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I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

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Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#41

Post by mynameisvlad »

jimmies wrote: post #7

>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…

> Yeah, keep talking about Windows, until you fucking use some of the apps nowadays that wouldn't work when you haven't updated them for a month.

It's not really Windows' fault that the applications are being bad actors, though, so I don't see how that suddenly invalidates the backwards compatibility of the OS. Also, I'm sure if you use a 30-year old app, it's not going to prompt you to update before using it.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#42

Post by ryandrake »

jimmies wrote: post #7

>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…

You didn't mention the phone OS, but ... It's been a while since I was a 3rd party iOS developer, but I thought at one time having a "time bomb" or anything else that causes the app to basically do nothing is in violation of Apple's AppStore rules and would cause the app to get removed from the store.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#43

Post by zer00eyz »

fallous wrote: post #9
adreamingsoul wrote: post #5

So, back to land lines with analog phones? Serious question, do any phones exist that can fully owned by the user? For a period, I was excited about the Ubuntu phone because of the fact that I could have full control over it. Sad to see that project terminated. I'm also interested in "dumbphones" that can use CDMA or GSM networks.

I've seriously contemplated a roll-your-own "dumb phone" solution not only for myself but also for my mother and in-laws (they're all in their 70s). An Adafruit Fona would provide all of the telephonic functionality I'd care about, and then it's just a matter of choice regarding microcontroller, display, etc.

Honestly you can pick up a "dumb" phone for $20 - it just makes calls (and might play an MP3). Building one would be fun, but would it be worth it?

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#44

Post by garyrichardson »

ohazi wrote: post #2

You know, you could have even stopped at the car analogy, because modern cars are actually doing this and it's fucking terrifying. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16374464

I thought it was a story about cars and tech when I first started reading it. It wasn't until the article talks about dents and such that I realized this wasn't the focus.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#45

Post by cesarb »

therealmarv wrote: post #26

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…

That makes me think of xkcd 463: auto updates might be better than the alternative, but we shouldn't be needing a constant stream of updates in the first place.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#47

Post by robotsonic »

therealmarv wrote: post #26

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…

I agree that there are certainly benefits to auto-updates, but where I tend to dislike them (especially on the phone), is where I have infrequently used apps.

To stick with the Uber example, I don't live in a city with Uber, but have it on my phone for when I am. Why do I need to be burdened with using my data to constantly update an app I use once a year. This applies to a lot of apps (airlines, games, etc.). Games are really the worst offender as they tend to be quite large. Where release notes are provided in the app store, I will update if it is related to a critical security vulnerability, or something legitimate, but find it hard to rationalize constantly downloading 100+MB apps doing this for minor bug fixes that impact 0.001% of an apps user base.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#48

Post by 77pt77 »

therealmarv wrote: post #26

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…

Auto Updates with new permissions authorized by default provided they belong to some ill defined permission group.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#49

Post by amelius »

And the worst part, for me, is that we engineers are inflicting this upon eachother, driven by money and business-types with lock-in business-models.

We desperately need a code of conduct for engineers.

And/or we need certain types of businessmodel to become outlawed.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#50

Post by thinkythought »

lisper wrote: post #33

I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 7 (jailbroken of course) and an original MBP retina running Mavericks. I don't update them because the risk of updating is higher than the risk of not updating. Right now everything is working, and everything is set up the way I like it. If I don't update, things might break some day, but there is also a greater-than-zero chance that everything will continue to work for quite a while.…

As someone also still rocking the original MBPr, the peak for it software wise is actually El Capitan

I really, really wish i had never updated from that. It was faster, smoother, and more stable there than it was before and after. Definitely way better than Mavericks. I push this thing hard with premiere/ableton live/etc too.

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