Mastodawn

Symbian Aug 2, 2023

"With a software death date baked into each model, older versions of these inexpensive computers are set to expire three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use…

[Pictured] A pile of Chromebooks with expired software sit in a classroom at Montera Middle School in Oakland, Calif"

https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/07/24/built-in-software-death-dates-are-sending-thousands-of-schools-chromebooks-to-the-recycling-bin/

Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin

Doubling the lifespan of older Chromebooks would save California’s schools $225 million, according to advocacy group CALPIRG.

The Mercury News

mhoye Jul 24, 2023

@mcc this should be illegal.

Gabriel Pettier Jul 24, 2023

@mhoye @mcc yeah software maintenance is expensive, so when you sell for cheap, you certainly plan for shorter lifetime/support, to make the economics work. They could keep making the updates work for these models, but making it harder to develop features for newer ones, that are making money now.

Models being obsolete means code specific to them can be deleted, and newer code don't have to be compatible and tested on them.

Apparently users don't find the free software alternative suitable :/.

Cassandrich Jul 25, 2023

@tshirtman @mhoye @mcc Why is there any code specific to them that needs independent updating? Only hardware specific code should be kernel (Linux) which supports 30 year old hardware just fine. Userspace should not care whatsoever what hardware it's running on.

Gabriel Pettier Jul 25, 2023

@dalias @mhoye @mcc well, drivers for one, if they are not open source/mainlined, need to be updated to be able to update the kernel, which can be necessary to apply security patches (unless of course you backport them, but i don’t think that’s generally easier), and support software that tends to come with commercial machines has to be aware of the hardware, of course, you would expect this to be handled in a natural way by the OS on a linux distro, but i don’t think that’s the case here.

Cassandrich Jul 25, 2023

@tshirtman @mhoye @mcc IOW because Google is doing stuff wrong.

Gabriel Pettier Jul 25, 2023

@dalias @mhoye @mcc well, wrong from the point of view of an OSS/distro maintainer for sure, but surely it makes sense for them.

Cassandrich Jul 25, 2023

@tshirtman @mhoye @mcc Yeah it makes sense when you want to externalize costs onto users/public... We (public) should be the ones who get to declare that "wrong".

Ron DeSantis's BDE Jul 25, 2023

@tshirtman @dalias @mhoye @mcc

Also wrong from an environmental standpoint, of course. This isn't merely a "point of view" issue.

Cassandrich Jul 25, 2023

@DoesntExist @tshirtman @mhoye @mcc It's environmentally and socially "wrong" that a party with control over (or even any significant influence over) the software ecosystem has any incentive to prefer proliferation of new hardware over use of existing hardware.

Glyph Jul 24, 2023

@mhoye @mcc it’s irresponsible to allow children’s information to be stored on network-connected devices that are years out of date on security patches. while one could argue that we should mandate longer lifespans, that the software should be maintained for 10 years instead of 3, the idea that we should allow arbitrarily decrepit computing devices to be used indefinitely is intuitive but also dangerous.

Glyph Jul 24, 2023

@mhoye @mcc while searching the web for examples of RAT attacks on kids by way of example of the severity of the risk here, all I can find is lawsuits and enforcement actions against *school districts* violating students’ 4th amendment rights by secretly recording their webcams and screens with “legitimate” MDM access, so, just, fuck all of this, maybe the conclusion I should actually come to is that schools should not be allowed to have computers, just give kids cash to buy their own devices

meejah Jul 24, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc Even experimenting on the school level with allowing / encouraging / helping students to turn the "expired" devices into open ones by running open operating systems on them isn't allowed in my district (#yyc #YYCbe ).

Although individual schools fund device purchasing (often through parent fundraising) they are re-possessed by the school board upon expiry.

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs Jul 25, 2023

@meejah @glyph @mhoye @mcc oh god

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@ellenor2000 @glyph @mhoye @mcc (p.s. yes I tried personally to do this at my local school .. is how I learned this sad policy)

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@ellenor2000 @glyph @mhoye @mcc They also claim "linux devices aren't allowed on our network" although they stopped saying that right after I pointed out Android's lineage...

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs Jul 25, 2023

@meejah @glyph @mhoye @mcc I've heard that claim too...

And why, I'd ask them? What's the threat?

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@ellenor2000 @glyph @mhoye @mcc I've not heard that articulated clearly. Basically pretty boring: "it's more work", I think :(

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs Jul 25, 2023

@meejah @glyph @mhoye @mcc Which isn't even so. It's just a different OS, but it speaks the same TCP and IP.

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@ellenor2000 @glyph @mhoye @mcc Logic doesn't work against giant bureaucracies :(

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@ellenor2000 @glyph @mhoye @mcc ("Don't ask permission" and all: my kids have only linux laptops and haven't yet had actual problems when taking them to school...)

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs Jul 25, 2023

@meejah @glyph @mhoye @mcc the response has always been shifty.

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@ellenor2000 @glyph @mhoye @mcc All that said, if any other #yyc dwellers have the intestinal fortitude to help with this, I'm absolutely game. I'm the wrong person to lead this, though; I'm not going to keep my mouth shut enough :/ at the required meetings...but I will help technically and directly with students.

Collette Lynner Jul 26, 2023

@meejah BOO!! on your school district!

meejah Jul 26, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc Concrete numbers: this year the fundraising society for my local grade 7 -> 9 school provided $45000 CAD for new computers.
#yyc #yycbe

SaftyKuma Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc

I can understand the argument for school provided computers. At the dawn of the PC era, students from well off families did have a legitimate advantage by being able to afford a home PC.

At the same time, yes, the admins of these devices have abused their access and I don't like training students on devices that treat them like Serfs of Google.

Glyph Jul 25, 2023

@SaftyKuma @mhoye @mcc the schools are set up for failure here. they have budgets which means they cannot hire competent admins except those who will work for charity, their equipment is perpetually outdated, their deployments are highly adversarial (nobody's more motivated to attack student devices than other students), the environment is stressful and political… none of the solutions are tech, it's all policy and organizing. which, as a tech person, is a bit depressing.

Collette Lynner Jul 26, 2023

@SaftyKuma It's hard not to snark at the thought of avoiding Google serfdom. Good luck to your kids

mhoye Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mcc I’d be in favour of mandating unlocked bootloaders and open documentation when a computer ends its warranties support lifespan.

meejah Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc Even with all the security patches, they're still wired directly into the Google-plex :(

mirth Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc Wait, what's dangerous about supporting devices for longer? The major attack surface is Chrome itself, so common across all hardware. Google may not want to do it and the fact that they don't is a product choice on their part.

Glyph Jul 25, 2023

@mirth @mhoye @mcc my point is that, at *some* point, the devices are too old to be supported. The kernel is also a significant attack surface, and there are ABI stability issues with device support. There’s nothing dangerous about supporting them for longer, only costly. And maybe Google should be paying that cost for longer, I don’t know what their margins are like. It’s fine to say that 3 years is too early, my contention is only that “forever” is too long to expect.

mirth Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc I don't think anyone is arguing the support window should be forever, what I'm hearing is that Google is sunsetting hardware built from components that have perfectly good upstream and vendor support, and in fact components that are still on sale in other models. That seems wrong to me.

mirth Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc There is of course some ongoing cost with maintaining each model, and someone has to pay for that, but I would expect it to be minimal due to the high parts commonality between machines. Perfect kind of thing to build into subscription business. Only have to patch broken WiFi or whatever so often. Looking at a popular ten year old C720 it's a Haswell Celeron CPU, 2GB RAM, Broadcom BCM4313, etc. All very common stuff.

mirth Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc If someone was ambitious and willing to go through FCC again it would be possible to roll out update WiFi + storage cards to fix reliable connectivity, probably the number one issue which crops up as admins lean more heavily on newer standards.

Ron DeSantis's BDE Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mirth @mhoye @mcc

Google's margins are currently about $13 billion a month.

That seems like a support budget that could push Chrome Books farther out.

The answer is simply that they don't want to, so they go to the landfill.

That's a choice they make. It's bad for everyone but Google. That should be criticized.

Ron DeSantis's BDE Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mirth @mhoye @mcc

In order to understand scale: All of Christopher Nolan's movies in the past 25 years had a GROSS box office of $5 Billion.

That's 3 Batman movies, Inception, Memento, Dunkirk, et al., and now Oppenheimer...

Packing theaters for 25 years = $5 Billion gross.

With its $13 Billion a month margin, Google can easily afford to do anything it has the will to do with Chrome Books. Support them forever. Give them away for free... anything.

They choose to landfill them.

@glyph @mirth @mhoye @mcc
My desktop PC is approaching 10 years old, and it still functions as well as it did when I built it.
My laptop is over 5 years old, ansd still functions well.
They run Linux of course.
My 7 year old Sony Xperia tablet is no longer supported, yet still functional.

Cassandrich Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc I understand the sentiment but the EdTech cloud shit is a far bigger threat to children's privacy than outdated Chromebooks could ever be. The latter is a rounding error in comparison.

Glitch (over count 1999)Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc a regular computer made as recent as 2016 can run Windows 11.

all computers made in the 2010s and most of the ones in the late 2000s can run Windows 10 which still receives security patches.

if you are willing to include most conventional Linux distros (too far for most devices used by kids but hey, why not), all computers made since pretty much the turn of the millennium are still supported and get security patches.

even the otherwise undisputed king of "we broke shit, give us money for new shit", apple, still gives all major updates to its devices for at least seven years (and for desktop iirc only kills support if a chipset gets unused in any main devices).

Googles deprecation period of 6 years is stupid and should be put to scrutiny.

Glitch (over count 1999)Jul 25, 2023

@glyph @mcc @mhoye and mind you, 6 years is the upper bound, the lower bound is 3, which is just far too short by any reasonable metric.

mhoye Jul 26, 2023

@glitch @glyph @mcc unfortunately, given what kids put Chromebooks through 6 years is a pretty happy life for a piece of consumer hardware.

Glitch (over count 1999)Jul 26, 2023

@mhoye @glyph @mcc you underestimate how careful kids can be when they actually have a reason to respect those devices.

a lot of the reason why kids tend to be careless with their computers in this case is because they're already seen as disposable and a part of that is Google here - that attitude gets send down towards schools and ends up in teacher attitudes when handing out the devices.

at least in my experience, the amount of care i saw my fellow classmates have back in the day (...about a decade ago) for computers did go down the more the devices started being seen as disposable. first with smartphones and their ludicrously short lifespans, and near the very end with computers when chromebooks started to enter general availability.

Glyph Jul 26, 2023

@glitch @mcc @mhoye You can absolutely provide incentives to shift behaviors at the margins, but consider this story: https://www.masslive.com/news/2021/12/springfield-schools-see-increase-in-laptop-tablet-loss-damage.html — at least in that district, 30% of devices are lost or destroyed and need to be replaced every year. I don't have solid stats on this, but I believe this is roughly 3x the average rate at which corporate laptops need to be replaced. I don't think you can make kids 200% more careful by just implying that they're not disposable

Springfield schools see increase in laptop, tablet loss, damage

Springfield students each have access to a laptop or tablet which they can take home with them each day during the school year and summer.

masslive

sparrows (doll arc) :flaglesbian::neoamazonia::vriskasip:Aug 1, 2023

@glyph @mhoye @mcc i mean, letting students install their own software instead of being tied to whatever google is willing to maintain would be a start

ocdtrekkie Jul 24, 2023

@mcc What's truly beautiful about this (from Google's standpoint) is that since Google didn't manufacture this massive pile of ewaste, it gets to claim to be a green company.

ailepet Jul 24, 2023

@mcc "the open-source replacement wasn’t up to par. “It’s like the Fritos of software,” he said. “No one really wants to use it.”" Is any Linux distro with Chrome really so much worse than ChromeOS?

Andrew Jul 24, 2023

@ailepet @mcc and more importantly, what do they have against fritos?

Dulany-100B-v0.2-GPTQ Jul 24, 2023

@mcc These convert to Linux laptops very nicely. How much would schools save by converting them instead of buying new hardware?

🦊 🍸Faux around & find out⚠️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jul 24, 2023

@dulanyw @mcc -have you seen the way kids treat their chromebooks… after three years, you’re lucky if they turn on.

Dulany-100B-v0.2-GPTQ Jul 24, 2023

@camstonefaux @mcc That certainly solves the expiration date problem!

The article highlights a few ecosystem issues (parts availability and price, software) - feels like these are all solvable? One Laptop Per Child, Version 2.0?

🦊 🍸Faux around & find out⚠️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jul 24, 2023

@mcc @dulanyw - My real underlying question is, what parts of the firmware and hardware can’t tackle the emerging security and performance issues? I mean, just because I don’t use version x.xx of chrome browser doesn’t mean I can’t use it to type & research a term paper. Does it?

Dulany-100B-v0.2-GPTQ Jul 25, 2023

@camstonefaux @mcc 100% agreed. My guess is that it's an IT security/liability thing. It's an unpatched threat surface, so it puts the rest of the network at risk if it's not updated.

🦊 🍸Faux around & find out⚠️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jul 25, 2023

@dulanyw @mcc - well, let’s just ignore all zero day threats then, eh?

Dulany-100B-v0.2-GPTQ Jul 25, 2023

@camstonefaux @mcc lol Hang a sign on the school "no 'hacking' allowed here!"

The Blobject Fish Jul 25, 2023

@dulanyw @camstonefaux @mcc From my POV it's just the smartphone business model applied to computers. Designed to fail, it'll be obsolete in a few years when it can't run modern apps even if you can still make calls etc. Planned obsolescence to keep people chasing the newest thing.

Dulany-100B-v0.2-GPTQ Jul 25, 2023

@blubfeesh @camstonefaux @mcc Absolutely. And electronics (on average) don't last forever. I just wish something that schools are pouring *billions* into lasted longer than a few years because of *software*.

🦊 🍸Faux around & find out⚠️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jul 25, 2023

@mcc @dulanyw @blubfeesh Heresy! Next you’ll want it to be an upgradable frameworx laptop…. hold on a minute… did I just say what I think I said?

The Blobject Fish Jul 25, 2023

@camstonefaux @mcc @dulanyw Legit considering one if I ever come into money again lol

Do wish it came in colors other than silver though, maybe if they get popular enough eventually they'll see a thriving aftermarket like the Steam Deck has.

🦊 🍸Faux around & find out⚠️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Jul 25, 2023

@blubfeesh @mcc @dulanyw I just want the touchscreen soon!

The Blobject Fish Jul 25, 2023

@camstonefaux @mcc @dulanyw Gimme' the 13 with a see-thru blue casing iBook Clamshell style... :P