What happened to running what you wanted on your own machine?

Post by wolvesechoes » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:31 PM UTC

dminik wrote: post #168

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah yeah but the reason why I link to that, is that if someone is interested they can with minimal effort find by themselves all the information to understand it was just a smear job. Like, someone says "C assaulted B". And Stallman says "If A forces B to offer herself to C, C didn't assault B". Which is obivously correct. It could only be incorrect if you were redefining words to serve your purposes.

Ok, I'm confused here. I had a look at what Stallman said and what Minsky allegedly did. Apparently, Minsky had sex with one of Epstein's girls, who later said she was forced into it. Now, his wife denies the allegation, as she was apparently with him at all times on Epstein's island. Now, I can believe that he went once, and maybe had sex with someone he didn't know was not doing so willingly. But, what about his wi…

Post by donmcronald » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

dghlsakjg wrote: post #154

timefirstgrav wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow... The idea of losing general purpose computing is a terrifying thought I've never considered before.

It’s already happening. Many big institutions lean heavily on mobile apps and other gated computing. I live in BC Canada and by far the easiest way to authenticate a login to provincial sources involves using the BC ID App as a second factor, even when logging in via desktop. Many banks now also use their app as a second factor, rather than a generic OTP option that can run on any hardware. There were also issues lik…

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

iamnothere wrote: post #105

matheusmoreira wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how remote hardware attestation avoids being spoofed Hardware cryptoprocessor. Keys are held in a tamper resistant secure element. You're not gonna get at those keys without pouring some serious resources into the task. The keys are owned by the corporation and used to establish a root of trust from boot. If you change anything at all to suit your interests, verification fails, your machine is identifie…

History tells us there will always be a “low cost” vendor with exploitable hardware, or if production becomes more tightly controlled, inevitable cost cutting and declining standards will provide a way in. Not that we shouldn’t oppose locked down hardware, but locking things down creates pressure and motivation for the people who like things to be unlocked.

Post by rcxdude » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #179

coldpie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Passkeys are another brick in this wall. The authors of the spec built in client software identification and attestation, which means authenticating parties can require you to only use certain, closed-source passkey clients. It's not hard to imagine a future where only blessed Passkey clients, such as Microsoft's, Apple's, and Google's implementations, are allowed by most services.

I think passkeys will be used against users. They’ll be used to attest to a user’s trustworthiness by tying authentication back to a real identity. Like another comment mentioned, you’ll end up needing something like a phone that’s locked down. Part of that will be authenticating with a verified ID IMO. It’ll be incredibly easy to lock dissenters out of modern society. It’s too bad the vast majority of users will hap…

Post by bitwize » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:46 PM UTC

1313ed01 wrote: post #148

pjmlp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PC was an anomaly thanks to IBM not being able to go with their plans. On UNIX, Sun was the vendor that introduced the concept of SDK SKU, thus for having developer tools, an additional SKU had to be bought, and the until then largely ignored GCC sundenly got a new focus of attention. Mainframes and micros always needed having a group of folks from the vendor professional services for specific kinds of configurations…

An anomaly from some corporate pov, maybe, but at home the PC was definitely not more open to general purpose computing than the alternatives. Most early home computers booted straight into a BASIC prompt, and the line between being a programmer and a user was far more blurred than it is now.