121–130 of 315 posts
I hate to be the old guy yelling at the clouds, but was an LLM used to write parts of this? > Apple sold the walled garden as a feature. It wasn’t ashamed or hiding the fact—it was proud of it... The iPhone’s locked-down nature wasn’t a restriction; it was a selling point. Please, write as a human, I promise you it's good enough. I'd much rather read something that's a bit clunky but human written than something that…
It's important to understand that we could genuinely lose general purpose computing. I don't think it's in serious danger at the moment, but we've been in the midst of a slide in that direction for the last 10-15 years. Part of it is mobile phones, part of it is TPM, part of it is market forces. The latest turn is strictly political. We've really foolishly built the technology necessary for authoritarianism just a fe…
There exists no path where a publicly traded company doesn't eventually view its customers as subjects. Every business school on the planet is teaching their students strategies and tactics that squeeze their customers in pursuit of maximizing revenue. And those strategies and tactics are often at the expense of creativity, ethics, and community. Just last week people's bed didn't work because the company that makes them architected things such that they have absolute control.
Only a reasonably altruistic private company might buck the trend. But the publicly traded companies are allowed, by the government(s), to use their largesse in a predatory fashion to prevent competition. They bundle and bleed and leverage every step of the way. They not only contribute to the politicians that do their bidding, they are frequently asked to write the laws and regulations they're expected to follow. Magically, it has the effect of increasing the costs of their competition to enter the markets they dominate. And so, the odds of an altruistic private company emerging from that muck is low.
Worse still, many of the elected officials (and bureaucrats) actively own stock in the very companies they are responsible for regulating. Widespread corruption and perversion of the market is the inevitable result.
I'm trying to do a better job and redirect my money to the places that better reflect my values. It's not even a drop in the bucket, but it's a lever where I feel like I have a measure of control.
Answer: companies realized that they can milk you for more money by restricting your options and alternatives.
Yes, this is the main idea behind iOS and the App Store. I don't get why smart people are falling for this.
I care about the free-ness and open-ness of my computer, because that's where I do all my work, my E-mail, my finances, and all my "serious computing." I feel that a different standard applies on a Real Computer because they are totally different devices, used for totally different purposes. So what I accept on phones, cars, and gaming consoles, I don't accept on my computer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> To access [...] health services in my country, I require a mobile device that is remote attested by either Apple or Google I knew of banks, but how is it that health services need remote attested mobile devices? Do clinics not support setting appointments through calls anymore, or what?
In my country, the same verification service is used to access banks, health services (private and public), taxes, and even verify online retail purchases. This verification app on Android requires Play Integrity on first time activation so fresh installs of something like GrapheneOS will not let you use the app. It's still currently possible to use a hardware token alternative to the app. It is only getting less con…
As someone in the USA, I could toss my phone in the dumpster forever and still live my life pretty much as I live it today. I might have to make a few minor sacrifices, but I'm grateful we still have that choice here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this is the main idea behind iOS and the App Store. I don't get why smart people are falling for this.
Let me try to strawman a little: I personally accept this on my phone because I honestly don't consider my phone to be a computer, and I don't really care about "computing" on it. My phone is not really that important to me. It is a toy/appliance that I goof around with. What it's running and how "free" and "open" it is, is about as important to me as how free the firmware in my car is, or the software on my gaming c…
None of what was written in the rest of the article after this statement has any bearing on what they said in this statement. Sure, they said the "Microsoft Store", but aside from that, you still have the freedom of running whatever software you want on your own desktop computer, laptop computer, or server (Linux, Windows, or Macintosh) ... nothing has changed about this. I, for one, like the increased security on mobile devices. As far as gaming, I am not a gamer, so I just do not care.
It's important to understand that we could genuinely lose general purpose computing. I don't think it's in serious danger at the moment, but we've been in the midst of a slide in that direction for the last 10-15 years. Part of it is mobile phones, part of it is TPM, part of it is market forces. The latest turn is strictly political. We've really foolishly built the technology necessary for authoritarianism just a fe…
Death by a thousand cuts. TPM, secure attestation, age verification, DRM, and probably more things I'm forgetting right now.
The TPM and secure boot conversation for gaming has shifted my perspective a lot. This technology is having a positive impact on player experience. It has become quite clear to me that there are wheels that will squeak regardless of the amount of lubricant used. I've begun to consider the position of being able to run anything my way at any time on any machine as being a bit extremist. Especially, in a game theoretic…
How far away are we from hooking up a vision model to the display output of let’s say, Battlefield 6 and hooking in mouse+kb input from said vision model + an aimbot that perfectly replicates a top performing players mouse movements?
I’d say not very far away.
Much like how in online chess, no technical solution can attest that a move is really from a human brain and not a chess program running on his phone.