valued-customer wrote a blog: Is Your Fridge Spying on You?
Also in the news, John Deere is forced to allow customers the "Right To Repair".
These two may be a bigger reason for manufacturing to be done in garages, than China pulling the plug on exports to America.
"Please sir, if it pleases the Apple (crown) may i use my iPhone?"
It is not apparent, and they try to keep this information out of the spotlight, but you do not own your phone. You, the person who purchased it are on the bottom of the totem pole. You must rely on a huge group of corporations to continue to let you use your phone. Even the police (NSA) have a higher position than you over control of your phone.
Cars, TVs, laptops, appliances all are having microprocessors put in them. Many of these have abilities to contact the internet. The Internet of Things. And it is only a tiny step to have these things spy on you. Adding a microphone, once you have a microprocessor, is one of the easiest things. Video is fairly easy, except you need to put a lens somewhere.
These things are everywhere, and we all know they have backdoors. And many have frontdoors that are left wide open.
Right to Repair is actually having to have laws telling corporations who sold you the item that you can repair it.
Imagine back in the 50s, when most American men knew how, and usually did work on their own cars, and appliances, lawnmowers... go and tell grandpa today that you aren't fix "your item", see what he says.
But really, that is what has happened. Many corporations have built their products so that you have to take your product to their service center or it stops working.
This was quite well known in the printer industry; the ink cartridges would stop working based on number of uses, not because they were out of ink. And you couldn't refill the cartridge unless you could also reprogram the chip it had inside it.
Today, many cars cannot be worked on be worked on by consumers. They are built in such a way that a home mechanic couldn't possibly have the tools needed to do any repairs. There is one pickup where you need to pull the cab off to get at many parts of the engine.
Not only have the corporations made getting replacement parts hard and expensive, they make many iterations where you need to have the exact right part. Making tire sizes that no other car uses. Using microchips to prohibit part replacement/swapping. Making parts to break down just after the warranty period. Building the product so that any error will cause the whole thing to malfunction. And on and on and on
It is actually built into the business model of these companies. Selling the original item for cheap, and getting their money back from repairs and parts.
This stuff makes me sick. And it will leave many with a "boat anchor" if ever the supply lines have a hickup.
It is really fascinating to me that corporations who are supposed to be trying to compete in price are adding "features" that add cost to each unit. Probably only $1 per part, but still that adds $10-$100 at the consumer price.
And who is paying for the engineering time to make those things spy on the users? That is a lot of hours to write and then test. Especially since you have to get this right before it leaves the factory. You can't send a tech to everyone's house to fix that secret camera in the TV. (but maybe you can send a signal to the TV to have it fail, so it will be sent in for repairs)
Why is foreign corporations, supposedly owned by China and India (and others) building spyware for the NSA? How much are they paying to get this done? How much are they paying to have this kept hush-hush?
This stuff just baffles me, because when you try to run any numbers, someone is paying a whole lot.
One thing about 3D printing is, if one person can print it, another person can do the same.
It becomes impossible to stop others from making that replacement part...
In distributed manufacturing you have many suppliers of the same part. Not one monolithic corporation controlling the supply. You are not constrained to one supplier. And you get the part for the same price, whether it is in a new appliance, or you need it for repairs. You get what you are paying for (or bartering) and you are paying for what you get. (lots of competitors) Costs stop being hidden.
So, in a distributed manufacturing economy, you have the right to repair, and you have the ability to repair. You own your thing. And you have a good idea of what each part does. (as in, their will be an online collection of blogs, posts, wikis about each and every part. What it looks like and how to hook it up. If someone finds that someone is putting spyware into the parts they supply, this too will probably be found out, exposed and written up. And with the parts supplied being on the blockchain, everyone that may have been compromised can be alerted.
You can not only repair your own stuff, you can even build it completely yourself if you are so inclined.
The environment is shifting. It seems we will be forced into distributed manufacturing if we do not take the initiative to starting it ourselves. Whether it is China ceasing trade, or a lack of repair parts, or people suddenly find it deadly to let the govern-cement know what they are doing, we are going to have a need for a new way of getting our stuff.
