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Comment by HiPhish | Hacker News Reader

Depending on where he lives this might be illegal. Yes, we live in a cyberpunk dystopia where the manufacturer can break what you bought and then send you to jail for repairing it. You can read more about it here: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

This shit is absolutely dystopian. The law must not just be reversed, manufacturers need to be taken to court for shoddy software. Insecure data collection and transmission should be treated the same as having unsafe electrical wiring. It is a defect that needs to be either fixed or the product recalled. As long as manufacturers are not just allowed to but rewarded for selling defective products this won't change. I expect the moment unsolicited data collection becomes a liability manufacturers will drop it like a hot potato.

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>>>>> I expect the moment unsolicited data collection becomes a liability manufacturers will drop it like a hot potato.

Possession of the data needs to be illegal.

Here's how it could work. It's similar to how copyrights for music are enforced. A person whose data are found in someone's files or server can sue for "statutory" damages, which are levied on a per-offense basis.

What are the odds individuals learn their data has been found. What kind of damages could be awarded that would make hiring a lawyer and giving them 50% of winnings a worth while effort? I could also easily see individual cases combining to become class action reducing the winnings even further.

In other words, I find this a silly suggestion as it's just never going to work in the real world.

I seem to find out my data has been leaked in a breach every other month. I don't even care if I actually get the money for it, let it go to the class action lawyers. Life is good so long as the companies pay more than they make by holding the data.

>Here's how it could work. It's similar to how copyrights for music are enforced. A person whose data are found in someone's files or server can sue for "statutory" damages, which are levied on a per-offense basis.

That's not how copyright lawsuits work though. For the typical person torrenting, it's because they were caught in the act of torrenting (eg. they had a torrent client in the swarm connecting from an ip that was assigned to them). Otherwise it's a DMCA takedown and companies don't even bother suing. Nobody is getting their hard drives searched for illegal music and getting sued as a result.

That's right. I'm not talking about copyright, but about a new restriction on possession of the data. The only parallel is the use of statutory damages as a remedy.

There's an exemption from Section 1201 for "Computer programs that control devices designed primarily for use by consumers for diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of the device or system".

That's news to me. Do you have a source for that I can look at? Not being snarky. I would legitimately like to read more about this.

Probably refers to regulatory exceptions that aren't in the statue directly, which are updated every 3 years:

I see in the "final rule" for 2024 (PDF) a section titled "11. Computer Programs—Repairs of Devices Designed Primarily for Use by Consumers", although it seems to indicate that nothing changed, as opposed to telling you what stayed the same.

I actually was just reading up on it yesterday because I've rooted a commercial e-ink word processor and was trying to sort out how much about the process I can legally share. The sibling post has the link to the LoC rulemakings that define the exemption categories. These exemptions are the same basis for any phone jailbreak, which makes me suspect it could be legal to publish methods as well as do it your self, but I'm still unsure.

Are you allowed to share how you repaired the software? Because if not then what I said stands, he cannot sell these little Raspberry Pis or publish information on how people can build them themselves. That's one of the problems Louis Rossmann has been talking about in regards to the FULU bounty program.

https://bounties.fulu.org/

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