I would like to add to the list software_reporter_tool.exe which spontaneously consumes 100% CPU on windows machines
Google's software mistreats or harms the user
211–220 of 291 posts
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
The costs? Are you joking? Of to the 2 Billion people using Chrome, point out just one for whom the privacy implications around autocomplete have imposed a non-theoretical cost. There's the cost you impose on yourself for paranoia, but lay THAT at the feet of the FSF. And if you say bandwidth you're fired. It's privacy the FSF is grumbling about. And for that it's been rhetoric and theoretical suffering, but no actua…
If your browsing history is of value, than giving it (or even just the portions of it that are manually typed into the url bar) away is a cost to you. You can't point to a dollar amount on an invoice, so in that sense it's not "non-theoretical." But if you believe that personal information can be valuable -- and it's pretty clear that it can, especially in the aggregate -- then calling this a "cost" is not a joke.
Your browsing history, as a rule, is not actually valuable in any meaningful sense. If it were, then your cost would then have to be an opportunity cost, the lost opportunity to sell which you didn't take. Except if that's the case, it's not the autocomplete that stopped you; you could sell your history still anyway, autocomplete or no.
Also, your aggregate value argument is quite apt: It's valuable to know what percentage of a city speaks English, but the fact that you personally do or don't is of no real value at all, specifically because it's "your" individual data, not despite the fact. And insisting that you've been hypothetically robbed of your entitled half penny for disclosing your language preference to the McDonalds cashier is precisely as sensible as complaining about the value of your half-typed URLs.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#213Almost all of this is heavily exaggerated, presenting relatively innocuous features as if they were harmful, or calling out simple bugs as if they were intentional and actively malicious. None of it is flat-out wrong per-se (at least as far as I can tell), and I can certainly see where GNU is coming from, but I think for the average user most of the features they're criticizing actually do a lot more good than harm.…
If you come at it from the perspective that Google is your friend, as in not like a real friend (who I wouldn't let change my passwords), but a friend that's even better than a real friend, then sure, these points are paranoid. The GNU perspective is very distrustful of the idea that anyone else should be administrating their devices, and refuses to trust any corporation more than they would a friend.
GP's points still stand, if coming from the perspective that Google is a successful, multinational corporation, with a reputation to protect, and staffed with thousands of engineers who also have their own job standards and individual reputation to protect.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
(a) he does not do it (b) it is not really possible for those whom he wants to "empower" to live like it is 1980s while maintaining life as it is needed in 2019. This is why he rubs people the wrong way when he peddles his philosophy as something that is possible in practice. Do I, a person who is pretty happy playing with computers, writing code, sometimes helping others with their technological issues or helping th…
Watching Netflix via a surveillance device or watching VHS rips of old shows is a false dichotomy. rms wants people to live in 2019 but with free software. As in, with more free software, not just software from the 80s.
> Watching Netflix via a surveillance device or watching VHS rips of old shows is a false dichotomy
My wife does not care about "how" or "why". She wants to have a show from Netflix on our TV downstairs with one to two clicks. I want her to be happy because happy wife means happy life.
"Free" + unhappy wife FSF's obsession with 100% "free" got us Hurd which in 2019 looks like it is from 1994.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you come at it from the perspective that Google is your friend, as in not like a real friend (who I wouldn't let change my passwords), but a friend that's even better than a real friend, then sure, these points are paranoid. The GNU perspective is very distrustful of the idea that anyone else should be administrating their devices, and refuses to trust any corporation more than they would a friend.
GP's points still stand, if coming from the perspective that Google is a successful, multinational corporation, with a reputation to protect, and staffed with thousands of engineers who also have their own job standards and individual reputation to protect.
Your friends have your friendship to protect, right? If multinational corporations have your interests at heart more reliably than your friends then maybe it's time to meet new people!
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait but that's literally what the auto complete feature does. Most users understand the value of the feature (they use it!) but there's a good reason to spell out the cost too. I agree with the criticism that they should draw a clearer line between the cost and the benefit but there's nothing to be gained by softening the language used to describe the cost.
I'd naively consider a keylogger to be software that captures your keypresses universally. I use Firefox and have search suggestions disabled there so I am somewhat sympathetic to their point. That said, calling server-side autocomplete on a field you explicitly are typing in strikes me as about as sensible and forthright as calling an Amazon text field that takes my credit card number a card skimmer.
>I'd naively consider a keylogger to be software that captures your keypresses universally.
On Windows asking for a handler for all key presses will often trigger the antivirus, while asking for a single application often will not.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
By sending it me you have to copy it, either onto a medium or network, I then have to copy it (from some medium/network at least into main memory and then copy either into video or audio memory which then do magic to highlight pixels or create audio waves) The copy is essence of what a computer does. A computer can essentially only do some math and copying. If you ask me to install some DRM software (or maybe even so…
When Apple dropped DRM from their music downloads it was a great day. Suddenly one could download music for a competitive price legally from the internet and use in all the ways. Putting it on my mp3 player or my media server and create a backup, which I can trust to be usable even a few years. If a new audio standard comes by I even can re-encode and keep it. Meanwhile however we have Spotify and are back in the wal…
In the legal sense, buying from iTunes is actually "buying", while you do just rent access (similar to a Gym membership) when you sign up for Apple Music or Spotify. I don't blame them for using DRM for music when the user needs a perpetual license to continue listening to it.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
The GNU completely ignores the value that you get from Google. For instance this point: > Google Chrome contains a key logger that sends Google every URL typed in, one key at a time They are describing the auto complete feature... I get that people should be making informed choices about what data they share, but for the FSF to so intentionally mis-describe what is going on does not help inform anyone.
Yes, this is a keylogger. Autocomplete with a remote backend is too. The Overton window has moved so far in the last ten years. A while back we (and by we I don't mean me, I mean hackers collectively) would consider a piece of software that opened a TCP socket unless it had a real reason to malware. Now? It's fairly common for like, webpages to send back every keystroke you might accidentally make whilst a tab is foc…
The Overton window describes what the public will accept as "sane" (to use your term).
You're free to disagree with the rest of the world, of course. But you might want to focus on trying to shift the Overton window. What you're doing in this comment is simply asserting that you disagree with everyone else.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely this. There are real issues worth real discussion, both on this post and their related Apple post. But these are the posts of a conspiracy theorist instead; they don't enable any sort of rational discussion.
How is that? All the claims are strictly true. They just carry a moral judgement some people disagree with, and most people don't care about. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's enumeration of facts.
Facts can be used to deceive or manipulate. It's called cherry picking. The post is guilty of it.
Re: Google's software mistreats or harms the user
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that 'malware' is short for 'malicious software', one might make a semantic argument that DRM is actually anti-malware , as it prevents other software from operating maliciously. Copyright infringement is undoubtedly a malicious act under the law in most places. Any kind of security, authentication, or encryption software ever written was done so to "limit what you can do", so I don't think that is enough to co…
> Copyright infringement is undoubtedly a malicious act... You're seriously trying to argue that people who commit copyright infringement do so maliciously, i.e. with the intent of harming the copyright holder? That seems... novel. And not very plausible. If true, however, it would be much more effective to ignore the work altogether, thus denying the copyright holder both direct income and free publicity. > Any kind…
> subverts their control over their own device
The owner owns their device, yes but they don't always own the data on the device. DRM, for all its faults, is an attempt to reconcile to reconcile the two conflicting requirements.