The text of this law is here [1]. The formatting is ridiculously bad, which makes it extremely hard to read: Subsections within subsections within subsections with approximately zero indentation.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, this law defines an independent repair provider as someone with a valid and unexpired certification demonstrating that they have the “technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair consumer electronic equipment” and that the manufacturer is allowed to decide which certifications they trust.
Without these certifications, you are not an independent repair provider and manufacturers can refuse to allow you to do anything. You can be just an average person repairing your own device, in which case the manufacturer must work with you. But you can expect to be forced to prove that you own the device before that happens.
I read things differently. Several sections clearly reference the owner of a device. For example under section C part i
(C) Makes parts available directly or through an authorized service provider to:
(i) An independent repair provider or an owner at costs and on terms that are equivalent
to the most favorable costs and terms at which the original equipment manufacturer offers
the parts to an authorized service provider and that:
the word owner shows up 17 times in the bill, and seems to give the same rights to an owner, that an authorized repair shop has.
It places the minimum bar at known place, and that known place is anti-consumer. So now all companies know that they don't have to any more than have a certified repair center program.
What's that you sa? The requirements on certification are impossibly high. Oh noes.
It's one thing to fix things for yourself, and a whole other kind of thing to hold yourself out to the public as an expert in something. Kind of like how you can defend yourself in court but not someone else unless you are a lawyer. Though I would be surprised if the law were written such that you couldn't repair someone else's device, so long as you did not receive compensation for it.
The problem is that it sounds like the device manufacturer gets to decide what certifications are sufficient. Presumably they could decide that no certifications are sufficient, and thus no one can run a certified repair shop.
Or they could offer their own certification, but make attaining it prohibitively expensive or difficult.
So as a non-certified repairer, you have to offer a city tour around the block, at a ridiculously high price, and then repair the device at no additional cost. All a matter of perspective.
It's not a mountain of certificates, you just need one of many different options.
They explicitly mention A+ which I assume is the CompTIA one.[0] Yeah, I'm not going to say it doesn't suck to have to pay $250, but there are free practice exams[1]. Here, I even took a screenshot of their sample questions[2] there are things like
Which of the following password choices increases the chance that a brute force attack will succeed?
A. Dictionary words
B. Special characters
C. Long passwords
D. Capital letters
I'm okay verifying that someone has this basic level of competence. I would be surprised if any given Hacker News user couldn't pass one of these tests without studying. You need like a 78%...
But let's be real, if you're repairing for a friend, you just fucking order the stuff for them and put in their name and info (with their permission of course). The only "for anyone else" part that requires certs is if you're operating a business. I think you all are blowing this part out of proportion. Mountains out of mole hills. I know it is the internet and we like to complain without knowing what we're complaining about, but come on...
If the previous comments are to be believed (I don't know I didn't read the law), then individual repairperson will need many certs in practice. If I put myself out there as able to repair phones and there are a dozen popular phone manufacturers and each requires a different cert then I need to make them all happy to be able accept whatever customers walk in the front door with.
> If the previous comments are to be believed (I don't know I didn't read the law)
It's probably worth doing so before taking a stance. I'd highly encourage this if you see people arguing about something in the comments. Especially when it is linked. Here, I'll save you the trouble
(e) “Independent repair provider” means a person that:
(A) Engages in the business of diagnosing, maintaining, repairing or updating consumer electronic equipment in this state but is not an authorized service provider; and
(B) Possesses a valid and unexpired certification that demonstrates that the person has the technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair consumer electronic equipment in accordance with widely accepted standards, such as a Wireless Industry Service Excellence Certification, an A+ certification from the Computing Technology Industry Association, a National Appliance Service Technician Certification or another certification that an original equipment manufacturer accepts as evidence that the person can perform safe, secure and reliable repairs to consumer electronic equipment that the original equipment manufacturer makes or sells.
We can see that it literally says what I indicated.
>> It's not a mountain of certificates, you just need one of many different options.
Possesses __A__ valid and unexpired certification that demonstrates that the person has the technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely
Nowhere does it say that many are needed and the continued text makes a stronger indication that these are examples of such sufficient certifications rather than the specific ones needed. If you're willing to believe the other comments maybe you're willing to believe I googled the requirements and can find no such clear description in Oregon Law that one must have a mountain of certificates. All I can find is that you must be certified (with similar but not identical examples provided) and a specific requirement about the certification including discussion of pollution. Which those practice exams I showed even have such a question. But also IANAL, but neither are most of the commenters. Still, I did read the text before responding and tried to do due diligence before taking a position. I hope we can reduce the number of arguments by RTFMing.
I understand your argument. It is a good one. But there's a level of ridiculousness to the text that should give you pause.
The National Appliance Service Technician Certification shows that the holder knows how to repair ovens, refrigerators, and other major household appliances. Your interpretation of the text says that the Oregon legislature believes that this qualifies someone to repair anything covered by their wide-ranging right to repair law. That can't be right, can it?
No, a more logical interpretation is that the list of certifications is just a set of examples, but that manufacturers will have to decide what is applicable to whatever it is they manufacture.
Sure, however, the bill also requires that a manufacturer does not "impose a substantial condition, obligation or restriction that is not reasonably necessary to enable an independent repair provider or an owner to diagnose, maintain, repair or update consumer electronic equipment that the original equipment manufacturer makes or sells"
My guess is there would be challenges in court if they made the certification process onerous.
> Much to the chagrin of the computer scientists who think it’s some sort of robust formal specification for civil society.
Law is actually code, just written in a language that is full of UB and you need to have if run on the system to know exactly what it does, the system being the hierarchy of jurisdictions.
> Law is actually code, just written in a language that is full of UB
Which is why legalese exists. To try to limit undefined behavior by being extremely verbose to cut out any loopholes.
Like...imagine a kid jumping on their bed. Mom says "Stop jumping on the bed!" and the kids stops. Comes back to the kid's room later, kid is jumping on the bed again, tells the kid to stop. Kid says "I'm not jumping, I'm hopping!" and goes into a diatribe about the difference between jumping and hopping, mom says to stop hopping and leaves. Goes back again later, kid is STILL jumping on the bed, and mom is angry! "You said no jumping or hopping, I'm not doing either, I'm bouncing!"
Eventually the mom has to say something like "Do not jump, hop, bounce, spring, leap, or otherwise propel yourself upwards or laterally from the bed, mattress, or any other part of furniture intended for sleeping".
And then it goes on even further, because she did not say, that the kid must never "propel themselves upwards or laterally from the bed", and only stopped that action in that moment ...
The law there is defining two categories manufacturers need to provide the parts to, changing it to AND would mean owners would have to be certified repair people to be covered.
Not trying to take a dig at your comment, but for others struggling to parse (as much as I was) what it was trying to say, here is the trick that helped me - place a comma right before “changing” or treat that word as the start of a new sentence.
Very fair I don't do the best job going and clarifying my comments some times. They come out a bit stream of consciousness. I did see your comment in time to make the change at least.
All good, no worries. I have the same tendency for writing singular sentences that should’ve honestly been paragraphs instead.
I’ve got some feedback about it at work, so now I genuinely try to be a bit better about it. It is a bit easier for me to be mindful of it on HN, but, as evident by my comment history, I am still far from being consistently good about it.
It is still often a “stream of consciousness written down as I would speak it outloud”, but now I at least started doublechecking the punctuation (or lack of it) for any potential confusion it could create before hitting send.
They're just saying you need like a CompTIA certificate and you can't just be some rando. But mind you, it also includes anything YOU own, so if someone is able to act on your behalf that's good enough too. Getting one of those certs to set up shop isn't that hard. Probably just to prevent people from mass ordering parts and redistributing.
Well, it's the same state that won't "permit" a non-certified engineer from recording and noting the time on a stoplight is outside of law. (Note: he won a first amendment lawsuit, and the state body used his formula in the end)
So yeah, when I see verbiage about certifications like this as a barrier to repair electronics, it's pure protectionism and the state impeding actual ownership rights over whatever this crap is.
(Put bluntly, my hardware is mine. If I want to take it to someone else for repair, that's 100% on me and my property rights to decide that. 'CerTiFicAtIoN', especially with the shit company or govt in question should have no say on who can or cant fix MY hardware.)
If you read the bill, they clearly differentiate between a service provider and an owner. The bill does not require an owner to be certified to purchase parts, manuals, tools or make repairs. It does require the manufacture to make those things available to both.
The contention is whether or not you can fix someone else’s device without a certification. If you can only fix your own device then that’s useless to 90% of people who are not technically adept enough to do it.
When I want to get a battery replaced I take my device to the repair shop and they replace the battery. I don’t ask them if they are “certified”. If they break something the liability is on them. Every single repair shop I’ve ever been to offers a warranty on their repair.
So in theory I could buy the manuals, tools, and spare parts, and bring them to Chuck over there who runs an unaccredited repair shop? That doesn't seem awful.
If you read the bill it states that a shop must "Possesses a valid and unexpired certification that demonstrates that the person has
the technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair
consumer electronic equipment in accordance with widely accepted standards, such as a
Wireless Industry Service Excellence Certification, an A+ certification from the Computing
Technology Industry Association, a National Appliance Service Technician Certification or
another certification that an original equipment manufacturer accepts as evidence that the
person can perform safe, secure and reliable repairs to consumer electronic equipment that
the original equipment manufacturer makes or sells".
The bill also requires that a manufacturer does not "impose a substantial condition, obligation or restriction that is not reasonably
necessary to enable an independent repair provider or an owner to diagnose, maintain, repair
or update consumer electronic equipment that the original equipment manufacturer makes
or sells"
The implicit claim being made in this sarcastic comment is that it's not possible for a law to be detrimental to one company while unfairly favoring another.
Which, of course, is obviously false when you think about it.
Which major tech companies would it be good for while being bad for Apple? Keeping in mind that the owner of a device is also allowed to repair without certification.
The OP said "a giant handout to the industry". If you're trying to make a point that excludes all the major players in the tech industry then by all means go ahead but it isn't the conversation you joined.
It's the same for doing work on your house. If you're the owner you don't need to be licensed to do most repairs or renovations but to work on other people's houses you need certification.
Not saying it's a good system, just that it's consistent.
No they won't. The disconnect between computer programming and law is a rich and perennial source of amusement here on Hacker News.
What happens if the manufacturer decides to be unreasonable, by saying that no industry standard of certification is acceptable, or just the one organization they founded themselves, or that sort of thing, is that they get a sharply-worded letter from the Oregon DA. If they don't sort it out then legal action will be taken. So they're not going to do that in the first place, because everyone actually involved in this stuff already knows that.
The law isn't compiled. Its function relies on a common understanding of context which is the major course of study in law school. If a CEO ordered a company to do the sort of thing you're proposing, it would be against the advice of council.
> What happens if the manufacturer decides to be unreasonable, by saying that no industry standard of certification is acceptable, or just the one organization they founded themselves, or that sort of thing, is that they get a sharply-worded letter from the Oregon DA
That assumes that the Oregon DA isn't collecting a bunch of campaign funds, gifts, etc from Apple in which case the DA will do nothing and taking apple to court yourself will likely end in a loss since our legal system is often pay to win and apple can out-spend you.
>If a CEO ordered a company to do the sort of thing you're proposing, it would be against the advice of council.
CEOs often break the law because they (and their council) know the risks of getting caught are small and/or that if they are caught the worst punishment they'll face is a fine which won't come anywhere close to the amount of money they'll make by breaking the law.
Generally, it's a good thing that laws are subject to interpretation by humans and not treated like code written for machines because we want flexibility, but without enough oversight and accountability that doesn't work out so well for us either.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think you are parsing that correctly according to legal canons of construction. Generally all language in a law must be considered relevant, and or implies a disjunctive list. Finally permissive language like such as grant discretion.
So the language says "...in accordance with widely accepted standards, such as..." and lists stuff like A+ and WISE certs. The per the OEM standards is probably best undrstood as modifying the or another certification, so I think the language you are referring to is allowing an additional certification that the OEM considers valid.
It's unclear whether that means it counts as a widely accepted standard, or is allowed even if it's not a widely accepted standard, but pretty sure it's understood as modifying the last antecedent, rather than the clause as a whole in a way that eliminates the widely accepted standard portion..
It would require ignoring the widely accepted standard language and several other departures from the canons of construction to reasonably have the interpretation you use.
The language could be cleaner like they could use either and two sub clauses, but it doesn't need to be.
"Possesses a valid and unexpired certification that demonstrates that the person has the technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair consumer electronic equipment in accordance with widely accepted standards, such as a Wireless Industry Service Excellence Certification, an A+ certification from the Computing Technology Industry Association, a National Appliance Service Technician Certification or another certification that an original equipment manufacturer accepts as evidence that the person can perform safe, secure and reliable repairs to consumer electronic equipment that
the original equipment manufacturer makes or sells."
> The formatting is ridiculously bad, which makes it extremely hard to read: Subsections within subsections within subsections with approximately zero indentation.
This is standard practice in the legal world because the nesting gets so deep if you indent you'd run out of page.
> Anyway, as far as I can tell, this law defines an independent repair provider as someone with a valid and unexpired certification demonstrating that they have the “technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair consumer electronic equipment” and that the manufacturer is allowed to decide which certifications they trust.
What obligates Apple (or anyone) to trust ANY certification?
> The formatting is ridiculously bad, which makes it extremely hard to read: Subsections within subsections within subsections with approximately zero indentation.
Maybe I misunderstand (I can't get the page to load right now) but what kind of document indents subsections? Not any book or article that I remember...
> The formatting is ridiculously bad, which makes it extremely hard to read: Subsections within subsections within subsections with approximately zero indentation.
This is normal for legislation. The problem is that fairly often they end up with subsectioning so deep that you're running into the right margin -- I got about six levels deep -- so they simply don't do it. However, it's still standard to produce bills in PDF.
It does get easier with practice, but I still find myself copying and pasting into a text editor to reformat it. It actually is a helpful exercise just to read the law.
It's similar to reading a really long SQL query. Nobody formats them the way you prefer, so format them as you read and you'll force yourself to read the query with enough attention to understand it. It's simply the best way to read the things.
> Anyway, as far as I can tell, this law defines an independent repair provider as someone with a valid and unexpired certification demonstrating that they have the “technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair consumer electronic equipment” and that the manufacturer is allowed to decide which certifications they trust.
That's true, but it also says:
"An original equipment manufacturer shall make available to an owner or an independent repair provider on fair and reasonable terms any documentation, tool, part or other device or implement that the original equipment manufacturer makes available to an authorized service provider for the purpose of diagnosing, maintaining, repairing or updating consumer electronic equipment that the original equipment manufacturer makes or sells and that is sold or used in this state."
The critical bit is that they have to supply owners, too.
“Fair and reasonable terms” means:
A) Makes documentation available at no charge [except cost to prep and print]
B) Makes tools for diagnosing, maintaining, repairing or updating consumer electronic equipment available at no charge and without impeding access to the tools or the efficient and cost-effective use of the tools [except cost to prep and ship]
C) Makes parts available directly or through an authorized service provider to independent repair providers or an owner at costs and on terms that are equivalent to the most favorable costs and terms at which the original equipment manufacturer offers the parts to an authorized service provider [with a bunch of limitations that try to ensure the OEM can't cheat]. Oh, and [there's limtations that authorized service providers have to be fair and reasonable to owners and independent repair providers, too].
AND, they can no longer use parts pairing to prevent third party replacement parts.
So:
1. An owner has a right to documentation at cost
2. An owner has a right to tools at cost
3. An owner has a right to replacement parts
4. Replacement parts going forward (essentially) can't employ parts pairing.
So, yeah the manufacturer doesn't have to have an authorized service provider, and doesn't have to support independent repair services. BUT THEY STILL HAVE TO OFFER DOC, TOOLS, AND PARTS.
Oh, and if the OEM doesn't have any authorized service providers, then the OEM is the authorized service provider.
-> But it also takes aim at “parts pairing,” or the practice of preventing you from replacing device parts without the approval of a company or its restrictive software. Apple, which routinely uses this practice to try and monopolize repair, lobbied extensively against the Oregon bill. As usual, under the (false) claim that eliminating parts pairing would put public safety and security at risk:
-> “We remain very concerned about the risk to consumers imposed by the broad parts-pairing restrictions in this bill,” John Perry, principal secure repair architect for Apple, said at a legislative hearing last month.”
There was a time when interpreting the “risk to consumers” as a risk of being prevented from gouging consumers would be cynical. Now I guess something like that occurred to the lawyers.
It does sound like this means it's now easier to get a touch screen, embed a tap logger in it, and then swap someone else's screen with it. (Similarly, for the camera module, etc, etc.)
A better approach would be to force Apple to allow the device owner to pair parts (third party or not), and for Apple to provide a list of authorized non-OEM parts to anyone that was considering buying a used phone.
Also, I wonder what this does to the anti-theft mechanisms. Before touch id, basically nobody set screen passwords, and phones were stolen at extremely high rates. After that, and because a stolen iPhone is marked as such and won't work with Apple services, phone theft dropped to almost zero.
If Apple's not allowed to prevent the pairing of the stolen parts in Oregon, I'm guessing it will lead to a black market industry there, where people launder stolen phone parts into refurbished phones by mixing them with parts from broken phones.
If Apple disagrees with iFixit and has genuine reasons to believe this will compromise security, they can share their reasoning publicly and let people judge. So far I don't think they have.
I like iFixit, but that part of the article is nonsense. They completely ignore the standard argument for parts pairing as a theft deterrent:
A shady shop buys a box of broken, non-activation-locked phones, and a box of stolen, working, but activation-locked phones.
They install parts from box two on mainboards from box one. This completely defeats activation locks and cell modem blacklisting.
The same thing is commonly done for other high-value products. It is what automotive chop shops do (there, a wrecked car with a clean vin + stolen car with dirty vin is turned into a sellable car with a clean vin).
They refute your point altogether - any sufficiently dedicated chop-shop can install box one parts on a box two phone with enough effort. This happens all the time in China and there's no reason to doubt it happens in America too. At best, Apple is slightly blocking the floodgate for one-off urban muggings. At worst, they're using a non-existent threat vector as an excuse to expand their already-exploitative repair parts scheme. Anyone who's had to repair a Macbook without warranty knows that Apple will refuse to sell you replacement parts for what they're worth.
> It is what automotive chop shops do
If you think this is about iPhone chop-shops, you have lost the script. Apple designed this scheme from the bottom-up, if they wanted you to have control over your phone they would have left an escape-hatch. When someone locks your door and doesn't give you the key, it's always worth asking: Cui bono?
The point of module-level pairing is to make every module is identifiable, correct? Furthermore, these devices are only usable when connected to the internet.
IF their goal was merely to prevent theft, they could achieve that goal by simply blacklisting individual components when a device is reported stolen. Apple knows precise serial numbers of every paired component installed in that device, they just need to host a database of stolen parts that devices could query on every boot and on a set interval.
Of course, that's not their true goal, so they treat everyone like thieves in the hopes that they buy a new device instead.
What happens if that service is down. Or if a state actor decides to DDOS it to cause havoc.
Of course since this process needs to access networking stack etc it's going to be trivial to bypass if the device is jailbroken. Which means that users buying stolen phones need to be informed not to upgrade the OS otherwise their device is bricked. E-waste implications would be staggering.
Nothing happens if the service is down. They could just as easily DDoS other Apple services, most of them would cause actual havoc if they were down - iMessage, iCloud, Apple Pay, Sign in with Apple, etc.
If the device is jailbroken then all bets are off regardless? If you can bypass the theft database check, you can bypass the current parts pairing check, too.
> E-waste implications would be staggering.
Is that meant to support your argument? That's the status quo.
If the service is down then how would the validation happen. Or if you just allow stolen components to be accepted whilst the phone is unvalidated then state security services will just DDOS the service. They would love to be able to swap out a screen and gain access to the password for journalists, dissidents etc.
And you can't bypass the current pairing check since it is happening before the OS is launched.
I'm sorry but that's just a fairytale. Nobody is going to go through a 10 step process that hinges on someone's phone being stolen and returned without their knowledge while successfully pulling off a DDoS attack against one of the most powerful corporations on the planet that's already facing constant cyber threats.
You mean like every other device in the world? Should Mazda be forcing me to buy a Mazda OEM or OEM-approved car battery through DRM? It would prevent theft of my car to steal its parts, but it would also have the curiously beneficial side effect of massive profit.
WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals including arsenic, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer. For more information, go to www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
As someone who was mugged for his phone about a decade ago, I am very very very much in favor of Apple continuing to require this. It is very much pro consumer on the whole.
The mugging scenario shows that there are risks associated with pairing removal, but the suggestion by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF [1] seems to deal with this particular issue.
- Allow to remove the pairing after a timed delay, say 30 minutes
- Require authentication including a second factor to initiate and confirm the removal
Assuming a mugger isn't likely to sit there for 30 minutes given the chance someone could walk by. If this is the only way to remove the part such that it can be paired with another device, doesn't it solve both problems? I get the feeling Apple is being a bit disingenuous with their "risk to consumers" claims.
Look into the iPhone unlock scam networks. They’re using blackmail tactics as it is.
Anyway, no, the mugger isn't going to try to unlock it while holding you at gun point. They'll rip and run, and sell it for $20 to a fence who will pass it up the chain. Usually they end up in other countries.
Similar in concept to the groups that will take cars stolen in the US, grind off all the VIN plates and other identifying marks, fake paperwork, and then sell them into markets in Africa and the Middle East where the buyers don't ask questions, and government officials are easily and publically bribed.
There’s a lot about right to repair that’s important. One thing I’m curious about is how “certified” correlates with “how we want you to fix it”
Apples approach has often been at a module level: replace the logic board, replace the battery, etc. Board repair houses often operate at the component level: replace a damaged chip.
In the case of the latter, access to schematics and board layout makes this possible, and I’m sure Apple (and everyone else) has zero interest in making these available. Likewise with custom parts. Modules, but not chips.
> Apples approach has often been at a module level: replace the logic board, replace the battery, etc. Board repair houses often operate at the component level: replace a damaged chip.
With a VERY liberal view of "module". I had an MBA with a damaged battery charging circuit. Battery was fine. Computer was fine on AC. Just couldn't get current to battery. Oh, okay, few hundred bucks?
"The estimate to repair is $850..."
Followed rapidly, "Do you want to take a look at the new MBAs and maybe we look at you getting into something upgraded instead?"
Most of the talk seems to be around Apple, which makes sense since they were opponents of the bill but I am more interested to see how this affects game console manufacturers. I had a longer post I had typed out about how console manufacturers have prevented non-authorized peripherals in the past with parts pairing and I was curious how that would affect the consoles going forward. I re-read the parts pairing section to make sure I read it correctly and then stumbled upon the section that refers to what the parts pairing restriction does not apply to and it is clearly written out that it does not apply to video game consoles. I find it very interesting that this applies to smart phones but not to video game consoles at all.
The video game console question is very interesting. I think a lot of right-to-repair advocates, right now, are fine with carving out an exception, for a few reasons.
One, video game consoles have no pretense to being generalized computing devices. They are more similar to appliances, and while that appliance status is arguable, they are definitely closer to that right now than smartphones.
Two, people have nostalgia for video game consoles. They like the packaged nature of it and generally have more good will towards console manufacturers than computer manufacturers (although that part is arguable and may be changing).
Three is politics. It's already hard enough to go up against companies like Apple to get these bills passed. You do not want Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo lining up to oppose you as well.
With all that said though, there is no reason I can see that the arguments used for right to repair -- that users should have full control over the devices they own -- should not also apply to video game consoles. But doing so would mean that consoles are no different than PCs, and would have huge implications for the industry.
Those lines are being blurred already with things like the Steam Deck and I think we're just a few years away from that upheaval, but it hasn't quite happened yet -- hence you see these carve-outs.
edit: Upon rereading what I wrote I realize that I may be conflating right-to-repair with regulations around app stores and walled gardens. They're not exactly the same thing, but I do think they touch on the same issues of the meaning of ownership, which is what set me off.
Maybe I read too much philosophy, but why doesnt anyone see that when Apple lobbies the government they are doing something measurably immoral(If you subscribe to ethical institution).
Neurotransmitters signaling pain happen throughout our human population with these anti-consumer acts.
What I can't understand is: If a single human lobbied the government for a selfish cause, they would be an a-hole. Why is this different?
I'm all for an equal playing field, lets all go Realpolitik, everyone goes amoral. I just find it odd and a bit frustrating that corporations can commit immoral acts but humans cannot. I imagine this causes inequality.
Knowing both sides of the argument around this topic and apple, it's not hard to understand why apple has a compelling argument and why it still deserves to be heard.
You have to remember that tons of people have near zero tech awareness, and regardless of the laws, will just bring their iPhone to the Apple store if it breaks. The same way people still go to dealers to fix their car, even out of warranty.
This means Apple can say "Hey, give us full control of your phone repairs, and we can kill the theft market for iPhones. You are going to come to us anyway, so might as well let us end iPhone theft too"
So this is why lawmakers still sit down with Apple. And the generous lunches.
(Apple DRM'ing all the internal hardware does effectively make stolen iphones completely worthless, in whole or in parts.)
-For the record, I have personally written my senator before asking him to support right to repair laws.
> So this is why lawmakers still sit down with Apple. And the generous lunches.
I have to say, this sounds trivially false, and I don't think I'm nitpicking.
Lawmakers sit down with Apple because Apple has an enormous amount of money and power.
After some of these lawmakers sit down for lunch with the lobbyist, perhaps they make the assessment that what Apple is asking for is still doable/ethical/practical/etc.
Apple has had the full control on supply, and it hasn’t killed the theft market, the same way having control on anything you can install on a iGadget has killed the scam industry, so if we need to get a phone stolen, might as well make it repairable, how long since we start classifying apple arguments as pure marketing detached from reality?
> (Apple DRM'ing all the internal hardware does effectively make stolen iphones completely worthless, in whole or in parts.)
This claim, or to be more specific, the claim that this reduces theft, is missing evidence. Are iPhones really being stolen at a substantially lower rate than other brands, correlating with implementation of these locks?
Sample size of one, and anecdotal at that, but someone snatched my iPhone out of my hands last July and ran away. I of course reported it stolen to the police and locked it down in FindMy, so in theory I think it's a brick, but I don't think that the fact that it was an iPhone really deterred them from stealing it from me.
They actually tried to extort $300 from me to get it back which I of course would not pay, but maybe there's still a market in that for some people?
How did they try to get $300 from you after your phone was stolen? You probably don't carry that much cash on you, they can't text you, and they have your phone/digital wallet if they wanted to try cracking it.
After I got home, I got my wife to call the phone, and they said they would give it back to me if I gave them $300. We were trying to see if we could figure out a way to get them to reveal themselves but it didn’t pan out.
That sucks. Although I can't really see someone who went to the trouble of stealing the phone honoring an exchange. I bet if you had arranged to do the exchange anywhere other than outside a police station they would have just walked off with your phone and an extra $300.
Yeah, that’s what we figured as well. I had no reason to think that anything positive could come out of giving them $300. Even if they did give me my phone back for $300, I don’t want to reward extorting me.
I doubt they got any money for it, so it’s probably resting at the bottom of the Hudson River now.
It was especially frustrating for me because I was unemployed at the time, and really didn't want to be spending $700 of dollars on a new phone, so for a brief moment I will admit that I did consider paying the $300 if I had a way to guarantee that they'd actually give it back, but it didn't last long.
Lots of articles starting 2013 that Activation Lock reduced theft by measurable amounts. I couldn't figure out how to search for articles about drm'ed parts.
If there would be enough unpaired devices in the wild, both types of devices would get stolen (or, worse, robbed, with risk of bodily harm). Thieves would not return the ones that are worthless to them to their owners (why would they take that risk?). So, it would make the protection worthless for those willing to opt-in.
And no, making it somewhat easy to check whether a phone is locked down wouldn’t help. Thieves and robbers won’t spend even a second to do that check while still near the crime scene. It would have to be absolutely obvious (say by having orange and black devices) for thieves to not steal the locked-down ones.
...when Apple lobbies the government they are doing something measurably immoral
Would you consider this to be true if the government was on the wrong side of an issue?
Say politicians wanted to pass a law that every internet search query needed to reviewed and approved by a human before search results could be displayed. Would it be "measurably immoral" for Google to lobby against this law?
Or maybe not enough? Several philosophical frameworks are perfectly compatible with Apple doing legal things to benefit themselves and their customers.
Why would you think that replacement part authentication is immoral? Quite in contrary, I’d say it’s an important safety feature for devices that have access to extremely sensitive data. It’s just important that the user has the authorization rights, and not the company.
Did anyone mention parts authentication? Regardless, you seem to have answered the question you raised. Concepts like parts authentication and secure boot are great in theory. The immoral part is their implementation. They're designed to wrestle the post-sale control of devices away from the customer and consolidate it in the hands of the manufacturer. Besides the subversion of the concept of ownership itself, this leads to increased cost of device ownership in many different ways.
Its a bit like PR stunt for the techies here, while giving master keys to whole cloud to NSA behind the doors. And to claim this will never-ever-pinky-promise-happen we shall show it on some highly publicized FBI case.
Maybe there were good intentions in the beginning and path was truly a good one, but not for a nanosecond do I believe they really made it 100%. Phone is simply not a secure device, doesn't matter who manufactures it, period. Neither are all the networks used to connect anywhere.
If all this lowers theft its a good strategy overall, but with terrible misguided marketing.
Actual techies are interested in the inner workings and can see past marketing. The group you're referring to is either the wider public that doesn't have the technical expertise to analyze the claims made, or Apple loyalists who uncritically accept and defend Apple's reasoning.
If this had anything to do with theft, Apple would only blacklist parts which were inside the device at the time of theft, and otherwise provide "pairing" tools for free.
To play the devil's advocate, the US economic system doesn't have a clear notion of what is selfish or not.
One reason why lobbying is allowed in the first place is to let corporations express what is good and bad for them and have their interests in the balance. The assumption is what's good for corporations increases the overall market and benefits society.
Doubting that assumption is probably out of the current overtone window[edited]
You’re starting from the assumption that no one thinks what Apple is doing is wrong or immoral, but that isn’t true. They have been and continue to be criticised to no end, for this very matter and others, including on Hacker News.
Search for Apple and Right to Repair as keywords and see for yourself. Add Louis Rossmann to the mix and you can’t miss it.
Companies are just a trick to make you think they're not made of of people when in fact it's just a mask for decisions made by real fleshy humans. When a company does something immoral it is because a human at the company did something immoral.
Modern capitalism has created a sort of new type of nobility out of corporations, a layer of entities above that of citizens. Just as you say, their actions are not judged by the same standard we'd use for normal people, and they can actually just get away with fines for breaking laws that would land normal people in jail. And actions we'd deep deeply immoral for normal people to engage in are morally acceptable for them.
Boss: "If you don't like the pay they can find another job"
You: "I found another job"
Boss: "What about loyalty? Are you a job hopper?"
You feel bad for some reason.
The morality we were taught in preschool largely serves the interests of the elite. Things like "if someone does you wrong, don't seek revenge, forgive them" are really helpful messages to have ingrained in society when you are a corporate looter with a name and a address.
I would refine your statement slightly, it's modern corporatism, not capitalism.
We hold corporations in too high of regard and have intermingled what should be free and open exchange of money and goods with governmental power, lobbying.
Sure, but names aren't what's important here. It's the logical conclusion to capitalism, even if it's more fitting to call it corporatism.
Either the government is big and the corporations lobbies and gets undue influence over how society and it's laws operates though the government, or the government is small and the corporations get undue influence over how society and it's law operates though sheer unregulated societal power. The group who controls your means of getting food, shelter, medicine, and information will have power over your life, and will bend the rules to their advantage using that power.
This comes across as teenage thoughts masquerading as philosophy. “Neurotransmitters signalling pain…”. What? Massive citation needed. Words mean things. “People get sad about things, yet things happen” is thought-terminating nonsense.
Nobody, not even Tim Cook, considers themselves the Bad Guy. The real world doesn’t work like that. This situation is certainly more nuanced than you’re making it out to be. If you’ve been part of basically any discussion about this topic, you’d see that there are multiple sides. Starting from a position of “my preconceived view is correct and no other view exists” is intellectually dishonest and wilful ignorance.
Personally, I'm just jaded. Corporations have acted this way as long as I can remember. I just accept that corporations act like sociopaths and the people running the large corporations are more interested in buying a new yacht than doing the right thing.
Apple changed in about 1996. When Steve Jobs came back he ended all of that 3rd party business. It was costing his company money. They went from a starting to thrive secondary clone market. To a closed off eco system pretty much overnight. It used to be fairly easy to get info on parts and what to do from Apple. That singular act saved Apple from becoming the next IBM. However, it doomed the rest of us to this weird dynamic of Apple choosing when to help the little guy out or not. Usually it seems to fall on the 'not' side. If Apple had always been this way it would not be as frustrating.
Letting owners repair their own devices is great and should align well with existing warranties for tech stuff.
The other day, a volume button on my bluetooth speaker stopped working and I could tell it was damaged so I opened it up and found the circuit board supporting the button was snapped. When I initially approached the manufacturer for a warranty, they declined because they assumed I had taken the device to a non-approved repair shop, which would void the warranty. When I explained, no I'm the owner (here's the receipt), and I opened it up to check for damage, then they fulfilled the warranty no problem.
Even the 4 being available through some kind of weird but official third party is kind of off to me. I really don’t understand how they haven’t prioritized the US market by now. It is probably the market that spends the most on phones.
The US is also the region with the strongest iOS market dominance. Why compete for 30% of a saturated market, when EU/ME/India is more lucrative and also much closer to the EU based operation. It just makes more sense to focus on domestic markets. Same with many US brands.
People on this forum would likely have much more impact by writing + hosting an open-source SPA that replaces a proprietary phone app. Starter project:
I replaced my iphone 8 screen and battery at a third party repair service.
What is great is that the repair was done in front of me while I waited. I didn't have to upgrade my OS or backup my data (though I did).
It was fast and inexpensive.
But... The automatic screen brightness no longer works. I have to manually adjust the brightness (which is sometimes challenging with dim screen in bright sunlight)
I think the ambient light sensor must be calibrated, and only by apple.
I don’t think bills like this will matter in several years for phones, unless they somehow start forcing manufacturers to design for manual repair. The end game for all these manufacturers is a phone assembled, repaired, and disassembled for recycling entirely by machine. I believe they already do this for the recycling.
I support right to repair in general, and I’m not particularly opposed to this bill, but it seems a bit hopeless in the long run.
Even if they don't explicitly design for manual repair, forcing them to publicly provide schematics, individual components (directly or through an agreement with their supplier), and any software required to successfully complete the repair would be a big step in the right direction.
lol no thas not the end goal because its a net negative to repair stuff no matter how cheap and easy you can do it. Every repaired last years model is a this years model not sold.
Manufacturers try to pretend that they are pro repair but very few are really.
The end goal is automation and functionality regardless of how difficult it makes manual repair. Almost nobody values manual repair capability when purchasing, so why would manufacturers?
Consumers just want easy repair/replace when it happens, and the more resilient the product the less they care.
anybody who has manual manipulators and a manual can repair a manually repairable device. A device that needs special tools to break open or take apart increases the likelyhood that its just tossed and this years new model is bought instead.
consider this, if Apple makes you sign a form that when buying this iPhone, you have no right to repair it on your own or take it to a non authorized repair shop. You must go to Apple to get those repairs. How many consumers do you think would sign this? I reckon a good large majority, at least the number of people buying Apple care now would buy this. This is what kills right to repair, Apple and similar companies obviously lobby against it, but that’s not what kills Right to repair, the fact is regardless of the number of laws passed to support right to repair, until a majority of consumers are willing to repair stuff on their own or with third party repair-ers, right to repair will only matter to the small minority of people who care about it.
Apple is not the only hardware manufacturer and there are millions of consumers of non-apple hardware that will gleefully welcome this legislation.
I agree that consumers are the real problem but government intervention provides a much needed safety net to keep these oligopolistic practices at bay while users slowly figure out why right to repair matters.
We should be happy for any and all help we can get on this front.
I wonder about this too. People would probably buy through 3rd parties (Amazon, etc). I don't know if the law would restrict Amazon and other vendors to not sell non-compliant devices in Oregon.
Thing is, it is not just Oregon. Massachusetts, Colorado, New York, Minnesota, Maine and California all have right to repair laws. It is not possible for companies to remain competitive and not sell in those states.
I think it’s hilarious that a lot of people here talk about the bureaucracy in Europe and then immediately switch to specific state laws regulating technology for one state.
The people who oppose EU regulation of tech probably also oppose this. The people who support that probably also support this. The mistake you're making is "everybody except me is one person."
I didn't argue for or against regulation, my point is that the US regulations structure with specific states defining technological regulation is even more insane than EU regulations on technology.
Because common market regulations are clearly defined as EU responsibility.
You implied that people here are being hypocritical for supporting one but criticizing the other. However you never established that it's the same people who have these evidently contradictory opinions. If it's different people having different opinions then there is no "switching", no hypocrisy, nothing for you to find hilarious.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, this law defines an independent repair provider as someone with a valid and unexpired certification demonstrating that they have the “technical capabilities and competence necessary to safely, securely and reliably repair consumer electronic equipment” and that the manufacturer is allowed to decide which certifications they trust.
Without these certifications, you are not an independent repair provider and manufacturers can refuse to allow you to do anything. You can be just an average person repairing your own device, in which case the manufacturer must work with you. But you can expect to be forced to prove that you own the device before that happens.
[1] https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2024R1/Downloads/Meas...