Protest against the EU radio lockdown
blog.mehl.mx
blog.mehl.mx
Are the national governments pushing for more radio control? Is there some kind of crisis of radio abuse? Or is it an indirect way to give governments more punishment tools, by making radio modification a subversion of manufacturer controls, so you can be slapped with an additional charge if you ever use a custom radio device in a crime?
I'm not as familiar with EU law, but similar changes in the US were prompted by "Import hardware configured legally, but manufacturer winks / doesn't care about flashes to illegal specifications" scenarios (indeed, it may be a way to boost sales).
The correct legislative solution seems to mandate locked RF firmware... while also mandating customer access to tinker with the remainder of functionality.
This addresses the tendency for manufacturers to simply lock down everything as the cheapest path to legal compliance.
TBH, if you want a right to tinker with RF firmware, a ham (or equivalent) license seems a low (probably too low) but necessary and fair burden.
The usual excuses are given, electrical safety, emission on protected bands...
You shouldn't ban general purpose technology because of particular bad uses.
Neither do "most US residents".
More to the point, your focus on guns is missing the larger point. There is very real and immediate dissatisfaction with the EU regulatory landscape. See: Brexit.
And in this case, the proposed regulation is:
“””[R]adio equipment [shall support] certain features in order to ensure that software can only be loaded into the radio equipment where the compliance of the combination of the radio equipment and software has been demonstrated.”””
Now I don’t think that’s a well written rule, but my problem is the specifics rather than the general idea. I think that either all broadcasts should be digitally signed, or it should not be possible for hackers to remotely modify many other people’s radios to broadcast false signals. (One-on-one modifications I don’t care about so much, but how do you write/pass such rules, given the difficulty getting people to care about or believe the scale difference between automated and manual hacking?)
In general, current regulation makes the owner of the equipment responsible for the broadcast.
This new regulation will just stifle development on SDR technologies
What situation? What crisis is happening I'm completely missing?
Imagine how ridiculous it would be to have a regulation on wheels that they must try to prevent being installed on non-approved devices.
The regulations were written in the US to be compatible with open source and customization, only requiring that outside software not be able to set the radio to transmit outside the legal limits that applied to that type of device.
A router manufacturer does not have to lock down all the firmware to satisfy this. They can make it so that the "set radio parameters" part of the firmware is separate from the rest, with only the former being restricted. This is the approach the FCC encourages, rather than simply locking down the whole thing.
In fact, when TP-Link was making routers that could operate outside legal power levels, and the FCC went after them, the consent decree they agreed to required TP-Link to work with OpenWrt and the radio chipset manufacturers to ensure that they could build compliant routers without locking out third party firmware.
Looking at this rule from another angle, I think the objective is to have a single entity to blame if interfering device is found. In this context this may seem rational -- all the firmware released that is mangling with intentional radiators needs to be tested to prove it is compliant. However, the method creates extra complexity for the device manufacturers and as time has shown -- does not really improve the matters in the long term, you will just get a fleet of devices running old firmware with unfixed bugs. Manufacturers often do not like it either, specially in the management.
I think it may be a classical example of "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" or Hanlon's razor*
Is there evidence that the devices prohibited by the proposal lead to widescale breaking of these regulations? And if so, is there evidence that this causes harm?
It's harsh to assume that people can not be trusted with SDRs and therefore we should ban them outright. I'd like these sorts of blanket bans to come with a strong evidence backed reason.
I am currently in the process of a obtaining a ham radio license specifically so I can experiment and innovate with SDRs and IOTs and be confident that I do so in compliance with the regulations. This proposal will make it much harder for ham radio enthusiasts and innovators to experiment and learn in a compliant way.
^ Above submitted as feedback
Yes there is. A lot of people now import devices from countries with different frequencies causing a mess. This is especially a problem if frequencies are used for other purposes.
If they are already using devices that are not compliant with EU regulations, then I don't see how stricter regulations would solve this. This sounds like an enforcement issue. What prevents people from importing the very same non-compliant devices under the proposed regulations?
In fact, I can see more of this import happening as the domestic devices will now be more expensive and crippled.
As for "how do you define bad laws?". We know it's possible because we have constitutions. We know they can be expanded. We know it's possible to get people jailed if they violate rules, and legislators are people even if they tend to forget this little detail.
As for "but what about evil corporation that will not be stopped by the law?". Well, even corporation is the one that usually wants more laws and even discuss the laws that should stop them.
If you want any semblance of freedom under a State you need a way to make legislators think very long before legislating.
"They only have to win once, you have to be vigilant and win every single time"
I also suspect that the current patent mess is a result of failing to win the continual defensive battle.
I'd be interested to hear from any law or political theorists regarding this seemingly deep flaw in the system. What could be done to mitigate it? How do we stop the same bad laws being proposed in slightly different forms again and again when vested interests combine with a poorly informed legislature?
The law is not a blockchain ledger. If bad law gets in, it can also get removed later.
Any objection to government surveillance is met with "Well you must be a member of or support the activities of" one or more members of the aforementioned groups. It's better to never let a bad law in than remove it later because people are irrational and bring these emotional arguments into play.
Also why do we think constitutions are perfect, don't countries have to update them periodically to fix them?
If passed into law, it might make a test-case for sales of rogue drones but it won't be able to stop Baofeng handsets flooding a market. The EU needs reminding that restricting freedom in this way is a terrible idea.
If this is approved, I expect a few other similar laws to protect the "common good". Car manufacturers should verify and approve all possible combinations of modifications. You shouldn't be able to increase your horsepower (and possibly kill more people), surely the car manufacturer should take the blame and responsiblity for whatever you do with your car ;-)
As a matter of fact our good EU government (overlords) should regulate and ban whatever is not safe for us, they know better.
Being in EU, I'm going to add my comment to the official link provided in the OP blog post and I encourage everyone in the EU to do the same.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/02/27/all-new-...
This shouldn't affect OpenWRT if it uses a standard driver, unless I'm mistaken (or "radio equipment" means the whole thing and not just the radio module - but that's up to debate)
Which is better IMHO.
You can sue the FCC if you think they overstepped their bounds as opposed to getting a bunch of politicians behind the repeal of a bad law (which otherwise can only be overturned if it violates the constitution).
Or, as sometimes happens, the FCC realizes they made a mistake and/or "conditions on the ground" change and they decide to change the requirements -- also without involving the lawmakers.
Crazy.