Motherboard has details of the latest news, which has big implications for hacking and security

Librarian of Congress and US Copyright Office just proposed new rules that will give consumers and independent repair experts wide latitude to legally hack embedded software on their devices in order to repair or maintain them. This exemption to copyright law will apply to smartphones, tractors, cars, smart home appliances, and many other devices.

This goes directly to the heart of the matter with lawyers at companies like Apple, who convince engineering to penalize owners of technology who attempt to fix things they own

Apple has a built-in kill switch that can prevent new MacBook Pros from functioning if they have been repaired by anyone who is not authorized to do so by Apple.

As a former authorized Apple repairman, I totally disagree with Apple’s thinking here. And to be fair Apple is not the only one. Back in 2015 I wrote a few thoughts about what’s at stake