Right-to-repair fight going national as FTC asked to lay down the law

iFixit and the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) have teamed up to go straight to the US Federal Trade Commission with a rulemaking petition urging it to implement national right-to-repair rules. The petition [PDF], sent to the FTC on Tuesday, calls on the Commission to implement new regulations under its Section 5 powers …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

So whats the balance?

Between right to swap the battery on my 5year old iPhone

vs.

I can no longer trust that a lost iPhone is secure cos somebody can replace the magic-security-pixie / fingerprint reader or my iPhone is now more stealable because it can be parted out for $$$$

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So whats the balance?

If this was even an issue then one would expect that expensive Android phones would be stolen more than iphones so they could be parted out.

Any suggestion that is so?

[DS999]

Re: So whats the balance?

It is pretty hard to tell an expensive Android from a cheap one by with the sort of quick glance a thief would have. Who wants to take the risk of grabbing a phone and ending up some midrange phone that sold for $249 new?

The resale value of Android phones also falls more quickly, with large discounts typically available before they're a year old making the parts worth less and repair making less sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So whats the balance?

Your point could be paraphrased as: It's worth stealing iphones because Apple inflate repair costs so high because of a so called "security" feature.

Remove the security, and replacement parts would be cheap as they don't have to come from Apple. Thieves have little incentive to part out phones

This is a circular argument.

[DS999]

Re: So whats the balance?

If Apple makes it impossible to use replacement parts from a stolen iPhone then no one will have any incentive to steal an iPhone. They could do that if all the parts were linked at manufacture time, and when a stolen phone was reported to Apple (which you could do via logging into your Apple ID if there was a checkbox to mark the device 'stolen') all those parts were permanently blacklisted.

They could still make third party repairs and use of broken phones possible if they ALSO had a way to for the legit owner of a phone to mark it as "sold for parts". Then all those parts could be used to repair other iPhones by a third party who acquires the "sold for parts" iPhone, as well as selling new parts that also worked.

The system is obviously clunky now but it is at least moving in the direction of what I'm suggesting here. So far at least. Maybe getting there isn't their intent and they will want to keep repair costs high as you believe. But I don't see why. Apple has said that repairing iPhones is a money loser for them (not surprising, given the super expensive real estate Apple stores typically inhabit) but even if they were making money doing it that would be a rounding error on a rounding error on a rounding error in their revenue. I always laugh when people suggest Apple wants to monopolize repairs because they think it is a huge money maker.

People think Apple has some ulterior motive to make people not want to repair their iPhone because then they'll buy a new one, but they have a clear incentive to keep iPhones working. The reason the installed base of iPhones keeps growing is not because more and more people are buying new iPhones - they cost a lot and much of the world can't afford to spend $1000 for a new phone. They want iPhones to have second, third maybe even fourth owners because that's how they get them into the hands of people who can't afford new ones. Apple figured out years ago that's how they grow once they've saturated the market of people willing/able to buy new iPhones.

[DJV]

Re: " they have a clear incentive to keep iPhones working"

Yup, keep believing that as opposed to more obvious: "they have a clear incentive to keep making more profit."

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: " they have a clear incentive to keep iPhones working"

@ DS999

Belief, I’m afraid, is the shore on which the waves of reason break and die.

Jeremy Clarkson (The Times 31 Jan 21)

[BristolBachelor]

Re: So whats the balance?

If all of these parts have their own serial number, it would be easy for the phone to report the serial numbers of each bit, to be able to detect a stolen part and identify the occasional dodgy repair; instead of banning all repairs regardless of theft or not.

[doublelayer]

Re: So whats the balance?

"I can no longer trust that a lost iPhone is secure cos somebody can replace the magic-security-pixie / fingerprint reader"

That's not how that works. Here's what would happen:

1. You lose your phone or I steal it from you.

2. I take it apart to replace the fingerprint reader with one that I've designed at great expense to work the same way the Apple-developed one does but always accept my fingerprint. Somehow I manage this even though the part is not open and so making that would require difficult and expensive reverse-engineering.

3. I put the phone back together, never having turned it off.

4. I scan my fingerprint on my compromised reader. Nothing happens, because the reader is not hot-swap capable. The phone won't read from it unless the sensor is present at boot.

5. I restart the phone to pick up the new reader. The phone restarts and demands the passcode, since without an active session, biometrics can't decrypt the phone. My reader won't be able to get through that.

In short, your scare story is completely invalid. Not to mention that there are several other ways to design a phone that would prevent a sensor swap from breaking encryption. For example, you could put the encryption key in the sensor, and then swapping the sensor locks the data away since it doesn't have the key. Users who need to replace the sensor can decrypt with their code before swapping in another sensor and re-encrypting with that. There are lots of options other than preventing the sensors from working.

[Sampler]

Re: So whats the balance?

Apple place authentication on each part of the phone, you replace the fingerprint reader, it no longer authenticates with the system.

Because Apple are that fuck you about repairing your own device, so you can't even use parts from another device.

[doublelayer]

Re: So whats the balance?

I know. I was explaining why they don't have to do that for any security purpose, as they and their fans like to claim. If they didn't do any of that, their devices would be equally secure, but they'd have less revenue from repairs and unnecessary sales of new devices.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: So whats the balance?

I don't do Apple but I thought one of their claimed reasons for having the fingerprint reader tied to the phone was the security module?

I just buy old Pixels and run GrapheneOS, people steal my phone then hand it back and any change they can spare.

[Dimmer]

Re: So whats the balance?

No problem, just update it and it will become a plate warmer.

[steviebuk]

Re: So whats the balance?

I never saw hi-fis, TVs, Walkmans, washing machines etc stolen on mass in the 80s because the parts could be swapped out. Is it possible you're an industry shill or just enjoy binning electronics because they can't be repair due to lock ins?

Back in the late 80s, early 90s here in the UK the TV in the backroom stopped working. A family friend came round, put it on the floor, opened it up and the schematic was on the inside of the back cover. He traced the fault on the board checking the schematic. Replaced what had failed, put back back on, TV worked again.

Try doing that now with all our big flatscreen TVs.

Its ridiculous that we've gone backwards. Apple were trying for years because of Jobs to lock everything down. Lucky they had Wozniak otherwise the Apple 2 would of been fully locked down. Its what Jobs wanted but Wozniak told him it was a bad idea. That people wanted to be able to upgrade. Wozniak won and its what kept Apple afloat for so long as they were on the brink of bankruptcy. The Apple 2 saved them.

Jobs got his way in the end. Fuck the end user he just cared about profits and form over function.

It should never have been allowed to happy but money bought them the ability to build in planned obsolescence to force people to upgrade.

[BristolBachelor]

that key functions remain enabled after a manufacturer ends support for a product

I've got electronics still fully working after >35 years. I don't think companies should be allowed to sell things that rely on them keeping online services running, and then switching them off after 2 years.

[Sampler]

I recently replaced the thumbsticks on my nintendo joy-cons, I'm a bit lazy, I didn't want to, but no where sold the grey joy-cons that came with my launchday console, a bit annoying, happy to pay the $110 AUD as lefty had developed a bit of drift over the years but all I could buy is the gaudy coloured versions (not even the plain whites that comes with the oled unit).

In my search for my colour preference though I came across the hall-effect replacements for a fair crack under half the price I was going to pay, figured what the hell, it's my only option to keep the colour I preferred.

Replacement thumbsticks came with all the parts needed, spudgers, drivers etc.. to get in to the units and they were fairly obvious on how to disassemble and rebuild that I didn't watch the youtube video link in the box.

Now I have fixed joy-cons, I spent a lot less than if Nintendo were still making the colour option and they're technically better than the originals (hall-effect sensors have a much smaller deadzone than traditional thumbstick designs) and it didn't even take me that long, like five minutes with each controller.

So, good guys Nintendo, a hardwearing product (six years of use is pretty good mileage for the twiddling these sticks have done) that was simple enough for this idiot to repair, avoiding stuff going to landfill and doing all this at potentially lost profits. If only more companies were like you.

[Spazturtle]

"So, good guys Nintendo, a hardwearing product (six years of use is pretty good mileage for the twiddling these sticks have done)"

Nah there is no quality consistency with joy cons, my first set lasted a few years, my second set only lasted two weeks of playing animal crossing (so not even a game that would wear the sticks much).

[Sampler]

Two weeks sounds like a manufacturing defect that would be covered by a returns policy for repair/replacement in all fairness.

End of the day, someone has to get the one's made on a friday arvo..

[Grunchy]

“Right to repair,” nothing.

The real scene is, “right to build your own damn stuff.”

(Rip out your stupid ECC and slot in a Speeduino, yo!)

[Potemkine!]

Parts pairing means Apple and other OEMs get final say on whether replacement parts are fully functional by requiring repair shops to call and verify serial numbers on swapped-in components

Big corps are so good in corrupting lawmakers to screw citizens in the end, it's appaling

[Terry 6]

Clue: Profit is involved

Well,that subhead is a clue to something more significant. There is an ocean of difference between the traditional way of making a profit, i.e. you manufacture or sell an item that the customer pays a bit more for than it costed you, and this new enshittifiaction that has arrived with tech devices and software. Now profit is to make or sell a device or programme as before, but then make sure that your customer becomes a "cash flow"- i.e. never stops paying.