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The boiling frog of digital freedom

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Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#281

Post by jsnell »

devsda wrote: post #213
b3orn wrote: post #87

> 2027: Non-WEI compliant websites are marked as "insecure" by Chrome and Safari. Accessing them requires confirmation through a "yes, I accept the risk" dialog box. Did I misunderstand WEI? It's an API a website can use to confirm that a client is "authentic", so shouldn't this rather be "Goodle/Apple/Facebook/... drops support for Non-WEI compliant browsers".

Think of it as a way for Google coercing websites into implementing WEI. Any site can be marked as insecure if it doesn't block non wei compliant devices. You may ask why does that make a website insecure? They can give any number of reasons that can be silly, made up or outright lies as long as they are able to convince larger public. For example, they can claim that a site that allows shady(read wei non-compliant)…

> Think of it as a way for Google coercing websites into implementing WEI.

And why exactly do you think they'd want to do that? What do they gain from it? What do you even think the WEI is that you think this motivation makes the tiniest bit of sense?

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#282

Post by api »

bbarn wrote: post #267
0xEF wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Privacy loss is like climate change. People don’t care because the really bad things haven’t happened yet. People who keep telling them about the bad stuff that is likely to happen are alarmists, and like with climate change there’s an industry with a vested interest in downplaying the issue.

A sneak peek may be coming with what some states are doing to police travel for abortion. Does the algorithm think you might be pregnant? Congratulations, you may now be stopped on state lines and charged with a crime because you are driving someone one state over. Even if you have no intent of getting an abortion you may have to prove that in court if a prosecutor is feeling particularly self righteous today.

People in the US are not accustomed to totalitarian politics. We have rights. But loss of those rights are one populist demagogue away.

When that happens all that surveillance and remote control will suddenly become as relevant as Antarctica’s Thwaites glacier would become if it fell in the ocean.

(Left wing populist demagoguery and authoritarianism are possible too. I’m just picking on the right wing sort because it’s the kind that has traction most recently. But that too can change.)

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#283

Post by maccard »

marcosdumay wrote: post #255
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, any smart TV is a dumb tv once you don’t connect it to the internet?

Unless it refuses to turn on without the internet connection.

What TV doesn't start without an internet connection?

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#284

Post by ThinkingGuy »

drewcoo wrote: post #182
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 there were phones owned by AT&T attached to landlines in every home and business. Attaching your own phone and repairing the phone company's were not allowed. This seems a lot like the same business model you're saying didn't exist before. In fact, AT&T was more draconian. People can pay off their cell phones today. The old wall-tethered units had a monthly rental fee in perpituity.

Also, you didnt use to own your mobile phone number.

In the US, at least, it literally took an act of Congress for customers to be allowed to port their numbers between wireless providers.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#285

Post by maccard »

WorldPeas wrote: post #245
baq wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstood the intent. That’s exactly how to get a small dumb TV. A large dumb TV is called a digital signage display. Those even come with remotes!

but not everyone wants/is capable of buying a 150lb NEC tv made to resist vandalism and such, they just want a flimsy plastic panel that takes hdmi from their laptop and pushes it to an appreciably large 1080p panel

I just had look on Amazon and there are 42 inch dumb TVs available for about $220. A 32" one is $175

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#286

Post by mindslight »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #3

This rather heavily begs the question what do we mean by "freedom"? We don't mean anonymity. Acting in secret is not freedom - acting openly and not being persecuted or prosecuted is freedom. The solution is what it is in real offline life. A regulated legal framework that allows most and limits little, a open dynamic culture that accepts diversity and constant change. If we are worried that digital freedom will be t…

No, we most certainly do mean anonymity is a basic part of digital freedom. The only way you could consistently argue that it's not necessary is to advocate prohibiting anyone, including individuals, treating you differently for anything you've said. Which is clearly impossible.

Your framing is really just right in line with the bog standard authoritarian pattern of redefining "true" freedom as something that can be comfortably tolerated and/or further chipped away at down the line.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#287

Post by Wowfunhappy »

noam_compsci wrote: post #222
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #105

While I share the author's fear, the timeline they created doesn't really work. 1. Windows 10 S has mostly been a failure. 2. Web Environment Integrity, while horrifying, has not been rolled into Chrome! It's an early proposal. We should work to ensure it goes nowhere. 3. The above greatly pushes out the plausible timeline for events currently listed next to 2024, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2031, and 2032. An aside, I don't f…

> Apple hides option to allow unsigned apps from the Mac GUI How so? Isn’t this still an option in settings? Or are you referring to something else?

> How so? Isn’t this still an option in settings?

No, it's not. Starting in macOS Sierra, hid the "Allow from Anywhere" option in System Preferences.

You can still allow unsigned apps, but you need to use a Terminal command:

    sudo spctl --master-disable
Or you can whitelist individual apps by option-clicking them and selecting "open", but that's purposefully obtuse.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#288

Post by ethbr1 »

api wrote: post #282
bbarn wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Privacy loss is like climate change. People don’t care because the really bad things haven’t happened yet. People who keep telling them about the bad stuff that is likely to happen are alarmists, and like with climate change there’s an industry with a vested interest in downplaying the issue. A sneak peek may be coming with what some states are doing to police travel for abortion. Does the algorithm think you might b…

People don't care because privacy is invisible.

I'm turning to the opinion that if we really want to fix this, we need to have government mandates that "takeout" style exports are provided by every company/service, in a standard machine-readable format.

If you collect and store any personal data about a user, there needs to be a standard way for them to request a usable copy.

Then allow third parties to build tools that work with those to educate users, which is why standard and usable format are key criteria. E.g. "visualize what X knows about you"

It's the details that would motivate people, but the details are precisely what's invisible right now.

(Disclaimer: talking from a US-centric viewpoint, for the majority of states that don't have digital privacy rights)

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#289

Post by Wowfunhappy »

23B1 wrote: post #202
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #105

While I share the author's fear, the timeline they created doesn't really work. 1. Windows 10 S has mostly been a failure. 2. Web Environment Integrity, while horrifying, has not been rolled into Chrome! It's an early proposal. We should work to ensure it goes nowhere. 3. The above greatly pushes out the plausible timeline for events currently listed next to 2024, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2031, and 2032. An aside, I don't f…

I don't get the impression that this was written with everyman in mind. The "someone new" won't understand the plausibility therein; better to appeal to the influencers that do.

I didn't mean to imply the author should have written for a general audience. There are plenty of techies who think this isn't a legitimate problem.

I mean, if you're only writing for people who already agree with you, why bother at all?

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#290

Post by jodrellblank »

washadjeffmad wrote: post #226
MichaelZuo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say they are intentionally spiteful, just that modern electronics are complex enough, especially highly integrated stuff like smartphones, that the OEM's suppliers would be unhappy if detailed schematics were released. Since they would not be willing to guarantee on the record that they are correct, nor would they want stuff impinging on actual trade secrets to be revealed.

That wasn't less true for any other appliance that's ever existed, largely because of the availability of the schematics. People have a right to know what they're buying. Companies are testing legal and cultural boundaries, silently changing functionality and usability by altering software or access to required services after sale. It's not "too complex", it'd just be a hassle if people knew.

> "It's not "too complex""

A valve radio had ~50 discrete components[1]. The first semiconductors had triple that number of components in a square millimeter in 1971[2], a modern CPU is in the tens or hundreds of millions of transistors per square millimetre. That's more components than the Encyclopedia Britannica had words in 29 volumes[3]. How are you going to 'know what you're buying' if you don't know anything about the bit which makes up most of the complexity and does most of the work? How are 'people' going to know anything about the CPU by getting lumbered a dozen bookshelves worth of schematics?

[1] One 1960s valve radio schematic found from Google: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Is9qxCCu2S8/VmZ44qHP1nI/AAAAAAABQ...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count#Transistor_co...

[3] https://patricktreardon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Encyc...

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