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Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

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Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#441

Post by justforyou »

GuB-42 wrote: post #294
pdkl95 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. Without the ability to grow up playing with system level software, combined with the software industry's unwillingness to pass on institutional knowledge to younger generations, I fear we are already on a path towards a civilization that loses a lot of the technological capability we currently en…

Gen Z can get real general-purpose computers with a development environment for cheap. The new Raspberry Pi 400 is a modern take on home computers like the C64, but 15 times cheaper. Pi 400 full kit: $100, C64: $595 (1982) / $1576 (inflation adjusted for 2019). The computers are not just getting cheaper, educative material is easier than ever to find. Because modern computers are much more complex and do much more th…

The Rasberry PI is not open hardware, and is actually part of the problem, not the solution.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#442

Post by jb1991 »

forest_dweller wrote: post #246
jb1991 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the same sort of logic that some people have that people shouldn't be allowed to make choices in life because they "might get it wrong". No, it's not at all the same sort of logic. We are talking about technology here, not overall life experience. Everyone starts out life on the same footing, with zero experience, and has the innate potential to learn how to live it. But computers are a very specific, highl…

All you are advocating for is a new priestly class. > Everyone starts out life on the same footing, with zero experience, and has the innate potential to learn how to live it. But computers are a very specific, highly specialized machinery that the vast parts of the population will never be able to directly understand or fix. I started off with zero experience and learned more over time to throw your own words back a…

> I started off with zero experience and learned more over time to throw your own words back at you.

Do you think that all people are born with the innate ability to master computers, programming, and other technical tasks?

Just as not all people are born with innate ability to write a good novel, paint a masterpiece, write a symphony, or lead a nation, I'd say no.

But all people are born with the ability to live their own life and learn how best to do it in the direction that seems natural for themselves.

You are confusing the spirit of this discourse.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#443

Post by elondaits »

slazaro wrote: post #312
GuB-42 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gen Z can get real general-purpose computers with a development environment for cheap. The new Raspberry Pi 400 is a modern take on home computers like the C64, but 15 times cheaper. Pi 400 full kit: $100, C64: $595 (1982) / $1576 (inflation adjusted for 2019). The computers are not just getting cheaper, educative material is easier than ever to find. Because modern computers are much more complex and do much more th…

I think the point is that before, if you had a computer, you had the ability to inspect, modify and program, and with curiosity you'd learn. Now, most people get computers where those things are forbidden. You still can get "programmable" computers, but you have to do it explicitly. Before, it was implicit. So there's a filter that some people won't pass and won't learn, and the pool of people shrinks.

I am a developer, I use Mac... so I don’t understand how it’s forbidden to program. Mac OS comes with Python, Ruby and PHP preinstalled, even.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#444

Post by chpmrc »

This is true for any non E2E encrypted solution. Even using something like NextCloud, without E2E encryption enabled, on a small VPS provider would meet the same fate, except that Apple can afford resisting unreasonable requests and is far less likely to be cracked, the small VPS provider would likely have to shut down if they didn't comply and you would probably be completely unaware of them being cracked until the effects of the attack are evident.

Plus the fact that these things happen with such popular products increases the problem's visibility (look at the score of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25073010 and this) and is the most likely way to drive some change in the long run.

I find the idea of telling people, even technically capable ones, to "just start using Linux" laughable.

First of all because to reach the same level of popularity, usability and availability of "good" 3rd party apps would require a company to start selling "good" prebuilt hardware with a "good", polished distribution preinstalled. Once such company becomes big enough it would still have to give in to requests from authorities such as the FBI. And if this company happened to be non American there would probably be a ban on importing these devices. So unless you want people to seriously purchase "libre" laptops and install a "libre" distro without ever coming into contact with any popular cloud service providers, you're out of luck.

Second because I was an Ubuntu and Debian user and advocate for years during and a bit after college. Then I had the chance to work with a MacBook and there is absolutely no freaking way I'm going back to that mess. Just recently I had a colleague upgrade Debian and have an unusable paperweight because something broke with the bootloader or whatever. Had to flash a brand new image on a USB stick for him, on my Macbook...I buy my devices because I want to work with them, not on them.

There might be some hope with companies such as Purism (https://puri.sm) but there is really no reason to think they wouldn't end up just like Apple (or worse) should they ever start offering cloud storage services. Because the problem here is not technical, it's social and political. Even here in the EU we now have folks pushing for ending E2E encryption or placing backdoors. If that becomes reality any privacy friendly software will be outlawed. In short: this isn't a problem that individual for profit companies can or should solve. But it helps when a behemoth like Apple is involved.

EDIT: looks like the EU is simply setting up a sort of "task force" to discuss options when it comes to lawful access of supposedly encrypted data. The outcome might very well be that they conclude there is no way to support both strong encryption (which is one of the pillars of the document btw) and backdoors. Probably just to show they are doing "something".

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#445

Post by corford »

nicbou wrote: post #279
istillwritecode wrote: post #51

The title should be "Your apple computer isn't yours".

I might be mistaken, but wasn't Windows well ahead of Apple on this one? First it sneaked Windows 8 and 10 updates onto people's computers, then used every dark pattern imaginable to get them to consent to tracking, then slowly included ads in their operating system. For the last 2-3 years, I thought "at least Apple isn't doing that", but that is changing.

Unless I'm mistaken Windows 10 still allows you to disable everything and doesn't play games with what you can and cannot block at software/host firewall level.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#446

Post by autoexec »

jrib wrote: post #338
zanny wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do this in the first place. Its the same thing with Windows. People will preach all day that they won't make any personal sacrifices to try to avoid feeding literal cancers that are eating the software industry and are shocked when said all consuming voids take aw…

Next laptop for me is going to be from a company that explicitly supports linux. Probably dell or lenovo. A lot of people like to rag on Ubuntu. I agree with some of the criticisms. But the one thing they have done right is broker partnerships with hardware vendors like dell and lenovo. https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem... https://news.lenovo.com/pressroom/press-releases/lenovo-laun...

superfish was reason enough for me to never touch lenovo and all the other malware they've infested their systems with since have only made me feel better about that decision. Dell might be okay though.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#447

Post by arvinsim »

pizza234 wrote: post #93
zepto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternatives are still completely unusable by most people.

Not anymore. Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered, which is something one can experience with a Linux distro on pretty much any machine. I agree that it's not as much as a polished experience, but that's the point as indicated - trading off polish for ownership. I'm excluding from the discussion professional documents editing - compatibility with Libreoffice is mediocre (at best) in my experience, but hav…

> Not anymore. Consumer usage nowadays is very browser centered, which is something one can experience with a Linux distro on pretty much any machine.

Browser apps need connection. Most of the services are also subscription based.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#448

Post by morganvachon »

ghaff wrote: post #409
morganvachon wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I expect you to buy a well built tool from a Linux-first manufacturer, where you pay a premium to get a device that "just works". This is, after all, the Apple way right? You pay a premium for a Mac because it "just works", right? https://linuxpreloaded.com/

Doesn't even need to be "Linux-first." Our standard Linux laptops at Red Hat are Thinkpads, many of which are used by people who are not particularly technical and use a locked-down corporate build. (Many others run Fedora or CentOS.) I'm sure we have many thousands in use. The Dell XPS 13 is supposedly good too although I don't have personal experience. I use Macs quite a bit but the idea that running Linux on a pro…

I was mostly being tongue-in-cheek, making a point that one doesn't have to buy a Mac to get a great software-hardware combination from a recognized manufacturer.

But you are absolutely correct, and my Linux laptop is a Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It's also well supported under OpenBSD but for what I do with it (mostly media consumption and some light gaming mixed in with the usual laptop stuff), Linux works out better.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#449

Post by jonfw »

raxxorrax wrote: post #410
christophilus wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably 90% of developers I've worked with in the past 5 years used a Mac, and really wanted to do so. I know a handful that left Linux to do it, and have told me they can't imagine going back. I'm not sure that your'e right about developers. I do know that my next machine will be Linux. I'm probably going to put together a desktop for my office, and I'll buy a System76 laptop or whatever for those times when I want…

Estimated 1-3% developers of developers I worked with run MacOS. Maybe it is a local or SV thing, but most I know prefer the freedom. In the industry I work there aren't many tools for Apple ecosystems available. edit: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/ It is quite high and to correct myself: Some developers have a Mac for iOS development. Most people I know hate it.

IBM has nearly all of it's developers on Mac at this point. I came from using exclusively linux for 10+ years and have decided to switch my personal machine to a Mac and my phone to an iPhone because it's been so good.

Mac has everything I liked about Linux but with zero cognitive overhead. With brew and a window manager (amethyst) I'm not missing any features I enjoyed in Linux.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#450

Post by mysterydip »

emptysongglass wrote: post #219
zanny wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do this in the first place. Its the same thing with Windows. People will preach all day that they won't make any personal sacrifices to try to avoid feeding literal cancers that are eating the software industry and are shocked when said all consuming voids take aw…

What's worse is the number of other posts with the top comments being vociferous defenses of these companies as if they needed these people to defend them or cared one iota for their welfare. It feels like it's Stockholm Syndrome on a mass scale. I worry for Gen Z because they're tiny-mobile-device native. And the only usable tiny mobile devices are walled gardens. They scream outrage when they're not allowed their t…

On a related note, game consoles seem to be going the same direction, focusing on services and downloadable content or games over physical media (and even those that are physical seem to have a large online/multiplayer component). After a console generation or two, these services get taken offline as they are no lonher profitable, leaving a portion of your system useless.

I can go back and play old games I grew up on any number of platforms thanks to emulation or buying old physical media. This generation won't be able to do the same in 10-30 years.

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