logoalt Hacker News

areoform • today at 12:26 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

Just a quick reminder, you have the legal right to "jailbreak" devices that you own. This is a recognized exemption and a right that has been fought over in court.

It is your device. It is your money. You own it.

From the Federal Register, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/10/28/2024-24...

    > 9. Computer Programs—Jailbreaking [47] 
    > 
    > Multiple organizations petitioned to renew the four exemptions for computer programs that enable electronic devices to interoperate with or to remove software applications (“jailbreaking”). These exemptions permit circumvention for the purpose of jailbreaking (1) smartphones and other portable all-purpose computing devices, (2) smart televisions, (3) voice assistant devices, and (4) routers and dedicated networking devices. No oppositions were filed against renewal. The petitions demonstrated the continuing need and justification for the exemption and that petitioners have personal knowledge and experience with regard to this exemption. Petitioners described how users of a variety products in each of these categories rely on this exemption to maintain functionality and security of older devices, to install alternative operation systems, and to customize software applications on electronic devices. Collectively, the petitions demonstrated that without this exemption, TPMs installed on the enumerated products would have an adverse effect on various noninfringing uses.
and

    > 11. Computer Programs—Repairs of Devices Designed Primarily for Use by Consumers [51] 
    > 
    > The Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) petitioned to renew the exemption for computer programs that control devices designed primarily for use by consumers for diagnosis, maintenance, or repair of the device. The Office did not receive meaningful opposition to renewal.[52] 
    > 
    > The petitioners demonstrated the continuing need and justification for the exemption. For example, EFF asserted that “[m]anufacturers of these devices continue to implement technological protection measures that inhibit lawful repairs, maintenance, and diagnostics, and they show no sign of changing course.” [53] 
    > 
    > EFF has personal knowledge of this exemption, as it has been involved with the section 1201 rulemaking process since its inception and has specifically advocated for device repair exemptions.

    
I jailbroke my Kindle with GPT-5.5 Sol and made an external e-paper display for the long batches of text AI models generate on a regular basis.

Here's the project! I MIT licensed it. https://github.com/areoformed/Re-Kindled

Please note, I say so in the human note on top, but "The project code was written by GPT-5.6 Sol xhigh. It has not been verified by a human for correctness, efficiency, or speed; i.e. ymmv and use this at your personal risk."

In case you're wondering why I didn't write the code myself... I needed this as a tool to read long sequences of AI text output for work. Including code. Spending time making this tool would be counter-productive to that goal.

I do plan on writing a text rendering engine some day. Hopefully, soon.

Machine assistance also allows me to do things that would've been otherwise impossible.

For example, I'm aware of NASA's 3001 standard for human-rated spaceflight systems has very specific findings related to readability of labels. There are also other standards for checklist and document readability. Asking software to support the standards wouldn't work. Most people just aren't going to use NASA's human rating checklist to design websites and terminal outputs. They either don't know about it, or don't care enough to do so.

But machine intelligence makes it possible for me to extract NASA's learnings, turn them into requirements, and then have the machine custom build software that embeds it into my day-to-day life. https://github.com/areoformed/Re-Kindled/blob/main/code/TYPO...

I'm very grateful for that. The world is built to a very different tune, but with machine intelligence I can make tools that fit for me.


Replies

loloquwowndueo • today at 12:39 AM

> The project code was written by GPT-5.6 Sol xhigh. It has not been verified by a human for correctness, efficiency, or speed; i.e. ymmv and use this at your personal risk.

In an age where everyone has access to AI, AI-written code has zero value. You should share the prompt or ask your agent to write a document other people’s agents can use to reimplement the code from scratch and/or customize to their specific needs.

➕ show 3 replies