[Themaintainers] Themaintainers Digest, Vol 56, Issue 1 right to repair

[Jessica Mink]

I live in Massachusetts and am about to vote YES on question 1. As a 
developer who writes only open source software, I strongly believe that 
the more eyes on the code, the safer it is likely to be. I think the 
dealers are playing a longer game than we see up front. With the 
electrification of the automobile fleet as they saw with the ill-fated 
EV-1, there will be less need for repairs as the number of mechanical 
parts in a vehicle is drastically reduced. Dealers make a lot of money 
from repairs, and want to keep as much of that business that they 
possibly can, so they want to exclusively own the data coming from each 
vehicle so that they have the exclusive right to make money from 
maintaining those cars, and most of what will be moving in the cars' 
systems will be bits and electrons.

-Jessica Mink

On 10/19/2020 01:05 PM, Aaron Gordon wrote:
> Hi everyone, I’m a reporter who has covered the auto industry and 
> transportation in general. The MA ballot measure is a right to repair 
> issue masquerading as a data privacy issue (although I’d argue the two 
> are increasingly overlapping, especially in the auto industry). The 
> auto industry’s lobbyists have put out some truly gross ads 
> <https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4ayw/auto-industry-tv-ads-claim-right-to-repair-benefits-sexual-predators> that 
> are nothing more than cheap scare tactics.
>
> The privacy argument is fundamentally based on the idea that the 
> existing law, which requires hard-wiring into the car to read the 
> data, is safe but if that same information is transmitted wirelessly 
> it is vulnerable to hackers. Considering the fact most of us conduct 
> our digital existence via wireless devices in a largely safe manner, 
> this is an absurd argument on its face.
>
> Furthermore, the auto industry is in no position to take the high 
> ground on data privacy considering the industry’s standing practice of 
> hoovering up data from new vehicles and selling it onto third parties 
> without customer awareness (or, I would argue, consent, but that’s 
> another story).The Washington Post did a great investigation into this 
> last year: 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/17/what-does-your-car-know-about-you-we-hacked-chevy-find-out/
>
> Hope this helps alleviate some confusion.
>
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