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Comment by zamadatix | Hacker News Reader

The FCC is certainly the problem in this case. If someone modifies the product to break the law the person is at fault not the manufacturer. That someone could do modify their radio to do bad things shouldn't stop me from modifying mine to do good things.

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The same argument can be made with any other tools in existence. Don't blame the tool for doing something bad, blame the user.

That is a different argument than you imply, please read the existing sibling comment chain to see how as it's pretty much the same discussion.

Would you also say that Uber doesn't violate taxi laws or AirBNB doesn't violate zoning laws, and it's just the Uber drivers and AirBNB hosts who are using the products to violate the law? What's your responsibility when you hand someone a loaded gun and it goes off?

> What's your responsibility when you hand someone a loaded gun and it goes off?

Zero, as long as the person:

(1) Knew it was loaded

(2) Voluntarily accepted to receive the gun.

> Zero, as long as the person:

In this analogy the gun going off broke a law. So you voluntarily handed somebody a loaded gun - who then committed a crime with that gun.

Obviously context matter - but you can bet the police will be asking why you gave that gun to them.

When a router ships you can't select a licensed band. This is a different concept than "product does something bad" this is "is the manufacturer responsible when someone modifies the product to do something bad".

Clearly not, the person that knowingly modified it to do something illegal is at fault. Preventing anyone from modifying anything is a backwards response to the real problem: the guy that wants to do the illegal thing.

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