Colorado Denied Its Citizens the Right-to-Repair After Riveting Testimony | Hacker News Reader

Colorado Denied Its Citizens the Right-to-Repair After Riveting Testimony

vice.com

52 pointsnixass18 comments

Interesting to deflect with an excuse about “unanswered questions” when they chose not to ask those questions. The obviously interpretation would be that they are just grasping at straws to vote against the law without any real aguements as to why, but then you have to wonder what they gain from this. Has Apple been donating to these politicians? Is John Deere giving campaign contributions? Or are they really dumb enough that a couple of lobbyists whispering “please won’t someone think of the corporations!” would cause enough doubt that they’d vote it down?

> In their own comments, the legislators repeated lines Apple and other companies often use to defend their repair monopolies. Shannon Bird (D), for example, said that manufacturers have the right to dictate how a customer uses its product. She stressed that Apple can sell licenses to whatever it wants. “Apple Music is different than purchasing a CD,” she said. "I have a hard time believing that we would call it Apple having a monopoly on its own product.”

Is this the same Shannon Bird who is working for Apple Insurance?

SHANNON BIRD (GOVERNOR) APPLE INSURANCE LLC WASHINGTON WA LIMITED-LIABILITY COMPANY

Address: 281 E Bluff Dr Port Angeles, WA 98362 Registered Agent: Apple Insurance LLC Filing Date: November 13, 2014 File Number: 603452158

https://www.bizapedia.com/wa/apple-insurance-llc.html

Vote no on politicians that vote no on right to repair. Next CO state senate race is 2022, throw the bums out: https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_State_Senate_elections,_202...

> tech companies have attempted to tighten the control over how we use their devices.

Our devices.

Right to repair is nothing to do with ownership.

It’s about forcing companies to provide services.

I was commenting on the misleading phrasing, not the right to repair itself.

It's about forcing companies to not intentionally make devices unrepairable.

Forcing companies to provide a firmware unlocking service is pretty silly. Forcing companies to stop locking legitimate users out of the firmware is a lot less silly.

Forcing companies to provide repair parts is pretty silly. Stopping companies from killing 3rd party repair parts is a whole lot less silly.

Forcing companies to sell specialty screwdrivers is pretty silly. Forcing companies to not use more expensive proprietary screws is a whole lot less silly.

Most people aren't asking anyone to force companies to provide services. They are asking to force companies to stop annoying shenanigans that prevent repair.

These are false dichotomies:

> Forcing companies to stop locking legitimate users out of the firmware is a lot less silly.

This is a lot like the argument for giving the FBI a backdoor - the idea that the computer can easily be open for the good guys while being secure against the unauthorized intrusions.

Not so.

> They are asking to force companies to stop annoying shenanigans that prevent repair.

That’s really just dismissive invective.

What you call ‘annoying shenanigans’ are highly desirable security features wanted by most consumers.

It's perfectly possible to have open and secure firmware simultaneously. You could e.g. force a wipe of encryption keys when unlocking the firmware like chromebooks do. That way you can meddle with the firmware to your hearts content and not leak any personal data to the FBI when they nick your phone.

Or how about nonsensical "features" like cryptographically checking if a replacement display is signed by apple? How does that do anything but prevent third party repair?

I'm not being dismissive. I just want a damn phone where I'm allowed to replace parts without having to ask permission from the manufacturer first.

That sucks. I called my legislators about it, guess I’ll have to call them again next year as they are closer to re-election.

Right to repair is important, but this bill was too crude.

I have no idea how Colorado's legislature works, but presumably they could propose amendments to the bill. Instead they voted to ignore the bill.

Sure, the bill was ludicrously simplistic.

Generally legislators aren’t going to fix a bill like this with amendments. Those are used for something that is close to what is needed.

Then reject the bill on those grounds. Don't table it indefinitely.

Why not?

If the proposers wants a bill to pass, they can propose a better one.

Again, I don't know how Colorado's legislature works, so this may not be perfectly accurate

They've avoided providing the necessary information to produce a better bill, and by tabeling it they can both blanket reject similar bills for being too similar to a postponed bill while also avoiding any political fallback for rejecting the bill.

> They've avoided providing the necessary information to produce a better bill.

The people who proposed the bill avoided providing the necessary information. It’s their responsibility.

The legislature is their to vote on whether the proposed legislation is in the best interests of the people they represent. They have done that.

The proposers of the bill are free to discuss what would make a better bill with those legislators or anyone else.

If the proposers of the bill aren’t willing to do this and just want to blame the legislature, then perhaps they are the wrong people for the job.

There were hours of testimony explaining why they viewed this bill as necessary, where the legislators praised many of those involved, and did not ask questions or mention what they thought needed to be improved with the bill. That was the time to raise objections that the proposers could change, it did not happen.

>The legislature is their to vote on whether the proposed legislation is in the best interests of the people they represent. They have done that.

I don't see how a committee voting to "indefinitely postpone a vote" on the bill fits that description.

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