Why is this kind of thing legal? For how many politicians and activist groups claim to care about the environment, why hasn't anyone introduced a bill to ban intentionally turning useful equipment into waste? Any legitimate security needs would be fulfilled just as well by doing a full wipe and factory reset instead.
For starters, my experience says that, unlike an HP printer, your toothbrush still works just fine[0] if you ignore anything that tells you to replace the head.
[0] At least as fine as a toothbrush with a worn-out head is going to work.
And what does a "factory reset" accomplish? The hacker trying to get company IP (or whatever the password is protecting) gets three more attempts at it after the reset?
Finally, and I'm not saying this makes it okay, but e-fuses are common as dirt these days. I don't know that you're going to get that toothpaste back in the tube.
Aren't switches to temporarily bypass emissions controls in cars illegal, despite being a feature customers ask for?
> What laws do you want written?
I want all e-fuses to be banned, as well as any other means for manufacturers to permanently reduce, restrict, or remove functionality from products after they've been sold.
> How "secure" am I allowed to make my product before the Feds come a-knockin'?
If the one you're trying to make it "secure" against is the product's owner, then I'd say "not at all" would be a fine answer.
> And what does a "factory reset" accomplish? The hacker trying to get company IP (or whatever the password is protecting) gets three more attempts at it after the reset?
The point is that the factory reset would delete the company IP.
> Finally, and I'm not saying this makes it okay, but e-fuses are common as dirt these days. I don't know that you're going to get that toothpaste back in the tube.
Wasn't asbestos also as common as dirt before it was banned?
One thing, I can think of, are hardware-based security devices that disable themselves after recognizing break-in attempts.
So you'd propose that we bans switches? You're saying that a microcontroller should never have a certain feature because you don't like how it has been implemented by a single company. Then you propose that nobody should have this feature ever because someone once used it to turn on a light reminding you that it's time to change your toothbrush head (and then let you brush your teeth normally with no further interruption).
I don't think your analogy holds up, nor have you thought through what you propose.
It's not the implementation. I don't want hardware to ever be able to permanently make itself less useful, no matter how it's done or what it's being used for.
I am in opposition to this stance. What you're (rightfully) concerned about is when companies do bad things with these mechanisms. But the mechanisms themselves not only have no ethical/moral problems, but are also really useful for all sorts of things that entirely unobjectionable.
In any case, that sortof doesn't matter. Even if there was no legitimate use for them, that doesn't in and of itself mean they should be illegal. You should at the least demonstrate that their existence is causing great societal harm.
Why isn't just making sure the expected private key didn't get wiped a good enough way of making sure it's not modified?
> You should at the least demonstrate that their existence is causing great societal harm.
Okay, how about that it destroys the secondhand CPU market? Once you use an AMD CPU in a Lenovo computer, it blows e-fuses to keep you from ever using it in any other brand of computer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29958247
What's to stop someone from extracting and restoring the private key?
> Okay, how about that it destroys the secondhand CPU market?
Sure, then how about addressing that issue rather than proposing to outlaw an entire mechanism entirely? We have a lot of things that can be misused, but (generally) only in extreme cases do we outlaw the tech itself. More usually, we have laws targeting the misuse of the tech.
Isn't the whole point of these chips that you can't extract the private key, so that if it gets wiped, it's definitely gone forever?
> Sure, then how about addressing that issue rather than proposing to outlaw an entire mechanism entirely? We have a lot of things that can be misused, but (generally) only in extreme cases do we outlaw the tech itself. More usually, we have laws targeting the misuse of the tech.
But this particular technology doesn't seem to have any legitimate uses.
I don't think these chips include TPM. But if that's the case, wouldn't you object to that on the same grounds that you object to efuses?
> But this particular technology doesn't seem to have any legitimate uses.
Myself and at least one other commenter has mentioned a few legitimate uses.
No, because it would let you generate a new key instead of remaining keyless forever.
Only if they're used that way. They don't take control away from the actual owners of the devices if its the owners who put them in there, for instance. Again, I think you're conflating the existence of a mechanism with the abuse of the mechanism. If you were just railing against the abusive uses, I'd be behind you 100%.
I just don't see why we should outlaw a common and useful mechanism entirely, rather than outlaw certain uses of that mechanism.
I do love the feeling of a fresh sonicare brush.