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Trained repair professionals at hospitals are regularly unable to fix medical devices because of manufacturer lockout codes or the inability to obtain repair parts. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, broken ventilators sat unrepaired for weeks or months as manufacturers were overwhelmed with repair requests and independent repair professionals were locked out of them. At the time, I reported that independent repair techs had resorted to creating DIY dongles loaded with jailbroken Ukrainian firmware to fix ventilators without manufacturer permission. Medical device manufacturers also threatened iFixit because it posted ventilator repair manuals on its website. I have also written about people with sleep apnea who have hacked their CPAP machines to improve their basic functionality and to repair them.
PS: he got it repaired.
The manufacture should have zero say if their product gets repaired or not. The only person who can give permission to repair it is the owner. It should be illegal to implement tying to lockout parts being used as a replacement. Right to repair
They call it jailbreak because this is an issue of freedom: software freedom
They call it jailbreak because this is an issue of freedom
I support your position and the right to repair, but that’s not the origin of the term jailbreak in the context of computing.
The term jailbreaking predates its modern understanding relating to smartphones, and dates back to the introduction of “protected modes” in early 80s CPU designs such as the intel 80286.
With the introduction of protected mode it became possible for programs to run in isolated memory spaces where they are unable to impact other programs running on the same CPU. These programs were said to be running “in a jail” that limited their access to the rest of the computer. A software exploit that allowed a program running inside the “jail” to gain root access / run code outside of protected mode was a “jailbreak”.
The first “jailbreak” for iOS allowed users to run software applications outside of protected modes and instead run in the kernel.
But as is common for the English language, jailbreak became to be synonymous with freedom from manufacture imposed limits and now has this additional definition.
Thanks for the history and technical explanation. I didn’t mean to imply that was the origin (for computing) and was only talking about a specific usage of the word.
I think most people say it to refer to manufacture imposed limits but I wanted to promote a broader usage. That using proprietary software is like being in a jail because your software freedoms are denied.
With the introduction of protected mode it became possible for programs to run in isolated memory spaces where they are unable to impact other programs running on the same CPU. These programs were said to be running “in a jail” that limited their access to the rest of the computer. A software exploit that allowed a program running inside the “jail” to gain root access / run code outside of protected mode was a “jailbreak”.
I still miss the narrow window in which you could make use of paging without technically being in protected mode. Basically there was like one revision of the 386 where you could set the paging bit but not protected mode and remain in real mode but with access to paging meaning you got access to paging without the additional processor overhead of protected mode. Not terribly useful since it was removed in short order, but neat to know about. Kinda like how there were a few instructions that had multiple opcodes and there was one commercially distributed assembler that used the alternative opcodes as a way to identify code assembled by it. Or POP CS - easily the most useless 80086 instruction, so useless that the opcode for it got repurposed in the next x86 processor.
I’d temper that by saying a manufacturer would need to provide a reasonable option. Some things could become dangerous or even deadly if repaired incorrectly. Or it could be dangerous or deadly to even attempt to repair it.
In the medical field when a device can only be repaired by the manufacturer then you can expect long wait times, bad repair jobs and having your own equipment sent in for repair destroyed for “safety”.
We let people repair their own car’s brake pads… we shouldn’t give up ownership rights for a unwarranted claim to safety. If something is potentially dangerous then making it more difficult to repair is a bad idea.
We probably shouldn’t let people repair their own brake pads but that’s another argument. Not enough people die from randoms repairing their own brake pads. Repair an insulin pump the wrong way and it will absolutely kill you. Oxygen masks, CPAP machines, pace makers. So many medical devices that people rely on for life or death care.
I’m all for right to repair. But having seen some of the thing people have done to repair safety items I have serious doubts about the efficacy of someone repairing something wrong and killing their grandma. I can appreciate that not everyone feels the same way. I can appreciate that there are absolutely people out there who can and do repair their own devices, cars, machinery etc, and they may do it well. But there are always going to be people out there who don’t know what they’re doing but will try and then we’ll hear about them on the news because they touched a capacitor or something.
This depends on the area of medical device. I work in medical device but totally different from this, mine get implanted into your body.
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I doubt many people have the knowledge to to truly troubleshoot our devices beyond what the doctor is allowed to do. We need a bunch of expensive and specialized hardware to troubleshoot.
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We are legally required to investigate and report any complaints(https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfmaude/search.cfm) . If we don’t get the complaint we can’t investigate and report it.
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If a certain number(honestly I don’t know the specific number) of complaints occur we are legally required to create a corrective action to help the patients immediately (or as soon as possible) and a preventive action to ensure it doesn’t effect other patients. If a person has an issue and “repaired” it themselves they don’t get counted in this and as such could cause more patients to suffer.
While I agree with right to repair I think certain things should be exempt. That said then there should be a requirement of the manufacturer to ivestigate/repair the equipment.
It’s OK for manufacturers to say using aftermarket parts voids the warranty, it’s not OK for them to prevent using them entirely. Likewise if there’s a safety concern that should be handled by regulation and things like safety inspections, not by forcing all repairs to go through the manufacturer. If whatever it is is that critical to the safe operation it should be publicly documented so that third parties can manufacture it correctly to the needed tolerances.
I’m not so sure it’s actually okay for manufactures to say using aftermarket parts voids the warranty - they need to prove it’s actually your fault the device is broken (America’s Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act). If you’ve seen those little stickers over screws that say “warranty void if removed” - those are actually illegal (in America).
if there’s a safety concern that should be handled by regulation
Regulation won’t detail what a company does to that level. They might say something like “fasteners shouldn’t come loose” but it wouldn’t have a torque spec.
If whatever it is is that critical to the safe operation it should be publicly documented so that third parties…
That would run face first into proprietary info and corporate classified info.
Yes, dangers exist from third party repairs.
Refusal or even simple failure to provide critical repair data to the end user or their agent denies the end user the ability to make an informed decision about repairs.
The company should be liable for all damages from a botched 3rd-party repair unless they provide to the end user complete specifications and unrestricted access to the device in order to make informed decisions about repairs.
