[Discuss] Class action against "Secure Boot"

[invalid at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 08:18:06PM -0400, Richard Pieri wrote:
> On 6/26/2012 2:41 AM, Derek Martin wrote:
> >Easy.  Neither the permanence of affixment of its parts, nor the
> >inability to upgrade them relate at all to whether or not a device is
> >a general purpose computer.  That is purely a function of its
> >hardware's capability to execute instructions to achieve a variety of
> >purposes.  Typed with a serenely straight face.
> 
> If you follow that logic to its conclusion then your microwave oven
> and your car are general purpose computers.  

No that's false, because neither provide I/O devices by which a
user can change the programming, or provide any means to add or remove
additional or existing programs from the system.  Their I/O devices
are very limited and special-purpose; they truly are engineered to
perform one function, and there is no means to make them perform any
other function, short of dissassembling them and modifying their
hardware.  

> Think about that for a moment.  Apple is a mobile devices company.
> Apple makes mobile devices.  Apple's bread and butter are iPhone and
> iPad.  These are devices with computers in them, but the devices,
> like microwave ovens, aren't themselves computers.  They never were.

OK, I thought about it for a moment, and I came to the conclusion that
that's sheer and utter nonsense.  You sound like you work for Apple's
marketing department.  Both iPhone and iPad are fully programmable.
Both execute a set of instructions to run a wide range of
applications, not just in theory, but in fact, on behalf of their
users.  Both have facilities to update their programming, and allow
you to do so, to change the programming on them to run applications of
your choice, albeit with whatever arbitrary restrictions Apple chooses
to impose.  Mobile devices or not, they clearly are general purpose
computers.

A general purpose computer is a device defined by functionality; but
this discussion isn't about functionality at all... it's about
control.  And that's the whole point: my vendor should not be able to
exert control to such a level, on products I buy from them, once they
transfer ownership to me.  

> To put a relevant spin on Cory's article, Apple isn't taking
> features away from general purpose computers.  Apple is making new
> devices that NEVER HAD THEM.  

I suppose you're going to also assert that if you cut the legs off a
rabbit, it was never a rabbit and it never could hop.  Intentionally
disabling a device does not cause the device to cease to be that
device, even if it happens at the factory.  It just makes it broken by
design.

You certainly can say my desktop doesn't have the feature to be a CAD
workstation, since I don't have any CAD software on it.  But there's
nothing stopping me from installing it.  Just as there's nothing
stopping you from installing Flash on an iPhone.  Except Apple, that
is. 

> Certainly, all of Apple's mobile devices to date can be hacked to
> make them resemble general purpose computers but what happens when
> you do that?  You void the warranty, the same as if you open up the
> cabinet to your microwave oven or install a nitrous oxide kit on
> your car.  

No hacking is necessary.  They already behave exactly like general
purpose computers... because they are.  Only the vendor has placed
some artificial controls -- not hardware design limitations -- on the
device in a mostly vain attempt to control how you use it.  I say
mostly vain, because people who really care to generally can side-step
them pretty easily, and those who have no incentive -- have no
incentive.

It's also not necessarily clear that you in fact void your warranty.
It's common for vendors to put clauses in their warrantys which are
unenforcable (also true for most other kinds of legal agreements).
It's also common that people who break their phone after hacking it
can still get it replaced under warranty, if they bother to try.  It
might require reflashing with the original software, but in every case
I'm personally aware of, the vendor has capitulated even when the user
bricked the device.

More importantly, the case is not the same thing at all as the
microwave case or the nitrous case.  The vendor needs those clauses in
its warranty, to have any hope of indemnifying it against endangering
the lives of you and those around you due to the stupidity of its
customers.  We've guaranteed this by suing everyone and everything for
every reason we can think of.  But no one is going to die if you
install a root shell on your iPad.  [There, I said something related
to Unix, so this post is marginally on topic. ;-) ]

> This, I assert, trumps any technical definition you can provide.
> This, more than anything else, marks them as appliances, not
> computers.

So in essence, you're saying that they're appliances because the
vendors say they won't help you (when in fact, most of the time they
still will) if you use it in a way that they don't like, despite the
device being fully capable of safely fulfilling such a purpose.  Is
the absurdity of this completely lost on you?  

The fact that you (and most people) are resigned to such ideas is
exactly why the consumer is increasingly forced to take it up the back
side by big business.  Why should the vendor bother to care about what
you want, when you're perfectly willing to cave in and buy whatever
swill they're dumping on you at any price?  

Is it OK for a shovel vendor to lock your shovel, and only give you
the key to use it once they've determined that the hole you're digging
agrees with their goals and values (maybe they don't want you digging
graves, because they don't want their products associated with death)?
Is it OK for a ladder vendor to install cameras on your home, to
ensure that you don't use their ladders to install bird feeders, if
the owner of the company happens to intensly dislike pigeons?  Because
this is essentially what Apple and other vendors are trying to do with
the stuff you buy from them, except that they're doing it in the
shadows, in hopes that you won't notice or won't care if you do.

Vendors have no business telling us how to use OUR stuff, so long
as the product is fit for such purpose, once we've paid for it.  And
they sure as $#@! have no business monitoring my usage to make sure I
don't do anything they don't like.  I'm not even opposed to them
charging me for service if I broke my device by installing bad
software on it (assuming I did -- there needs to be some burden of
proof so they can't just deny my warranty claims by accusing me of
it)...  But they have NO business telling me I can't do it.


-- 
Derek D. Martin    http://www.pizzashack.org/   GPG Key ID: 0xDFBEAD02
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