191–200 of 467 posts
We're veering towards Chinaesque authoritative regimes if that's the case. A social credit score could be down the line for the West, unless we fight for the future we want. And by fight, I don't mean lurking on Internet chat-rooms complaining, I mean literal protests in the streets and donating half your income to the EFF and other freedom fighting initiatives.
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> I’m not familiar with any ToS that permits a company to repossess your PC or parts of it. I would call iCloud locking an embodiment of this. It's probably an unpopular example because people seem to broadly like it, but it does demonstrate the principal that the seller retains full control of the hardware and can "repossess" the device. The original purchaser does not receive a master unlock code. Even if locking y…
> I would call iCloud locking an embodiment of this. Activation locks were required by law to deter armed theft. > A new report from Reuters found that iPhone theft dropped by 50 percent in London, 40 percent in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York. The drops represent theft activity as measured during the 12 months following Apple’s introduction of the remote locking feature in September 2013 as part of iOS 7. W…
Mankind is not meant for some ersatz technocratic utopia.
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There should be a law that says that if you buy something and still don't fully own it, then it is a service, not a product. Owning something should include that you can cut all ties with the original vendor, and still be able to use the device as advertised.
Then companies will make everything a service. You need to make a downside for dearing that.
There is one interesting force acting against that though (or it would probably already have happened). It is the simple fact that most people that are competent enough to actually implement these things also understand the problems with doing so. For the most part anyway. If we could just agree to not do that... well, what are "they" going to do? And of course: we owe it to the web to use Firefox. The Chrome clones…
Yeah, chrome and google in general are the first in line to cause problems. There are many browsers, many apps, many everything... you can switch whenever... but the DRM and attestation pushes with browsers (and mobile devices) means, that sure, you can use a different browser, but your bank, your streaming service, your newssite might not work unless you're using chrome with drm and hardware attestation. This is alr…
Which means that every service in countries where Huawei has major market share definitely can't require Google anything.
The other day I read an HN comment that thought that when you buy consumer PC hardware, it comes with a ToS that limits your property rights as the owner. It's the kind of uncanny experience I run into more and more often lately: talking with people so immersed in our new normal of cyberpunk dystopia, they seem not to remember how things were in the before-times. So accustomed to exploitative corporate gaslighting, w…
The same thing happened to TVs. There are nearly no 'dumb' TVs that doesn't do anything more than just display the video signal. All the 'smart' ('over-smart' is more appropriate) TVs out there take too long to start and they almost always phone home to their overlords. The really worrying part is how normalized it is. I remember someone here on HN contemptuously dismissing my concern, saying that dumb-TVs are called 'computer monitors'. How many affordable 'computer monitors' above 30 inch do you know? And give it enough time - even computer monitors will become 'smart monitors', unless something is done now.
The other day I read an HN comment that thought that when you buy consumer PC hardware, it comes with a ToS that limits your property rights as the owner. It's the kind of uncanny experience I run into more and more often lately: talking with people so immersed in our new normal of cyberpunk dystopia, they seem not to remember how things were in the before-times. So accustomed to exploitative corporate gaslighting, w…
> In the before-times, [...] You used to get full schematics along with the electronics you bought. And by "get", I do NOT mean that you'd have to ask for them. They'd be shipped WITH the products, on paper. It was a normal part of your purchase, just like the manual.
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This blew my mind as a younger person who took an interest in repairing tube radios from the 30's & 40's. One of the first things I realized was how generally easy it was to find schematics of popular brands and models. Some were even pasted right inside the radio shell! I also hack and repair modern stuff, and it is so common to open up a product just to end up staring at an epoxy blob. User manuals hold no mention…
I wouldn't say they are intentionally spiteful, just that modern electronics are complex enough, especially highly integrated stuff like smartphones, that the OEM's suppliers would be unhappy if detailed schematics were released. Since they would not be willing to guarantee on the record that they are correct, nor would they want stuff impinging on actual trade secrets to be revealed.
The other day I read an HN comment that thought that when you buy consumer PC hardware, it comes with a ToS that limits your property rights as the owner. It's the kind of uncanny experience I run into more and more often lately: talking with people so immersed in our new normal of cyberpunk dystopia, they seem not to remember how things were in the before-times. So accustomed to exploitative corporate gaslighting, w…
Do kids even own their school work done on Chromebooks / Apple Tablets / online learning platforms?
Have their parents assigned the rights to the IP?
I wonder how much kids feel ownership of their work done electronically
It's an urban myth that the frog will stay in the water to be boiled, it actually jumps out. Unless of course there's a lid on the pot. Humans have a lot to learn from the frog. And it's not about putting lids on pots.