The State of Your Right to Repair - Threatwire Crosspost (Patreon)

By Shannon Morse, Threatwire 

Right to Repair advocates for users to have the authority to repair their own technology without being punished by the law, and it just hit the news again in a big way. 

First, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has also announced her run for the democratic presidential campaign, published a Medium post detailing her plans to level the playing field for US farmers. Her first plan is to support a national right to repair law that would let farmers who own tractors or agricultural equipment repair them, without John Deere or alternative manufacturers permission. John Deere has been in the news here and there, due to their stance against right to repair. This doesn’t work well for farmers, who would need to wait for an authorized agent to come out and physically fix their product before it could be put back into use, sometimes putting a farmer out of the job for weeks at a time. Not only does this negatively affect their time on the job, but the authorized agent could cost much more than it would to fix a problem themselves.  Warren explains in her outline that companies put diagnostic software on equipment that must be unlocked with a code from a repair agent, so some farmers have gotten around this with jailbreaks or third party firmware. She continues by stating that diagnostic tools, manuals, and other repair related resources should be made available to any individual or business, so a manufacturer couldn’t monopolize the repair process. 

Another positive for right to repair advocates is Apple’s Genuine Parts Repair documentation, which Motherboard obtained a leak of. In the docs from April 2018, Apple seems to be handing over diagnostic software, repair parts, training and information to third party repair companies. This is surprising, given the great iPhone battery debacle of December 2017. The documentation would allow Apple to comply with a future right to repair law, by offering all the parts, training, and documentation needed for anyone to repair their components, not just Apple Stores. Neither Apple, nor the third party companies mentioned in the docs offered a comment on the information. One company did respond to Motherboard, stating that they have “premium status” with Apple, whatever that means. 

The problem is, this still doesn’t offer individuals who own these phones the right to repair them - it only opens up repairs to large chains who specialize in mobile repairs and reselling. 

And lastly was Ting Mobile’s announcement that they are moving to fully support right to repair legislation, which makes Ting stand out against other MVNO’s who actively lobby against it. According to Ting’s announcement, a survey conducted showed that 78% of respondents didn’t even know what right to repair is, and after being educated on the subject, more than 60% responded that they’d prefer to fix their own devices instead of buying a new one. Ting also introduced a campaign this week for folks to share stories about phone fails to further the conversation. 

How do you feel about right to repair legislation? Is it a cyber security risk, like so many manufacturers want us to think? Or is it justifiable?