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The boiling frog of digital freedom

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Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#261

Post by gavinhoward »

attah_ wrote: post #19

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…

> 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?

Which is why we should shame every one of us that does do it.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#262

Post by rhn_mk1 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #167
ballenf wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's ironic that property rights have been eroded in the name of protecting property.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#263

Post by kalleboo »

iuhaegpoinqhpoq wrote: post #84
perihelions wrote: post #55

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.

I took apart an old bakelite phone to replace the cord with an RJ11 one (connected two old phones together with a Cisco SPA adapter, the kids love calling each other) and was surprised when there was a little bit of paper wedged between two components with the full schematic!

edit: went to the trouble of uploading some photos https://kalleboo.com/microblog/posts/111001749605994561.html

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#264

Post by pwg »

MarketingJason wrote: post #172
iuhaegpoinqhpoq wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I wonder if gaming consoles had a big hand in this? Going back to Atari pong in the early/mid 70's and I don't recall if any of the major players (Magnavox, Atari, Coleco, Sears) included anything close to schematics.

The Atari 400/800 computers had available as an extra cost purchase (IIRC about $20 in 1984 dollars) a "technical reference manual" that included full schematics for the computers, a printout of the 6502 assembly for the ROM OS, and a lot of narrative describing technical aspects of the computers.

So for at least Atari, and at least with the 400/800 computers, they did release the information. For an extra cost, but it was released.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#265

Post by walteweiss »

safety1st wrote: post #238
perihelions wrote: post #55

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…

All I can say is that in the modern era you have to lead by example. Run Linux and Firefox. Use the services from the tech giants as little as possible, you won't be able to eliminate them, but you can minimize the amount of money and attention you give them. Tell other people. Contribute. If you work long hours, give a little money to FOSS. If you have spare time, spend a bit of it contributing, doesn't need to be a…

This is the Way!

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#266

Post by louthy »

jacquesm wrote: post #99
louthy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses don't do free. It is not what they exist for: The 'Stallman movement' isn't compatible with the the tech-company, the employed software-engineer, etc. I think what the OP is getting at is that the for-profit tech industry needs something akin to the Hippocratic Oath [1]. As software engineers swearing to a set of 'do no harm' ethical codes could well be a first step to becoming a recognised professional. I…

The for profit industry has been very happy to integrate the fruits of the FOSS labor. And yes, we need an ethics framework for the IT industry, but we need liability more than that and I don't think either is going to happen in the next 10 years. Maybe if there is a mass death (> 10K people at once or so, a few 100 doesn't seem to have made a difference so far) on account of a software issue we will finally wake up.

> The for profit industry has been very happy to integrate the fruits of the FOSS labor.

Of course they are. They get free labour and their profits are therefore higher. which is the entire purpose of any corporation, to maximise profits. Being upset about this is futile, it's the artefact of living in a capitalist world. The free-software movement just isn't going to move the needle on that. They can either come up with a licensing model that pays, or get over it.

But really, this isn't about FOSS, it's about engineers everywhere (whether in FOSS or working 9-5 in a software company) making ethical decisions and understanding the impact of their work, on potentially billions of people. Critically, I think having something to point at, "this is the oath I swore to", when talking to a boss, could be just the thing we need.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#267

Post by bbarn »

0xEF wrote: post #169
iuhaegpoinqhpoq wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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…

How many people cared about those schematics? Most people would say "Gee, instead of this paper of things I don't understand, having a list of the radio stations in this spot would be more useful"

As someone who found computing in general through the joy of taking broken electronic things apart and trying to fix them, it does sadden me too when I see a black blob over a circuit board but most people are just happy they're cheap and easy to replace and toss em away. Most developers I know today can't understand basic electrical circuits, even though they are the very foundation of everything we do. But like my previous analogy, most would rather just see the magic happen when they install something, write a little bit of code, and see results.

Some of us do value privacy, security, and even the underlying things that make stuff work. We're in the minority. The vast majority of people simply don't even care. I've tried explaining it to my wife, or my mother, that some piece of software might track them, know about them, restrict them, whatever, and the opinion I usually get back is "Oh, it doesn't already do that?" People joke about Facebook ads being something they just talked about all the time and it doesn't even phase them that the reality is very near to that.

People simply don't care enough to make a change in the laws that would prevent things like this.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#268

Post by andsoitis »

EGreg wrote: post #211
Aleklart wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing, not a single mention of FLOSS.

You may have missed this part further down in the economics section: Stallman’s Free Software Movement is more like a gift economy, or perhaps “distributism” (a 19th-century Christian economic system). Those are actually really good, but to pay for resource use in the ecosystem we need an accounting system, and that’s utility tokens. I believe that decentralized movements need to be named properly. If Stallman named…

> When starting a decentralized movement, the naming is crucial as it affects positioning long after it has become bigger than those who began it.

Like your Qbix? https://qbix.com

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#269

Post by jauntywundrkind »

perihelions wrote: post #55

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…

I'm hugely thankful someone highlighted this conflict - that our property law has largely been eroded by contract law - in a nice pull quoting from Web scraping for me but not for thee.

The seller/person getting money gets to set whatever terms they want. It cited Mark Lemley as having made the connection two decades ago. https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2023/08/web-scraping-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37264970

It's abhorrent in extreme to strip away the rights of the citizens like so. Our ability to experiment with the world & explore the things about is fundamental to maintaining the human spirit, to keeping us homo sapiens.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#270

Post by OfSanguineFire »

anonym29 wrote: post #252
OfSanguineFire wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never understood why anyone would even want a banking app though; there is nothing int can do that a website can't. Some banks are phasing out code cards or SMS verification for 2FA, and the only way to get the second factor for logging into the online banking website on your computer, is to use the bank’s app on your phone.

> the only way to get the second factor for logging into the online banking website on your computer, is to use the bank’s app on your phone. This is utterly false. Yubikey, TOTP-based solutions, there are options. It is a choice by the businesses to not implement those options.

Obviously other solutions could be implemented if the bank chose. But if the bank does not choose to implement those other options, and instead requires the use of their app, then that explains for the OP’s sake some of the interest in running the bank’s app instead of solely using the website.
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