We need laws to prevent this
I bet some small-time installers that were sourcing on the grey market will go bankrupt because of this.
For example, we bought a built-in oven, and post-sale we discovered a sticker saying that by using the oven, we agreed to a EULA and binding arbitration, and to return it if we disagree.
I think that, had we decided to decline the previously-undisclosed EULA, the manufacturer should have had to either provide one that works as they advertised (no EULA) and with identical dimensions, or they should have had to replace our brand-new cabinets with ones that matched a competitor’s product (and incur a large multiple of the cost we paid for the oven).
There was an article on HN about a month ago, that two companies each have the ability to overload or shut down the entire grid in many parts of the states, just by their remote control of the solar panels and batterires.
They should be regulated like any other utility.
If you sell a complicated product dependent on other parties then you are taking on risks.
The power inverters were *not their property*. Remotely accessing them, without authorization and with the intent of disabling them, is a textbook CFAA felony.
Fuck 'em. Isolate your local net from the world and only let through devices you trust. Plenty of ways to do that, even at low expense. But you will have to make the effort or pay someone else to do it.
You buy a device from an intermediary and it phones home to a foreign jurisdiction. That sucks but I'm not sure what recourse you can realistically expect.
It’s like if Ford outsourced faulty brake systems, had a bunch of cars crash because of it, and then say “it’s not our fault, we didn’t actually make the brake system”.