It is depressing having a government that facilitates and support the mass rape of the populace. I thought the entire point was to lift people up
We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
591–600 of 1001 posts
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#592> It should be possible to run Android on an iPhone and manufacturers should be required by law to provide enough technical support and documentation to make the development of new operating systems possible As someone who enjoyed Linux phones like the Nokia N900/950 and would love to see those hacker-spirited devices again, statements like this sound more than naïve to me. I can acknowledge my own interests here (ha…
>“Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. Because I did. How come I can do what I want with my computer, but not my phone? Why are phones so inferior in this area? My phone is more powerful than many of the computers I've had in the past, yet I need to jump through a million hoops to use it as a software development platform. Why?
> Because I did. How come I can do what I want with my computer, but not my phone? Why are phones so inferior in this area?
Apple and Microsoft are constantly working on fixing the issue with their appstores and requiring app signing in more places. The way industry going is to lock down more of laptops, than allowing phones to be like computers.
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#593> In this context this would mean having the ability and documentation to build or install alternative operating systems on this hardware It doesn't work. Everything from banks to Netflix and others are slowly edging out anything where they can't fully verify the chain of control to an entity they can have a legal or contractual relationship with. To be clear, this is fundamental, not incidental. You can't run your o…
What I like about your comment is that it points out that all technical work-arounds are moot if people as a whole are not willing to stand up with pitchforks and torches to defend their freedoms. It will always come down to that. A handful of tech-savvy users with rooted devices and open-source software will not make a difference to the giant crushing machine that is the system. And I'm afraid most of us are part of…
> A handful of tech-savvy users with rooted devices and open-source software will not make a difference to the giant crushing machine that is the system.
Agreed, although I don't think that's entirely true, its just that post-smartphones we no longer have any political agency over a significant volume of the new traffic. Much of the new traffic represents that faction of people who initially mocked the internet as "nerd shit". But we don't have to get discouraged by our smallness here.
Rather we can offer a sub-system that satisifes our demands and is an open door to those willing to find it. We could try to fight our corner, but unless we're incredibly organised, its unlikely they'll listen due to how less relevant we are, now that all the normies transitioned online.
So we either jump ship to other, more permissive platforms and help make them good by developing software that closes the gap, or we counter by attacking the systems that prevent people from installing software on the device they have bought.
We just shouldn't expect the general population to care about our problems en-masse because they never have and never will. We will make a difference by creating an alternative sub-system that is poised to grow when the giant crushing machine stumbles at some point in the future.
We can't hate people for picking the parental wing of Apple because for most normies they don't enjoy the freedoms of technology, its the choice and difficulty that they conversely find oppressive.
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only competition can provide a solution. We have lost sight of this principle even though all Western democracies are built on the idea of separation of powers, and making it hard for any one faction of elites to gain full control and ruin things for everyone else. Make them fight with each other, let them get a piece of the pie, but never all of it. That's why we have multiple branches of government, multiple partie…
In fact true competition is only possible via open standards, protocols and technology stacks. We need agreement to ensure the large corporations adhere to these.
This doesn't seem right to me. It is often in companies' best interests to adopt standards, but that is because it allows them both to have an optimized supply chain.
Car manufacturers today have a lot of standards that I expect would make competition from any new contenders harder not easier. Tesla would be an example of that, they did survive but the industry thought it was never going to work precisely because of all the standards and regulations required.
On the other hand, early car manufacturers didn't have standards and shared technology stacks. At that time new car makers popped up everywhere and we had a ton of competition in the space.
Open standards are good for the consumer and good for any features that require interoperability. It has nothing to do with competition though.
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#595One of the biggest problems (if not the biggest) is that this desire is still a niche desire. If non-techie people would somehow be convinced that indeed hardware/software freedom is a basic right no matter the device we would be in a different position to pressure governments. How can people be convinced about it is the hardest part. How do you convince people that have no idea about how technology and corporation i…
Talk to people. I know many of us are socially awkward but if you never talk to people they will never learn. Big tech is not combating hate on their platforms because they know it divides people. Combat that by being social and talk to people.
Is not that easy and is not a matter of being awkward or not, being social or not. People get tired very easily when talking about things they don't understand, especially technology.
And when they kind of get you, they don't see the point that you are trying to make, easily dismissing you on why would you want to do something like that when you have "all the apps for free" with a few taps and that there is not such need for what you are trying to explain to them.
People don't even get it when you explain that FB, Google, etc are not free products and so on. Is kind of a rabbit hole and people don't want to dive on such topics because is an endless talk and they lose patience very quickly.
Is very hard to make them see the problem. People are happy with new phones, apps and entertainment every day, they don't care if they are unable to run custom software that may benefit their very own interests. As long as they can do the things that they usually do, to them there's no problem at all. Is as simple as that.
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#596Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#597We need both options to coexist: 1. Open, hackable hardware for those who want full control and for driving innovation 2. Locked-down, managed devices for vulnerable users who benefit from protection This concept of "I should run any code on hardware I own" is completely wrong as a universal principle. Yes, we absolutely should be able to run any code we want on open hardware we own - that option must exist. But we s…
Incorrect. Choice 2. Empowered user. The end user is free to CHOOSE to delegate the hardware's approved signing solutions to a third party. Possibly even a third party that is already included in the base firmware such as Microsoft, Apple, OEM, 'Open Source' (sub menu: List of several reputable distros and a choice which might have a big scary message and involved confirmation process to trust the inserted boot media…
Incorrect. For us as tech people this is an option. My older family members will definitely install malware and send all their data to China.
Please don’t let me go back to the early days of the internet where my mother had 50 toolbars and malware installed
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#598Start with buying the right hardware. Fairphone offers more control over the hardware: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/104924762388... https://www.fairphone.com/
The OS they ship has Google services on it. They've previously chosen not to give you root access by default because Google wouldn't allow it: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/fairphone-s-approach-to-root-o... They'll make the same choice again because it's not really a choice. Nobody would buy the device, or could make much use of it, without Google services on it. They'd be out of business Edit, to be clear: that is n…
They also offer a Google-free Android:
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/997915455681...
https://shop.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-e-operating-s...
You can also run Ubuntu Touch on the Fair Phones.
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#599> In this context this would mean having the ability and documentation to build or install alternative operating systems on this hardware It doesn't work. Everything from banks to Netflix and others are slowly edging out anything where they can't fully verify the chain of control to an entity they can have a legal or contractual relationship with. To be clear, this is fundamental, not incidental. You can't run your o…
My parents are getting old and they aren't tech savvy. The missing piece here is that I want my parents to have a computer they can safely do their banking on, without leaving them vulnerable to scams and viruses and the like. I like that they have iphones. Doing internet banking on their phone is safer than doing it on their desktop computer. Why is that? The reason is that the desktop PC security model is deeply fl…
This argument doesn't contradict the article.
An expensive iPhone ships with iOS and a rigid security model.
If you tap the `about` button 16 times and click a confirmation dialog, you disable certain security mechanisms against arbitrary software installation. Do something else easy but impossible to do accidentally, and you unlock the bootloader. You progressively lose portions of your warranty in doing so.
This is the path I think we should be going down.
Re: We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own
#600alternatively, we should have the ability to run [doom] on hardware we own.