Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014
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@dkf Still better than what we have [sigh]
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@blakeyrat said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
@hungrier That hummus metaphor was fucking awful.
Yes, but the hummus itself was fucking delicious.
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@Vaire said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
Time for lawsuits and for the Supreme Court to weigh in. Digital rights management versus rights of purchasers and also the right of first sale need to get settled in the USA at least.
Was that an intentional non sequitur? I'm not getting the connection to this case (or why SCOTUS would need to be involved, for that matter).
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@Yamikuronue said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
So how do we fix it?
The same way we can fix all other big, global, all-encompassing problems: say the magic words “fuck it” and get on with your life.
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@boomzilla said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
@Vaire said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
Time for lawsuits and for the Supreme Court to weigh in. Digital rights management versus rights of purchasers and also the right of first sale need to get settled in the USA at least.
Was that an intentional non sequitur? I'm not getting the connection to this case (or why SCOTUS would need to be involved, for that matter).
SCOTUS needs to get involved for the same reason that every other major change to society in the USA has happened in the last 10+ years. Congress doesn't legislate anymore. We are falling back on having a Constitution, and that is it. Congress is too worried about fundraising and appeasing their base to get reelected, and roadblocking the other side. The President (no matter which party they are from) can only do a limited amount of crap, and that crap can be undone by the next one. Only the SCOTUS is still (ironically) settling things. But they are having to do it based on increasingly reaching interpretations of the Constitution. Lately EVERYTHING is having to go through the SCOTUS in order to be settled, I don't see why the right of first sale, digital rights management, and buyer protections will be any different. It will start out small, and then work its way to the SCOTUS eventually. Just wait and see ;)
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@Vaire said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
SCOTUS needs to get involved for the same reason that every other major change to society in the USA has happened in the last 10+ years.
I think this is begging the question, though, that there's some major change in society here. A business promised some service, got bought and now the service is being discontinued. I can't imagine that issue hasn't come up before.
@Vaire said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
Lately EVERYTHING is having to go through the SCOTUS in order to be settled, I don't see why the right of first sale, digital rights management, and buyer protections will be any different.
I still don't see what right of first sale or DRM has to do with this, and I guess now that you were just including them as non-related things.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
I would literally be 100% on board with this move, if it were possible by any means to alter the API configuration on the device and subsequently host your own copy of the API server. With the use of personal keys and certificates, you could even make it secure!
That would be fine for us. But most people would still be fucked.
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@boomzilla said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
I still don't see what right of first sale or DRM has to do with this,
Don't know about first sale, but many DRM schemes are closely linked. You buy a game, the game has an "always-online" DRM scheme, even for games where the auth server is the full extent of the online requirement. When the server goes down, you lose access to your game. And it's not a hypothetical, it's something that already happened.
It's pretty similar to buying a smart-house hub and losing access to the hub because the server went down.
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@Kian said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
Don't know about first sale, but many DRM schemes are closely linked.
Fine, but a court isn't going to go anywhere near DRM on this particular case.
@Kian said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
When the server goes down, you lose access to your game. And it's not a hypothetical, it's something that already happened.
Right. But what did the company promise? I don't see why that should be viewed as blazing a new legal trail either.
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@boomzilla Kian's coming from a weird new angle here, I suppose to defend his buddies at Google?
The issue here isn't (probably) legal, but ethical. In short: Google/Nest is being a complete asshole to some of their best customers, the customers they should be sucking-up to.
Here's an idea: instead of, "we're turning it off, fuck you", how about "we're turning it off, here's a free shipment of Nest's current line of home automation products." Or even, "we're turning it off, but we grabbed some of Alphabet's budget and here's a refund of your original purchase price."
There are options here. The problem is: Google/Nest doesn't give a fuck.
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@blakeyrat said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
Kian's coming from a weird new angle here, I suppose to defend his buddies at Google?
Defend google? I don't see that at all. I think he was just trying to connect @Vaire's random dots.
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@Kian said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
You buy a game, the game has an "always-online" DRM scheme, even for games where the auth server is the full extent of the online requirement.
Thank $diety Adobe actually did something (kind of) right here. I'm still using Acrobat 8 (hey, it works for what I need - deleting pages, creating fillin pdfs). Evidently they took the license server down as I'm now always prompted to register (I did when I installed). It's annoying, but at least the product still works!
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@blakeyrat said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
Seriously, what kind of stupid argument is that?
One you made up in order to object to, near as I can tell.
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@Vaire said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
rights of purchasers
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@boomzilla said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
trying to connect @Vaire's random dots.
They don't seem random to me: they're all references to systems where an unnecessary single service controls what can be done with the products, and that service isn't under user control.
- In the OP's case, the "unnecessary" is related to the fact that only
RevolvGoogle can provide the service - an unnecessary restriction on availability. - Kian already connected the dots on DRM
- For right of first sale, it's that you can't sell or pass on a number of digital products because they're linked to a particular account - an end-run around the right of first sale provided by DRM and other schemes. E.g., there's no reason you shouldn't be able to resell a kindle book once you're done with it - except that Amazon won't let you.
I'm pretty sure I haven't explained this as well as I'd like, but I hope you can look past our endemic pendantry to get the gist of it.
- In the OP's case, the "unnecessary" is related to the fact that only
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@Vaire said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
But this doesn't surprise me. Amazon pulled this BS by yanking books back from people who had bought them due to a publisher request. That is literally the equivalent of them kicking down your door and taking the book back. And I am seeing mobile games that people paid real money for being shuttered with just a simple notice saying, "yeah we're done with this now, we've pulled it from download and you can't play it anymore either." The digital marketplace, and internet of things, and everything else being touched by today's "modern" ecosystem needs a right good sorting and a thorough cleaning out.
While that was shady, there were two ameliorating factors there:
- Amazon gave people their money back.
- The "publisher" who was selling it on Amazon didn't actually have the rights to it and the real publisher stepped in to point that out.
Do I think Amazon could have handled that better? Yes.
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Intel did something similar to Dialogic modem cards before. We bought the card in 2005, the install disk only come with Win2000 drivers and Intel require you to buy driver for Win2003 (at the price roughly the same as the card itself).
That why my ex-company still have Win2000 server running at 2008 (when I left the company).
The products that produced by the company it bought isn't their product. How they deal with those product is at the mercy of the company, not the mention in the case, the product is from a" bought company the is bought by the bought company".
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@cheong said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
The products that produced by the company it bought isn't their product.
They might need to double-check that with Legal sometime. Just sayin'…
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@cheong said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
the install disk
You got an install disk with your Intel Dialogic cards??
I only remember those to be in a bare box even before they where Intel (and after it becomeEiconDialogic).The drivers where not freely available. And in 2008 still looked like they where made for NT4.
Versioning those drivers was terrible too ... you really needed something like version 2.5.7.8 to get it working on Windows 2003 and stuff like that. And it was more of a ... development suite then a base driver. I think the reasoning was that software vendors should be including the driver components in their installations. Wich we did by including the DEV package on the CD.
At least the original Eicon stuff had actual drivers and test tools that told you something usefull.
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Tl;dr dumb person learns a lesson about "smart" electronics.
The fact is that I can fix the problem by purchasing a replacement device such as a Samsung SmartThings hub.
Wait why?!
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@bb36e said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
a Samsung SmartThings hub.
Wait why?!
To feel Enlightened when turning the light on from his phone?
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@Luhmann said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
the install disk
You got an install disk with your Intel Dialogic cards??
Maybe it doesn't, but when I was handed the machine for finding way to upgrade, it's already working with driver installed.
I naturally assumed the driver is come with the card. I also remotely remember seeing they offered download for Win2k server driver on their support site.
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@bb36e I guess the wiring and servos and things are kind of compatible? At least he didn't buy a Nest.
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@MrL said in Google Permanently and Remorselessly Bricking Hardware Sold in 2014:
The whole concept of trade works because almost all exchanges are positive-sum.
Those that are not are called 'scams' or 'extortions'.IME, most 'good deals' turn into 'raw deals' when you examine them. While one could argue that even purchases made at an extortionate markup (i.e., just about all of them) are still positive-sum if the need or desire of the purchaser is great enough, I would respectfully point out that most purchasing decisions are driven more by
brainwashingadvertising than by actual need for anyone above the subsistence level, and also that the scarcity of high-demand items (e.g., diamonds, petroleum, most food staples) is often far overstated and/or heavily manipulated. Even if one had a good sense of what their real self-interests were (and I see no evidence that this has ever been the case for anyone in human history), circumstances usually force the consumer to make a satisficing decision rather then spend too long on evaluation.
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it's only hardware that doesn't matter, so everything is fine