There is no acceptable answer in just paying ransom, funding terrorists for their next gigs.
First of all there is little to no evidence that these were 'terrorists', not in the current-events sense of the word, it's just cyber-criminals, could be anyone really, could be some edgy teenagers looking to score some cash any way they can. Secondly, if you're saying we need to comply with anything and everything that the police (local LEOs, FBI, NSA, CIA, etc) demand of us, just because they demand it, then I have two choice words for you which I will uncharacteristically refrain from using on you, and they're not nice words at all.
it's much cheaper to take your chances and pay the very affordable ransom instead
I find that to be an extremely cowardly attitude to take, and a completely unnecessary and irresponsible one to boot. It's a don't-give-a-damn attitude and I find it reprehensible; if someone worked for me and took that sort of attitude towards the problem, they'd be fired on the spot.
So many useless, off-topic posts in this thread by political trolls; what's up with that? You shits have an issue with political candidates or parties, take it up at the polls, not by shitposting on Slashdot. Anyway..
Is anyone going to learn from these unfortunate incidents? There is no excuse for there not being decent security precautions and procedures in the IT department of any organization, and there likewise is no excuse for there not being adequate incremental backups of critical systems. Basically this school and the hospital in Hollywood were sloppy, and criminals capitalized (literally) on their sloppiness.
This is all of course overshadowed by the fact that I have little-to-no use for a smartphone. I barely even use a phone as a phone, let alone wanting to be gouged for overpriced dataplans with too many restrictions. Seems like most people use it as a toy anyway, I have no time or desire for that. If I wanted to play games I'd get some handheld gaming device. I can count the number of times in a year I'd want to use the Intenet when out in public somewhere on the fingers of one hand, not counting the thumb. Personally I don't think the majority of people have a 'need' for a smartphone in the first place, they just 'want' it, after being convinced by wireless companies that they should want it. I don't follow 'trends', I do what makes sense and smartphones just aren't something justifiable for me, especially with all the problems having one seems to create. Meanwhile I spend less on a phone and have no worries whatsoever about anything being done to it without my knowledge.
Mainland China: The new 'AOL'. 'World Wide Web'? What is this thing of which you speak? There is only ChinaWeb! Why would you need anything else? Are you suffering from a mental illness? Perhaps we should 'hospitalize' you and 'treat you' for your 'mental illness' until you're free of these delusions about a 'World Wide Web'. Perhaps we'd better 'quarrantine' your family, too, just in case it's something contagious..
I'm not that guy, but hey asshole, I don't have a gods-be-damned smartphone either, and why the hell should I? Literally every freakin' day I read about this exploit or that vulnerability or something-or-other attack on every freakin' smartphone OS there is out there, and you want me to pay for the privilege of having my entire life splayed open like a frog in a highschool biology class? Screw that. I'll stick with a nice, read-only, non-internet-enabled dumbphone, that's simple enough to be unhackable, or at least not worth hacking, because all it's good for is phone calls and texts. The rest of you suckers: Enjoy your botnet 'phone'. Please do try to pay attention to the road.
I like that they did this and applaud the risk they're taking in releasing it online (as a bittorrent, I'd imagine), but ironically I'm not even sure if I really care. Since Revenge of the Jedi I've more or less had the entire Star Wars thing ruined for me. I haven't seen the new film, probably never will, either, because it stinks of just 'piling on' for more profit. It has nothing to do with 'bringing Star Wars to a new generation' or anything even as high-minded as that, it's just monetizing the living hell out of it, beating the proverbial dead horse, and mainly because there aren't any new ideas to speak of to capitalize on anymore, so they just have to keep remaking everything else ad infinitum. Bored now, going off to read a book or something, until someone comes up with something actually original.
Also: 100% honest, hard-working, law-abiding people, who don't want thieves and nosy government types all up in their business. Oh, and by the way, my totally un-scientific estimate says 99.999% of everyone using an iPhone's nigh-unto unbreakable encryption are the law-abiding types. This is just another case of government and 'law enforcement' (in quotes because I use the term loosely anymore) overreach; it's also disingenuous, they just want to put a gun to Apple's head to make them give them a way to unlock and decrypt ANY iPhone, not just the one. Tough shit, don't care, fuck off.
Well, I guess since they want to ruin encryption for everyone, then we should just ban all encryption for everyone, right? Then we'll know who the criminals and terrorists are right away, because they'll be the only ones using encryption! Genius, right?
While we're at it, let's ban clothing, too. After all, criminals and terrorists conceal weapons in their clothing, so if no one is wearing any clothes, then you can't conceal anything, can you? Likewise let's all live in glass houses, so you can't hide anything in your house, either. Sure, everyone will see you having sex, but there's an added benefit to that, too: we'll see who is having deviant, unnatural sex, so we can send them for 're-education' immediately. Also we'll all see what you eat and drink, so government officials can 'correct' your eating habits if you're not eating a properly government-approved diet. It's for you own good! The government wants you to be healthy! Also, think of the children! You may not be raising your children in a government expert-approved manner, which naturally isn't what's best for them, so we can 'correct' your parenting techniques, too! Everyone will be so much happier then! You want to be happy, right?
Everyone will be so much happier in this New World full of such lovely Order! Everyone likes to share, and we'll all be sharing everything with everyone, all the time, especially with our wonderful, wise government, who after all only wants what's best for us! Won't that be lovely?
..or maybe how about this: We tell the government to go fuck themselves sideways with a rusty chainsaw and the throttle stuck wide open when they want to fuck up encyption making it worse than useless. MEMO TO U.S. GOVERNMENT DICKHEADS: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY DATA!
I am neither a Republican nor Democrat, and I approve this message. P.S. Please be sure to read the sigline before commenting, otherwise I may have to melt your face off.
So long as we had lots of laws and rules and practices protecting minorities and leveling the playing field here in the U.S., race-related problems appeared to go away.. but as soon as everyone relaxed or removed them, thinking race-related problems went away, the problems magically reappeared, as we all can see. You can't say 'kids act better when you watch them constantly' because if you're giving them exactly zero leeway to screw up, then you're not actually testing them, are you? Then there's the resentment factor..
Unintentional fallout from this, if many people bought it: Insurance companies already want people to have this in their cars. Already having it would be precedent for them insisting everyone have it as a condition of being insured to drive. Very, very bad!
You'd be surprised what intelligent, talented, creative, driven, and completely amoral people can come up with. There is no such thing as 'totally secure', there is only 'slowing down the determined'.
If professional drivers can live with these devices, then so can the teenagers.
Interestingly enough, I have a long-time friend who has been driving trucks his entire professional life. He's driven for companies like Arco/BP, who put GPS, cameras, and microphones inside the cab, for review of driver conduct and safety. He hates it, every other driver hates it, because you can't say anything while driving without them knowing about it, and anything you say, regardless of context, regardless of the true intent (as opposed to their interpretation, or their intent) can get you fired. Even an expression on your face (again, regardless of context) can get you fired. It's not a good thing. It raises drivers' stress levels to the breaking point, because regardless of their driving record, regardless of their productivity, they can be fired for mumbling something under their breath or just having a look on their face that has nothing to do with their driving the truck. The turnover rate is high. After a relatively young age, people just don't like or want to be watched all the time. In the context of this story I can't see it being a good thing for a kid's development into an adult to know they're being watched (i.e., not trusted at all) constantly, and surveilling them covertly all the time is just plain creepy. I don't think it's a good trend for society, either.
Interesting comment thread. So none of you were trusted at all by your parents when you were teenagers? Watched constantly? Did they respect you at all, or were you treated like a little criminal until you were 18, then, what, kicked out of the house? That's what some of your comments are leading me to believe.
Trust and respect are important when raising children. How are they going to trust and respect you, if you don't lead by example by trusting and respecting them? More to the point: If you didn't raise them in such a way that you can trust and respect them, then who's really at fault here? Other parents I know don't feel the need to put their teenage kids on a leash like this, and they don't get in any trouble, either, and before you say 'as far as they KNOW', it's evident from their grades in school (good) and the way they conduct themselves. Are they perfect? Of course not. But how is being 'helicopter parents' and never trusting them a good thing? Seriously, what kind of adults are they going to be when brought up in an environment like that? If you can't trust your son or daughter to be responsible when driving, then maybe you shouldn't let them drive in the first place. I think the old time-tested rule of 'get a ticket, you don't get to drive for a while' is more than adequate. We're all already surveilled everywhere we go these days, why bring it into our homes, too? Honestly, where does it end? Or are you all so thoroughly indoctrinated that being treated like a criminal and watched 24/7/365 is now 'normal' for you? If so then I mourn.
You thought Microsoft was evil? You thought Google was evil? Nope! Verizon wins going away. Spy on your family, because showing how little you trust your own spouse or kid is just so great for your relationship with them and/or their development as a human being!
How much do you get paid every time you post your shill for Microsoft? Do you get paid any less for posting anonymously instead of under a username? Does your family know what a shameless shilling piece of crap you are? HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE?
As if something like that can't also be reproduced. A built-in vulnerability is still a vulnerability. Also, letting the government (or corporations) have access to whatever they want, whenever they want. No thanks. Either strong encryption or NO encryption, not some half-assed broken thing.
You can't have 'backdoors' in encryption without rendering the encryption worthless! Any method of enabling an end-run around the encryption itself is like having the best lock in the world on your front door then leaving a window wide open. At the point where government requires such things you may as well just ban ALL encryption outright and force everyone to have Red Data. Then at least you'll know who the criminals and terrorists are, because they will be using encryption.
The reason they're not designed that way, is because the spring pressure required to keep the valve closed and sealed, not only against compression pressure, but against combustion pressure, would be so enormous as to be completely impractical. Valves that open inward still use some pretty hefty springs, but that's mainly to get them to close quickly; compression and combustion actually help them stay sealed when closed. Honestly, it seems sometimes that people assume that since a design is 'mature' (they read as: 'old') that there must be something wrong with it, and that designers/engineers are just lazy and keep using it. There are reasons why things are designed the way they are, as is the case here.
This. Valves getting stuck closed? Non-catastrophic failure, the engine runs like crap until you get the problem fixed. Valves stuck open? Piston slams into them, bending or breaking the valve, ruining the valve guide, and very likely breaking the piston. Might even damage the connecting rod and it's bearings. Not a trivial repair, at that point you have to tear the entire engine down and inspect all of it, probably cheaper at that point to just rebuild it completely or replace it. Meanwhile camshafts last pretty much the life of the engine, timing chains last a long time, and timing belts, while not as long-lived, are easier and cheaper to replace as needed than timing chains. Perhaps if they build engines that don't use traditional valves then it would be more practical to have them entirely under computer control.
You, the consumer? You have no rights other than what they've chosen to give you.
We always have the right to NOT purchase things from companies that conduct themselves in a way that doesn't suit us, and voicing your opinion with your dollars, works.
The number 9000 suspiciously reminds me of Anonymous.
If it were me: Move all the patients out to another hospital, then nuke every system and peripheral that can possibly be infected, reload everything from backups or from scratch. Either get manufacturers to re-flash firmware, or smash them with a hammer (literally) and replace them. And yes, as others have suggested, if a single patient dies, then the hackers responsible get murder charges tacked on to the rest. If a single patient gets injured, even, they're responsible for all of it. Hell, I'd have to say this probably qualifies as a terrorist attack. Catch 'em and string 'em up, or put 'em in front of a firing squad.
I've been working in electronics for 35 years and know far better than you of what you speak, and I can tell you right now that nobody really is repairing the PCB in a phone, nor should they. Only the passive components and the smallest of the integrated circuits are even remotely replaceable on PCBs that small and that densely packed, the rest require a several-thousand-dollar rework station that requires special training and skills to use, and even then it's a risky proposition to R&R BGA-packaged devices, assuming those are even the problem. What they should be doing is selling replacement (new or factory refurbished) PCBs for their devices, so 3rd-party repair companies can repair customer devices. But they'll never do it, because it's not as profitable as telling people to just buy a new phone. Really, for all the good it does anyone, the entire inside of the phone may as well be just one solid block of epoxy, totally inaccessible, and when it dies, you toss it in the e-waste bin and forget about it; that's what Apple and many other companies want you to do, just buy a new one. Doesn't mean that isn't bullshit, but that's what makes them the most money so that's what they want to do. If automobile manufacturers weren't constrained by laws preventing it, they'd do pretty much the same thing: make vehicle engines completely unrepairable (except for the most basic maintenance), and make you buy a new one every few years (as if we're not close to that now anyway). Anyway, with electronics, that's pretty much the way things are going to be, in part because of the component density necessary to make such small devices, and in part because manufacturers want to make as much money as possible. If they were forced to make them more 'open', they'd probably respond by raising the price.
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I am not going to deal with your opinion just because it bears very little in the above-mentioned light of professional stance.
Same to you, buddy.
There is no acceptable answer in just paying ransom, funding terrorists for their next gigs.
First of all there is little to no evidence that these were 'terrorists', not in the current-events sense of the word, it's just cyber-criminals, could be anyone really, could be some edgy teenagers looking to score some cash any way they can. Secondly, if you're saying we need to comply with anything and everything that the police (local LEOs, FBI, NSA, CIA, etc) demand of us, just because they demand it, then I have two choice words for you which I will uncharacteristically refrain from using on you, and they're not nice words at all.
it's much cheaper to take your chances and pay the very affordable ransom instead
I find that to be an extremely cowardly attitude to take, and a completely unnecessary and irresponsible one to boot. It's a don't-give-a-damn attitude and I find it reprehensible; if someone worked for me and took that sort of attitude towards the problem, they'd be fired on the spot.
So many useless, off-topic posts in this thread by political trolls; what's up with that? You shits have an issue with political candidates or parties, take it up at the polls, not by shitposting on Slashdot. Anyway..
Is anyone going to learn from these unfortunate incidents? There is no excuse for there not being decent security precautions and procedures in the IT department of any organization, and there likewise is no excuse for there not being adequate incremental backups of critical systems. Basically this school and the hospital in Hollywood were sloppy, and criminals capitalized (literally) on their sloppiness.
This is all of course overshadowed by the fact that I have little-to-no use for a smartphone. I barely even use a phone as a phone, let alone wanting to be gouged for overpriced dataplans with too many restrictions. Seems like most people use it as a toy anyway, I have no time or desire for that. If I wanted to play games I'd get some handheld gaming device. I can count the number of times in a year I'd want to use the Intenet when out in public somewhere on the fingers of one hand, not counting the thumb. Personally I don't think the majority of people have a 'need' for a smartphone in the first place, they just 'want' it, after being convinced by wireless companies that they should want it. I don't follow 'trends', I do what makes sense and smartphones just aren't something justifiable for me, especially with all the problems having one seems to create. Meanwhile I spend less on a phone and have no worries whatsoever about anything being done to it without my knowledge.
Mainland China: The new 'AOL'. 'World Wide Web'? What is this thing of which you speak? There is only ChinaWeb! Why would you need anything else? Are you suffering from a mental illness? Perhaps we should 'hospitalize' you and 'treat you' for your 'mental illness' until you're free of these delusions about a 'World Wide Web'. Perhaps we'd better 'quarrantine' your family, too, just in case it's something contagious..
Get a "device", you freakin' caveman.
I'm not that guy, but hey asshole, I don't have a gods-be-damned smartphone either, and why the hell should I? Literally every freakin' day I read about this exploit or that vulnerability or something-or-other attack on every freakin' smartphone OS there is out there, and you want me to pay for the privilege of having my entire life splayed open like a frog in a highschool biology class? Screw that. I'll stick with a nice, read-only, non-internet-enabled dumbphone, that's simple enough to be unhackable, or at least not worth hacking, because all it's good for is phone calls and texts. The rest of you suckers: Enjoy your botnet 'phone'. Please do try to pay attention to the road.
I like that they did this and applaud the risk they're taking in releasing it online (as a bittorrent, I'd imagine), but ironically I'm not even sure if I really care. Since Revenge of the Jedi I've more or less had the entire Star Wars thing ruined for me. I haven't seen the new film, probably never will, either, because it stinks of just 'piling on' for more profit. It has nothing to do with 'bringing Star Wars to a new generation' or anything even as high-minded as that, it's just monetizing the living hell out of it, beating the proverbial dead horse, and mainly because there aren't any new ideas to speak of to capitalize on anymore, so they just have to keep remaking everything else ad infinitum. Bored now, going off to read a book or something, until someone comes up with something actually original.
Also: 100% honest, hard-working, law-abiding people, who don't want thieves and nosy government types all up in their business. Oh, and by the way, my totally un-scientific estimate says 99.999% of everyone using an iPhone's nigh-unto unbreakable encryption are the law-abiding types. This is just another case of government and 'law enforcement' (in quotes because I use the term loosely anymore) overreach; it's also disingenuous, they just want to put a gun to Apple's head to make them give them a way to unlock and decrypt ANY iPhone, not just the one. Tough shit, don't care, fuck off.
Well, I guess since they want to ruin encryption for everyone, then we should just ban all encryption for everyone, right? Then we'll know who the criminals and terrorists are right away, because they'll be the only ones using encryption! Genius, right?
While we're at it, let's ban clothing, too. After all, criminals and terrorists conceal weapons in their clothing, so if no one is wearing any clothes, then you can't conceal anything, can you? Likewise let's all live in glass houses, so you can't hide anything in your house, either. Sure, everyone will see you having sex, but there's an added benefit to that, too: we'll see who is having deviant, unnatural sex, so we can send them for 're-education' immediately. Also we'll all see what you eat and drink, so government officials can 'correct' your eating habits if you're not eating a properly government-approved diet. It's for you own good! The government wants you to be healthy! Also, think of the children! You may not be raising your children in a government expert-approved manner, which naturally isn't what's best for them, so we can 'correct' your parenting techniques, too! Everyone will be so much happier then! You want to be happy, right?
Everyone will be so much happier in this New World full of such lovely Order! Everyone likes to share, and we'll all be sharing everything with everyone, all the time, especially with our wonderful, wise government, who after all only wants what's best for us! Won't that be lovely?
..or maybe how about this: We tell the government to go fuck themselves sideways with a rusty chainsaw and the throttle stuck wide open when they want to fuck up encyption making it worse than useless. MEMO TO U.S. GOVERNMENT DICKHEADS: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY DATA!
I am neither a Republican nor Democrat, and I approve this message.
P.S. Please be sure to read the sigline before commenting, otherwise I may have to melt your face off.
So long as we had lots of laws and rules and practices protecting minorities and leveling the playing field here in the U.S., race-related problems appeared to go away.. but as soon as everyone relaxed or removed them, thinking race-related problems went away, the problems magically reappeared, as we all can see. You can't say 'kids act better when you watch them constantly' because if you're giving them exactly zero leeway to screw up, then you're not actually testing them, are you? Then there's the resentment factor..
Unintentional fallout from this, if many people bought it: Insurance companies already want people to have this in their cars. Already having it would be precedent for them insisting everyone have it as a condition of being insured to drive. Very, very bad!
Serious question.
You'd be surprised what intelligent, talented, creative, driven, and completely amoral people can come up with. There is no such thing as 'totally secure', there is only 'slowing down the determined'.
If professional drivers can live with these devices, then so can the teenagers.
Interestingly enough, I have a long-time friend who has been driving trucks his entire professional life. He's driven for companies like Arco/BP, who put GPS, cameras, and microphones inside the cab, for review of driver conduct and safety. He hates it, every other driver hates it, because you can't say anything while driving without them knowing about it, and anything you say, regardless of context, regardless of the true intent (as opposed to their interpretation, or their intent) can get you fired. Even an expression on your face (again, regardless of context) can get you fired. It's not a good thing. It raises drivers' stress levels to the breaking point, because regardless of their driving record, regardless of their productivity, they can be fired for mumbling something under their breath or just having a look on their face that has nothing to do with their driving the truck. The turnover rate is high. After a relatively young age, people just don't like or want to be watched all the time. In the context of this story I can't see it being a good thing for a kid's development into an adult to know they're being watched (i.e., not trusted at all) constantly, and surveilling them covertly all the time is just plain creepy. I don't think it's a good trend for society, either.
Interesting comment thread.
So none of you were trusted at all by your parents when you were teenagers? Watched constantly? Did they respect you at all, or were you treated like a little criminal until you were 18, then, what, kicked out of the house? That's what some of your comments are leading me to believe.
Trust and respect are important when raising children. How are they going to trust and respect you, if you don't lead by example by trusting and respecting them? More to the point: If you didn't raise them in such a way that you can trust and respect them, then who's really at fault here? Other parents I know don't feel the need to put their teenage kids on a leash like this, and they don't get in any trouble, either, and before you say 'as far as they KNOW', it's evident from their grades in school (good) and the way they conduct themselves. Are they perfect? Of course not. But how is being 'helicopter parents' and never trusting them a good thing? Seriously, what kind of adults are they going to be when brought up in an environment like that? If you can't trust your son or daughter to be responsible when driving, then maybe you shouldn't let them drive in the first place. I think the old time-tested rule of 'get a ticket, you don't get to drive for a while' is more than adequate. We're all already surveilled everywhere we go these days, why bring it into our homes, too? Honestly, where does it end? Or are you all so thoroughly indoctrinated that being treated like a criminal and watched 24/7/365 is now 'normal' for you? If so then I mourn.
You thought Microsoft was evil? You thought Google was evil? Nope! Verizon wins going away. Spy on your family, because showing how little you trust your own spouse or kid is just so great for your relationship with them and/or their development as a human being!
How much do you get paid every time you post your shill for Microsoft? Do you get paid any less for posting anonymously instead of under a username? Does your family know what a shameless shilling piece of crap you are? HOW DO YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE?
As if something like that can't also be reproduced. A built-in vulnerability is still a vulnerability. Also, letting the government (or corporations) have access to whatever they want, whenever they want. No thanks. Either strong encryption or NO encryption, not some half-assed broken thing.
You can't have 'backdoors' in encryption without rendering the encryption worthless! Any method of enabling an end-run around the encryption itself is like having the best lock in the world on your front door then leaving a window wide open. At the point where government requires such things you may as well just ban ALL encryption outright and force everyone to have Red Data. Then at least you'll know who the criminals and terrorists are, because they will be using encryption.
The reason they're not designed that way, is because the spring pressure required to keep the valve closed and sealed, not only against compression pressure, but against combustion pressure, would be so enormous as to be completely impractical. Valves that open inward still use some pretty hefty springs, but that's mainly to get them to close quickly; compression and combustion actually help them stay sealed when closed. Honestly, it seems sometimes that people assume that since a design is 'mature' (they read as: 'old') that there must be something wrong with it, and that designers/engineers are just lazy and keep using it. There are reasons why things are designed the way they are, as is the case here.
This. Valves getting stuck closed? Non-catastrophic failure, the engine runs like crap until you get the problem fixed. Valves stuck open? Piston slams into them, bending or breaking the valve, ruining the valve guide, and very likely breaking the piston. Might even damage the connecting rod and it's bearings. Not a trivial repair, at that point you have to tear the entire engine down and inspect all of it, probably cheaper at that point to just rebuild it completely or replace it. Meanwhile camshafts last pretty much the life of the engine, timing chains last a long time, and timing belts, while not as long-lived, are easier and cheaper to replace as needed than timing chains. Perhaps if they build engines that don't use traditional valves then it would be more practical to have them entirely under computer control.
You, the consumer? You have no rights other than what they've chosen to give you.
We always have the right to NOT purchase things from companies that conduct themselves in a way that doesn't suit us, and voicing your opinion with your dollars, works.
The number 9000 suspiciously reminds me of Anonymous.
If it were me: Move all the patients out to another hospital, then nuke every system and peripheral that can possibly be infected, reload everything from backups or from scratch. Either get manufacturers to re-flash firmware, or smash them with a hammer (literally) and replace them. And yes, as others have suggested, if a single patient dies, then the hackers responsible get murder charges tacked on to the rest. If a single patient gets injured, even, they're responsible for all of it. Hell, I'd have to say this probably qualifies as a terrorist attack. Catch 'em and string 'em up, or put 'em in front of a firing squad.
I've been working in electronics for 35 years and know far better than you of what you speak, and I can tell you right now that nobody really is repairing the PCB in a phone, nor should they. Only the passive components and the smallest of the integrated circuits are even remotely replaceable on PCBs that small and that densely packed, the rest require a several-thousand-dollar rework station that requires special training and skills to use, and even then it's a risky proposition to R&R BGA-packaged devices, assuming those are even the problem. What they should be doing is selling replacement (new or factory refurbished) PCBs for their devices, so 3rd-party repair companies can repair customer devices. But they'll never do it, because it's not as profitable as telling people to just buy a new phone. Really, for all the good it does anyone, the entire inside of the phone may as well be just one solid block of epoxy, totally inaccessible, and when it dies, you toss it in the e-waste bin and forget about it; that's what Apple and many other companies want you to do, just buy a new one. Doesn't mean that isn't bullshit, but that's what makes them the most money so that's what they want to do. If automobile manufacturers weren't constrained by laws preventing it, they'd do pretty much the same thing: make vehicle engines completely unrepairable (except for the most basic maintenance), and make you buy a new one every few years (as if we're not close to that now anyway). Anyway, with electronics, that's pretty much the way things are going to be, in part because of the component density necessary to make such small devices, and in part because manufacturers want to make as much money as possible. If they were forced to make them more 'open', they'd probably respond by raising the price.