5 Technology Products That Won’t Let You Break the Law
You just bought yourself some fancy new electronic gadget, and you think you can do whatever you want with it. You might be surprised by laws that say, no, sorry, there are some things you may not do. And you might only find out about these laws when your device steps in to prevent you from breaking them.
Here’s a rundown of a few devices that enforce the law so you just don’t have to worry your pretty little head about it. Don’t you feel better?
Your car
People have been tinkering with cars since there were cars to be tinkered with. But today’s cars are as much technological as mechanical, and their software runs under the laws that govern computer code.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) restricts consumers from inspecting or modifying software in many instances, and some car manufacturers claim this applies to their automobiles. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is beginning a campaign to amend the DMCA to guarantee car owners access to their cars’ systems (with exceptions for things like safety and copyright infringement). The EFF says that if they are not successful, automakers may invoke the DMCA to make accessing the software in the cars we own illegal.
So far, at least, the laws on tinkering with your car’s software are not black-and-white, but that doesn’t prevent at least one technology-centered auto manufacturer from reminding you that getting into their code is a form of tampering tantamount to breaking your warranty. That company, of course, is Tesla. One year ago, an owner tried to tap into his car’s built-in network. His car sensed the probe, ratted him out to the manufacturer over its built-in wireless data connection, and he got a note from Tesla telling him to get his hands off the network in the car he bought.
Your drone
You really should not fly your drone everywhere. And in some instances you simply cannot.
Drone exclusion zones in and around Washington, D.C.
It’s illegal to fly remotely-piloted hobby aircraft near airports or anywhere near Washington, D.C. (after one drone crashed on the White House lawn). These rules are now built into the software of the popular DJI Phantom drones. If you try to pre-plan a course for a drone near an airport or into D.C., you won’t be able to. If you try to manually fly in one of these zones, you won’t be able to take off. If you do fly into one, your drone will land itself.
More: New Website Lets You Create a ‘No-Fly Zone’ Over Your Property
Your multifunction printer
You already know it’s illegal to print your own copies of currency: It’s called counterfeiting. But you might not know that tech companies help to make sure that you never do. When current color scanner/printers or image editing apps like Photoshop see a paper bill, they’ll disable their capability to render it accurately.
Photoshop has had this capability since 2004, and almost all color copiers have it today. One way imaging software is able to enforce this rule is that most banknotes incorporate in their design a repeating pattern called the EURion constellation. If a printer or image app sees this particular pattern of rings, it will trigger the anti-counterfeiting software.
As an experiment, I tried to copy a bill on a color copier at work and a multifunction scanner/printer at home, and I could not. However, a friend with an older color printer was able to make a “very nice looking” print of a $20 bill.
Your 3D printer
Just as your printer won’t print money, it’s possible that your 3D printer won’t print a key part of a firearm you’re trying to create. At least one 3D printer company, Create it Real, says it has an algorithm to block the printing of firearm parts.
Since guns come in many shapes and sizes, it’s unlikely that perfectly reliable gun-blocking algorithms will work, but as Create it Real says, “The goal is that the average user won’t be able to by mistake print a gun.”
Your phone
With all the magical capabilities built into a smartphone, you would think that recording a conversation would be simple. But it’s not. That’s probably due to the fact that recording a phone conversation is not always legal. It’s perfectly fine if both parties agree to be recorded, but absent that, laws vary, so it’s not surprising that call-recording features aren’t built into any modern smartphone.
Our friends at Digital Trends know of a few workarounds that do let you make call recordings. You’ll need them if you want your phone to save your legal — or illegal — conversations.
The laws to come
It’s easy to make arguments for having technology that’s aware of laws: Think about how much safer the roads would be if cars could not go faster than the speed limit or run red lights. Or how much safer we’d be if terrorists couldn’t take pictures in target zones like airports or near military bases. And don’t you want robots that can never be made to harm people?
But now think about how dangerous technology can be if it can only blindly follow legal programming. No software developer can ever plan for all contingencies; nor can a device tell the difference between fine points of law, or the difference between what’s right and what’s legal. Software can’t necessarily identify emergencies that a human would be aware of. Think of the driver speeding to a hospital with a bleeding passenger. Of a threat over the phone that can’t be recorded. Or of a drone rushing emergency medical supplies to a person in a flight-restricted area.
Your tech products may be more law-abiding than you are, and that could save you from a lot of trouble. Or it might just make things worse.
