Comment by trevor-e
4 years ago
How is this considered legal? I get the cat and mouse chase between devs and the reverse engineering communities, but this seems to cross the line into physical destruction of property, at least at face value.
4 years ago
How is this considered legal? I get the cat and mouse chase between devs and the reverse engineering communities, but this seems to cross the line into physical destruction of property, at least at face value.
Just need California to pass referendum making it illegal for software to modify customer hardware without explicit consent from customer and allowing customer to opt out without penalizing customer with reduced functionality from original purchase.
...because you agreed to the terms when operating the software.
To me, blowing a fuse in hardware that you've sold sounds like at least unauthorized computer access and/or malicious destruction of property. I'm saddened and surprised to learn there's substantial precedence for this.
If I were authorizing something like that (I'd rather quit my job, but if), I'd be terrified of the repurcussions – for one, what if the device was sold in a region that has consumer protections? The fact that they're casually planning and committing such a careless act speaks volumes to the weakness of consumer protections, I guess.
>To me, blowing a fuse in hardware that you've sold sounds like at least unauthorized computer access and/or malicious destruction of property. I'm saddened and surprised to learn there's substantial precedence for this.
Unless they have auto updates that you can't disable, they can just withhold access to online services until you give them the permission. You're free to refuse of course, and no "malicious destruction of property" happens without your consent.
>If I were authorizing something like that (I'd rather quit my job, but if), I'd be terrified of the repurcussions – for one
IANAL but the chances of you getting civil/criminal penalties is slim to none.
Civil consumer protections should probably be stronger.
But the criminal angle is a big stretch. Nintendo is not breaking into devices to install updates and bricking them. And not liking something is very different, legally, than maliciousness. They're updating them when you click update, after being presented with legalese about it, and adding DRM which serves a function (whether you like the function or not).
The problem is you're running into device security vs. device capability. If you can downgrade your device, then so can someone else. Take the standard example of jailbreaking: New iOS releases generally (sans bootrom bugs) fix security bugs, and definitely break jailbreaks.
If some large organization wants to monitor what you're doing by installing malware, they need to be able get the older OS installed. Assuming you're a sufficiently value target (human rights activists, etc), it can be worth them spying on you to get your device passcode, and then downgrading and installing malware. If it's not across a major version I suspect that the victim would not know.
Part of the attack model the companies like Apple and Google have to consider is direct physical access to the device. Neither company considers it reasonable to say "once someone has physical access to your device it is game over".
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It’s not really “blowing a fuse” but more “increase hardware counter by one”.
Is that still “malicious destruction of property”?
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Even that tenuous face value falls apart as soon as you consider that the person who clicks through the UI isn't necessarily the legal owner of the device.
That seems like a dispute between the user of the device and the owner. If an unauthorized user used dd to wipe someone's computer without the owner's consent, you don't go after the FSF, you go after the person who ran the command.
You can "agree" to any number of terms that they could put in there that aren't going to hold up to any legal scrutiny.
IANAL but contract terms are generally thought to be enforceable unless argued otherwise. Can you furnish the relevant statues/cases that you think make clauses like these unenforceable?
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right because all terms are legally enforceable...
Simply the fact that the device is intended to be used afterwards is enough to disqualify it as criminal destruction.
If we didn’t have profit protection measures like this everything would be much more expensive and that’s not a better alternative for most consumers.
This is doubtful in my opinion, but Nintendo would certainly like us to believe that. I think that Nintendo does this for profiteering purposes, and also because they are irrationally restrictive of unintended usage of their hardware/software/artwork.
Do you remember the nintendo ds? Piracy was really awful on this one, especially in Japan. Almost no one bought original games until flash cards were finally banned.
Well that's a whole other debate, but I'd like to know the legality now.
Everything is legal until it's not. Unless someone takes it to court they will get away with it. When that happens they will find a slightly more expensive and slightly more legal way to prevent piracy. Rinse and repeat.
You agreed to the terms of service. There is little to nothing you can do.
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How is this a profit protection measure? And how does it prevent the Switch from being more expensive?
Nintendo makes a profit from game sales, therefore sells the console almost at cost. This hardware measure prevents piracy.
any source for that claim?
Not my downvote but I believe when you do the math the equation goes like this:
(reduction in functionality) + (fewer options) + (loss of user control) + (handicapped operation) + (hardware underutilization) = higher prices for everyone
This is not including things like (planned obsolescence) which are intended to make things more expensive without raising the sales price.
You don't have to game on Nintendo devices. Open platforms are available on the market.