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Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

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Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#351

Post by zepto »

AbjectFailure wrote: post #271
zepto wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted Yet. Have you considered that this might be a necessary precursor to making iCloud e2e?

There’s little point in E2E encryption if snooping is moved outside of either end. This measure is only necessary for implementing E2E in iCloud insofar as it allows the feds to do the very thing I want E2E to prevent them from doing in the first place. It’s as if USPS invented a new type of envelope that is physically impossible to open for anyone whose name is not written on the outside of it. Just one caveat: befo…

> if snooping is moved outside of either end

Yes, but this isn’t snooping.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#353

Post by AbjectFailure »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #190
jrockway wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's using my electricity and my silicon to call the cops on me. We have no idea what hashes they're checking images against; we can't see the raw data, and we can't see the hashes, and we can't see what they're sending to their servers. There is no technical reason why this needs to exist. If they want to scan iCloud photos for something, they can do that on their servers. iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted. Law…

> But I can't accept this. It's a step too far. So turn off iCloud photos?

Why should Apple let pedophiles store CSAM on iPhones just because they’re not uploading it to iCloud Photo Library? It’s morally reprehensible to not disable that flag when it’s such a simple thing they can do to catch so many more criminals!

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#354

Post by artursapek »

fartcannon wrote: post #168
artursapek wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're uploading your photos to someone else's computer, you've already accepted this state of things. It's a trade-off for convenience.

I'm not and you shouldn't either.

I'm not telling you what to do, am I?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#355

Post by SergeAx »

Desktop: I am currently on Windows 10. I have a lot of experience with Windows since Win 95, and more or less sure I can keep their invasive features in check via registry editing tools and also double check suspicious addresses on home router. Otherwise Windows is quite open OS without strict binaries signing rules.

I develop on PHP, Python, Kotlin and Go natively, using WSL for things like Ansible.

Phone: any recent Android with medium privacy settings on Google services. I allow location tags on Photos and location history on Maps, because it is quite useful. I tried to regulary change GAID, but untargeted ads became really awful, so I am keeping it for now.

Laptop: I don't always use it, but when I do - it is Lenovo X1 Carbon with Windows 10.

Fitness bracelet: cheap monochrome Xiaomi (v3, I think). I am interested in step count and sleep monitoring, it is good enough for me.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#356

Post by swozey »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #319
swozey wrote: post #165

Hackernews is by far the worst place to ever come for this advice. You're going to get the range of basically "use emacs, newb" to stupidly random Ebay laptops nobody has heard of. Roll your own thing and don't worry about what others use. I use void linux and I would never use hn for *nix advice.

I agree here as well. Criticism of linux here is like condemning Jesus at times. I just use windows cause it's easy and everything almost always works on it.

I'm a contrib on a bunch of nix projects and people are shocked when I tell them my home desktop "chill machine" is windows. I do work dev on osx. I had so many problems with my 16" macbook running my 49" monitor I threw it all into void linux desktop w/ kvm and gpu passthrough.

A whole lot of work to use osx on a machine that doesn't constantly throttle, but not enough work for me to justify spending $3-5k on the apple hardware I need.

And honestly I hadn't used nix on the desktop in years, almost all of the apps I needed work natively - the Zoom client even looks exactly like the OSX/Windows zoom. I'm slowly de-osxing myself.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#357

Post by nobodyandproud »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #71
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26

To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…

Exactly, I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes. Of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is ridiculous. I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick th…

What happens if someone with access to the database maliciously crafts innocent-looking images that collide with of the registered images?

Maybe include children so that on first glance the reviewer will just forward to the authorities.

You get these images, store it, then you get flagged.

Now what? What’s your recourse when the FBI insists that you’re guilty, and your reputation is ruined?

There absolutely is a problem of pedophiles, but the process that Apple is using seems ripe for abuse.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#358

Post by wayoutthere »

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #344
wayoutthere wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re fooling yourself if you don’t think the government has a dozen other ways to backdoor you. Heck they basically just have packet scanners sitting on the networks of all the major telecoms, and almost certainly have compromised SSL root signing keys so they can trivially decrypt your traffic. Anything that goes over the network is fair game. Love it or not, we live in a police state enforced by surveillance. Mos…

The government doing this is one thing but corporations controlled by a few vocal groups deciding what you can do and what you are allowed to know is a completely different thing.

Again, this has always been the case in the US. Newspapers were owned by wealthy businesses with a message to spread, as were the radio stations, then it was the big 3 TV networks for a long time, now it’s the 5 big tech companies. The gatekeeping is a feature, not a bug.

If you look to other societies, this happens there too. There is a symbiotic relationship between mass media and government at a fundamental level. There’s a reason that the first things you do after a coup are to lock down the Internet and sieze the TV / radio broadcast infrastructure.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#359

Post by Dracophoenix »

neverminder wrote: post #201

Desktop - Ubuntu 20.04. Everything works and my requirements are quite advanced - bunch of games on Steam, pro level audio production studio just to mention a few things. Laptop - Dell Precision 7750, Xeon CPU, 64 GB RAM, bought with Ubuntu pre-installed. Beast of a laptop, superior thermals, wipes the floor with a mac. Phone - Google Pixel. I consider that a lesser evil choice to Apple's walled garden. It's rooted,…

Are you able to run Protools and the Adobe Suite your Linux desktop is that no yet possible?

And how long do you plan to keep the Precision before upgrading?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#360

Post by SergeAx »

SergeAx wrote: post #355

Desktop: I am currently on Windows 10. I have a lot of experience with Windows since Win 95, and more or less sure I can keep their invasive features in check via registry editing tools and also double check suspicious addresses on home router. Otherwise Windows is quite open OS without strict binaries signing rules. I develop on PHP, Python, Kotlin and Go natively, using WSL for things like Ansible. Phone: any recen…

Ah, and I have Firefox as the only browser on desktop and mobile with uBlock Origin installed.
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