then it would be hard to overcome corporate counter-push.
We've seen this kind of problem with conventional cars and light trucks, with heavy trucks, with farm implements, with major consumer appliances, and the prolifieration of this mindset is only getting worse as more and more functions can be software-tied.
The laws need to say that software bundled into the device is considered part of the device, and may not be used to encumber the right to service or repair the device, and that for such software that is also intended to communicate with other software, the vendor must continue to support and maintain that code for bugfixes and security vulnerabilities for the realistic lifespan of the device and must provide a reasonable means for the owner to install such an update.
Yes, this would increase the cost of the device originally, as the concepts for update must be turned into an actual process, but on the other hand if that means that the device can function for longer then it's net effect on the consumer should be small as they can continue to service and repair devices for longer than if vendor-created blocks stop them from doing so.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The button itself doesn't need to "do[] the pass/fail decoding on the fingerprint" for a successful attack. It need only replay the signals sent by a previous pass.
Imagine a world where in order to unlock your phone all I have to do is open it up and swap out your home button with one that will let any finger unlock the phone. The original poster is trying to paint Apple as some kind of bad guy trying to take away the viability of the repair market. The truth is, they are trying to keep their phones secure by preventing an obvious attack vector. Thank you, Apple.
They are saying you could replace it with one that records the data from the sensor and then replays it later at the attackers whim. Making and using a jelly finger is a much better, easier, cheaper and more covert attack vector and so you are correct that the excuse is bull for the real reason of stopping people replacing commonly failing parts in their electronic devices without paying the corporate overlords their cut.