Mastodawn

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

#RightToRepair has no cannier, more dedicated adversary than #apple whose most innovative work is dreaming up new ways to sneakily sabotage repair while claiming to be a caring environmental steward, a lie that covers up the mountains of #ewaste that Apple dooms our descendants to wade through.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

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Pluralistic: Apple fucked us on right to repair (again) (22 Sept 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Why does Apple hate repair so much? It's not that they want to poison our water and bodies with microplastics; it's not that they want to hasten the day our coastal cities drown; it's not that they relish the human misery that accompanies every gram of conflict mineral. They aren't sadists. They're merely sociopathically greedy.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

#TimCook laid it out for his investors: when people can repair their devices, they don't buy new ones. When people don't buy new devices, Apple doesn't sell them new devices. It's that's simple:

https://www.inverse.com/article/52189-tim-cook-says-apple-faces-2-key-problems-in-surprising-shareholder-letter

So Apple does everything it can to monopolize repair.

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Tim Cook Says Apple Faces 2 Key Problems in Surprising Shareholder Letter

Is there trouble ahead?

Inverse

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Not just because this lets the company gouge you on routine service, but because it lets them decide when your phone is beyond repair, so they can offer you a trade-in, ensuring both that you buy a new device and that the device you buy is another Apple.

There are so many tactics Apple gets to use to sabotage repair. For example, Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on the subassemblies in its devices.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

This allows the company to enlist US Customs to seize and destroy refurbished parts that are harvested from dead phones by workers in the Pacific Rim:

https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/

Of course, the easiest way to prevent harvested components from entering the parts stream is to destroy as many old devices as possible.

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Apple uses trademark law to strengthen its monopoly on repair - Right to Repair Europe

After Henrik Huseby's case, we analyse how Apple monopolises spare parts to decide the price of its repairs and perpetuate a culture of throw-away products.

Right to Repair Europe

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

That's why Apple's so-called "recycling" program *shreds* any devices you turn over to them. When you trade in your old iPhone at an Apple Store, it is converted into immortal e-waste (no other major recycling program does this). The logic is straightforward: no parts, no repairs:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

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Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and MacBooks

Documents obtained by Motherboard: "No reuse. No parts harvesting. No resale."

Shredding parts and cooking up bogus trademark claims is just for starters, though. For Apple, the true anti-repair innovation comes from the most pernicious US tech law: #Section1201 of the #DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct (#DMCA).

#DMCA1201 is an #AntiCircumvention law. It bans the distribution of any tool that bypasses "an effective means of access control."

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

That's all very abstract, but here's what it means: if a manufacturer sticks some #DigitalRightsManagement (#DRM) in its device, then anything you want to do that involves removing that DRM is now illegal - even if the thing itself is perfectly legal.

When Congress passed this stupid law in 1998, it had a very limited blast radius. Computers were still pretty expensive and DRM use was limited to a few narrow categories.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

In 1998, DMCA 1201 was mostly used to prevent you from de-regionalizing your DVD player to watch discs that had been released overseas but not in your own country.

But as we warned back then, computers were only going to get smaller and cheaper, and eventually, it would only cost manufacturers pennies to wrap their products - or even subassemblies in their products - in DRM. Congress was putting a gun on the mantelpiece in Act I, and it was bound to go off in Act III.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Welcome to Act III.

Today, it costs about a quarter to add a #SystemOnAChip to even the tiniest parts. These SOCs can run DRM. Here's how that DRM works: when you put a new part in a device, the SOC and the device's main controller communicate with one another.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

They perform a cryptographic protocol: the part says, "Here's my serial number," and then the main controller prompts the user to enter a manufacturer-supplied secret code, and the master controller sends a signed version of this to the part, and the part and the system then recognize each other.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

This process has many names, but because it was first used in the automotive sector, it's widely known as #VINLocking (#VIN stands for #VehicleIdentificationNumber, the unique number given to every car by its manufacturer). VIN-locking is used to block independent mechanics from repairing your car; even if they use the manufacturer's own parts, the parts and the engine will refuse to work together until the manufacturer's rep keys in the unlock code:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

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Pluralistic: Autoenshittification (24 July 2023) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

VIN locking is everywhere. It's how #JohnDeere stops farmers from fixing their own tractors - something farmers have done literally since tractors were invented:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

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About those kill-switched Ukrainian tractors – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

It's in *ventilators*. Like mobile phones, ventilators are a grotesquely monopolized sector, controlled by a single company #Medtronic, whose biggest claim to fame is effecting the world's largest #TaxInversion in order to manufacture the appearance that it is an Irish company and therefore largely untaxable. Medtronic used the resulting windfall to gobble up most of its competitors.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

During lockdown, as hospitals scrambled to keep their desperately needed ventilators running, Medtronic's VIN-locking became a lethal impediment. Med-techs who used donor parts from one ventilator to keep another running - say, transplanting a screen - couldn't get the device to recognize the part because all the world's aircraft were grounded, meaning Medtronic's technicians couldn't swan into their hospitals to type in the unlock code and charge them hundreds of dollars.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

The saving grace was an anonymous, former Medtronic repair tech, who built pirate boxes to generate unlock codes, using any housing they could lay hands on to use as a case: guitar pedals, clock radios, etc. This tech shipped these gadgets around the world, observing strict anonymity, because #Article6 of the #EUCD *also* bans circumvention:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#medtronic-again

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Pluralistic: 10 Jul 2020 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Of course, *Apple* is a *huge* fan of VIN-locking. In phones, #VIN-locking is usually called #serializing or #PartsPairing, but it's the same thing: a tiny subassembly gets its own microcontroller whose sole purpose is to prevent independent repair technicians from fixing your gadget. Parts-pairing lets Apple block repairs even when the technician uses new, Apple parts - but it also lets Apple block refurb parts and third party parts.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

For many years, Apple was the senior partner and leading voice in blocking state Right to Repair bills, which it killed by the *dozen*, leading a coalition of monopolists, from #Wahl (who boobytrap their hair-clippers with springs that cause their heads irreversibly decompose if you try to sharpen them at home) to John Deere (who reinvented tenant farming by making farmers tenants of their tractors, rather than their land).

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

But Apple's opposition to repair eventually became a problem for the company. It's bad optics, and both Apple customers and Apple employees are volubly displeased with the company's ecocidal conduct. But of course, Apple's *management* and *shareholders* hate repair and want to block it as much as possible.

But Apple knows how to Think Differently. It came up with a way to eat its cake and have it, too.

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

The company embarked on a program of visibly support right to repair, while working behind the scenes to sabotage it.

Last year, Apple announced a repair program. It was *hilarious*. If you wanted to swap your phone's battery, all you had to do was let Apple put a $1200 hold on your credit card, and then wait while the company shipped you 80 pounds' worth of specialized tools, packed in two special Pelican cases:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

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Apple’s Cement Overshoes – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Then, you swapped your battery, but you weren't done! After your battery was installed, you had to conference in an authorized Apple tech who would tell you what code to type into a laptop you tethered to the phone in order to pair it with your phone. Then all you had to do was lug those two 40-pound Pelican cases to a shipping depot and wait for Apple to take the hold off your card (less the $120 in parts and fees).

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Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

By contrast, independent repair outfits like @ifixit will sell you all the tools you need to do your own battery swap - including the battery! for $32. The whole kit fits in a padded envelope:

https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-x-replacement-battery

But while Apple was able to make a showy announcement of its repair program and then hide the malicious compliance inside those giant Pelican cases, sabotaging right to repair legislation is a lot harder.

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iPhone X Battery: Replacement Part / Repair Kit

Replace a 2716 mAh battery compatible with iPhone X. 3.81 Volts (V), 10.35 Watt Hours (Wh). Compatible with all iPhone X models.

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Not that they didn't try. When New York State passed the first general electronics right-to-repair bill in the country, *someone* convinced Ny Governor #KathyHochul to neuter it with last-minute modifications:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/weakened-right-to-repair-bill-is-signed-into-law-by-new-yorks-governor/

But that kind of trick only works once. When California's right to repair bill was introduced, it was clear that it was gonna pass.

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New York governor signs modified right-to-repair bill at the last minute

Bill passed the state legislature with overwhelming majorities over the summer.

Ars Technica

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Rather than get run over by that train, Apple got on board, supporting the legislation, which passed unanimously:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/79902/apples-u-turn-tech-giant-finally-backs-repair-in-california

But Apple got the last laugh. Because while California's bill contains many useful clauses for the independent repair shops that keep your gadgets out of a landfill, it's a state law, and DMCA 1201 is federal.

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Apple’s U-Turn: Tech Giant Finally Backs Repair in California! | iFixit News

Hold the iPhone. Believe it or not, Apple is actually endorsing Right to Repair!

iFixit

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

A state law can't simply legalize the conduct federal law prohibits. California's right to repair bill is a banger, but it has a weak spot: parts-pairing, the scourge of repair techs:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-independent-repair

Every generation of Apple devices does more parts-pairing than the previous one, and the current models are so infested with paired parts as to be effectively unrepairable, except by Apple.

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How Parts Pairing Kills Independent Repair

The biggest threat to repair is no longer hostile hardware. Today, many independent repair shop owners are most worried about the trend in electronics manufacturing known as “parts pairing.”

iFixit

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

It's so bad that iFixit has dropped its repairability score for the #iPhone14 from a 7 ("recommend") to a *4* (do not recommend):

https://www.ifixit.com/News/82493/we-are-retroactively-dropping-the-iphones-repairability-score-en

Parts-pairing is bullshit, and Apple are scum for using it, but they're hardly unique. Parts-pairing is at the core of the fuckery of #inkjet #printer companies, who use it to fence out third-party ink, so they can charge $9,600/gallon for ink that pennies to make:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

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We Are Retroactively Dropping the iPhone’s Repairability Score | iFixit News

We need to have a serious chat about iPhone repairability. We judged the phones of yesteryear by how easy they were to take apart—screws, glues, how hard it was…

iFixit

Cory Doctorow Sep 22, 2023

Parts-pairing is also rampant in #PoweredWheelchairs, a heavily monopolized sector whose predatory conduct is jaw-droppingly depraved:

https://uspirgedfund.org/reports/usp/stranded

But if turning phones into e-waste to eke out another billion-dollar stock buyback is indefensible, stranding people with disabilities for months at a time while they await repairs is so obviously wicked that the conscience recoils.

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Stranded

When you rely on a powered wheelchair to get around, any delay in repair imposes a burden on your mobility and financial security. It can even become a matter of life and death. Yet, as “Stranded,” a new report from U.S. PIRG Education Fund found, a constrained market for wheelchair service and repair in the U.S. makes delays, of weeks or even months, common.

U.S. PIRG Education Fund

@pluralistic no other "ad-hoc" law has ever laid such a solid foundation for the fictional creation of a monopolistic market so heavily concentrated in such a small group of corporations. The #DMCA is, without a doubt, the most extreme legal expression of an anti competitive market ever passed.
Understanding that the #DMCA is the most harmful piece of legislation ever passed against consumers and free and competitive market as a whole is paramount.