Internet of Things products will become more unstainable than unconnected products due shorter product lifecycles and the fact, that products will become harder to repair due new security features.

My Dishwasher had a defect. It was not heating water anymore and by that the cleaning results got insufficient. Buying a new one, would lead into costs about 400 Euro, while repairing by an Expert was causing nearly the same costs. So, the regular consumer reaction would be dump it and buy a new one.

I am a passionate fan of the hacker and maker movement and by that dumping a defect product is only the final option, when repairing fails. Hacker and makers have learned to disassemble products, understand the inherent functionalities and by that they can replace defect parts and reassemble everything.

Hackers and makers have the skills to extend the lifecycles of products by repairing them

This is a positive attitude of the hacker and maker culture and contribution towards a sustainable society.

My dishwasher is not a smart product. However, you will find only rare smart products in our house. A tribute to a cybersecurity expert live. Because my dishwasher is not a smart product, its components are assembled on a typical industrial mass production architecture. There are mainly two groups of components:

- first the mechanical housing with water pumps and spray injections

- second the electronic basement with electronical control unit (ECU) and power supply

Reassembling such a product is rather easy. You just follow the reverser steps of the industrial assembly: unscrew the case from the electronic basement and you can access both: the mechanical parts and the electronics. Towards my fixing challenge the next steps was to disconnect the defect pump from ECU and water supply, unscrew the pump, remove it, set the new pump (100 Euro), connect it to the water supply, connect it to the ECU and reassemble the electronic basement with the mechanical housing. Operation finished; patient healed. Overall you need an 1h for fixing the problem and if you are not an expert you will find several video tutorials in the internet supporting you step by step on replacing the pump.

Not a big deal.





Changing the defect parts was easy, as the dishwasher was not smart. The pump is connected to the ECU by a simple bus system on an industrial standard as CEBus or when more complex on Modbus. The internal communication protocols between computing unit, sensors, motors and pumps are also rather simple unencrypted protocols. As the product is not connected to the internet, the control unit does not need to trust or distrust the electronic parties in the internal network. By that it will accept any pump connected at the right bus cables and talking the right protocol languages. The replacement pump was accepted by the control unit as it is a fitting model and the dishwasher is back in operation.

My family was happy, and the product lifecycle has been extended for a few years on a sustainable way.

Cybersecure products can’t be fixed by do it yourself

But fixing on cybersecure smart products will change everything. By creating a connected product, the ECU, sensors and actors must be protected from unauthorized manipulation. Hackers accessing the WLAN or other RF components must be prevent from intruding and hiding malicious code to all components of the system. A smart dishwasher is no more a simple electronic product it is a complex IT system. The typical solution will extend the dishwasher electronic components towards trusted computing to allow only vendor signed firmware on the ECU, sensors and actors. Also, the communication will change from simple CEBus or Modbus towards complex https client-server protocols with encrypted communication layer.

All this is needed to prevent your smart home product to become infected by malicious code from botnet operators, ransomware or cyberwarfare. This will affect the ability to repair smart products in future. You cannot change an electronic component easily as only vendor digital signed components are allowed to run by the ECU. Replacing a component also requires signing the new component with the right matching digital keys. Due cybersecurity issues the vendor keys must be secret. In fact, only the vendor or vendor accepted parties are allowed to pair components inside such system.

In terms of my dishwasher: if I try to replace the pump myself, the ECU will not accept the new component as it key signature is not trustworthy. A simple repair of the product is no more possible. You need to buy a new dishwasher instead repairing. This is maybe good for the vendor turnover or the country cross national product, but it is a disaster for sustainability. Smart products cannot be repaired anymore or only under the control of vendors. Cybersecure smart products can’t be fixed by do it yourself.

Hacking your own smart home products for fixing them

Fixing such cybersecure products requires hacker knowledge and hacking tools. Unfortunately, this is limiting the ability for fixing. Changing the pump of the dishwasher requires a jailbreak of the ECUs operating system to overcome the trusted computing obstacles and connect untrusted components. By that the security of the smart product is weaken. But at least people who can jailbreak their smart dishwasher must have a good knowledge on securing and monitoring their smart home network.

From a legal perspective hacking the product could become critical. By German law it is forbidden to give people access on tools or guidelines to break into IT systems. But the smart dishwasher is an IT system and you need tools to hack and overcome the trusted platform mechanism. Providing tools and guidelines for fixing might become illegal and the positive hacker and maker attitude is shifted to the dark side by law.

It is not a good outlook towards sustainable economy. Smart home products are already limited in their lifecycle due vendor software support. But making them unrepairable due cybersecurity reasons is amplifying this problem. We need to discuss solutions to extend lifetime and keep products repairable.