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A comment on Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of IoT security updates. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by sroussey on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @12:29PM (#37394096)
The solution without free firmware (and I don’t like this) is that the device bricks itself at the end of its scheduled lifetime.

Which is to say, you are buying a multi-year lease up front. And the manufacturer should send you a recycling return box.

This is a more honest way to sell these devices.

Consumers that would not care about length of security updates will suddenly very much care how long their “lease” is… and manufacturers would compete on the length of that lease (which is where the FCC could require security updates for the length of the lease period).

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Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by yjftsjthsd-h on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @12:44PM (#37394398)
That just forces e-waste. Aftermarket firmware lets a device stay useful indefinitely.
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Re:Ask HN: I’m an FCC Commissioner proposing regulation of I... by dtaht on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @01:54PM (#37395362)
Agreed. I fully expect to see the routers we used in the cerowrt project from 2008 still operational for 10-20 more years. Thereś one out there with 4+ years of uptime that I know of.

https://blog.cerowrt.org/post/an_upgrade_in_place/

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