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Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

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Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#281

Post by sharedfrog »

jb1991 wrote: post #234

I don't really understand the tone here. Do people really believe there is "evil" motivations in Apple? How about Tesla and its control over your vehicle? Windows also phones home frequently and has advertising built-in. I get that many in the hacker crowd don't like this, so the obvious solution is, don't buy those products. But for everyone else, it's not this big downer of a problem. This is the only time this has…

> People are confusing their own individual preferences [...] with the larger motivations of the masses.

No, I don't think we are. We're lamenting the motivations of the masses.

Most people want something that 1) looks pretty, and 2) "just works". The advantages of something objectively better (let's assume there's a metric we can agree on) would have to be exponentially greater than the effort to make it work in order to make most people bother with the switch.

On top of that, it's a psychological defense mechanism to simply ignore bad things. Certainly if the effort to fix them is great.

And that gets us to "I don't care if I'm spied on."

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#282

Post by ragnese »

cassepipe wrote: post #206
marcus_holmes wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could have been written by an Apple user circa 2000, when the entire world ran on Windows. I switched from Mac to Linux, and it's been fine, partly because I used a laptop that has Linux installed by the manufacturer. If you only ever used Hackintoshes you'd think MacOS was a mess, too.

Even better : Switching to Linux on a Mac. So you get a blazing fast Linux experience on a very sturdy long-lasting laptop. I did just that. I love it.

Dude. Installing Linux on a Mac laptop is a nightmare. What model/year did you use? Do external displays work reliably? Does your web cam work?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#283

Post by nicbou »

damnencryption wrote: post #27
novok wrote: post #7

Thanks for summarizing a bunch of changes that make me depressed about modern computing. Now Android, 'privacy apple' macOS, iOS & Windows all act in similar way. The only thing left is bad user experience linux.

Why call linux a bad user experience when you are depressed at the state of what you can do on mac/windows? Doesn't user experience account for what you can do on your device and with how much ease?

Privacy is a lot less tangible than productivity. Both are important, but I think the latter hurts more directly.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#284

Post by coldtea »

deadbunny wrote: post #16

Yet despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - both in the article and in the comments here in the various threads - people are still making excuses for continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft/et al products because the alternatives are a bit rough round the edges. These companies have repeatedly shown that they don't respect people's privacy and people have resoundingly responded that neither do they. I would…

>Yet despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - both in the article and in the comments here in the various threads - people are still making excuses for continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft/et al products because the alternatives are a bit rough round the edges.

Or we like what Apple/Google/Microsoft are putting out, including the "walled" nature of the iOS/macOS. People's homes are also "walled" for a reason.

Your concerns are not everybody's concerns.

That said, I don't like the telemetry and information leak as described in the article, and would want Apple to stop it and allow disabling it.

But I also don't care for using another OS just because "it's actually yours and you can do anything you want with it". That's also true for TempleOS, but I would't want to use it (to use an extreme example of an alternative), and simililarly, I prefer macOS and the app ecosystem to any Linux distribution I've seen (and I've used UNIX when there were still UNIX wars and SunOS workstations with black and white monitors, and Linux for close to 25 years).

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#285

Post by sharedfrog »

nicbou wrote: post #274
jb1991 wrote: post #234

I don't really understand the tone here. Do people really believe there is "evil" motivations in Apple? How about Tesla and its control over your vehicle? Windows also phones home frequently and has advertising built-in. I get that many in the hacker crowd don't like this, so the obvious solution is, don't buy those products. But for everyone else, it's not this big downer of a problem. This is the only time this has…

> Do people really believe there is "evil" motivations in Apple? I prefer them not to give them a chance to be evil, rather than trust them not to be. You're right, life is too short to be upset about it, but at the same time, it's not something you should feel comfortable with.

> I prefer them not to give them a chance to be evil, rather than trust them not to be.

That's a good way of putting it.

It's safe to say a sufficiently large company doesn't care about good and evil, or any other kind of moral question, pretty much by definition. They care about making money. They'll do anything legal they can for that goal, as well as continually test and push the boundaries of what is legal, and lobby for different laws at the same time.

A very small company might care about other values, but I simply don't see that happening when you get to the stage of venture capital and shareholders.

Edit: Likewise, a hungry bear isn't evil.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#286

Post by qiqitori »

fxtentacle wrote: post #159
rsanheim wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pointed out a core problem here, and a common blindspot with the HN crowd: > continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft That is probably 98%+ of devices that most typical people use for everyday computing, across phone, laptop, and desktop. Whether it is an android device, an iPhone, a Dell laptop or a new M1 macbook you are beholden to a corporation that doesn't care about privacy. I would argue that Apple cares a…

Setting up Ubuntu was easy enough. But the file manager locks up regularly, switching between multiple windows of the same app with alt+tab doesn't work reliably, and I actually had to Google how to create a new folder. The stock picture viewer is lacking information such as ICC profile and when I installed the recommended Gimp, it was a mess of windows and the save dialog was horrible. I suffer through all of it bec…

You can activate single-window mode in Gimp under Windows -> Single-Window Mode.

I would generally recommend Kubuntu over Ubuntu -- it seems like Gnome aims for minimalism somehow, and has thrown out a lot of functionality that used to exist, and generally tends to emulate OSX for a lot of things. (E.g., OSX doesn't do alt-tab for multiple windows of the same app either IIRC.)

BTW, Kubuntu's default image viewer would likely be Gwenview -- You can get it to show a lot of information by clicking "More..." in the Meta Information panel and selecting stuff in the resulting dialog window. Here's a screenshot I found on the nets: https://www.fossadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Gw...

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#287

Post by szc »

bergstromm466 wrote: post #213
szc wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but there are no details about how PRISM works. The 2012 date is also suspicious - it is in the same year a new Apple datacenter in Prineville came online. I personally think that PRISM works by externally intercepting data communication lines running to / from the unwitting companies. The NSA has previously tapped lines (AT&T), but they made the mistake of doing it inside the AT&T building. That eventually le…

> Sorry, but please can you point to any real evidence that Apple allows state-level actors access? From what I can see it is exactly the opposite. > Sorry, but there are no details about how PRISM works. > I personally think that PRISM works by externally intercepting data communication lines running to / from the unwitting companies. Unless you can prove you're ex-NSA or worked in SIGINT, sharing your opinion is no…

I'm not ex-NSA, current NSA and I have not worked in SIGINT for any country. I cannot demonstrate proof of this.

I do not believe that the Snowden slides show proof of collusion by any of those companies. All the slides do are indicate that data is being collected from those companies and the program is called PRISM.

If for example, there was also a slide that indicated payments were being made in exchange for the data, then that would be an entirely different thing. That would indicate collusion and be more believable.

I am not denying or refusing to accept Snowden's whistleblowing. I think it is highly likely that PRISM exists. What I refute are the speculations that the companies listed are complicit.

I will also add that PRISM and "beam splitting" are a bit too close for coincidence.

Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, SF is where "beam splitting" was done. That info leaked. The NSA isn't stupid, I doubt they wanted to repeat that sort of discovery - which is why I think it is believable and likely that the companies listed on the slides have no idea what has been done.

[edited to fix grammar and that there was more than one slide leaked]

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#288

Post by dancemethis »

szc wrote: post #127

I'm not going to comment on the linked article, other than say I think it contains serious mistakes in describing what OCSP is for and errors in other statements. In the background there is a war going on, but it isn't what you think. It is a war between malware creators and OS creators. From my perspective it goes like this: To "identify" malware you need signatures. Signatures need valid certificates. Signing keys…

They aren't, since they are proprietary software. And taking into account Apple's history, and "proprietary software in a relative position of power", such as the ones we have keeping tabs on our entire lives, chances are quite against users at best.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#289

Post by sdevonoes »

II2II wrote: post #245
rsanheim wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pointed out a core problem here, and a common blindspot with the HN crowd: > continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft That is probably 98%+ of devices that most typical people use for everyday computing, across phone, laptop, and desktop. Whether it is an android device, an iPhone, a Dell laptop or a new M1 macbook you are beholden to a corporation that doesn't care about privacy. I would argue that Apple cares a…

> And before "have you tried this *nix distro??" comments appear, they are still too hard to setup and nowhere near as user-friendly for most people on an everyday basis. Uh, no. There are many reasons why people don't use Linux. The easy of setup and use lines are pure nonsense. Many Linux distributions have been easier to setup and use since at least the introduction of Ubuntu, and perhaps earlier. Just pop in the…

> As someone who has been using Linux for decades, I find the setup and user friendliness of something like Windows far inferior to to Linux. Yes, part of that is due to familiarity. On the other hand, some of it is inherent due to there being fewer restrictions with open source software.

Non-tech people don't want (or don't know how) to "setup". The most user-friendly setup won't ever beat "no setup" (e.g., macOS).

Besides, marketing plays a huge role as well. Ask people to name a few "computer" brands: Apple, Microsoft, Google. No one would name "Linux". So, it's not just that people should be able to buy Linux computers with no setup (Dell is selling them, I think), it's also that these kind of computers should get enough marketing so people know about them.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#290

Post by eeZah7Ux »

EliRivers wrote: post #244
goatinaboat wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's becoming the antithesis of everything that the original Hacker culture stood for. A hacker in the “Hacker News” sense is more than likely working on an ad-supported web app and dreams of working at a FAANG. The old hacker dream is dead, sadly.

Long gone. The last time I had a conversation here about what a "hacker" is, there was a sizeable contingent who defined it as "someone who knows how to write computer programs". If that hacker ethic lives, it's not in people labelled "hackers" anymore.

It's alive and kicking, but certainly not on "hacker" "news" or SV.

See all the events like CCC and the fediverse.

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