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In a deceptive software update, @TXInstruments removed a popular feature from its bestselling TI-84 graphing calculators, removing the ability of calculator owners to write and run their own C and assembler programs.
https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16652
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https://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16652
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The change was blamed on "exam boards and teachers" who'd been inflamed by "sensationalized videos" that showed how homebrew software could help students cheat during exams.
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Peter Balyta, Texas Instruments' President of Educational Technology, called the move "a difficult decision, but one that was made out of an abundance of caution to prioritize learning for students and minimize any security risks."
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The practice of using deceptive software updates to remove desirable features from products after they have been sold is an incredibly bad idea. Regular software updating is the key to technological "herd immunity."
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The failure to patch devices is largely to blame for Denial of Service epidemics, and compromised systems can be used as a jumping-off point for attacks on other systems. As a technologically dependent civilization, we cannot afford to disincentivize people from updating.
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The first time I encountered this tactic was with Apple's Itunes, which went through a multi-year period of deceptive updates that removed desirable functionality to please the record companies whose approval was needed to keep the Itunes Store in business.
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More recently, HP pushed a fake "security update" to its printers that lay dormant for six months, then activated and began blocking third-party/remanufactured ink cartridges.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/what-hp-must-do-make-amends-its-self-destructing-printers
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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/09/what-hp-must-do-make-amends-its-self-destructing-printers
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It's such a reckless act, a poisoning of the well, like Trump's attempt to use the US census to gather citizenship data or the CIA's impersonation of public health workers when they were searching for Osama bin Laden.
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These practices are essential to our common wellbeing, and rely heavily on voluntary cooperation. Teaching people that participating in these actions - whose benefits are not personal, but rather distributed across our whole society - is an act of depraved indifference.
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