Fantastic and inspiring write up, big thanks!

Here is to hoping someone will do something similar for DRM'ed BOSCH ebike motors.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

We do it at https://infinite-battery.com :) our battery is compatible with Gen2/Gen3/Gen4 (we haven't yet tested on smart systems though)

I started doing some research over the holidays and the smart system seems to be designed to prevent reversing - fuses blown both ways, so didn't even manage to read the firmware, and communication with the client software relies on what seems to be decent encryption. And from the design of the hardware bypasses it seems that the firmware does not trust its own peripheries. Good design, no doubt - will try to take it apart when i switch bikes and won't mind bricking my unit.

> Here is to hoping someone will do something similar for DRM'ed BOSCH ebike motors.

Please not. Bike thieves are already annoying as they are (a ring in the rural city I live in managed to steal over 400 k€ worth of bikes in a matter of months, in my case they only stole the control unit), and so are people modding their bikes to run (way) faster than the legal limit, leading to more and more calls for them being banned off of normal bike tracks.

[1] https://www.idowa.de/regionen/landshut/landkreis-landshut/se...

I am not interested in either, I just want to have control over the hardware I purchased with my own money.

As for thieves, they apparently have ways of bypassing bosch drm via hardware - bosch bikes get stolen all the time. As for speed unlocks, they are trivially possible with hardware bypasses. I doubt open source firmware would do harm.

Is people stealing bikes and parts a technological problem or a people problem?

you could compare with apple locking down iphones and parts, which I understand significantly reduced theft

I seriously doubt any kind of DRM is going to dissuade bike thieves. It hasn't really worked for phones has it?

It has. Yes people still steal iPhones but not even close to levels pre-Activation Lock.

If you can't fence the product then there's no motivation to steal it in the first place.

Naturally, this is why we should add GPS and a network connection to every device in existence. /s

> If you can't fence the product then there's no motivation to steal it in the first place.

Couple of big problems with this thought:

* You have to know you can't fence it. Do you think bike thieves are following exactly which e-bike models have DRM, whether it has been broken etc? I doubt it.

* It assumes that the DRM is so amazing that nobody figures out how to defeat it.

So it might be true, but it also might not.

Committed to buying. They dont have the money to actually buy it (at least not yet).

I have a Class 1 Makita (green) laser level, wide strong beam, excellent tool for landscaping. I accidentally looked into it from a 10 cm distance. It did not leave permanent damage, but for a few days I had the dot burned on my retina. And yes, I almost immediately closed my eye - within a few hundred ms's.

People are and always were reluctant to share their own code just the same. There is nothing to be gained, the chances of getting positive reviews from fellow engineers are slim to none. We are a critical and somewhat hypocritical bunch on average.

I have long standardised the way I do hotel reviews:

- bullshit wifi connectivity (e.g. captive wifi + OTP)? - normal wifi but with very long password? - is there a place to put toiletries in the shower? - clean? - time to check in and check out?

Where I travel the hotels without bathroom doors have not proliferated yet. I've been in a few, even when I am alone I hate the experience.

That, and computer systems have significantly more states, which makes unpredictable states and state transitions more likely.

(Which of course also means that until all eternity the first thing to do when something misbehaves is to try and reset it).

For sure, for instance Google has ADK Eval framework. You write tests, and you can easily run them against given input. I'd say its a bit unpolished, as is the rest of the rapidly developing ADK framework, but it does exist.

Fabulous.

Now I just need to find a monochrome laser projector and my home office design is complete.

Oh man, thanks for that!

(Shorts are not completely gone - they are still visible on channels subscribed to - but the toxic homepage thing is empty. Big thanks!)

The people managing youtube and similar services are doing lots of harm to humanity. Not sure if more than those who push drugs or cigarettes, but in the same league for sure. An entire generation of kids is growing up that can't read a book or do anything that requires focus and attention.

I think its only a matter of time where legislation, lawsuits and fines will follow.

> I think its only a matter of time where legislation, lawsuits and fines will follow.

That depends where you are. In the US and anywhere where it can exert political force that won't happen. The US administration acts as a de facto lobbying arm for big tech giants like Google, and any attempt to regulate is met with threats of embargo.

Agree with everything else.

>Not sure if more than those who push drugs or cigarettes, but in the same league for sure. An entire generation of kids is growing up that can't read a book or do anything that requires focus and attention.

Parents/ guardians.

Yes, but also legislation. Same as with drugs, alcohol or cigarettes - it does not make it impossible for kids to get access, but it makes it impossible for large companies to make selling that to kids a business model.

Just yesterday my wife was asking me if there is a way she can disable YouTube Shorts on the YouTube iOS app. I was surprised to learn there is no (simple) way!

Someone here explained that disabling history saving feature also kills the toxic youtube recommendation page (while leaving shorts under 'subscriptions' -- but only for subscribed-to channels). Applied it yesterday and it made my youtube experience much better.