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Comment by azinman2 | Hacker News Reader

The author touched on right of repair. I’d love to see a law requiring all devices to either be supported, or if being sunset, being required by law to provide tools/source/schematics to take over the device and extend its utility beyond the manufacturer’s willingness. Particularly a last firmware that disables anything requiring phoning home to continue to function. We saw that with OnHub recently, when after only 6 years Google decided to render a lot of devices e-waste. The least they could do is recycle them for you at their own cost.

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There is a specific problem with routers and certification for radio usage. This makes right to repair harder. It's not just a legal issue. The ether is quite full and it mostly works because there are clear rules that devices must meet.

With user serviceable routers, bumping up power, or moving to locally forbidden (quieter) frequencies could become lifehacks. There was already an airport whose radio saw interference from extra powerful 5ghz wifi routers.

Locking down devices as a business model is bad. But Locking them down as a regulatory precaution to keep radio working is different.

How to keep every manufacturer from seeking excemption from right to repair under these rules would be challenging tho.

If we didn't allow for an exemption but still required full compliance, perhaps manufacturers could physically limit the output from the power amplifiers and/or use blowable fuses in the chips to set a non-modifiable power limit. I imagine that the same could be done for frequency management either on board (bandstop filtering) or on chip (once again, blowable fuses to set disallowed frequencies).

I know that there will still be enterprising folks who modify their hardware itself to try to get around these limitations, but such enterprising people are already more than capable of physically modifying their existing hardware.

Not in manufacturing so I'm just speculating here. But I'd imagine that would create a new set of logistical issues, specifically instead of one bill of material that can be applied everywhere with controlled applied via software, now you need N BOM's, when N is the market region that has a slightly different set of RF transmission rules.

Not infeasible but certainly a significant increase in cost.

My PC has a 5ghz wifi antenna, and I can install any OS I want. Why should a router be any more locked down than my PC?

The FCC takes illegal broadcasting VERY seriously and I think that should deter people from becoming criminals.

1) The scale of the problem seems much lower on PCs because Windows and MacOS respect local regulations, Linux has an infrastructure to do so that works by default in some distros but not others, but overall the Linux market share is small and as is PC WiFi adapters are more often sold in country-specific variants with hardware restrictions than the chipsets in routers are (and usually have lower hardware Tx power limits). Overall, the architecture of WiFi is such that it's rare for a PC to make these kinds of decisions anyway. If it's an infrastructure mode network, the AP dictates channels.

2) FCC enforcement is, in general, rare. It usually requires specific complaints from commercial broadcasters in order for the FCC to respond. In the ISM and WiFi-specific bands, enforcement is extremely difficult because enforcement methods like radio direction finding are inherently difficult for the frequencies involved and even more difficult because of the high noise floor and large number of sources in urban environments. Even if the FCC allocated significant resources (which they do not), it would technically be difficult to enforce these regulations.

The FCC has closed more than half of field offices and laid off half of the enforcement staff over the last ten years. They have eliminated most of their field enforcement teams and now only have teams (perhaps only a handful, they don't say but the best public info I've found suggests 5) based out of the DC area that have to fly out. It's been very frustrating to see the FCC eliminating enforcement resources these days, but the reality is that enforcement has become far more difficult and less effective over time due to advancements in the technology. Direction finding FM pirate stations is technically pretty easy and something the FCC is very effective at (especially since FM broadcasters inform the FCC promptly). Just about everything else... fat chance of the FCC doing anything about it unless they can do so at an organizational/regulatory level (e.g. fining manufacturers or large scale operators). At the field level it's just too expensive and unproductive to try to track down individuals who have configured their WiFi routers in violation.

Follow the California Prop 65 model: Enable the general public to collect damages via civil suit. (Only half joking)

> Why should a router be any more locked down than my PC?

It's possible that the WiFi card in your PC will refuse to transmit on a 5GHz channel until it detects some other device already transmitting. I've pulled WiFi modules from dead laptops that had such restrictions enforced at the hardware/firmware level, making those WiFi cards unusable for a DIY access point.

Most modern wireless cards will do a scan for wireless networks on startup and set their regulatory domain to the one regulatory domain contained in the majority of beacons from surrounding wireless APs. This can't (easily) be overridden and prevents people from setting the wrong country and causing interference, while still allowing a single WLAN card to work globally.

Intel calls this "Location Aware Regulatory".

> This can't (easily) be overridden

Isn't it a simple drop-down in openwrt?

Raspberry pies ask you for the country

Not all radios support this in openwrt.

There being a dropdown doesn't tell you if the radio actually does anything with it.

> There is a specific problem with routers and certification for radio usage.

No, there isn't, because it's perfectly possible to limit what frequencies and power levels the hardware can emit without affecting the ability to run custom firmware such as OpenWRT. The certification argument is a dodge used by router manufacturers to avoid having to give customers what they actually want.

> There was already an airport whose radio saw interference from extra powerful 5ghz wifi routers.

Anyone who is radiating enough power to interfere with airport radios is doing something a lot stranger than just flashing custom firware like OpenWRT on their router. Such people are easily stopped without having to lock down devices.

Um, no. The "airport radio" in question is weather radar, which does directional scans and is very sensitive to interference. Just choose the wrong regulatory domain, and you're messing up the spectrum in ways that are mostly invisible to you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_selection

(some devices try to avoid this by scanning the spectrum for weather radars...user indignation at unavailable channels follows)

> The "airport radio" in question is weather radar

Ah, ok. Weather radar is very different from "airport radio". For the latter I have a very hard time seeing how someone's ordinary wifi router could cause interference, but weather radar antennas have to be much more sensitive.

Sure, but news channels usually don't distinguish this. "It's some sort of wireless problem at the airport, therefore airport radio."

"Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer. Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those mostly-useless atoms real good!

> "Right of repair" being focused on hardware is a neat little trick to enforce the illusion that changing software is beyond your rights as a consumer.

Is it a trick, or just limited imagination?

My impression is that "right of repair" came from mechanically-minded people seeking to maintain their traditional ability to repair physical devices in the face of corporate hostility (e.g. farmers vs. John Deere).

> Yes, you can fix the antenna when it breaks, and focus on how hard the fight was to get the right to fix the hardware you own... which you don't own as long as the company uses software to control what the hardware can and cannot do. But you sure physically own those mostly-useless atoms real good!

This seems more of software-centric Free Software attitude, which is not a place someone with mechanical skills but not very strong software skills is likely to arrive at themselves.

Hate to break it to ya, but anyone with any mechanical aptitude has what it takes to do whatever may need doing with software.

Heck, Before I received any formal instruction in programming I was tracing things via symbols and strings just like I did hardware connections.

The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc.

> The tractor right to repair issues include software. You might even say that software is the prime issue preventing repair of the newer from equipment. Parts with drm, unsupported software, etc.

My understanding is the farmers just want to be able to repair their tractors without dealer approval (e.g. replace broken parts). They're not looking to hack new features into the firmware and stuff like that.

> My understanding is the farmers just want to be able to repair their tractors without dealer approval (e.g. replace broken parts).

For which they need to circumvent or disable DRM, and be able to run the manufacturers diagnostic software (or be able to use 3rd party diagnostic software).

> They're not looking to hack new features into the firmware and stuff like that.

I think you may be reasoning from a set of assumptions about farm equipment that is out of date. Modern farm equipment is very sophisticated and ties into all sorts of external services (GPS, mapping and terrain, high resolution soil data, weather forecasts, etc.), and can do things like adjust the direction and spacing of rows, depth seeds are sown, selective harvesting, selective pest control, selective fertilization, and more. The software that controls all that isn't just 'firmware'.

Not to mention that the equipment sends every bit of data back to the manufacturer to power add on services they can sell to the farmer by subscription.

Farmers certainly like all these features. In fact they like them so much they pay for after-market upgrades for older (repairable) equipment to add features and 3rd party services. They don't like being stuck inside the manufacturers' walled gardens.

These things have passed the point of just being equipment or tools, and are now platforms in their own right, and farmers are in many ways no longer their owners, but just captive users.

While right to repair starts with re-enabling a local mechanic to replace a part, it doesn't end there. Not by a long shot.

I had no idea it was focused on hardware. It applies to software too.

Imagine not being able to use a lawn mower engine to make a go-kart.

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