Fight to Repair Daily: August 15, 2022

Jailbreaking isn't just for iPhones anymore. Plus: Room for improvement in organizing for the right to repair?

🚜 A New Jailbreak for John Deere Tractors Rides the Right-to-Repair Wave

Farmers around the world have turned to tractor hacking so they can bypass the digital locks that manufacturers impose on their vehicles. Like insulin pump “looping” and iPhone jailbreaking, this allows farmers to modify and repair the expensive equipment that’s vital to their work, the way they could with analog tractors. At the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas on Saturday, the hacker known as Sick Codes is presenting a new jailbreak for John Deere & Co. tractors that allows him to take control of multiple models through their touchscreens.

Sick Codes, an Australian who lives in Asia, presented at DefCon in 2021 about tractor application programming interfaces and operating system bugs. After he made his research public, tractor companies, including John Deere, started fixing some of the flaws. “The right-to-repair side was a little bit opposed to what I was trying to do,” he tells WIRED. “I heard from some farmers; one guy emailed me and was like ‘You’re fucking up all of our stuff!’ So I figured I would put my money where my mouth is and actually prove to farmers that they can root the devices."

The finding underscores the security implications of the right-to-repair movement. The tractor exploitation that Sick Codes uncovered isn't a remote attack, but the vulnerabilities involved represent fundamental insecurities in the devices that could be exploited by malicious actors or potentially chained with other vulnerabilities. Securing the agriculture industry and food supply chain is crucial, as incidents like the 2021 JBS Meat ransomware attack have shown. At the same time, though, vulnerabilities like the ones that Sick Codes found help farmers do what they need to do with their own equipment. (WIRED)

Samsung makes the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Fold 4 significantly cheaper to repair than their predecessors

The good news is that even if the advancements of these new devices don’t make your Galaxy Z Fold 4 or Z Flip 4 the ideal diving companion or rugged workhorse, if you do manage to bork the display, Samsung’s fix could be cheaper than ever this time around. With a Samsung Care Plus plan, the deductible for a damaged screen is now just a paltry $29 — as much as an ordinary glass-sandwich smartphone (via The Verge).

Contrast that with a screen repair on the Flip 3 or Fold 3, which even with Care Plus would run you $249. Out-of-warranty repairs without a Care Plus subscription could climb to $480. We're not sure quite how much out-of-warranty replacements will run on the new Z Flip 4 and Z Fold 4, so you might want to keep those phones as protected as possible.

As more people purchase foldables and the hardware’s reliability grows on consumers, smartphones with a hinge should keep getting cheaper — both to buy and repair. In fact, Samsung is confident of this eventuality where foldable smartphones will sell more than the Galaxy S series. (Android Police)

Where the right-to-repair movement falls short.

With most of the world lacking right-to-repair legislation, consumers are left with fewer options than ever in choosing how to repair their devices. Without access to the same parts as manufacturers, independent repair shops are at an immediate disadvantage. Even if parts were to be made available, they have proven difficult to get a hold of. Altogether, this creates little choice for consumers looking for a quick and reliable repair. The experience just isn’t the same at a third-party shop, especially when it comes to automotive repairs, with long wait times for parts being the norm. 

On another hand, the burden of carbon reduction has been laid on consumers for decades. Recycling is not what it was promised to be, and most of what is put out to recycle has been found in landfills mixed in with trash. Reducing one’s own carbon footprint is to first reduce consumption. Enacting right-to-repair legislation will be the first step to reduce personal consumption with regard to e-waste, which are the parts of electronics that cannot be recycled.  With e-waste rapidly becoming one of the world’s largest waste streams, right-to-repair legislation has the potential to save 6.9 million tons and 40 million USD annually in New York state alone. The overall benefits worldwide would be even larger. With some governments hesitant and most not even pursuing uniform right-to-repair laws, these benefits will likely never be realized. 

The right-to-repair movement is slowly gaining ground, but it is fractured. Only parts of the movement’s goals are being implemented, with these applying only to a select few industries. With no comprehensive and cohesive legislature, the movement will only ever achieve a fraction of its full potential. Governments around the world need to open their eyes and work together to create greener, more repairable electronics for everyone. (The McGill International Review)

⚖️ The Conservative Plan to Subvert Antitrust Enforcement

In an August 8 column in the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, Eugene Scalia (son of late Justice Antonin Scalia and former Trump anti-labor secretary of labor) and Federalist Society darling Svetlana Gans outlined a legal strategy to cripple the Federal Trade Commission from effectively enforcing antitrust laws. They warned that expanded antitrust enforcement “would run headlong into the major-questions doctrine” as set forth in West Virginia v. EPA.

The Scalia/Gans plan represents the corporate legal elite contribution to the right wing’s plans to dismantle the federal government’s ability to check corporate power, epitomized by what Paul Waldman recently called “Turnkey Authoritarianism.”

Democrats and progressives need to develop and publicize such ideas, appoint more such thinkers to the courts and key government positions, and fight the right-wing pipeline of conservative doctrine from corporate boardrooms to the halls of judicial power. (The American Prospect)