Caro Giacomo, grazie della chicca... e scusate tutti per la lunghezza del messaggio ma non riesco a farlo più "stringato". Per essere chiari, dalle informazioni che sono stato in grado di raccogliere il modello di ventilatore in questione contiene una combinazione di hardware (una sorta di "chiave di copia") e SOFTWARE per impedire di riutilizzare parti dei ventilatori per assemblarne uno ricondizionato. É più o meno la stessa storia dei trucchetti usati per le cartucce delle stampanti, solo che sta cominciando ad assumere proporzioni decisamente fastidioNe (non è un refuso di fastidiose). Seguite il bianconiglio... Giacomo Tesio <giacomo@tesio.it> writes: [...]

These companies insist that their own in-house technicians be the only ones who touch the machines, and many are not afraid to admit that they consider the ventilators to be their property long after the sale has been made. The ridiculousness of that aside,

Questo sprezzo del ridicolo è una pandemia ben peggiore del COVID-19 perché da anni crea una scarsità ARTIFICIOSA così insostenibile per le nostre società che solo dosi da cavallo di sostanze di distrazione di massa fanno sì che non scoppi uno scandalo un giorno sì e l'altro pure. PURTROPPO questa pandemia è talmente diffusa che raramente giustizia è fatta quando si ricorre a vie legali: https://repair.eu/news/apple-crushes-one-man-repair-shop/ «Apple crushes one-man repair shop in Norway’s Supreme Court, after three-year battle» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] Apple claimed that Huseby was allegedly importing “counterfeit” iPhone screens. Huseby denied this, saying that he simply used refurbished iPhone screens that he never advertised to the public as “genuine” parts from Apple. While the Oslo District Court ruled in 2018 that Huseby did not violate Apple’s trademark, because Huseby never claimed to be using unused original spare parts, the Court of Appeal ruled in 2019 that the imported screens are illegal copies. The case was then brought to the Supreme Court. [...] Huseby took a considerable risk taking this case all the way to his Supreme Court, when other businesses in the same situation have given in to Apple in order to avoid trial and considerable legal expenses. [...] Intellectual property as a weapon, by Apple’s design The Norwegian judges made the final decision purely assessing trademark violations on these screens, based on obscure and technical details that are entirely invisible to consumers. They didn’t revisit the ruling of the Court of Appeal, while Huseby still maintains they were refurbished. Refurbished screens made in China come from companies that remove smashed glass from the high-quality original Apple LCD and apply a new glass on it. Usually the rest of the assembly is an original, reused part, and the glass is made by a third party. As Huseby puts it, Apple uses intellectual property law as a “weapon” by putting multiple logos and QR-codes on each component part of its screens, knowing that the Chinese grey market will not specifically cater to repairers in other countries that zealously enforce intellectual property. This creates a kind of “roulette” for repairers who want to import affordable, refurbished parts from China. Apple can then ask customs authorities in these countries to seize refurbished parts shipments. Meanwhile, Apple refuses to sell genuine spare parts to independent repairers in Europe. So they have a choice: buy either inferior generic parts or refurbished or after-market parts, like the kind Huseby bought. Apple’s aggressive use of intellectual property in order to shut down independent repairs will ultimately raise prices for consumers, if they are forced to choose Apple’s far more expensive authorised repairers who have access to new, genuine parts. For example, while Apple in Norway charges 1 959.75 NOK (185 EU) for mail-in service to replace the screen in an iPhone 6s, Apple’s authorised repair services in Norway charge 2699 NOK (255 EU), more than three times as much as Huseby charges, 800 NOK (75 EU). [...] This costs the planet too, as high prices for repair push consumers to cycle through products faster and faster. A report by the EEB showed that extending the life of European smartphones by just one year would save the CO2 equivalent of taking one million cars off the road. [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Huseby dovrà cambiare mestiere e circa 60 schermi ricondizionati e perfettamente funzionanti verranno mandati al macero, cosa volete che sia?!? In questo caso non c'è di mezzo software, c'è di mezzo un marchietto su ogni componente dello schermo. ...continuiamo a farci del male, tanto male, ma sempre in punta di diritto.

Continua su https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/diy-dongle-breathes-life-into-broken-ventila...

La parte più interessante della storia dei ventilatori è: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- We wish we could share the dongle schematic with our readers, but alas we do not have it. Hopefully it will show up on iFixit soon alongside all the ventilator manuals and schematics that have been compiled and centralized since the pandemic took off. In the meantime, you can take Ventilators 101 from our own [Bob Baddeley], and then find out what kind of engineering goes into them. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Gli schemi di quei circuiti si possono avere solo sotto banco, al mercato grigio? :-O Ma il bello viene in questo articolo... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-venti... «Why Repair Techs Are Hacking Ventilators With DIY Dongles From Poland» --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- As COVID-19 surges, hospitals and independent biomedical technicians have turned to a global grey-market for hardware and software to circumvent manufacturer repair locks and keep life-saving ventilators running. [...] This little dongle—shipped to him by a hacker in Poland—has helped William repair at least 70 broken Puritan Bennett 840 ventilators that he’s bought on eBay and from other secondhand websites. He has sold these refurbished ventilators to hospitals and governments throughout the United States, to help them handle an influx of COVID-19 patients. Motherboard agreed to speak to William anonymously because he was not authorized by his company to talk to the media, but Motherboard verified the specifics of his story with photos and other biomedical technicians. [...] The issue is that, like so many other electronics, medical equipment, including ventilators, increasingly has software that prevents “unauthorized” people from repairing or refurbishing broken devices, and Medtronic will not help him fix them. “This is a copy of a proprietary tool,” William said. “It doesn’t take rocket science to put these things back together. The weak point of these companies’ supply chains is other countries, so through our friends in other countries we’re able to get this stuff.” [...] The Polish hacker told Motherboard that technicians will take a manufacturer’s repair class in the United States, get the required software, then share it widely through Europe. “It’s officially prohibited to share the software,” they said, speaking of the PB840 software. “But if you know someone, you can just copy it and they cannot track it.” This grey-market, international supply chain is essentially identical to one used by farmers to repair John Deere tractors without the company’s authorization and has emerged because of the same need to fix a device without a manufacturer's permission. [...] This trade isn’t uncommon among refurbishers and trained repair professionals who work on ventilators and other medical equipment in hospitals. Ryan Zamudio, a military veteran who owns Veritas Biomedical, a company that repairs ventilators in rural California, said that while he and his staff are authorized to work on some manufacturers’ ventilators, he has to turn to internet forums, word-of-mouth trading, or hope he gets a friendly person on the phone at a manufacturer to get software or a repair manual in order to be able to work on others. “Service technicians are a community of their own. Sometimes you’ll call someone who works for a manufacturer and they sort of know what you’re facing, so they’ll send you a manual or a link to download the software. They’ll say ‘officially this never happened, and you didn’t get this from me,'” he said. Biomedical technicians also trade software among friends they meet through biomedical society trade groups and forums such as TechNation, 24x7 Magazine and DOTMed. In recent weeks, iFixit has also compiled a huge compendium of repair manuals for ventilators. While software can be copied and traded and hardware dongles can be used on older devices like the PB840, newer medical devices have more advanced anti-repair technologies built into them. Newer ventilators connect to proprietary servers owned by manufacturers to verify that the person accessing it is authorized by the company to do so. “You pay between $10,000 and $15,000 to gain access for one year,” the hacker said. “They’re called ‘smart’ machines, but it’s not smart for me, it’s smart for the manufacturer because you spend this enormous amount of money [to repair them].” [...] For the past decade, medical device manufacturers have refused to sell replacement parts and software to hospitals and repair professionals unless they pay thousands of dollars annually to become “authorized” to work on machines. The medical device industry has lobbied against legislation that would make it easier to repair their machines, refused to release repair manuals, and used copyright law to threaten those who have made repair manuals available to the public. The technicians who are unable to gain access to repair parts, manuals, and software are not random people who are deciding on a whim to try to fix complex medical equipment that is going to be used on sick patients. Hospitals and trained professionals are regularly unable to fix the equipment that they own unless they pay for expensive service contracts or annual trainings from manufacturers. [...] "For a lot of vendors, you have to get recertified every other year to keep working on their equipment. I had a biomedical technician who lost their certification during the middle of the pandemic [because it lapsed]," a source who manages biomedical technicians at 14 different hospitals in a state hit hard by COVID-19 said. "We called the manufacturer and they would not give us the information to service their ventilators. Eventually we get on a call and say 'this is ludicrous, this person has been working on these ventilators for 12 years. Release the service key so I can get patients back on ventilators.'" Motherboard granted the source anonymity because they were not authorized by their company to speak to the press. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Per approfondimenti c'è anche questo: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxekgx/hospitals-need-to-repair-ventilato... «Hospitals Need to Repair Ventilators. Manufacturers Are Making That Impossible» É abbastanza chiaro ora di quanto siamo messi male, ma proprio male male male?!? Voi non avete idea di quanto manchino ai nerd come me personaggi del calibro di John Geloso con il loro «Bollettino Tecnico Geloso» [1]: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- [...] una pubblicazione trimestrale gratuita, che non solo conteneva tutte le informazioni per la riparazione e la messa a punto delle sue apparecchiature, ma anche e soprattutto, aggiornamenti, consigli, istruzioni, data sheet, schemi elettrici e tutto ciò che era necessario alla formazione dei tecnici e degli appassionati dell'epoca, in anni in cui non c'erano centri di formazione e le scuole di elettronica erano rarissime. Questi bollettini hanno avuto il merito di diffondere, in modo semplice e chiaro, la conoscenza a persone che altrimenti non avrebbero avuto alcuna possibilità di sviluppare la loro passione, e si possono facilmente descrivere come la nascita dell'open hardware, in un momento in cui le documentazioni tecniche erano tenute gelosamente segrete. [...] --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Persone più uniche che rare. Saluti, Giovanni. [1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geloso#Il_%22Bollettino_Tecnico_Geloso%22 -- Giovanni Biscuolo