Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The boiling frog of digital freedom

gazoche.xyz

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 467 posts

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#441

Post by vinay_ys »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #287
noam_compsci wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I can still download or compile and install any binary I want. It only reminds me that this was done so and asks me to confirm. Isn't it?

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#442

Post by latexr »

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…

> 2016 – Apple hides option to allow unsigned apps from the Mac GUI.

Are you referring to System Settings? There was always a more convenient option which continues to work: right-click and select “Open”. Granted, you have to know that’s a solution and most people don’t (including developers, who recommend cumbersome methods in the documentation of their own apps), but the option was never removed nor is it hard to do.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#443

Post by latexr »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #289
23B1 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

To give those people, who may not be articulate or knowledgeable enough to explain the intricacies of a problem, the capacity to argue for or against a point when engaged in conversation.

For example, there are people who are against behavioural advertising but they may not be able to cite specific examples of how it’s harmful, or how much, or to whom. Thus they would research those questions and make a post so others in similar situations are able to have informed discussions with those in their lives who don’t think behavioural advertising is a big deal.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#444

Post by latexr »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #30
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…

Yeah, chrome and google in general are the first in line to cause problems. There are many browsers, many apps, many everything... you can switch whenever... but the DRM and attestation pushes with browsers (and mobile devices) means, that sure, you can use a different browser, but your bank, your streaming service, your newssite might not work unless you're using chrome with drm and hardware attestation. This is alr…

> There are many browsers

Not if one doesn’t want to end up supporting Chromium in any way. Which one shouldn’t if they believe “chrome and google in general are the first in line to cause problems”.

On macOS, that leaves essentially Firefox and Safari. Except Firefox has no support for AppleScript so it’s excluded from a ton of useful automations and is thus not suitable as a daily driver for many people. So Safari remains. And Orion, which is also based on WebKit. Both are closed-source.

There are indeed many browsers if all you want to do is display webpages. But as soon as you have any hard requirement, be it ideological or technical, the choices drop dramatically. Unless you don’t mind supporting Google, that is.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#445

Post by hoseja »

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…

These efforts always fail the first half a dozen attempts or so. Thankfully our corporate-state betters have deep reserves of effort!

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#446

Post by Wowfunhappy »

vinay_ys wrote: post #441
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I can still download or compile and install any binary I want. It only reminds me that this was done so and asks me to confirm. Isn't it?

Use `spctl --status` to see the status of Gatekeeper.

If Gatekeeper is enabled, the binaries you're downloading must have been signed by a valid developer ID. IIRC binaries you compile yourself get whitelisted automatically.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#447

Post by GeekyBear »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #262
GeekyBear wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I believe it had more to do with the fact that armed robbery is inherently dangerous than just protecting property.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#448

Post by Blackstrat »

The world is headed toward a dystopian nightmare, much as science fiction has envisioned throughout the years. The evidence of worldwide government malfeasance is unambiguous. The collusion between government and Big Tech is equally self evident. China and their social scoring system has been in place for a while and it's popping up in the Europe and the States. The proliferation and reliance on "AI" accelerates the decline. It's probably too late to stop it. And the author of the piece is probably more optimistic than is warranted -- it's not just digital freedom.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#449

Post by vinceguidry »

LesZedCB wrote: post #376
vinceguidry wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, of course, pick your level of engagement, and make adjustments over time. An Android phone can provide all the engagement you need, and there are lots of distributions that focus on providing different experience. I'm using a stock Android phone and Linux everywhere else. My current phone isn't rootable, (I bought it to replace a lost iPhone and didn't have time to do research) so I'm stuck with stock, but m…

I've been happily living on android for maybe 5 years now after iOS for maybe 10 before that. I don't really miss it at all, but the tier system is hard to ignore. besides the infamous "green text" phenomenon, iOS tends to get the apps for applications that only support one, or in my car, android auto only takes up the top half of the screen whereas car play uses the full display. and of course, the software ecosyste…

Alienation I can see, but austerity? One of the things I plan on doing is building custom UIs for all the apps I usually use. Termux on stock Android is hobbled by unremappable key bindings that make using the Super key almost impossible, but when I can finally actually control the computer I carry around in my pocket all day, a blank canvas I can mold and shape is infinitely better.

I bet your Subaru is probably hackable, all these things run Linux under the hood, wouldn't be surprised if there were already a group of people on Reddit that have already done it. Lonely, this lifestyle does not have to be.

Re: The boiling frog of digital freedom

#450

Post by steelframe »

tbrownaw wrote: post #420
steelframe wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. I must have spent 10 full minutes clicking all through my bank's website before I finally realized their phone app provided the only possible way I could make a Zelle transfer. My HOA started mandating Zelle as the only way they will accept payments. So now it appears that I have no choice but to use a device that supports my bank's app if I want to avoid getting a lien put on my house.

Does it not count as a debt, that they have to accept cash ("legal tender for all debts public and private") for? Or there should be the option of opening another account, at a less tyrannical institution, to use for those payments.

> Does it not count as a debt, that they have to accept cash ("legal tender for all debts public and private") for?

Let me tell you how that tends to go down in the real world. The HOA doesn't have a physical office or anything. It's some random address and random suite. Maybe it's a document processing company or some other third-party processor. There's some non-trivial chance that some $15/hr kid who may or may not have been raised right is opening the envelopes and feeding the contents into a scanner.

So I stuff my HOA dues in cash in an envelope and then go down to the post office to stand in line and get it delivered certified with a return receipt. I get the return receipt. Then the HOA puts a lien on my house. I say, "But I made the payment on time!" Then they say, "Naw-uh." Then I say, "Sure I did, I sent it in cash and I have a return receipt." They say, "We have no idea what you're talking about."

> Or there should be the option of opening another account, at a less tyrannical institution, to use for those payments.

How can I find out which ones let me use Zelle through their website? I don't trust anyone I can find at a branch or on the phone to give me the correct answer, because chances are they all personally use the phone app and really have no idea. I guess I can start opening up random accounts with random banks until I find one that works. For now.

I think we're missing the point entirely by talking about cash and hopping around banks and all that. The point many people are trying to make here is that life is already being made unreasonably difficult for those of us choosing to use Libre computing platforms, and there's a plausible reality in the future where choices go from inconvenient to scant to nonexistent.

Post reply on HN