More awful IoT stuff

Re:More awful IoT stuff by oliwarner on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @10:49AM (#11954343)

Lost its power? This is just copyright apathy. Nothing new, especially in China. Look at it from the manufacturer's point of view. They know how expensive this would be to take to China and prosecute and they know they're a tiny fish. It's simply a reasoned gamble that saying no is the fastest, most efficient way to get this dealt with. Much easier than auditing the code, having the developer separate out sensitive data, etc. Well before you consider the long term archiving of this stuff. They're probably already making the next generation of this rubbish.

I dare say if this were a major manufacturer, more effort would be made to make them behave, but we're talking about a short-run switch here.

If there ever becomes a mechanism to DMCA-takedown physical products on an international level, we might see some movement here. But China (et al) would never, ever agree to that. It's hard enough to get them to block things that clearly break international safety standards.

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Re:More awful IoT stuff by josho on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @11:18AM (#11954593)

This makes me wonder how imports are handled. If I can buy a third party power supply from a US based order system (amazon), and this ps is dangerous (eg. those knock off Apple power supplies). How is this legal, presumably the device hasn't passed safety regulations here. So, there must be some way to stop this product from entering the country. Why isn't that mechanism happening?

Same applies for this device. If a mfg is infringing on copyright then shouldn't we have a mechanism to stop it from being imported?

It strikes me that we have two laws in this country. The laws for those with money/power (e.g. MPAA to protect US corporate media interests), and then those same laws that are not applied to protect consumers. Is the only difference that MPAA has lawyers to ensure copyright infringement stops while consumers don't?

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Re:More awful IoT stuff by ehntoo on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @12:33PM (#11955142)

I cannot speak to copyright, but there seem to be mechanisms in place for stopping import of trademark infringing goods to the US. See for example the run-in which SparkFun had with importing lookalike Fluke Multimeters a few years ago: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/1428 and previous HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7428799

This might actually do more to confirm than dispute your comment about "laws for those with money/power", though.

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Re:More awful IoT stuff by oliwarner on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @06:37PM (#11957590)

There are mechanisms for policing (certainly in the UK) this but:

- Containers are MASSIVE. Seriously. You can fit hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of plug-sized widgets in a container.

- Millions of containers leave China every day.

- People lie about certification, provenance, component specs. Even if you do test one, the next 999,999 are probably all using shitty capacitors.

- There are many ports that don't all share data.

The only stuff that gets refused are where you have repeat offenders coming into the same port with the same dangerous stuff.

And yes, MPAA and other trademark bandits with all the cash can pay to police this stuff. It isn't fair... But I'm not sure the world would have the appetite for absorbing the costs in import tax. A testing container of plugs would push the price up way beyond $30 a unit and that's testing 1/1000.

Demanding certified manufacturing might be an option but that's expensive for China so they'll resist (or do a job equally shitty as the plugs they'd be supposed to police).

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Re:More awful IoT stuff by euroclydon on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @11:25AM (#11954647)

Right, but can't Amazon or Home Depot be sued?

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Re:More awful IoT stuff by schneidmaster on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @11:24AM (#11954643)

I'm also curious how many manufacturers (especially of questionable-quality products like this) simply don't bother to read and understand the licenses of the OSS they're using. I suspect it's a lot.

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Re:More awful IoT stuff by oliwarner on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @06:43PM (#11957627)

Pretend that you knew you could get away with not paying tax or keeping records. You might get an email from the IRS but in this imaginary world, they only prosecute the biggest cheats.

I'm sure you're a fine person who would keep paying but do you think everybody would because it's the right thing?

That's all that's happening here.

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