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Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

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Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#171

Post by photonerd »

7v3x3n3sem9vv wrote: post #63
photonerd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean anyone who would work on or with a google platform certainly isn’t. They’re the least cypherpunk, most bland and corporate, evil tech corp I can think of that makes consumer hardware outside of MAYBE Meta.

with Google you at least have the option to de-google with graphene or lineage. no open source alternatives on Apple mobile hardware.

You do. Yes, and lots of things wont work without the Play store (and its subsystems) but you can.

It’s nice that it’s an option, I agree. That’s not really cypherpunk tho, is it?

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#172

Post by photonerd »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #134
photonerd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean anyone who would work on or with a google platform certainly isn’t. They’re the least cypherpunk, most bland and corporate, evil tech corp I can think of that makes consumer hardware outside of MAYBE Meta.

Android (more strictly, AOSP) is an open source linux based operating system that can be used standalone with no google shenanigans whatsoever. I don't like google either, but at least I can use whatever software I want on my machine. To say android is as restrictive or more restrictive than Apple is to be disconnected from reality. To say that using Android is less cyberpunk than using a completely vertically integr…

Sure. It’s nice to have. I absolutely give google (limited) props for ASOP. Tho it’s “open” in mostly the “you can see & download the code” sense, not the “we’re open to contributors from the community” sense, but still… it’s great they did that.

But it doesn’t make using the “open” software that’s completely controlled by the giant corporate empire any more “cypherpunk”, does it?

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#173

Post by photonerd »

lawn wrote: post #67
photonerd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean anyone who would work on or with a google platform certainly isn’t. They’re the least cypherpunk, most bland and corporate, evil tech corp I can think of that makes consumer hardware outside of MAYBE Meta.

With Google you can sideload apps, use F-Droid or go for Lineage or Graphene. So targeting Android makes much more sense than targeting iOS in this respect.

I mean… you can sort of sideload on iOS right now, I’ve done it myself, and it’s going to be officially supported in iOS 17 later this year.

But irrespective of that, none of that makes it cypherpunk.

Cypherpunk involves advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change.

On that front Google is VERY far behind Apple.

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#174

Post by RATML »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #76
RATML wrote: post #26

Imagine doing all that work to just hinge your fate on the least open, least aligned platform to your app's and app protocol's declared raison d'être. Do these people really believe that the cypherpunk ethos involves being an Apple bootlicker? I don't get it.

Wasting all the money and more importantly time to try and prosper in the iOS ecosystem baffles me in this day and age. That’s time you don’t get back, lost forever because some one you’ll never meet on a committee says no. “It has to be an app” is old world thinking. No iOS app in the past 3 years or more has disrupted anything.

^ spitting facts.

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#175

Post by danpalmer »

jacquesm wrote: post #161
TillE wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unfortunate confusion, but a mistake from an employee is not a policy commitment. If Tim Cook said it, sure, but a low-level "representative" is just someone doing a job.

Legally speaking this is incorrect. The company can delegate people to interact with the outside world and those people have the ability to bind the company. If they mess up beyond their pay grade then the company may have recourse on them but the company may well still be bound externally. You still have to check if the functionary is an 'authorized agent' but if they misrepresent themselves as such then the company…

This is why, until I see a transcript of the conversation, I'm extremely inclined to believe this is the developer giving the best possible interpretation for their cause. I've spoken to Apple people and they are good at all this stuff in my experience, they know what they can say and what they can't, they're careful, and they're non-committal. Marketing people encouraging us to get our app on the store were still deferential to App Store Review and always reminded us they had the final say, and wouldn't be pinned down to any specifics.

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#176

Post by friend_and_foe »

photonerd wrote: post #172
friend_and_foe wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android (more strictly, AOSP) is an open source linux based operating system that can be used standalone with no google shenanigans whatsoever. I don't like google either, but at least I can use whatever software I want on my machine. To say android is as restrictive or more restrictive than Apple is to be disconnected from reality. To say that using Android is less cyberpunk than using a completely vertically integr…

Sure. It’s nice to have. I absolutely give google (limited) props for ASOP. Tho it’s “open” in mostly the “you can see & download the code” sense, not the “we’re open to contributors from the community” sense, but still … it’s great they did that. But it doesn’t make using the “open” software that’s completely controlled by the giant corporate empire any more “cypherpunk”, does it?

A little more, yes. Of course, ideally, I'd love a BSD mobile operating system that runs TUI applications I made myself. But it's a world of compromise, so I compromise.

From my phone (in Minecraft), I run an IPFS node, I communicate over distributed encrypted channels, I share files over BitTorrent, I probe networks, I zap people on nostr, I do all sorts of things the big powers would rather me not be doing, even though they aren't necessarily illegal. I can run literally any sort of software that I like, period, with nobody's permission or even knowledge of the fact. In computing, I take into consideration absolutely nothing that these corporations would prefer that I do. That's pretty cypherpunk, even if I do it all without google explicitly giving me an AMOLED black theme in their operating system. I use one of those too anyway.

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#178

Post by Gareth321 »

photonerd wrote: post #170
Gareth321 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The horror! How could the EU... allow me to install software on my little pocket computer. Those monsters!

I’ll sign you up for tech support for every boomer & grandma that gets scammed then, shall I?

There a very simple solution for this: "Grandma Mode." If you're worried about your grandma being scammed, or your grandma is still cognisant of her surroundings, you can put her on Grandma Mode. I don't think all of us should be on Grandma Mode permanently so that your grandma is protected from hypothetical scammers.

Re: Apple to Remove Nostr Damus from App Store for Bitcoin Tipping Feature

#179

Post by error503 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #156
newaccount74 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a phone is definitely a "general computing device", while a video console arguably is not. But considering that you can watch Youtube on a Nintendo Switch, I think they should maybe be considered "general computing devices" as well.

How so, the last two generations of Xbox and PS consoles have been pretty much off-the-shelf hardware. The Xbox and PS5 are literally using an AMD Zen2 CPU and an AMD GPU, nothing weirdly custom like the PS3's "emotion engine". There's no reason they couldn't run a standard Linux or even Windows. They have HDMI ports, USB and everything just like a normal PC. Even the PS3 with it's super weird processing system had a…

It's pretty clear when you look at both how these devices are used, and how they are marketed, that there is a difference between the products' purpose.

However you are right, it is hard to make an unambiguous distinction, so I am with you - consoles should also be forcibly opened up. I do strongly hold the philosophical view that if you own any computing device you, as the owner should have absolute control of what that device trusts as far as any cryptographic 'locks' are concerned. The place where this seems to have both a) the largest negative impact on the market and b) the best chance of people caring and doing something about it, seems to be with mobile computing, so that is where the voice are the loudest, but personally at least, I hold the same view about any device.

Our society has long held that reverse engineering is perfectly acceptable when it comes to interoperability / competition, even if the OEM doesn't appreciate it. Now, we have progressed technologically to the point that an OEM can literally prevent any reasonable manner of that, if they want to. I just don't think our laws / society have really caught up with that fact yet, but for me it follows directly from the reasoning behind allowing reverse engineering that we shouldn't allow this.

So I don't know why you keep bringing this up as if it is a counterpoint. Yes, it's a similar situation, and yes anything we do about Apple should apply to Sony as well.

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