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0 pointsgstar1y ago0 comments

It 100% is designed so that you have to use their hardware.

0 comments

The biggest maker of garage door openers in the U.S. has done the same thing. For a button that goes on the wall to open the door, now it sends an encrypted code instead of just shorting two wires so that you have to use their button instead of a regular doorbell button like people have been doing for decades.

cyberax1y ago

I can't recommend ratgdo (Rage Against the Garage Door Openers) project highly enough. It implements the protocol and allows you to interact with the door: https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo/

The protocol itself is crazy, with obfuscated ternary data (instead of binary). People who reversed it are heroes.

spikej1y ago

Which company, and which product did you see this with?

cameldrv1y ago

Chamberlain and Liftmaster do this. They’re both owned by Chamberlain group and I believe they are the two most popular brands.

It’s caused tons of headache for people doing home automation stuff, especially since Chamberlain has cut off API access to home assistant. Then the home assistant people figure they’ll just rig a raspberry pi or something to short two wires, but then they hit this encryption nonsense.

2 more replies

coupdejarnac1y ago

Chamberlain devices do this. Genie devices do not.

1 more reply

WWLink1y ago

I blame it on cybersecurity experts lol. They probably went all alarmist and decided that having that was a giant security risk.

Arrath1y ago

God that's just insane.

Liquix1y ago

so if the company has established they're willing to go that far to lock customers into their ecosystem and milk for $$$... it's not inconceivable that they also engineered (or chose not to fix) the cheap flash + chatty logging hardware failure for the same purpose.

raxxorraxor1y ago

I would switch brands instantly. This is a company that has no customer orientation and I have never seen a company recover from that (they might have financial success, but they will never create good products again). They probably will sell you expensive crap. This time the device was fixable, but the manufacturer worked against the user on that.

tracker11y ago

So, you'd rather spend $12k+ to replace the entire system just to spite the manufacturer over making a minor patch to support a new tablet yourself?

1 more reply

yuye1y ago

Seems those tablets die not long after the warranty expires.

I'm willing to bet money on that it's planned obsolescence, especially considering their "technology keeps moving forward" bullshit.

zeroflow1y ago

I'm offering you a different viewpoint:

They made the analysis, how long the flash will live and saw, that it will make it out of the warranty period. Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive flash and/or software change.

I've seen this myself before. One process step before release of the control module was a write cycle analysis to make sure the unit will live for at least 10 years (i think) before the guaranteed write cycles of the flash memory were consumed.

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nikau1y ago

I'd guess they just didn't think of flash wear, like Tesla did in the early model s , and they got lucky they failed outside the warranty period.

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datavirtue1y ago

Companies don't encrypt anything unless required. Except for code and databases...they encrypt and obfuscate those to keep people running back to them.

Source: my customers

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

cameldrv1y ago

cyberax1y ago

I can't recommend ratgdo (Rage Against the Garage Door Openers) project highly enough. It implements the protocol and allows you to interact with the door: https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo/

The protocol itself is crazy, with obfuscated ternary data (instead of binary). People who reversed it are heroes.

spikej1y ago

Which company, and which product did you see this with?

cameldrv1y ago

Chamberlain and Liftmaster do this. They’re both owned by Chamberlain group and I believe they are the two most popular brands.

2 more replies

coupdejarnac1y ago

Chamberlain devices do this. Genie devices do not.

1 more reply

WWLink1y ago

I blame it on cybersecurity experts lol. They probably went all alarmist and decided that having that was a giant security risk.

Arrath1y ago

God that's just insane.

Liquix1y ago

raxxorraxor1y ago

tracker11y ago

So, you'd rather spend $12k+ to replace the entire system just to spite the manufacturer over making a minor patch to support a new tablet yourself?

1 more reply

yuye1y ago

Seems those tablets die not long after the warranty expires.

I'm willing to bet money on that it's planned obsolescence, especially considering their "technology keeps moving forward" bullshit.

zeroflow1y ago

I'm offering you a different viewpoint:

They made the analysis, how long the flash will live and saw, that it will make it out of the warranty period. Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive flash and/or software change.

4 more replies

nikau1y ago

I'd guess they just didn't think of flash wear, like Tesla did in the early model s , and they got lucky they failed outside the warranty period.

1 more reply

datavirtue1y ago

Companies don't encrypt anything unless required. Except for code and databases...they encrypt and obfuscate those to keep people running back to them.

Source: my customers

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse