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

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

#261

Post by fragmede »

lupire wrote: post #45
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is likely bifurcated trust: Official, encrypted, attested systems; and unofficial, unencrypted, unattested systems. The GNU freedoms never specified the right to run free software side by side with proprietary software on the same hardware; so the FSF should actually be fine with such an outcome.

In fact FSF specifically exempts special purpose hardware like microwaves from its purview. The philosophy is targeted at software the user has a choice to install. If the hardware provider does not intend the user to choose to install an alternative version of the system software, software freedom doesn't come into play. https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html

Which honestly I disagree with. Tivo didn't want you installing alternate OSes on their device and neither did Sony. Alternate OS support was eventually removed from the PS3. As to the microwave, you've not had any of them do anything annoying, like beep annoying at the wrong times, or wanted a button or override beeping in the middle of the night to not wake up other people? why can't I want to install an alternate firmware to my microwave or my TV. My soldering iron supports that.

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

#262

Post by fragmede »

everdrive wrote: post #67

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…

We're both closer than any of us believe. Insofar that ChromeOS is and isn't Linux, it's already locked down signed boot. But also we're further from it because general computing isn't going anywhere soon as long as people keep buying general purpose computers. Still until Qubes or similar sandboxed computing becomes the norm, blaming victims for getting malware onto their system only goes so far, and even if banks don't require it, regular people will start having a banking only computer because oh god please don't steal all my money.

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

#263

Post by fragmede »

pizlonator wrote: post #215
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nobody participates in government, the banks and entertainment industry will get whatever they want, which is to lock down your computer into a portable kiosk

but is Android locking down something because government?

What do you think happens behind closed doors at the WTO, Davros, TED anywhere immensely powerful meet up to discuss the world's future outside the view of prying eyes?

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

#264

Post by nekusar »

stephen_cagle wrote: post #196
everdrive wrote: post #67

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…

I think it is unfortunate how many resources are put into making things secure with TPM's and how little resource is put into basically having secure and simple sandboxing... All I really want is a computer that allows me to fully control the permissions and filesystem access of all the programs that I manually install on my system. Almost every program (in my case) needs 0 filesystem access outside of what it instal…

Its not 100% what you're looking for. Probably an 80% case..

But try looking into QubesOS. You create domains where applications can do whatever in the domain (a contained VM). So your personal domain is separate from your bank domain, which is separate from your media domain.

Of course, domains themselves can do naughty things. But they cant cross over to others.

And system resources are a separate domain, as is networking.

Some downsides - gaming is a no go mostly. And if you do SDR stuff, the USB domain is a heavy hit on performance. You really need dedicated machines for those things.

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

#265

Post by Rury »

trentnix wrote: post #123

The rot is so much deeper than just running what you want on your own machine. And how we got here is easy to explain. There was once money it letting you run what you want on your machine. Now there's money in not letting you run what you want on your machine. And so, that's what we get. There exists no path where a publicly traded company doesn't eventually view its customers as subjects. Every business school on t…

> people's bed didn't work because the company that makes them architected things such that they have absolute control.

Curious, but what bed/company do you speak of?

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

#266

Post by fragmede »

Rury wrote: post #265
trentnix wrote: post #123

The rot is so much deeper than just running what you want on your own machine. And how we got here is easy to explain. There was once money it letting you run what you want on your machine. Now there's money in not letting you run what you want on your machine. And so, that's what we get. There exists no path where a publicly traded company doesn't eventually view its customers as subjects. Every business school on t…

> people's bed didn't work because the company that makes them architected things such that they have absolute control. Curious, but what bed/company do you speak of?

https://www.eightsleep.com/

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

#267

Post by buyucu »

ryandrake wrote: post #124
amelius wrote: post #111

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…

You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide. Right?

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

#268

Post by rk06 »

vmaurin wrote: post #5
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #3

> Sadly, over the years, Android has been steadily walking back that openness. The justifications are always reasonable on their face. Security updates need to be mandatory because users are terrible at remembering to update. Sideloading apps need to come with warnings because users will absolutely install malware if you let them just click a button. Root access is too dangerous because it puts the security of the wh…

The security argument is the best one to shove all this monopoly practices, but I doubt there are real proof of that somewhere. These days, I think I have most trust in a small app developed by a folk in a garage than something produces by Meta or Google

the existence of shady and criminal apps on both apple and android app store proves that their policies are definitely not sufficient and should be focused on first.

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

#269

Post by symbogra »

bayindirh wrote: post #227
deadbunny wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to use MS' keys, you can setup secure boot using your own keys reasonably easily. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware...

I know. The question is not about what’s possible today. What prevents Microsoft from updating Windows PC standards and eliminate the possibility of turning off secure boot and allowance of enrolling your own keychain in the secure boot process? These are long games. Being comfortable today doesn’t guarantee same comfort and allowances tomorrow. Ironically, we’re discussing this under Android’s increasing restriction…

It goes back to the old arguments about free software vs open source. Maybe by restricting devs in certain ways the users are actually more free. But then maybe the system to lock the users in gets built with wholly proprietary software and there's less adoption overall of the FOSS software. I don't really have a good answer. I recently switched to grapheneOS but it feels like fighting a losing battle, and lots of apps don't like that I'm using a non official android build.

I worked at a big company where GPLv2 software could be used in our systems but not GPLv3. Is it better that that GPLv3 software didn't have more users? The company didn't contribute much back so maybe it's not a big loss.

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

#270

Post by velocity3230 »

donmcronald wrote: post #201
fghorow wrote: post #2

The one word answer to this? Linux.

The three word rebuttal? Banking on GrapheneOS

Works just fine for me. Perhaps consider moving to a bank that's more aware of alternates than just the existing duopoly.
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