31–40 of 295 posts
Open source is where you don't have to apply guesswork to find out what a suspicious looking piece of software is doing on your computer.
The number of people who can properly analyse complex software to uncover what it actually does is a line asymptotically approaching zero. While OpenSSL is an overused example, it still remains a good one.
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No, I don't remember a time when users were in control and actually owned Apple-made hard- and software. However, linux is alive and well, despite some flavours attempting to force autoupdating snap stores and the like onto users.
Linux can be chatty, but I'd recommend installing OpenSnitch to get a handle on the few phone-home calls from programs like snapd (if you choose to not neuter it, immediately) and distro-specific upsells like "ubuntu-advantage". The biggest pay-off for OpenSnitch is if you're going to be installing and using third-party programs like VSCode and Unity, who love to talk to analytics providers.
Isn't that enough?
I just looked into ~/Library/Trial on my main machine (macOS 12.2.1). I got 380MB spread over 584 files (while TFA's author got 300k???). Most if not all of them are related to com.apple.siri.asr.dictation.en_US. Close to 100% of the space is taken up by .fst files, e.g. $ file /path/to/msg-bigG.squeezed_quantized_acceptor.fst /path/to/msg-bigG.squeezed_quantized_acceptor.fst: OpenFst binary FST data, fst type: squee…
`~/Library/Trial/Treatments/SIRI_DIALOG_ASSETS/factorPacks/6242008c0f185b3e2ef6bf8e/assets/com.apple.siri.dialog.socialconversationfl#d5b431b/dialog/SocialConversation.catfamily/dalWhoIsYourValentine.cat/en.cat.bin`
the file is gzip compressed and the decompressed data reveals some strings that are probably related to the question asked in the `cat` file:
tag:valentine";Only localize if Valentine's Day is relevant to your localeJ2�SS[If I could have a Valentine, it would be all 7.5 billion people on Earth. That is… a lot of heart-shaped lollipops.]:�SS[If I could have a Valentine, it would be all 7.5 billion people on Earth. That is… a lot of heart-shaped lollipops.]
So this isn't just about a/b testing but also about feeding current data into Siri to allow some local processing of timely events.
Do note though, that I have Siri disabled on my Mac, so this is of questionable value
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Purging snap has so far been a 5 minute do-and-forget operation, all the way to 21.10.
Sadly, Ubuntu is moving Firefox to snap in the upcoming 22.04 release. I think I'll be switching to either Manjaro or plain Arch before 21.10 becomes unsupported.
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Linux can be chatty, but I'd recommend installing OpenSnitch to get a handle on the few phone-home calls from programs like snapd (if you choose to not neuter it, immediately) and distro-specific upsells like "ubuntu-advantage". The biggest pay-off for OpenSnitch is if you're going to be installing and using third-party programs like VSCode and Unity, who love to talk to analytics providers.
vscode lets you turn off analytics in the settings (IMO it should be off by default, untill a crash is detected). Isn't that enough?
Remember when operating systems didn't have multi-gigabyte binary blobs performing cryptic actions with an extremely chatty online connection?
Jesus I hate being A/B tested without my consent. Particularly, why is Apple of all places doing this, given their otherwise strong track record of standing up for their users in regard to tracking and other bullshit by major players?!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Purging snap has so far been a 5 minute do-and-forget operation, all the way to 21.10.
Sadly, Ubuntu is moving Firefox to snap in the upcoming 22.04 release. I think I'll be switching to either Manjaro or plain Arch before 21.10 becomes unsupported.
I looked at one of the files: `~/Library/Trial/Treatments/SIRI_DIALOG_ASSETS/factorPacks/6242008c0f185b3e2ef6bf8e/assets/com.apple.siri.dialog.socialconversationfl#d5b431b/dialog/SocialConversation.catfamily/dalWhoIsYourValentine.cat/en.cat.bin` the file is gzip compressed and the decompressed data reveals some strings that are probably related to the question asked in the `cat` file: tag:valentine";Only localize if…
Maybe you should check that Siri is still disabled on your Mac?