> 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 own operating system because it's not in Netflix's financial interest for you to do so. Or your banks, or your government. They all benefit from you not having control, so you can't.
This is why it's so important to defend the real principles here not just the technical artefacts of them. Netflix shouldn't be able to insist on a particular type of DRM for me to receive their service. Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things. I should be able to opt into all this if I want more security, but it can't be mandatory. However all of these things are not technical, they are principles and rights that we have to argue for.
benrutter · 1m ago
[delayed]
wolvesechoes · 16m ago
> However all of these things are not technical
You understand it, but even in this thread you have people proposing solutions to switch from traditional banking to bitcoin, stop using Netflix and starts torrenting again etc.
Tech crowd always tries to solve non-technical problems through technical means, and this is why I don't have much hope.
JeremyNT · 4h ago
This is the crux of the matter.
Maybe conceptually you will be able to run some kind of open operating system with your own code, but it will be unable to access software or services provided by corporate or governmental entities.
This has been obvious for some time, and as soon as passkeys started popping up the endgame became clear.
Pleading to the government definitely can't save us now though, because they want the control just as much as the corporations do.
reddalo · 1h ago
> as soon as passkeys started popping up the endgame became clear
That's why I'm 100% against passkeys. I'll never use them and I'll make sure nobody I know does.
They're just a lock-in mechanism.
lucideer · 44m ago
"Passkeys" is a new brand name slapped on an older open, interoperable technology, so it's difficult for me to be "against passkeys" as they haven't fundamentally changed anything.
Before the branding they were known as FIDO2 "discoverable credentials" or "resident keys".
Two things have changed with the rebrand:
1. A lot of platforms are adopting support for FIDO2 resident keys. This is good actually.
2. A lot of large companies have set themselves up as providers of FIDO2 resident keys without export or migration mechanisms. This is the vendor lock-in part (no export feature), but it's not a feature of the underlying tech itself.
Fwiw FIDO are actively working on some standard for exporting/importing keys so that's something.
If you want to use passkeys without lockin, just use Bitwarden or KeepPassXC - they all have full support. Or you can also store a limited number of passkeys on your FIDO2-compatible hardware key like Yubikey or the open-source Nitrokeys.
The linked blog post explains it. The spec can be implemented by open source software, but the upcoming (or now current?) update to the spec enables attestation, that is, it allows the auth provider to cryptographically verify which implementation the client is using. Under this scheme, auth providers can simply choose to no longer support open source implementations like KeePassXC, and since the spec authors have already claimed that KeePassXC is "non-compliant" because it doesn't ask for a PIN on every auth request, it seems likely that that would happen.
fragmede · 52s ago
Yes but it seems like KeyPassXC could just ask for PIN on every auth request to satisfy that requirement, without having to close their source.
dingaling · 36m ago
Imagine using ssh-keygen, but it locks the private key in a vendor-managed secure enclave. You can't copy it, export it, rename it or do anything wth it.
tadfisher · 5m ago
I don't just imagine it, I do it, by using gpg-agent as my ssh-agent and using the private key generated by a Yubikey. Another way is to use tpm2-tools so only your laptop running your own signed boot chain can use the key. It is desirable to lock private key material in a physical thing that is hard to steal.
You can choose not to do this, and that's fine. Hardware attestation is dead because Apple refuses to implement it, so no one can force you to.
kibwen · 3h ago
> Maybe conceptually you will be able to run some kind of open operating system with your own code
Why do you think they would even allow this? If you think that governments don't have the incentives or the means to criminalize running non-approved OSes, or the unauthorized use of non-approved hardware, you're insufficiently cynical.
nine_k · 3h ago
It's hard to enforce, and not dangerous enough. Accessing something serious from this unapproved code is the opposite, and is being locked down. Try running your own code on your phone's baseband processor, or boot your own OS with Secure Boot on.
pishpash · 3h ago
Should have made open-source components in some key nodes of the ecosystem popular and profitable. But that was a tall order.
nine_k · 3h ago
Open-source software permeates the Internet infrastructure. Netflix is one of the biggest contributors to FreeBSD code. Tons of TVs run OSS-based stack.
But once it touches the money-extraction path, like DRM, things expectedly lock up.
winter_blue · 5m ago
We need legislation mandating that all hardware[a] have at least one fully-functional[b] open source driver for any operating system[c]. And that any device with a microprocessor with writable memory permit custom software to be run on it.
[a] whether that's a single device like a fingerprint scanner, or a device like a phone or tablet
[b] no crippled or low-performance open source driver
[c] any OS, including Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, or some obscure minor OS as long as such OS is readily available for free or for a reasonable price
josephg · 3h ago
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 flawed. In modern desktop operating systems, we protect user A from user B. But any program running on my computer is - for some reason - completely trusted with my data. Any program I run is allowed to silently edit, delete or steal anything I own. Unless you install special software, you can't even tell if any of this is happening. This makes every transitive dependency of every program on your computer a potential attack vector.
I want computers to be hackable. But I don't also want my computer to be able to be hacked so easily. Right now, I have to choose between doing banking on my (maybe - hopefully - safe) computer. Or doing banking on my definitely safe iphone. What a horrible choice.
Personally I think we need to start making computers that provide the best of both worlds. I want much more control over what code can do on my computer. I also want programs to be able to run in a safe, sandboxed way. But I should be the one in charge of that sandbox. Not Google. Definitely not Apple. But there's currently no desktop environment that provides that ability.
I think the argument against locked down computers (like iphones and androids) would be a lot stronger if linux & friends provided a real alternative that was both safe and secure. If big companies are the only ones which provide a safe computing experience, we're asking for trouble.
spaqin · 2h ago
Your parents are more likely to be a victim of a phone call scam than malware, even on PC. There is also no guarantee that malware will not slip through cracks of official stores or signatures.
You can also choose to do your banking at the physical branch.
We already had "best of both worlds", especially on mobile OSes - granular permissions per-app were quite good, and on Android until few years ago root was widely available if you needed it as well; these permissions could be locked or frozen if there is concern about users, just like work devices are provisioned with limitations. It all depends on your threat model.
rahkiin · 1h ago
In the netherlands we do not have physical branches anymore. They died out. All banking started to go through browser.
This was very sensitive to malware and viruses, so two-factor was added through phones.
Then less and less people had PCs because phone provides enough. Now mobile apps for banking is the only way to do banking. Or it is required for MFA. Even if you’re calling with the bank it is used as MFA
CalRobert · 19m ago
I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes impossible to even use cash in the Netherlands soon enough. The first year I was here I don't think I did even once. I've been using cash a lot more lately just out of principle and it's annoying - lots of pin-only check out lines, etc.
bbarnett · 1h ago
So far in Canada... I must reiterate this, so far, this can and has been fought by one thing. Rural life, and nationalism.
There are plenty of places where mobile phones don't work, especially in the summer when there are leaves on the trees. This means SMS won't really work. So for this path, SMS, the bank has an alternative -- call a number on your account with a voice reading the 2FA code. Thus, landlines or VOIP work here.
When it comes to an app, forcing Canadians to use a phone OS controlled by US companies, still has pushback. An example being, the concept of "A Canadian having to use software from a US company, to identify themselves to a Canadian company" is still a hotspot. Especially with the US wanting to annex us.
So this lock in has not yet occurred.
Really, the phone call to a phone number on your account, not using SMS is as solid a protection, as an app running on a phone controlled by a foreign country's company. It's an alternate path. And it solves the whole 'rural person' access.
Many people living in rural areas don't even bother with a phone type device. Some have Kindles. But by buy a phone, if it doesn't work where you live?
This logic, combined with them closing rural banks, means they have to be quite sensitive here. EG, closing rural banks, then making it difficult to do online banking is political poison for our banks.
ACS_Solver · 1h ago
Same in Sweden, physical bank branches are rare and even they will often require an appointment. All banking is through bank apps or websites, and you use 2FA extensively. Sweden's digital ID system is called BankID because it was made by banks and, initially, for banking, though now BankID is used extensively for all kinds of government and private services.
That doesn't stop scammers. They also keep getting more sophisticated, often using a combination of social engineering and technical skill, and they keep tricking people into giving them money. So unfortunately, while malware is pretty much a non-factor, scammers still thrive.
AndyMcConachie · 1h ago
I still do banking through a random reader at ABN AMRO. I really hope they never get rid of it because I trust that little dumb plastic device 1000% more than my phone.
ted_dunning · 11m ago
What is a "random reader at ABN AMRO"?
itake · 1h ago
Phone scams have you install malware. Banks don’t know if you’re on the phone with the scammer, but they would like to detect if you’re using a screen sharing app on the password or transfer screens.
Someone · 1h ago
> You can also choose to do your banking at the physical branch
The ones banks that do have physical presence are closing left and right? Also, I don’t think I can money transfers at the physical office of my bank.
josephg · 1h ago
> Your parents are more likely to be a victim of a phone call scam than malware, even on PC. There is also no guarantee that malware will not slip through cracks of official stores or signatures.
So what? The lack of perfect security is a terrible argument against better security.
For example, lockpicks exist. Is that a reason to stop locking your house? Our TLS ciphers might eventually be broken. Should we throw away TLS and go back to unencrypted HTTP?
I'm not expecting anything to 100% stop all scams. But modern computer security is a joke. We could do an awful lot better than we are today at keeping people safe from this stuff.
> We already had "best of both worlds", especially on mobile OSes - granular permissions per-app were quite good, and on Android until few years ago root was widely available if you needed it as well
Yes. I want something like this on desktop too - but I want to own the signing keys, of course. It seems strange that this is so controversial.
Rohansi · 2h ago
Also the good old phishing emails/links. So many people are simply unaware when a website is pretending to look like an app/floating window. Even younger people who you'd hope know better are falling for it today. I work on a PC game and players (mostly young adults) are constantly getting their accounts compromised by the same phishing sites that pop up monthly.
AI voice and video cloning scams are also only going to increase. Why would scammers need to get people to install random APKs when they can just impersonate a family member and tell them what to give directly?
To me it seems very much like the classic "think of the children" type argument. It's not going to really fix anything in the end but it will benefit Google.
extraisland · 2h ago
Everything in life is about trade-offs. Certain trade-offs people aren't going to make.
- If you want to run an alternative operating system, you got to learn how it works. That is a trade off not even many tech savvy people want to make.
- There is a trade-off with a desktop OS. I actually like the fact that it isn't super sand-boxed and locked down. I am willing to trade security & safety for control.
> Personally I think we need to start making computers that provide the best of both worlds. I want much more control over what code can do on my computer. I also want programs to be able to run in a safe, sandboxed way. But I should be the one in charge of that sandbox. Not Google. Definitely not Apple. But there's currently no desktop environment that provides that ability.
The market and demand for that is low.
BTW. This does exist with Qubes OS already. However there are a bunch of trade-offs that most people are unlikely to want to make.
AFAICT the only trade off is there's no support and few apps for Qubes OS. If it was as popular as MacOS or Windows what would the trade off be?
tonyhart7 · 1h ago
exactly, people want all the benefit without the consequences
like if there are OS utopia exist that has all the advantage without the downside then everybody would use that
but people complaining don't live in reality
extraisland · 1h ago
A lot of it already exists in one form or another and the trade-off for sand-boxing is usability a lot of the time.
It isn't even a freedom vs security. It is usability vs security.
josephg · 52m ago
> It is usability vs security.
I think a lot of it is "nobody has bothered building it yet" vs security.
Eg Qubes runs everything in Xen isolates - which is a wildly complex, performance limiting way to do sandboxing on modern computers. There are much better ways to implement sandboxing that don't limit performance or communication between applications. For example SeL4's OS level capability model. SeL4 still allows arbitrary IPC / shared memory between processes. Or Solaris / Illumos's Zones. But that route would unfortunately require rewriting / changing most modern software.
extraisland · 26m ago
> I think a lot of it is "nobody has bothered building it yet" vs security.
All of this takes considerable time, money to build and after that you need to get people to buy into it anyway. Large billion dollar software companies have difficulty doing this. If you think it is so easy, go away and build a proof of concept.
BTW They have implementing sand-boxing in most desktop operating system. It is often a PITA. Phone like permissions model already exist in Windows, Linux and I suspect MacOS in various guises.
For development there are various solutions that already exist.
So these things already exist and often people don't use them. The reason for that is that there is usually reduces usability by introducing annoyances.
> Eg Qubes runs everything in Xen isolates - which is a wildly complex, performance limiting way to do sandboxing on modern computers.
It exists though today. If I care about security enough, I am willing to sacrifice performance. That is a trade off that some people are willing to make.
> There are much better ways to implement sandboxing that don't limit performance or communication between applications. For example SeL4's OS level capability model. SeL4 still allows arbitrary IPC / shared memory between processes. Or Solaris / Illumos's Zones. But that route would unfortunately require rewriting / changing most modern software.
If you solution starts with "rewriting most modern software". Then it isn't really a solution.
BTW what you are suggesting is a trade off. You have to trade resources (time and money typically) to build the thing and then you will need to spend more resources to get people to buy into using your tech.
999900000999 · 2h ago
As is Android has support for multi user more.
Get some real sandboxing, let me install whatever I want in my sandbox.
That's a bare minimum.
I also want "I am an adult" mode where I get to do what I want. If Google wants to flag secure net, fine. Not every thing is going to work.
lentil_soup · 1h ago
But you can choose, your parents can have a phone with the "lockdown" setting turned on and I can have it off if I want. How we expose and handle that setting is a UX problem we can solve.
What's wrong with that?
vrighter · 1h ago
All this will do is ensure that if malware does get through the official channels (which it can and regularly does) it will be more widely distributed
josephg · 1h ago
Security doesn't need to be 100% effective to add value. The more hoops we make scammers jump through, the fewer people will end up getting scammed.
I know angle grinders exist. I still lock up my bike.
vrighter · 7m ago
Scams have absolutely nothing to do with anything relevant. Scams happen regardless of whether software is installed in the first place. Social engineering is what most scams are based on. Refusing me banking access because I want to use my phone as a computer brings extra security to nobody.
ozgrakkurt · 3h ago
What are the stats here, this sounds like pure bs to be honest.
Main way people around me get scammed by far like 90% is social engineering
DataDynamo · 2h ago
It will need just one more additional authentication factor and blocking side loading apps on Android - We promise, total security is close! /s
josephg · 1h ago
I don't think we'll ever have total security. But we still put locks on our doors and send our internet traffic through TLS.
All or nothing thinking is counterproductive.
nuker · 3h ago
> 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.
Purists always forget this point :) What is best for 99% of people.
And dumb Euro bureaucrats.
necovek · 2h ago
That's what can be achieved by encapsulation/containerization of apps: a la flatpak, snaps, docker or VMs...
I found my parents to install random crappy adware apps from official stores too. What protects their banking application is granular permissions, not root access.
quaintdev · 3h ago
Why not give people the freedom to choose what they want
nuker · 3h ago
It will be exploited. Key word above - not tech savvy.
The only reason we have convenient banking, gov and streaming apps today is because of guaranteed and enforced mobile security by big boys Apple and Google. (Google being Ad company is another matter, not relevant here).
fr4nkr · 2h ago
No, we have convenient online services in spite of the endless security theater that permeates consumer tech. All it's done is gradually increase maintenance burden and technical complexity until useful features are slowly stripped out to create a more "streamlined" experience. The mobile app for my credit union has become so shitty that I'm not even sure if losing access to it is a deal-breaker for rooting my phone - I already prefer to do my online banking and shopping on my laptop.
There is no "just works" technical solution for a problem caused mainly by naivete and gullibility. Governments and the private sector know this, of course; as others have said, the real purpose is to control users, not to protect them.
nuker · 1h ago
> No, we have convenient online services in spite of the endless security theater that permeates consumer tech.
Disagree. No banking app can resist root access owned by attacker.
donkeybeer · 1h ago
Why is the banking server trusting the client? Thats criminally incompetent security. If your website gets hacked because a client had "root" whose fault is it?
necovek · 2h ago
They all existed before mobile apps on systems you don't control became prevalent.
This was just useful for them.
extraisland · 1h ago
All of these existed well before mobile phones and so called "enforced security". Almost all these apps are wrappers around web functionality.
_Algernon_ · 1h ago
We've literally had convenient online banking for two decades at this point without any DRM.
Don't rewrite history.
beeflet · 1h ago
Really? They couldn't just use a website?
sim7c00 · 2h ago
most reason OSes are insecure is bexause they are designed badly regarding security. they are from a time it wasnt important and most ways of building them also from that same era. its hardly modernized -_-. sure its not the same OS as 20 years back,... it has a lot of layers of junk ontop.
again, no incentive to improve it. its either unpaid work or the OS vendor has a stake in it being insecure. (both exists)
AndyMcConachie · 1h ago
The answer to this is a physical switch on the machine that enables/disables hackability.
matheusmoreira · 2h ago
> think of the elderly
This stuff is not just for the elderly and computer illiterate. It's for you as well. You think they're going to stop?
You're giving up freedom for safety. You will have neither.
josephg · 1h ago
> It's for you as well. You think they're going to stop?
No! Which is why I don't want every npm package I install to have unfettered access to my internet connection and to access all my files. If this is being exploited now, I might not even know! How sloppy is that!
> You're giving up freedom for safety.
At the limit, sure, maybe there are tradeoffs between freedom and security. But there's lots of technical solutions that we could build right now that give a lot more safety without losing any freedom at all.
Like sandboxing applications by default. Applications should by default run on my computer with the same permissions as a browser tab. Occasionally applications need more access than that. But that should require explicit privilege escalation rather than being granted to all programs by default. (Why do I need to trust that spotify and davinci resolve won't install keyloggers on my computer? Our computers are so insecure!)
Personally I'd like to see all access to the OS happen through a capability model. This would require changes in the OS and in programming languages. But the upside is it would mean we could fearlessly install software. And if you do it right, even `npm install` could be entirely safe. Here's how we do it: First, all syscalls need to pass unforgable capability tokens. (Eg SeL4). No more "stringy" syscalls. For safe 3rd party dependencies, inside processes we first make an "application capability" that is passed to main(). 3rd party libraries don't get access to any OS objects at all by default. But - if you want to use a 3rd party library to do something (like talk to redis), your program crafts a capability token with access to that specific thing and then passes it to the library as an argument.
Bad:
// Stringy API. Redis client can do anything.
redisClient.connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
This way, the redis library can only make outgoing connections on the specified TCP port. Everything else - including the filesystem - is off limits to this library.
This would require some PL level changes too. Like, it wouldn't be secure if libraries can access arbitrary memory within your process. In a language like rust we'd need to limit unsafe code. (And maybe other stuff?). In GC languages like C# and javascript its easier - though we might need to tweak the standard libraries. And ban (or sandbox) native modules like napi and cgo.
extraisland · 1h ago
> At the limit, sure, maybe there are tradeoffs between freedom and security. But there's lots of technical solutions that we could build right now that give a lot more safety without losing any freedom at all.
Everything you have suggested in this post takes away freedom. There is no solution that doesn't take away freedom / your control. There is always a trade off.
> Like sandboxing applications by default. Applications should by default run on my computer with the same permissions as a browser tab. Occasionally applications need more access than that. But that should require explicit privilege escalation rather than being granted to all programs by default. (Why do I need to trust that spotify and davinci resolve won't install keyloggers on my computer? Our computers are so insecure!)
This already exists on Linux.
I run Discord/Slack in Flatpak. Out of the box the folders and clipboard permissions are restricted. Only the ~/Downloads folder on my PC is accessible to Discord/Slack. You can't drag and drop things into these apps. Which makes sharing content a PITA.
If you don't want to worry about things like keyloggers, you should run an open source OS and use open source programs where you can verify that there are no key loggers. You should also make sure you find out what firmware your keyboard is using (many keyboards themselves have complex micro controllers on them that can be programmed).
josephg · 58m ago
> Everything you have suggested in this post takes away freedom. There is no solution that doesn't take away freedom / your control. There is always a trade off.
Huh? In what way does application sandboxing take away my freedom? What can I do today that I can't do with a sandbox-everything-by-default model?
In my mind, it gives me (the user) more freedom because I can run any program I want without fear.
> I run Discord/Slack in Flatpak. Out of the box the folders and clipboard permissions are restricted. Only the ~/Downloads folder on my PC is accessible to Discord/Slack. You can't drag and drop things into these apps. Which makes sharing content a PITA.
Cool! Yeah this is the sort of thing I want to see more of. The drag & drop problem is technically solvable - it just sounds like they haven't solved it yet. (Capabilities would be a great solution for this.. just sayin!)
extraisland · 39m ago
> Huh? In what way does application sandboxing take away my freedom? What can I do today that I can't do with a sandbox-everything-by-default model?
I've just explained that sand-boxing causes issues with file access, clipboard sharing etc.
Every hoop you add in makes it more difficult for the user to gain back control, even if that is modifying permissions yourself. Most people will just remove permissions out of annoyance.
If you remove control, you remove people's freedom.
> In my mind, it gives me (the user) more freedom because I can run any program I want without fear.
Any security mechanism has a weakness or it will be bypassed by other means. So all this will give you a false sense of security.
The moment you think you are safe. Is when you are most unsafe.
> Cool! Yeah this is the sort of thing I want to see more of. The drag & drop problem is technically solvable - it just sounds like they haven't solved it yet. (Capabilities would be a great solution for this.. just sayin!)
I don't. It is a PITA. Eventually people just turn it off. I did.
The reality is that if you want ultimate security you have to make a trade offs. Pretending you can make some theoretical system where those trade off don't exists just isn't realistic.
josephg · 5m ago
> I've just explained that sand-boxing causes issues with file access, clipboard sharing etc.
You've explained that flatpak has issues with file access and clipboard sharing. My iphone does sandboxing too, but the clipboard works just fine on my phone.
I don't think "failing clipboards" is a problem specific to sandboxing. I think its a problem specific to flatpak. (And maybe X11 and so on.)
> If you remove control, you remove people's freedom.
Sandboxing gives users more control. Not less. Even if they use that control to turn off sandboxing, they still have more freedom because they get to decide if sandboxing is enabled or disabled.
Maybe you're trying to say that security often comes with the tradeoff of accessibility? I think thats true! Security often makes things less convenient - for example, password prompts, confirmation dialogue boxes, and so on. But I think the sweet spot for inconvenience is somewhere around the iphone. On the desktop, I want to get asked the first time a program tries to mess with the data of another program. Most programs shouldn't be allowed to do that by default.
> Pretending you can make some theoretical system where those trade off don't exists just isn't realistic.
I think you might be arguing with a strawman. I totally agree with you. I don't think a perfect system exists either. Of course there are tradeoffs - especially at the limit.
But there's still often ways to make things better than they are today. For example, before rust existed, lots of people said you had to make a tradeoff between memory safety and performance. Well, rust showed that by making a really complex language & compiler, you could have memory safety and great performance at the same time. SeL4 shows you can have a high performance microkernel based OS. V8 shows you can have decent performance in a dynamically typed language like JS.
Those are the improvements I'm interested in. Give me capabilities and sandboxing. A lot more security in exchange for maybe a little inconvenience? I'd take that deal.
dvdkon · 12m ago
You seem to be arguing that adding complexity reduces freedom, but I don't think that's true in a reasonable interpretation of the word.
Your argument would suggest that virtual memory takes away user freedom, because it's now much harder to access hardware or share data between programs, but that sounds ridiculous from a modern perspective. I think it's better to keep freedom and complexity separate, and speak about loss of freedom only when something becomes practically impossible, not just a bit more complex.
realusername · 1h ago
Well no, if your parents truly are tech illiterate, I would give them Ubuntu and not an iPhone.
With the iPhone they get the risk of answering to a scam call or scam sms and giving them the access of their bank account.
Ubuntu is almost bullet proof for beginners.
In fact, that's what I've done for my parents and I had to retire the computer and get another one because it's the hardware which became too old after 15 years of running Ubuntu without any problem.
Security for users isn't just about bootloader expoits.
charcircuit · 1h ago
Like the parent said Ubuntu has horrible security. It would be better to just not buy a phone line for the iphone if you don't want phone calls or texts.
realusername · 1h ago
It hasn't, security isn't just technical features but a social contract.
Even on an iPhone without a sim card, they can download one of the scam casino games from the appstore and give away a lot of money, on Ubuntu they can't do that.
There's more to security than just bytes.
The threats to your average user isn't a bootloader exploit built by some Israeli firm but privacy breaches, social engineering and scams.
josephg · 1h ago
Sure; but technical features can certainly make security better.
Like, iOS makes most unsafe actions incredibly clear. Apple pay always requires the user to double tap the power button. The OS makes it impossible for an application to charge you money through apple pay without an explicit user action.
Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive. Any program you download and run from the internet on a desktop computer can do all of this stuff and more. We shouldn't allow that stuff by default on desktop computers either.
Phones have the right idea. I just don't want Apple and Google to be the only ones who can modify the system at the OS level.
realusername · 1h ago
Double taping to pay is actually making things worse for tech illiterate users. There's a lot of scam games on the appstore and it's way to easy to fall into it if they aren't too careful.
And then no, it's not clear for me (even as a developer!) how data transfer between apps work, how the advertising id works and how much data Apple and Google really have that they shouldn't. If it's not clear to me as a software engineer, it certainly isn't for your average user.
The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps.
> Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive.
It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu. Even if that stuff somehow existed, I don't think they would have the tech knowledge to mark the downloaded virus as executable anyways.
josephg · 1h ago
> The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps.
I'd like that security model to be the default for desktop apps on my computer as well. Its weird that davinci resolve and spotify and all the rest have full access to look through all my files.
> It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu.
Probably just because so few regular people use ubuntu, scammers & malware authors don't bother targeting it. Still good for your parents though!
bee_rider · 1h ago
I wouldn’t be totally opposed to having some sort of totally locked down device that I was just used for banking. The bank could even sell them or give them away with the account (doesn’t need high performance).
Another though; if we were actually able to pass laws that helped people, one that I’d like to see would be: for a totally locked down proprietary device, everything done with it should be the legal liability of the vendor. If your bank account gets broken into via the device, you can’t audit what happened, you couldn’t have have broken it, so it ought to be their responsibility.
akvadrako · 1h ago
That's basically how it used to work. Before the app my bank required the use of a card and QR reader with a screen that could authorize transactions
nradov · 3h ago
You could just not watch Netflix. Most of the content is kind of crap anyway, low effort filler. And the streaming services have trouble even licensing third-party content at all unless they have robust copy protection. That may be stupid because it drives more consumers to privacy but copyright holders are free to negotiate any licensing terms they want.
thrance · 1m ago
You could also not bother with any of it and return to a dumb phone. That's not a solution though.
rblatz · 2h ago
Netflix is right in its prime right now, K-Pop Demon Hunters is a smash hit and probably the biggest cultural thing going on right now, it has like 4 songs from it in the top 10. Wednesday is coming back this weekfor the end of season 2. Stranger Things is wrapping up in November,
000ooo000 · 1h ago
Odd to hear for me. Netflix Australia has been in steep decline for years now. The only shows I recognise by title or actors in the poster are 15+ years old, or are adorned with 'Leaving Soon'. Everything of value has been poached by a competitor.
reddalo · 1h ago
It's the same situation in Italy. Netflix doesn't have any interesting content anymore, only their own originals.
gardenhedge · 47m ago
Any other examples? None of those scream prime to me - however I haven't heard of kpop demon hunters
CalRobert · 4m ago
Maybe it's the marketing? It's on the main home page every time I open it.
Silhouette · 1h ago
You could just not watch Netflix.
The digital hermit argument is not going to resonate with 99.9% of users. People buy devices because they want to do stuff. Telling them they shouldn't do what they want to do is never going to convince anyone.
The real question is where are the representatives who are supposed to be acting in the interests of their people while all this is happening? We seem to have regulatory capture on a global scale now where there isn't really anyone in government even making the case that all these consumer-hostile practices should be disrupted. They apparently recognize the economic argument that big business makes big bucks but completely ignore the eroding value of technology to our quality of life.
cryptonector · 2h ago
There is also the possibility that without a [paid] curator (the vendor, like Google or Apple) we can't have security for how do we ascertain provenance? You might not buy that argument, but the vendor will make it, and it will resonate with the public and/or the politicians.
Establishing trust with hardware, firmware, and operating system software is currently an intractable problem. Besides the halting problem and the reflections on trusting trust problem (i.e., supply chain problems) the sheer size of these codebases and object code (since you'll need to confirm that the object code is not altered as in the reflections on trusting trust paper) is just too big for the public to be able to understand it. Sure, maybe we could use AI to review all of this, but... that's expensive if every person has to do it, and... that's got a bootstrapping problem.
Basically the walled garden is unlikely to go away anytime soon. It would be easier to change the rules politically to do things like reduce transaction fees, but truly allowing the wide public to run anything they want seems difficult not just politically but technically, because the technical problems will lead to political ones.
StopDisinfo910 · 13m ago
The digital sovereignty angle will end up quilling the platform lockdown.
There is no way countries agree to have American companies getting so much control on key infrastructures especially in the current context.
estebarb · 1h ago
Not really. Many countries emit digital signatures that could be used to prove that someone signed something. We would just need to convince countries to use that same infra for companies.
So it may be possible to require everything to be properly signed, without requiring everyone to be bound to certain company wishes.
altairprime · 2h ago
There’s a scenario where this does work: you can install any operating system on the hardware you own, if you complete a “erase all content and settings” dire scary confirmation screen.
- If you want to run something other than iPadOS or Google TV, go for it. (Smart TVs are just tablets with a don’t-touch screen.)
- If you want to install spyware on someone’s phone, you can’t; the HSM keys held by their OS are lost when you try to install a patched version and restore from a backup, and their backup doesn’t restore properly because half of it depends on the HSM or the cloud and everything is tagged with the old OS’s signature.
- If you want to patch macOS and then deploy it to your fleet, you can; it won’t be Signed By Apple but you’re an enterprise and don’t care about the small losses of functionality from that.
- If you want to dual boot, go ahead; the issues with the HSMs not permitting you to host two OSes worth of partitioned keystones can be resolved by regulatory pressure.
This satisfies all the terms of “let me install whatever I want”, while allowing the OG App Store to continue operating in Safe Mode for everyday users in a way that can’t be entrapped without the scammer on the phone telling them to delete everything, which destroys the data the scammer wants.
My car already allows me to do this. My phone should too.
Rohansi · 1h ago
> My car already allows me to do this. My phone should too.
If you're referring to CarPlay and/or Android Auto you should know that it's not actually running on your car. It's basically RDPing your phone onto your car screen. You can already install RDP apps on your phone and connect to systems that provide more freedom, of course.
protocolture · 3h ago
>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.
Theres nothing stopping a hardware vendor from being able to delete the system installed keys/certificates, breaking trust to allow you to install your own. Sure netflix might not like it but you still have the right to run your own code and netflix has the right not to trust your OS.
>Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things.
Agreed.
enos_feedler · 3h ago
This is a sad reality. I see 2 paths forward 1) we somehow build the right layers into the internet that we can withstand open hardware. 2) open hardware running any software becomes an education use and hobbyist market only. I could see an edu slice to every corporate entity deploying open and free stuff just as onboarding to paid. Hackable hardware with kiddyflix.
p0w3n3d · 2h ago
I agree with your point. And meanwhile in Korea (according to article I've read) to use any bank's website you have to install a spy software in your PC. It looks like every major service vendor is organising a crawling subversion against their users and they really count we won't notice.
I think you're right but I'd say it even more generally: we just can't let companies get so big that they can do these things without facing pushback and competition from other entities.
beeflet · 2h ago
Maybe we must find individual solutions to each controlling application? Replace netflix with bittorrent, replace banks with bitcoin, etc?
markus_zhang · 3h ago
Arguing doesn’t work for principles.
cess11 · 1h ago
Right, so "defend" does a lot of lifting in there.
What are you prepared to do to reverse the contemporary tide of tyranny? What have you done to make those in power afraid to move forward with policy founded in loathing of humanity?
matheusmoreira · 2h ago
> 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.
We need to make that illegal. Classify it as discrimination. They should be obligated to treat any client that tries to connect the same as they would treat their own software. Anything else is illegal discrimination against users, a crime comparable to racial discrimination.
Anything short of this means they've won. Everything the word "hacker" ever stood for will be destroyed. Throw all FOSS into the trash. None of it matters anymore. What's the point of free software that we can't run? That can't actually do anything useful because it fails remote attestation? Completely useless.
Silhouette · 1h ago
This is ultimately a form of collusion and anti-competitive behaviour - practices that we prohibit in other scenarios because we consider them harmful to our society. It's obvious why some large organisations would like more control over our lives. It's not obvious why we should let them have it.
Unfortunately for now it seems our representatives are letting them have it so personally I'm rooting for a snake-eating-its-tail moment as a result of Windows 10 losing support. There will inevitably be erosion of security and support for applications on Windows 10 once Microsoft declares it yesterday's OS - as we've seen with past versions of Windows. This time there is the added complication that a lot of perfectly good hardware can't run Windows 11 - largely because of the TPM/verification issue we're discussing.
So probably a lot of people who haven't moved to 11 yet aren't going to unless their current computer breaks and they get 11 by default when they buy a replacement. If the charts are correct then 11 only recently overtook 10 in user numbers. After all this time and despite all the pressure from Microsoft and the imminent EOL of Windows 10 over 40% of Windows users are still running that version. (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/d...) So how exactly do the big organisations that want to control the client plan to deal with that over the next few years?
Unfortunately unless there is also some sort of intervention to deal with the collusion and market manipulation by vested interests I doubt enough Windows 10 refugees will jump to open platforms when their current devices fail for those open platforms to reach a critical mass of users. If five years from now Windows 10 user levels are negligible and almost all of the former users are now on Windows 11+ by default then the controlled client side probably wins effectively forever. I think it would take something dramatic happening that increased the desktop market share of open alternatives like Linux to say 10+% to avoid this fate. The only likely source of that drama I can see is if Valve's support for gaming on Linux encourages significant numbers of home users to switch and then general public awareness that you don't have to run Windows or macOS increases.
safety1st · 1h ago
I'm going to get wild-eyed now but you can blame Google for that as they're the ones who just announced they'll retroactively ban me from installing software on the computer I bought and own.
I don't think you can really solve this problem as long as there's an operating system monopoly, or even duopoly/triopoly. The lure of total control is just too great. Every operating system vendor, hell every intellectual property vendor will always dream of it. A company that becomes powerful enough to put chains on its users will do so.
From the British Raj to Standard Oil to IBM and Microsoft, monopolies are some of the most powerful forces in history. There is a case to be made that we were on a similar path with Microsoft until a combination of the Internet and a half-assed but not completely ineffective anti-trust campaign brought them to their knees, for a while.
I think that the solution is to highlight the abuses perpetrated by the biggest tech giants specifically, and advocate for radical government action on multiple levels. #1 to break up these companies. #2, to shackle them and anyone who gets as large as them so that they can't do anything like this again. #3, publicly fund the development of competing, open operating systems.
If you are a US citizen then #1 and #2 are the more realistic paths and you should be watching the various anti-trust cases against Big Tech like a hawk, the celebrity du jour is really Amit Mehta who is scheduled to release his Google remedies any day now. You need to make it clear to your representatives that this is your top issue at the ballot box. We need a second American Progressive Era that's seasoned with digital rights and anti-megacorp sentiment and with "doomscroll" and "Luigi" having entered the vernacular I think we could be closer than many here believe.
If you are an EU or Chinese citizen you should support the development and adoption in those polities of alternative, Linux-based operating systems. In the way the South Korean government specifically encouraged the growth of Samsung into a company with a global footprint, you should do that for local companies which develop OSes that compete with Apple and Google's. These geographies fundamentally can't do much to influence the American legal system so they should instead lean into public sentiment around nationalism and sovereignty and tie these to software freedom because that is likely the only elemental, emotional force that will capture enough public attention and support. Use state-scale resources to create competition for the American tech giants and establish a balance of power, because they are assuredly your enemies at this point.
And lastly for the ten millionth time I'll say it - Stallman predicted this. He saw it all coming. He warned us. He told us what would happen and what we needed to do. It's time to listen and to think big.
pjmlp · 24m ago
Meanwhile FOSDEM and similar conferences are full of people carrying Apple devices, and most folks keep picking non-copyleft licenses instead of dual licensing.
The Stallman generation is slowly leaving this realm, the opportunity has been lost already.
edg5000 · 1h ago
Well said!
fastaguy88 · 4h ago
Really not a libertarian, but why shouldn’t Netflix have the right to choose who they distribute content to? They negotiated conditions with the creators, why shouldn’t they be able to specify the DRM? No one is forcing you to subscribe to Netflix. Or even to buy an iPad.
jonahx · 3h ago
The issue is the means of enforcement requires taking away other rights they shouldn't be able to.
What if I want to require (for anti-piracy reasons) that to use my software you must also give me complete access to your computer, all the data on it, and all your communications. You might say, "Well, if anyone is stupid enough to make that deal, let them." But it's easy to sugar coat what you're doing, especially with less technical users. I think it's better to say, "That's just not something you are allowed to do. It's trampling on rights more important than your anti-piracy rights."
In the same way, you cannot murder someone even if they agree to be murdered (an actual case in Germany).
vbezhenar · 3h ago
> What if I want to require (for anti-piracy reasons) that to use my software you must also give me complete access to your computer, all the data on it, and all your communications.
That's exactly what happens with anti-cheat kernel modules. As one might expect, ordinary people couldn't care less, as long as it works good enough.
We cannot expect those rootkits to be properly supported long term for any security issues they may cause. I would think that the solution is simple: nobody forces them to make their IP available in non hacked computers...
If they want a hardened computer to deliver their IP, then they should sell their own hardware. But forcing their blocking into the whole stack is not acceptable.
For instance: I cannot see any udemy or netflix content from my computer, because their IP protection blocks the lenovo docking station I use to connect my monitors to my MBP... each part is standard! And somehow nobody tested that scenario. So, no, that tech is barely tested, it must not be forced into any computer.
bruce511 · 3h ago
Forgive me, but is Netflix asking for that?
As I understand it, Netflix wishes to authenticate the device, and DRM their content. I'm not aware of anything beyond that (but I'm also not paying attention. )
Now you may have used the example of what might happen, but then Netfix seems a strange example. Surely Apple and/or Google are more likely players in that example?
GeoAtreides · 1h ago
> Now you may have used the example of what might happen,
OP said "What if", it's clearly a hypothetical scenario and not something Netflix is doing or planning to do
bfdm · 3h ago
Because it's bad for consumers to lose choices, even if they don't normally exercise those choices. The choice is the distributed power we have against the consolidated corporate power. We can choose not to let them restrict those choices, for example with interoperability regulations.
ranyume · 4h ago
>why shouldn’t Netflix have the right to choose who they distribute content to?
power asymmetry
cm2012 · 4h ago
There are dozens of sources of online streaming entertainment, and its not exactly a vital good.
Gud · 4h ago
Yeah, there are a lot of torrent sites! Netflix doens't want my business anymore, I don't really care.
OmarAssadi · 3h ago
Sure, Netflix may not be as important as, say, housing, food, or whatever else, but I think there is something to be said about the cultural importance of [at the very least some] film and television.
There's a lot of media worth studying, analyzing, and preserving. And in that sense, between the constant churn of catalog items, exclusive content, and the egregious DRM, I think these sorts of streaming services are, unfortunately, kind of harmful.
chongli · 3h ago
Doesn't your second paragraph run against the grain of your first? If streaming services like Netflix are harmful then we should avoid using them. Thus it should not be important for our freedom-preserving computers to be able to access Netflix.
Now, if you want to do an in-depth study of film and television material as a whole, you're actually better off avoiding Netflix and making use of archives such as public libraries, university libraries, and the Internet Archive.
OmarAssadi · 3h ago
I mean, I agree that you should be able to avoid things like Netflix and make use of libraries and other archives, but that's sort of the point; there is a ton of media that never even gets a physical release anymore; once one of these platforms goes under, or something enters licensing hell, or whatever else and gets removed, all you can do is hope someone out there with both the know-how and access went out of their way to illegally download a copy, illegally decrypt it, and illegally upload it somewhere.
I say "know-how" and "access" because, while I'd still argue decrypting, say, Widevine L3 is not exactly super common knowledge, decrypting things like 4K Netflix content, among other things, generally requires you to have something like a Widevine L1 CDM from one of the Netflix-approved devices, which typically sits in those hardware trusted execution environments, so you need an active valuable exploit or insider leaks from someone at one of the manufacturers.
But also on top of all of that, you also need to hope other people kept the upload alive by the time you decide to access it, and then you also often need to have access to various semi-elitist private trackers to consistently be able to even find some of this stuff.
The legal issues with DRM here are hardly exclusive to Netflix and other streaming services, but at least in the case of things like Blu-rays or whatever — even if it is technically illegal in most countries to actually make use of virtually any backed-up disc due to AACS — you usually don't have the same time-pressure problem nor the significant technical expertise barrier.
>If streaming services like Netflix are harmful then we should avoid using them. Thus it should not be important for our freedom-preserving computers to be able to access Netflix.
I generally do avoid them whenever possible, though, yes. And I've explicitly disabled DRM support in Firefox on my computer. But I am just one person and I don't think my behavior reflects the average person, for better or for worse.
ranyume · 4h ago
There exist dozens of online services where you can store your photos, doesn't mean companies should be allowed to do whatever they want with your photos...
zeroCalories · 4h ago
TBH I don't care if Netflix wants to abuse such an asymmetry. I don't need Netflix in my life, so I'll just cancel my subscription(already have). I honestly don't want my lawmakers to spend even a second thinking about Netflix when we have so many large issues in the world right now. If we were talking about something like financial services where I have to engage I would be more sympathetic.
MangoToupe · 4h ago
Capital doesn't really care what you want, it will exert control regardless. So in this case Netflix will continue to be part of capital that normalizes the need for DRM to access videos, write IP law, and generally force you into either accepting the world they want or forcing you to become a hermit.
Edit: i mean to say this is true whether or not you've even heard of the company.
zeroCalories · 3h ago
Well then I will get mad when that actually happens. Until then don't care.
makeitdouble · 2h ago
The whole notion of DRM and penalties if you circumvent it comes from the entertainment industry, and it's written into law/official treaties. This already affects everything from secure boot to HDMI standards.
MangoToupe · 1h ago
Which part of what I said do you think hasn't already happened and metastasized?
ekianjo · 3h ago
For Netflix sure. I don't care. But when it comes to banking and you are forced to use between two OS or this means no access to your bank digitally, this is a massive problem and restriction to citizens' freedom. Everyone needs a bank to operate, and they need to maximize the options available to use them.
2rsf · 2h ago
I mentioned that in another thread, but banks have a legal obligation to to assess and mitigate risks in the service they give to you- you, personally, might be tech savvy enough to understand what you are doing but most people are not and the bank is held accountable when something bad happens.
This is why they limit service to certain devices or OS versions, even when it comes at the expense of convenience.
beeflet · 2h ago
Perhaps the solution then is to invent a new bank that is more resistant to regulation and gives users more freedom to secure their own funds.
tonyhart7 · 2h ago
well no one to force you to do banking from smartphones
You can do manually like the old days, EXPLICTLY ALLOWING NON GOOGLE/APPLE to do banking in their own mobile phone meaning THERE ARE MILLIONS OF USERS that can fall victim to scammer+cracker
how cant you see all of that???? ITS JUST NOT ABOUT YOU
edit: please educate first, y'all need to know differences between mobile banking and internet banking
You can downvote me all you want, but I don't want to hear lecture from non-security compliant engineer about what to do about security
onion2k · 2h ago
Locking down a website to only be available to users on Apple and Windows doesn't make it safer. It just reduces the cost of building it because you don't have to bother testing it on any other platforms. Rather than tell users "Danger, we haven't tested your choice of OS" companies prefer to lock it down.
Users on Apple and Windows are not safer because a bank has chosen to block Linux.
tonyhart7 · 2h ago
ITS NOTHING TO DO WITH WEBSITE
internet banking via browser has been OS agnostic way before mobile banking exist
please educate/research what is mobile banking before making an literally false argument that is not about mobile banking
trinix912 · 1h ago
Until they decide to force you to use the mobile app as a 2FA for the website. My bank did that, I literally had to buy a new phone because the old one couldn't update their stupid app. It locks you in to the latest N versions of Android/iOS.
Before you ask, no, other banks aren't any better where I live. They all stopped using physical 2FA keys years ago. And no, they won't let you come in physically for things that can be done online.
hdgvhicv · 2h ago
My bank lets me do everything just fine on Firefox/linux.
tonyhart7 · 2h ago
its not mobile banking if you use browser
its just browser/internet banking
also mobile banking has much more capabilites in forms of app than just "web page"
trinix912 · 1h ago
For now, until they come up with some stupid 2FA solution that requires installing and updating their Android/iOS app. Banks where I live already have and there's literally no way around it (they don't use physical 2FA keys anymore).
chairmansteve · 3h ago
A non libertarian might ask: Is it good for society?
pishpash · 3h ago
It's sort of antitrust adjacent. They are big enough to set market rules on the manner of distribution, like DRM and hardware-software lock-in, which doesn't directly stifle competition in their field (only a little) but in another field, and the results are arguably anti-consumer. That sort of power should not be in the hands of a single company.
ls612 · 4h ago
I mean you’re right but it seems like the equilibrium we’re heading towards is one where the opposite is true and our internet and society looks more like China’s. Principles unfortunately mean little in the face of societal and technological change, the only thing that matters is the resulting incentives.
idle_zealot · 7h ago
This makes the point that the real battle we should be fighting is not for control of Android/iOS, but the ability to run other operating systems on phones. That would be great, but as the author acknowledges, building those alternatives is basically impossible. Even assuming that building a solid alternative is feasible, though, I don't think their point stands. Generally I'm not keen on legislatively forcing a developer to alter their software, but let's be real: Google and Apple have more power than most nations. I'm all for mandating that they change their code to be less user-hostile, for the same reason I prefer democracy to autocracy. Any party with power enough to impact millions of lives needs to be accountable to those it affects. I don't see the point of distinguishing between government and private corporation when that corporation is on the same scale of power and influence.
SilverElfin · 5h ago
> Google and Apple have more power than most nations.
Yep. They control our information - how we make it, what we are allowed to find, and what we can say. And they are large enough to not face real competition. So let’s treat them like the state owned corporations they are and regulate heavily. Smaller companies can be left unregulated. But not companies worth 500 billion or more.
makeitdouble · 4h ago
> Google and Apple have more power than most nations.
To push further, Google and Apple have basically as much power as the US.
The UK going after Apple, only to get rebutted by the US is the most simple instance of it. International treaties pushed by the US strongly protecting it's top corporations is the more standard behavior.
Any entity fighting the duopoly is effectively getting into a fight with the US.
throwaway31131 · 4h ago
> To push further, Google and Apple have basically as much power as the US.
If this is true then why is Tim Cook visiting Trump? Shouldn’t it be the other way around.
makeitdouble · 3h ago
The power dynamic between the gifter and the giftee isn't that simple. Even bribes dynamics will change a lot depending on who does it and to which amount.
There is a whole antropologic field around that, but to keep it short, if you pay your palace and all expenses with the money funneled to you as gifts, you're not the one in control.
CGP Grey's "The Rules for Rulers" (on YouTube) may also be relevant here.
GeekyBear · 3h ago
The real battle is over Google selling the public on the notion that Android would be the "open" platform that allowed people to run anything they liked on their device, and then deciding to use anticompetitive means to take that freedom away.
Without that fraudulent marketing, Android never would have crowded out other options so quickly in the marketplace.
The solution is to either have Google back down on breaking its promise that Android would be open or to have an antitrust lawsuit strip Android from Google's control.
Aachen · 37m ago
What worries me is that Google has a fairly legit argument to say "then Apple should as well". But we've accepted Apple's status for so long now, a lot of consumers are stockholmed into thinking giving away control is the only way to have a good phone (evidence: see any thread discussing that maybe Apple should allow other vendors to also use their smartwatch hardware to offer services in non-smartwatch-hardware markets that Apple also offers services in. Half the users seem like they're brainwashed by the marketing material they put out). I don't know that we can convince the general public anymore that 1984 is bad (thinking of Apple's own 1984 ad, specifically) and, without general public, there can theoretically also not be political will
I was part of this problem. I've accepted what Apple is doing because I had Android. I didn't think they'd come for me next so I didn't speak up
jacquesm · 5h ago
> Google and Apple have more power than most nations.
And that is what is wrong here. Even the smallest nation should be far more powerful than the largest corporation. But corporations are now more powerful than most nations, including some really big ones. So the only way to solve this is to for an umbrella for nations that offsets the power that these corporations have.
The first thing you notice when you arrive at Brussels airport is the absolute barrage of Google advertising that tries to convince you that Google is doing everything they can to play by the rules. When it is of course doing the exact opposite. So at least Google seems to realize that smaller nations banding together wield power. But they will never wield it as effectively as a company can, so we still have many problems.
vbezhenar · 2h ago
These are basics of capitalism.
Company aims for profit.
Bigger scale allows for better efficiency.
So companies naturally grow big. The bigger they are, the easier for them to compete.
Big companies have access to tremendous resources, so they can push laws by bribing law makers, advertising their agenda to the masses.
There's no way around it, not without dismantling capitalism. Nations will serve to the corporations, no other way around.
There are natural boundaries of the growth scale, which are related to the inherent efficiency of communications between people and overall human capability. Corporations are controlled by people and people have limited brains and mouths. I feel that with AI development, those boundaries will move apart and allow for even greater growth eventually.
ghosty141 · 1h ago
> There's no way around it
Yes there is, the population passing laws to regulate this. The problem is though, that most people don't understand and don't care enough until its too late.
BrenBarn · 3h ago
Well, an umbrella for nations or a sledgehammer for companies. I'd say just start shredding large companies left and right.
lukan · 5h ago
"And that is what is wrong here. Even the smallest nation should be far more powerful than the largest corporation"
Since nations can be really small, I don't agree.
cyphar · 3h ago
Even the smallest nations have the legal right to permanently incarcerate, strip you of your assets or even murder you if you are in their sphere of influence. I would hope you'd agree those are not powers that we should grant to large corporations...
I think it's shocking how many people Google can affect through its search algorithms (more than any nation on Earth) and yet there is no democratic system to hold them accountable.
fluoridation · 2h ago
>Even the smallest nations have the legal right to permanently incarcerate, strip you of your assets or even murder you if you are in their sphere of influence.
A nation that did that would be able to do that exactly once before everyone decides to never do business with it ever again, which they can afford to do because it's such a small market. Exercising arbitrary power is not the trump card you think it is. Hell, even a tiny nation with reasonable but annoying (from the point of view of a corporation) laws may not be worth it to deal with.
jacquesm · 1h ago
Singapore.
yardstick · 2h ago
Kill, not murder. If the country ends your life they are doing it under their authority, not outside their authority.
pharrington · 5h ago
This was my first thought too, but the largest corporations are way too large any healthy society.
wisty · 6h ago
Remember, the law provides patent, copyright, trade mark, and NDA protection.
While it would be a burden to require a degree of openness, it's not like companies are all rugged individualists who would never want to see legal restrictions in the field.
It's just a question of what is overall best and fairest.
Restrictions can both help and hinder innovation, and it's innovation that in the ling run makes things improve IMO.
ethersteeds · 2h ago
> It's just a question of what is overall best and fairest.
If only it were so. But it's not just that. It's also a question of which section of society has the power to demand or prevent the creation of such a system.
Whether enacting labor protections or the Magna Carta, these beneficial restrictions require some leverage. Otherwise what is overall beat and fairest won't be coming up.
ranyume · 4h ago
>Restrictions can both help and hinder innovation
I'm not sure innovation is really impacted when restricting the private sector. Traditionally, innovation happens in public (e.g, universities) or military spaces.
throw10920 · 3h ago
This is extremely dubious. There are hundreds (thousands?) of examples of innovation happening in the private sector - I could name the blue LED off the top of my head, and got personal computers, search engines, smartphones, cloud computing, and integrated circuits with less than a minute of searching.
vbezhenar · 3h ago
> ability to run other operating systems on phones
> building those alternatives is basically impossible
For smart people it is not impossible. Just few years ago, few folks wrote complicated drivers for completely closed hardware, and I'm talking about M1 Macbook.
Google Pixel, on the other hand, was pretty open until very recently. I might be wrong about specifics, but I'm pretty sure that most of software was open, so you could just look at the kernel sources in the readable C to look for anything. You can literally build this kernel and run linux userspace and go from there to any lengths of development. Or you can build alternative systems, looking at driver sources.
I don't understand why mobile systems do not attract OS builders.
fluoridation · 2h ago
>I don't understand why mobile systems do not attract OS builders.
My guess would be that it's a continuously moving target. There's no point in spending years working to support some weird integrated wifi adapter+battery controller when by the time you're done the hardware is already obsolete and no longer being manufactured. Repeat that for every device on the phone. The only ones who can keep up with that pace are the manufacturers themselves. It'd be different if there was some kind of standardization that would make the effort worthwhile, though.
bee_rider · 2h ago
> I don't understand why mobile systems do not attract OS builders.
Cellphones are not very useful as programming tools (too small), which is what Open Source excels at.
Also, cellphones need to handle some annoying things, like it should always be possible and easy to call emergency services. Which is to say, the UI work seems stressful.
beeflet · 2h ago
With the right trusted computing modules, it will be impossible. As far as I am concerned, the asahi developers are building on a foundation of sand because Apple could just lock down the bootloader for the iMac laptops or whatever next generation
yardstick · 2h ago
I’m fairly sure the modem firmware on the Pixels was never open. There’s some hardware that will never have open firmware to it. Especially when that firmware deals with regulated airwaves like cell signals.
vbezhenar · 2h ago
My laptop has plenty of chips with closed firmware. They matter not. Open hardware is a noble goal, but open software is enough. Firmware is part of hardware block, so having open operating system, which sends blobs into some devices for initialisation is perfectly acceptable compromise.
1vuio0pswjnm7 · 5h ago
"This makes the point that the real battle we should be fighting is not for control of Android/iOS, but the ability to run other operating systems on phones."
Sometimes owner control, cf. corporate control, can be had by sacrificing hardware functionality, i.e., features, closed source drivers. Choice between particular hardware feature(s) working and control over the hardware in general.
1vuio0pswjnm7 · 3h ago
Have at least two phones. One with corporate OS for banking, commerce. Another with user-chosen OS for experimentation, able to boot from external media.
colordrops · 4h ago
Yes but in the phone space the sacrifice is too much. You often times forgo the ability to even participate in many aspects of society, e.g. banking. It's not your typical "rough around the edges open source alternative", it's just not even a comparison.
yardstick · 2h ago
Can’t you do banking on the web via your phone? Same as desktop users?
narrator · 3h ago
Well there's Huawei's Harmony OS. Can someone who knows what's going on with that report in? Is it anything close to an open platform?
blackoil · 3h ago
It is also equally closed, so not the champion you are looking for. It could still be a major player breaking the duopoly.
bsder · 7h ago
The primary problem is that we can't build a phone and run it on a cellular carrier network. This is where legislation is needed.
Apple and Google are still a problem, but they are a secondary problem.
ACCount37 · 6h ago
You kind of can? The carrier network has no way to verify that your cellular modem is a real modem made by a real modem company, and not 3 SDRs in a trench coat standing on the top of each other.
The sheer technical difficulty is what makes this kind of thing impractical.
The network does validate that a SIM card is a real SIM card, but you can put a "real SIM card" in anything.
SchemaLoad · 5h ago
Yeah pretty much. I don't disagree on principal that people should be able to install a custom OS on their device. But in practical terms it doesn't really matter all that much because hardware is so complex and moves so fast that no hobbyist has even close to the time and resources to develop a custom OS for the latest phones.
The M1 Macbook Air is 5 years old now, has an active development, lots of community funding and attention, yet is still missing basic functionality like external monitors and video decoding. Because it's just a mammoth task to support modern hardware. Unless you have a whole paid team on it you've got no hope.
ranger_danger · 5h ago
IMEI whitelisting is common in the US at least... I think this shuts down the trench coat idea.
idiotsecant · 4h ago
Oh no, you'd have to spoof an IMEI, if only that wasn't completely impossible!!
dwattttt · 6h ago
You'll run into a variant of the tragedy of the commons; without any kind of regulation or provable assertions from people taking part in common communication infrastructure, it'd be quite easy to ruin it for everyone.
bsder · 6h ago
You don't need to allow completely unrestricted access to the network. However, there needs to be a process with a defined cost to certify your hardware. The cost can be expensive and time consuming but it needs to be known and published and the cellular companies need to be held to it.
The problem right now is that even if I had a couple of million dollars lying around, I STILL couldn't reliably get a piece of hardware certified for the cellular network. I would have to set up a company, spend untold amounts of money bribing^Wwooing cellular company executives for a couple years, and, maybe, just maybe, I could get my phone through the certification process.
The technical aspects of certification are the easy part.
The problem is that the cellular companies fully understand that when it happens their power goes to zero because they suddenly become a dumb pipe that everybody just wants to ignore.
That's why this will take legislation.
fijiaarone · 5h ago
Monopolists always talk about the tragedy of the commons, but don’t see anything wrong with the tragedy of the monopoly and don’t want you to think anything can exist in between.
SilverElfin · 5h ago
But how do we start a movement for these ideas? I feel like there isn’t awareness outside of niche circles and the public may not see the short term benefit. Meanwhile politicians are lobbied by the same corporations and won’t listen.
immibis · 5h ago
I don't think the cellular network is the problem at all - everything except SMS and PSTN calls works on wifi. The problem is the apps. Netflix only runs on a verified bona fide electrified six car Google- or Apple-approved device; so do most financial apps (EU law requires them to) and basically everything else where the app developers are trying to get money off you (which is most apps). Some apps will refuse to play ads on a non-genuine device and then refuse to function because you aren't watching ads. Play Store does its best to stop you installing its apps on a nongenuine device, but it has to support older devices without TPMs so it's not fully locked down yet. Even YouTube has some level of attestation.
rs186 · 4h ago
In the US at least, you could already have a lot of trouble with Wi-Fi calling when using unlocked Android phones. And it is basically nonexistent if you use a phone purchased outsiden US.
protocolture · 3h ago
> let's be real: Google and Apple have more power than most nations.
Lets be real, they do not have more power than any nations. They have a lot of power in a few tiny silos that happen to make up like 90% of the mental space of a lot of terminally online folk.
Heck they probably have less power than Coca Cola or Pepsi did during the Cola wars, or United Fruit Company at its height.
Wake me up when Apple rolls a tank into red square or Google does anything but complain about national security legislation it then goes and assertively complies with.
nialse · 2h ago
There are power rankings where these top companies are considered more influential than many nations.
EDIT: Now in plain text since the last URL does not show up otherwise. And why is it rendering with --, its only - in the URL?
AtlasBarfed · 6h ago
This is one of the real canaries I watch on "real AI" for programming.
It should be able to make an OS. It should be able to write drivers. It should be able to port code to new platforms. It should be able to transpile compiled binaries (which are just languages of a different language) across architectures.
Sure seems we are very far from that, but really these are breadth-based knowledge with extensive examples / training sources. It SHOULD be something LLMs are good at, not new/novel/deep/difficult problems. What I described are labor-intensive and complicated, but not "difficult".
And would any corporate AI allow that?
We should be pretty paranoid about centralized control attempts, especially in tech. This is a ... fragile ... time.
ACCount37 · 6h ago
AI kicks ass at a lot of "routine reverse engineering" tasks already.
You can feed it assembly listings, or bytecode that the decompiler couldn't handle, and get back solid results.
And corporate AIs don't really have a fuck to give, at least not yet. You can sic Claude on obvious decompiler outputs, or a repo of questionable sources with a "VERY BIG CORPO - PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL" in every single file, and it'll sift through it - no complaints, no questions asked. And if that data somehow circles back into the training eventually, then all the funnier.
AtlasBarfed · 4h ago
That's one of the boil-ups. Why would lack of Linux compatibility for hardware be a thing? If AI can write the drivers in 1/10th the effort/time, it should be a game changer for open source.
I haven't heard much from the major projects yet, but I'm not ear-to-the-ground.
I guess that is what is disappointing. It's all (to quote n-gage) webshit you see being used for this, and corpo-code so far, to your point.
ACCount37 · 4h ago
AI can't write full drivers, and certainly not to mainline Linux quality. But it does make "take apart a proprietary driver to figure out how it works" much easier.
beeflet · 2h ago
>It should be able to make an OS. It should be able to write drivers.
How is it going to do that without testing (and potentially bricking) hardware in real life?
>It should be able to transpile compiled binaries (which are just languages of a different language) across architectures
I don't know why you would use an LLM to do that. Couldn't you just distribute the binaries in some intermediate format, or decompile them to a comprehensible source format first?
hnuser123456 · 7h ago
GrapheneOS?
jetbalsa · 6h ago
Only runs on a handful of hardware, and still uses the binblobs from google for the hardware devices.
SlowTao · 5h ago
That is a fair point, this is a similar issue that Libre-boot went through a few years back. Yes, you try to stick clear of binary blobs as much as possible but at a certain point you just run out of hardware that meets that criteria.
tzury · 6h ago
We 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 should not expect manufacturers of phones and tablets to allow anyone to run any code on every device, since this will cause harm to many users.
There should be more open and hackable products available in the market. The DIY mindset at the junction of hardware and software is crucial for tech innovation - we wouldn't be where we are today without it. However, I also want regulations and restrictions on the phones I buy for my kids and grandparents. They need protection from themselves and from bad actors.
The market should serve both groups: those who want to tinker and innovate, and those who need a safe, managed experience. The problem isn't that locked-down devices exist - it's that we don't have enough truly open alternatives for those who want them.
mjevans · 5h ago
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 or the URL the user typed in...)
There should also be a reset option, which might involve a jumper or physical key (E.G. clear CMOS) that factory resets any TPM / persistent storage. Yes it'd nuke everything in the enclave but it would release the hardware.
maxwelljxyz · 4h ago
I like the way Chromebooks do things, initially locking down the hardware but allowing you to do whatever if you intentionally know what you're doing (after wiping the device for security reasons). It's a pity that there's all the Google tracking in them that's near impossible to delete (unless you remove Chrome OS).
Krssst · 33m ago
I wonder if full device wipe would be the solution to "annoying enough that regular users don't do it even when asked by a scam, but power users can and will definitely use it".
judge2020 · 5h ago
Consider the possibility of an evil maid type attack before a device is setup for the first time, e.g. running near identical iOS or macOS but with spyware preloaded, or even just adware.
shakna · 4h ago
We already have that today. And locked down systems don't prevent it, because you can always exploit some part of the supply chain. A determined actor will always find a path.
judge2020 · 4h ago
Right now you'd need a zero-day bootrom exploit to do something like this - still a possibility for the average high-level intelligence operative, but not the average white collar citizen. The proposal is making such a thing a feature.
shakna · 3h ago
Stuxnet did not require a bootrom zero day. Just people's propensity to plug in USB devices out of curiosity.
You don't need the NSA to target someone and replace their device with a malware driven one. Just a porch pirate and your own delivery - two to three years and you're almost guaranteed an attack window.
cyberax · 4h ago
This can be fixed by adding some user-controlled "fuse". For example, with a TPM you will lose access to stored keys if the boot sequence is modified.
echelon · 5h ago
This.
We need a mobile bill of rights for this stuff.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should not be owned by companies after purchase.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should not have transactions be taxed by the companies that make them, nor have their activities monitored by the companies that make them. (Gaming consoles are very different than devices we use to do banking and read menus at restaurants.)
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should not enforce rules for downstream software apart from heuristic scanning for viruses/abuse and strong security/permissions sandboxing that the user themselves controls.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should be strictly regulated by governments all around the world to ensure citizens and businesses cannot be strong-armed.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should be a burden for the limited few companies that gate keep them.
flomo · 5h ago
Keep in mind one of these third parties would almost certainly be Meta (because users want their stuff), and that would almost certainly be a privacy downgrade.
echelon · 5h ago
Freedom > Privacy > Security
Never give up your freedom.
If you have to give up your privacy to ensure your freedom, so be it.
If you have to give up your security to ensure your privacy, so be it.
This goes for governments and phones.
flomo · 4h ago
Always fun to interact with some internet Thomas Jefferson giving freedom speeches from his mother's basement.
Reality is that people pay a lot of money because they 'trust' Apple (and to a lesser extent Google), but Meta is the sleaziest one of them all. (And I don't use their shit either.) But people want Whatapp and Instagram, and so you are telling them now they have sell-out and go to the "Meta App Store" to talk to their friends. That fucking sucks. And I think you agree with that.
echelon · 3h ago
And yet you're apparently not losing your mind over Mark Zuckerberg having his products on the web? He's doing everything you claim on the open web - third party trackers embedded on other websites, etc. Do you want to lock down the web?
I think you have a reason for defending Apple. Maybe you love the company, maybe you've got their stock, maybe you've worked for them.
Apple is a trillion dollar behemoth that has distorted the market and removed freedom and choice. They're a menace that needs to be regulated. Period.
I also think Zuckerberg's tracking needs to be regulated, but that's a battle for another day. It's one we haven't so egregiously lost yet.
People don't need Meta. People need smartphones. And smartphones are draconian dictatorships that the government has been too asleep and too lax to regulate.
judge2020 · 5h ago
> This goes for governments and phones.
Apple does not have the ability to throw me in prison or take away my freedoms. Only to not grant me extra freedoms subsidized by their R&D budget.
echelon · 5h ago
Apple has removed your freedom from day one.
Their R&D budget is at the expense of a free market that would have delivered the same or better products.
Did you ever see how wild and innovative the Japanese mobile phones were before iPhone monoculture took over?
I want crazy stuff like a smartphone that has the form factor of a Raspberry Pi. Or a smartphone with e-Ink. Crazy new categories of devices.
Sadly, the Apple/Google monopoly has turned smartphones into one of the shittiest, most locked down device categories. It's a death place for innovation.
JSR_FDED · 4h ago
Nobody is forcing you to buy their products, so they haven’t taken away anything from you.
If you do decide to buy their products, nothing has changed since the day of your purchase, so they haven’t taken away anything from you.
Their “monoculture” didn’t “take hold” - it beat the Japanese offerings through innovation and a better product.
They operate in a free market, their R&D budget is made possible by their market success. If things change in the market (e.g. AI) the market will vote the way it always does.
echelon · 4h ago
The market has forced us all to buy Apple or Google. There is not a vibrant field of alternatives, and there is certainly a desert of hobbyist tech.
The market is now so depressed that everyone has to jump through these companies' hoops to participate in the most important computing form factor in the world.
Don't apologize for trillion dollar hyperscalers. They don't need your love, adoration, or apology. They do not care about you at all.
Too much power has accrued to these two and it's being leveraged against all of society and the open market. Competition is supposed to be difficult, ruthless, challenging, and frenetic. I see two companies resting on their laurels that are happy to tax us into the next century while we wear their little straightjackets.
Gud · 3h ago
Do you honestly believe "a free market" would only produce two alternatives?
In that case, the free market sucks and I want government intervention.
Ygg2 · 2h ago
> Do you honestly believe "a free market" would only produce two alternatives
No. A free market will eventually produce a single monopolistic winner.
If you have ability to buy your competition, and most of people consider it a job and not some religious calling, monopoly is the most logical outcome.
Same way a black hole is the most logical outcome of gravity.
kg · 4h ago
Technically for US residents Apple can throw you in prison for attempting to maintain and use your freedoms, thanks to the anti-circumvention parts of the DMCA.
Barbing · 5h ago
>big scary message
Open question:
Any idea on making it so difficult that grandma isn't even able to follow a phisher’s instructions over the phone but yet nearly trivial for anyone who knows what they’re doing?
AnthonyMouse · 5h ago
Sure. You ship the device in open mode, and then doing it is easy. The device supports closed mode (i.e. whatever the currently configured package installation sources are, you can no longer add more), and if you put the device in closed mode, getting it back out requires attaching a debugger to the USB port, a big scary message and confirmation on the phone screen itself, and a full device wipe.
Then you put grandma's device in closed mode and explicitly tell her never to do the scary thing that takes it back out again and call you immediately if anyone asks her to. Or, for someone who is not competent to follow that simple instruction (e.g. small children or senile adults), you make the factory reset require a password and then don't give it to them.
Barbing · 5h ago
Very nice!
I’m sure I’m missing a problem with the following approach: shipping in _closed_ mode with a sticker on the front notifying the person they should do a factory reset immediately to make sure they can do everything they want to do. During the reset, include a scary message for those who opt in to get to open mode.
Everyone simply goes by defaults so it would only be technical people presumably who would even get into the open mode in the first place. And then require the debugger to leave closed mode like you said.
Edit: this comment worries about solo/asocial/“orphaned” members of our society
AnthonyMouse · 4h ago
The problem with that is the owner has to choose which package sources they want to allow before the device is in closed mode, because after that adding more requires the scary reset, and the vendor of course has the perverse incentive to ship the device in closed mode with only their own store enabled, which has to be prohibited because it's anti-competitive.
XorNot · 5h ago
Fix the phone system so calls must positively identify themselves.
There is no reason anyone purporting to be from a business or the government should be able to place a call without cryptographically proving their identity.
Barbing · 5h ago
I like that! I’m sure it would take a little bit of time for folks to stop trusting calls from personal numbers where highly-capable social engineers do their best work, but eventually I expect nearly all of us would learn the lesson.
And presumably we could set up notifications so our elderly relatives’ phones would alert us to calls from unverified numbers not in their contact list lasting longer than a minute or two.
immibis · 5h ago
Stop gatekeeping actually useful apps. Nobody should never need to see the message to do anything they actually want to do, otherwise it leads to normalization of deviance.
False positives from PC virus scanners are very rare.
Barbing · 5h ago
Interesting, mind elaborating a bit/clarifying the first couple of sentences there? A point I’d like to understand
hobs · 5h ago
What are you on about? The last 10 years of computing the only time windows defender pinged was on false positives.
paulryanrogers · 6h ago
I'd argue that even the 'safe' devices should at least be open enough to delegate trust to someone besides the original manufacturer. Otherwise it just becomes ewaste once the manufacturer stops support. (Too often they ship vulnerable and outdated software then never fix it.)
Almondsetat · 5h ago
If the user cannot be trusted to maintain the hardware and software, then the only responsible thing is to rely on the manufacturer to do so. In those cases, if the support is dropped you buy the newest device.
nickthegreek · 5h ago
Paul knows that. He is arguing for a different future. google is about to remove my ability to remotely control my thermostat. Not even local control. Imagine a world where they would have to choose between continued device support or unlocking… or maybe just building out the local control and cleaning their hands of it. Having corpos as the arbiter of a consumers buying schedule and creating unnecessary easter is pretty undesirable.
chrisweekly · 5h ago
easter?
anonym29 · 5h ago
I'm guessing autocorrect for e-waste / ewaste
mitthrowaway2 · 5h ago
What if that is the newest device?
Almondsetat · 3h ago
What if the only hospice in town closes down and your grandma is there? What if Mozilla or Linux die out and the only browsers/OSs that remain are proprietary? You find alternatives or make do, like all aspects of life.
You can't expect services and organizations to last forever, there is always some risk they'll collapse when you are around.
mitthrowaway2 · 3h ago
But is it too much to ask to at least let me get my grandma back out of the hospice? Don't just lock all the doors and put up a sign saying "Thanks for your loyal business, it's been an amazing journey". And if I'm the one who owns the building and you were just staffing it, then I'd appreciate having the door keys back as well, please!
pishpash · 3h ago
Did they ask? Some users can be trusted. Is there even a certification program?
No comments yet
AnthonyMouse · 5h ago
> The problem isn't that locked-down devices exist - it's that we don't have enough truly open alternatives for those who want them.
The problems is that vendors use "locked down devices" as an excuse to limit competition.
Suppose you have a "locked down" device that can only install apps from official sources, but "official sources" means Apple, Google, Samsung or Amazon. Moreover, you can disable any of these if you want to (requiring a factory reset to re-enable), but Google or Apple can't unilaterally insist that you can't use Amazon, or for that matter F-Droid etc.
Let the owner of the device lock it down as much as they want. Do not let the vendor do this when the owner doesn't want it.
koolala · 5h ago
On Steam Deck, you never even have to set a 'sudo' password. You can have a safe managed experience and still allow a device to be open. Option 2 is ridiculous because it will just be exploited by companies and governments that want to control what you do or what content you see.
Liftyee · 1h ago
Regardless of whether we expect manufacturers to let us run any code on the device, we should not restrict people from attempting to bypass the manufacturers limitations. That gives the manufacturer freedom to try and lock the device down but also the owner freedom to break those locks. Otherwise it worsens situations like the FutureHome scandal.
throwaway31131 · 4h ago
> The problem isn't that locked-down devices exist - it's that we don't have enough truly open alternatives for those who want them.
Plenty of companies have attempted this over the years but it’s not obvious that a big enough customer base exists to support the tremendous number of engineering hours it takes to make a phone. Making a decent smart phone is really hard. And the operations needed to support production isn’t cheap either.
llukas · 4h ago
Government maybe rather than legislating big companies stores could not back up smaller open HW/SW vendors? It seems we gave up increasing competition on HW and what is left is app store level...
qmr · 5h ago
You're wrong.
My hardware. My decision.
makeitdouble · 4h ago
I don't think it will convince you in any way, but the whole point is/will be that it's not your hardware, you're paying for a perpetual license to use a terminal bound to someone else's service.
beeflet · 1h ago
Do we need the second option to exist? The world is dangerous place. If you can't figure out a computer perhaps you're just unfit to participate in the modern economy.
The existence of locked-down hardware eliminates the feasibility of open hardware through network effects. That is what is happening now.
Jolter · 1h ago
You realize you’re discounting 98% of the world’s population, right?
beeflet · 1h ago
I think that the majority of the population can figure out how to stop installing software from untrustworthy sources, seeing as that was pretty much the norm 20 years ago.
Everyone else can put on their loincloths and go back to living in flinstones-esque rock huts.
fragmede · 16m ago
I think you just made up that number.
johncolanduoni · 3h ago
Open and hackable products have a niche user base, so these users get a niche set of options. The only way to get mainstream products to play to this tiny user base is to demand that all products be open and hackable by fiat. Otherwise, there’s no incentive from anybody involved (manufacturers, app developers, etc.) to give them something that can run both their banking app and some open source app they compiled themselves. There’s a lot of dancing around the security effects this will have on “normies”, and although there are plenty of armchair proposals I haven’t heard one that doesn’t obviously degrade into some sort of alarm fatigue as both legitimate apps and malware tell you to click though a dialog or flip a setting.
josephcsible · 4h ago
No, we need to only have option 1, because if option 2 exists, things like banking apps will all only run on it and will refuse to work on option 1.
throwaway22032 · 5h ago
The issue with this is that inevitably the locked down devices, which will end up being 98%+ of the market, become required for ordinary living, because no-one will develop for the 2%.
Open hardware is essentially useless if I need to carry both an open phone and a phone with the parking app, the banking app, messenger app to contact friends, etc.
charcircuit · 5h ago
For security reasons it makes sense for them to be different devices. People and services may not want to allow insecure devices to communicate with them.
immibis · 5h ago
Why? It's not like the insecure device doesn't have my identity key on it. If I program it to spam people, I go to jail for spamming.
jen20 · 4h ago
If only you went to jail for spamming.
charcircuit · 5h ago
It would be easier to spoof such identities and some services may not want to deal with the overhead of using the legal system. Spammers today already can be taken to court, but in practice people don't do that.
fellowmartian · 5h ago
I think this is a false dichotomy. Open hardware with open source software would be more protected simply by being more stress tested and vetted by more people. If you need even more protection you can employ zero-knowledge proofs and other trustless technologies. I have long been dreaming about some kind of hardware/software co-op creating non-enshittifying versions of thermostats, electric kettles, EV chargers, solar inverters, etc, etc. Hackable for people who want it, simply non-rent-seeking for everyone else.
johncolanduoni · 3h ago
The issue here is rarely whether the security features themselves are circumventable. It’s that at some point this turns into trusting users not to give malware apps permissions (whether that’s a dialog, a system wide setting, adding a third-party app store, etc.). Almost no users can usefully evaluate whether a particular bit of digital trust is a good or bad idea, so people will constantly get scammed in practice. If you’re thinking about ZNP as a solution, you’re not trying to solve the actual security problems of normal users.
beeflet · 1h ago
I think normal users will figure it out if you give them a couple of generations
positron26 · 5h ago
> more stress tested and vetted by more people
Grandma and grandpa aren't reading the source code and certainly not up at a professional level. This is one of the core misconceptions of the "free/libre" formulation of OSS.
nik282000 · 4h ago
> Grandma and grandpa aren't reading the source code and certainly not up at a professional level.
This is one of the core misconceptions of the anti "free/libre" formulation of OSS. Most users don't need to read the entire Debian source to know that it is safe to use. You are free to look up who maintains any part of the project and look at the history of changes that have been made. A lot of projects have nice, easy to read notes along with the actual code.
If you are so paranoid that you can't even trust open release notes then why would you trust a closed project at all?
positron26 · 3h ago
> A lot of projects have nice, easy to read notes along with the actual code
This alone doesn't improve the quality of the source.
> Paranoid
Nothing to do with it. Please be logical. Having millions of people who can't program trust maintainers doesn't make those maintainers do better work.
The whole idea of more eyeballs is an appeal to a vision of crowdsourcing that was a new idea in the early internet. What we found out is that complacency sets in, the notes eventually don't mean anything, and most source code is not read.
This vision of more programmers spending more time reading other people's programs is wholly born from within programmer communities, from programmers talking to other programmers, forgetting that the average user will never program and not because they lack access. It's a romanticized ideal that is only even a plausible idea in a room full of programmers.
Until you focus on how the non-programmer is going to meaningfully improve the review and production of the open technologies, you will never have a scalable or equitable solution.
beeflet · 1h ago
The non-programmer never going to meaningfully improve the review and production of the open technologies. The solution is to make a society where people are literate in the technology they rely on or suffer otherwise.
fellowmartian · 5h ago
I’m not suggesting grandpa reads code, contributors do. We all know that most commercial code is much shittier than open source. Sure, commercial code usually covers more edge cases and has better UX, but is cobbled together from legacy and random product asks.
positron26 · 5h ago
> contributors do
More users != more contributors. As software gets more popular, you begin getting 10, 100, 1000, 1,000,000 users for every contributor.
This doesn't just affect non-programmers. We can't even police NPM.
People want it to be true so that it will be a talking point, but it's not true, and we need to find new talking points that align with facts that are evident outside the echo chambers.
dismalaf · 4h ago
NPM is... special... It's up to platform owners to set standards and police. NPM's failures have nothing to do with open source as a whole.
jen20 · 5h ago
> We all know that most commercial code is much shittier than open source
Citation needed. Seriously.
rmunn · 4h ago
I'm not the one who made that assertion, but... Windows Millenium Edition almost makes his case all by itself.
jen20 · 4h ago
That makes the case that a _single_ piece of commercial code was shitty.
I could make the same argument about MongoDB of a decade ago implying that all open source is trash...
rmunn · 3h ago
Norton, McAfee, in fact most virus scanners.
Plenty of examples I've heard about but haven't actually used myself so I can't confidently assert the quality of the software. But Windows ME, Norton, and McAfee, I have personal experience with.
Oh, and also Windows Vista.
Plenty of badly-written open source software, too; won't argue against that. But one of the biggest reasons, for me at least, why I prefer to use open-source software rather than commercial if I have a choice is bug fixes. I've reported over a dozen bugs against open-source software I use over the years; most of them have been fixed (in a couple cases I was able to fix it myself). I've rarely even been able to report a bug against closed-source software, let alone get those bugs fixed. So even if if were true that commercial software as a whole has similar or better quality than open-source, my personal experience is the other way around: open-source quality gets better over time while the closed-source software that I have to use (lacking open-source alternatives) doesn't improve the same way.
nik282000 · 1h ago
Windows ME, Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, Adobe PDF Reader, Siemens Step7, Norton, McAffe, the list goes on. If you look at it as a function of terribleness * users then corporate ware takes the cake. There are loads of terrible open projects but nobody uses them.
ranger_danger · 5h ago
> contributors do
I would argue most code of any license is not actually regularly audited if at all, and certainly nowhere near the levels people seem to think they are.
> We all know that most commercial code is much shittier than open source
citation needed
p_ing · 5h ago
> I would argue most code of any license is not actually regularly audited if at all, and certainly nowhere near the levels people seem to think they are.
Every device should run OpenBSD. And only the audited part.
stale2002 · 5h ago
> Locked-down, managed devices for vulnerable users who benefit from protection
Thats fine! Just make sure it is possible for someone to take the same device and remove the locked down protections.
Make it require a difficult/obvious factory reset to enable, if you are concerned about someone being "tricked" into turning off the lockdown.
If someone wants baby mode on, all power too them! Thats their choice. Just like it should be everyone else's choice to own the same hardware and turn it off.
judge2020 · 5h ago
> Make it require a difficult/obvious factory reset to enable, if you are concerned about someone being "tricked" into turning off the lockdown.
Is there also a way to make it obvious to the user that a device is running non-OEM software? For example, imagine someone intercepts a new device parcel, flashes spyware on it, then delivers it in similar/the same packaging unbeknownst to the end user. The same could be said for second-hand/used devices.
It's potentially possible the bootrom/uefi/etc bootup process shows some warning for x seconds on each boot that non-OEM software is loaded, but for that to happen you need to be locked out of being able to flash your own bootrom to the device.
nik282000 · 1h ago
Pixel phones do this. Flashing a non-oem rom causes it to show a very "your device is broken" looking screen every time you boot.
divan · 7h ago
> 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 (having control over how exactly the device I own runs), but I can also see the interests of phone manufacturers — protecting revenue streams, managing liability and regulatory risks, optimizing hardware–software integration, and so on. I don't see how my own interests here outweigh collective interests here.
I also don’t see Apple or Google as merely companies that assemble parts and selling us "hardware". The decades when hardware and software were two disconnected worlds are gone.
Reading technical documentation on things like secure enclaves, UWB chips, computational photography stack, HRTF tuning, unified memory, TrueDepth cameras, AWDL, etc., it feels very wrong to support claims like the OP makes. “Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.
Aerroon · 3h ago
>“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?
divan · 8m ago
Your smartwatch is probably more powerful than some of your past computers too. Same with your DSLR camera. Even your smart fridge. These are specialized hardware+software gadgets designed to a particular purpose, which is very different from being a development platform. Same with a phone.
beeflet · 1h ago
A very profitable instance of market segmentation
saurik · 7h ago
It being difficult is different from it being possible. If a company wants to raise $50m to read all the documentation and build an alternative OS to run on this crazy piece of hardware, as the consumer I still benefit. If you'd prefer, let's stick with repair? I also need all of that information to be able to repair my phone, but again, it wouldn't necessarily be ME who repairs my own phone: I take it to a third-party expert who has built out their own expertise and tools.
(Hell: I'd personally be OK without "documentation"... it should simply be illegal to actively go out of your way to prevent people from doing this. This way you also aren't mandating anyone go to extra effort they otherwise wouldn't bother with: the status quo is that, because they can, they thrown down an incredible amount of effort trying to prevent people from figuring things out themselves, and that really sucks.)
fastball · 6h ago
> $50m to build a modern OS from scratch
heh.
fijiaarone · 5h ago
Nobody would invest $50 million to enter a trillion dollar market.
fluoridation · 2h ago
>I also don’t see Apple or Google as merely companies that assemble parts and selling us "hardware". The decades when hardware and software were two disconnected worlds are gone.
That when you buy a phone you're also buying software components doesn't change the fact that the phone is owned entirely by you. You're not entering into a partnership to co-own the phone with anyone else, it's entirely yours. No one should get to decide how you use it but you.
>But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.
So the argument is that by taking a piece of electronics I paid for that is running on electricity I pay for, and making it run some arbitrary piece of software, I'm putting people's lives at risk?
wkat4242 · 6h ago
> I can acknowledge my own interests here (having control over how exactly the device I own runs), but I can also see the interests of phone manufacturers — protecting revenue streams, managing liability and regulatory risks, optimizing hardware–software integration, and so on. I don't see how my own interests here outweigh collective interests here.
However the interests you mention aren't collective at all but very singularly the ones of the manufacturer only
HDThoreaun · 6h ago
Its only the manufacturers interests because they dont want people to brick their phone on accident. Really theyre only a secondary party of interest, the real interested party is grandma/anyone who can fall victim to malware. Apples decision to ban sideloading is a huge part of how they became the most popular phone maker in the us
wkat4242 · 6h ago
The real interest is their protection of their sweet 30% revenue stream. There are many ways to protect security, leaving all your keys in the hands of one party is not the only one.
And there should also be the right to be able to opt out of the manufacturers' protections of course.
HDThoreaun · 4h ago
Youre not wrong about the real interest but security is another very real one.
> There are many ways to protect security, leaving all your keys in the hands of one party is not the only one.
When youre dealing with idiots its a bit harder than you might expect. Tons of idiots own phones and if apple allowed them to be the victim of security vulnerabilities they get terrible pr.
zapzupnz · 5h ago
> because they dont want people to brick their phone on accident
Or worse, blow them up.
pishpash · 3h ago
That argues for opening up the hardware more, not closing down the software.
In fact it further argues that the degree of vertical integration is monopolistic. Why should a Sony CMOS camera be tied to some Apple computational photography code only available in Apple firmware or iOS? What if I do not like that it makes up images that don't exist? What if someone has a better method but now cannot bring it to market?
Break it up and open it up. I assure you it can be done.
tern · 6h ago
Not to mention, it's an authoritarian attitude, talking about forcing companies to support arbitrary software stacks
jacquesm · 5h ago
That's not what they wrote at all.
tern · 1h ago
> 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
I was writing in reference to this quote ^
It would have been more accurate for me to say "support the development of arbitrary software stacks," but where do you draw the line between "supporting the development of" and "supporting"?
immibis · 5h ago
Is it authoritarian to stop other people from being authoritarians?
tern · 1h ago
If I make a product and I don't specifically help you do certain things with it, is that authoritarian?
Regardless, we're talking about products here—"authoritarian" is a word reserved to situations where the threat of force is involved.
In this specific example, forcing a company to do something is authoritarian (because they will be fined or jailed if they do not comply with the rules). Corporations are not, as a rule, authoritarian—they may, however, do things that are not to your benefit or liking.
sudosysgen · 6h ago
There is already open source software for UWB, computational photography, various depth cameras, direct link WiFi, etc...
Will it be as good as the iOS implementation? Probably not. But it's hardly an impossible fact and not one that has to be done entirely over and over for every device. The Asahi folks showed it could be done despite hostile conditions.
So basically market forces and profit optimization is at work here as always.
However, if we can still unlock the boot loader and install Lineage OS or something like that and have a way to pay for developers to release their apps on stores like f-droid we can use the hardware.
The biggest problem with having freedom to use our devices is that the model is broken for the developers who support them. You "can donate", but from the numbers I've seen it's like 1 in 1000 donate. No pay == developers can't invest their time to improve the software.
So if there is "really" a substantial number of enthusiasts that are ready to pay for the freedom they crave, then companies like Librem will have enough customers to create decent and usable products for this audience. Want digital freedom - prepare to support the people who provide it.
Yes, that might mean that we'll need to have 2 devices, 1 for "banking/government services" that is "certified" and one for our own usage. Shitty but we'll be forced to do that sooner on later. The efficiencies for the government to enforce the policies is so strong that they can't helps themselves. And corporations like to have more data to squeeze every cent from the customer.
So if there is a working business model for "freedom" we might have a partial freedom. If there isn't we'd be just a digital farm animals to be optimized for max profits and max compliance.
Ferret7446 · 7h ago
I think we really need to discuss whether IP/copyright protections were a mistake. A LOT of our "modern" problems stem from IP protections. Whether that be not being able to own media, right to repair, DRM, censorship, a lot of monopolistic behavior, medicine prices, etc. And no wonder, IP protection is government sanctioned monopoly, and it is generally recognized that monopolies are bad; is it such a surprise that government enforced monopolies are bad?
throwaway13337 · 6h ago
Agreed. Monopoly is the killer of the market engine that powers the positive sum society we all benefit from.
Actually enforcing the anti-monopoly rules on the books would help, too.
And while we're making wishes, we could kill the VC-backed tech play by enforcing a digital version of anti-dumping laws.
With those rules in place, we'd see our market engine quite a bit more aligned with the social good.
The protection period simply needs to be adjusted downward to reflect the faster pace of change. Rewarding 1700's technology pace today is asinine.
crazygringo · 5h ago
Not really sure what this has to do with running your own code, though.
If a manufacturer makes a device locked down, it's the technological protections preventing you from running your own code. Not IP/copyright. Sometimes they get jailbroken but sometimes not.
jacquesm · 5h ago
Plenty of barriers around circumventing such obstacles hinge on IP legislation.
keepamovin · 2h ago
The context of "ownership" is more nuanced when it comes to hardware devices - and even software.
What do you think when you say ownership?
I think - "this is totally mine. Nobody else's. I can do with this what I want. It is entirely up to me."
Do you own your passport? In fact, you probably do not. Most passports have a page stating to the effect that "this passport remains the property of <relevant authority>".
DO you own your device? I feel like I own my devices. I will defend them from theft, or loss. Because they are "mine". But ownership in a broader or legal context implies more rights that I don't think I have. I don't own the IP to the hardware and software on the device. These components have licenses to which I agree and am bound simply because I possess and use the device. These contracts restrict the things I am allowed to do. So my "ownership" also comes with certain "responsibilities" - which I personally don't believe I ever think about. But they exist.
For instance, probably somewhere in these contracts something is said to the effect that I cannot reverse engineer, reproduce and resell components or plans for these components. And myriad other things. Designed to protect the business and investment and people who invented and built them.
"Ownership" in the age of complex "finished products" that result from trillions dollar global supply changes of incomprehensible complexity is more nuanced than the idea that I found a log in the forest, and now the log is mine.
Aachen · 54m ago
The author doesn't seem to understand that you don't need your PlayStation 5 to travel, pay your rent, or authenticate to government services. That's the fundamental difference and why it is valuable that Android is open
I agree that there is currently no expectation for Sony to open up their OS to run just any software (such as pirated games). Nobody said that. There should be an open widely supported mobile OS because that's fast becoming about as fundamental to modern life (in my country at least) as roads and electricity are
Android being so easy to make software for is what hooked me as a teenager, after failing to develop for my previous Symbian phone. Taking that away is possible now because the alternatives are all gone. Where are you going to migrate to without making major concessions in your life? You'll have to forfeit popular messengers that your family, friends, landlord, etc. are on; no more mobile banking; extra fees to use online banking at all; extra fees to legally use public transport; no downloading of episodes or music from streaming services for offline use; no phone calls depending on your country's 2G status; etc.
bubblebeard · 1h ago
The author makes a good point but for the wrong reason I think. The fact that companies lock down their software, and hardware (looking at you Apple), is their choice just like it is yours to give them the finger.
However, at least in Sweden, a smart phone is practically mandatory since it has become a means of identification used by banks, police, our IRS counterpart etc. Even our physical mail is slowly being digitalised, and these services practically require you to own a smart phone. You can get by without one, but it’s a real struggle.
Therefore there should be laws requiring more transparency of these devices, in my opinion.
reddalo · 1h ago
Not only transparency, but freedom.
Freedom to use something you bought the way you want, without having a private foreign company decide for you.
agentultra · 6h ago
100 percent agree.
I’ve given talks on how various jailbreak exploits work in order to teach people how to protect their own software but also with the suggestion that we should be able to do this.
It’s nuts that personal computers aren’t personal anymore. Devices you might not think of as PC’s… just are. They’re sold in slick hardware. And the software ecosystem tries to prevent tampering in the name of security… but it’s not security for the end user most of the time. It’s security for the investors to ensure you have to keep paying them.
retrocog · 23m ago
Once we have a decentralized trust protocol that has been widely adopted, it will hopefully solve most of these problems. As it stands right now, we can validate control, but not actual ownership. As such, ownership has to be proven via KYC and other centralized methods that rest on state authority. Not a good solution for those who care about privacy and individual freedom!
Liftyee · 6h ago
As other comments have pointed out, this statement (one I 100% support, BTW) is a little naive. I can see how it might be unreasonable to expect companies to publish documentation, build infrastructure, etc. to support running your own code on the hardware you own (which 99% of people will never need to do).
However, I strongly believe that - should one choose to do so - you should not be stopped from jailbreaking, cracking, etc. manufacturer restrictions on the hardware you own. Companies aren't obligated to support me doing this - but why should legislation stop me if I want to try? (You can easily guess my thoughts on the DMCA.)
danpalmer · 6h ago
> Companies aren't obligated to support me doing this
Where does one draw the line on support? If I jailbreak an iPhone, should I still get Apple customer support for the apps on it, even though they may have been manipulated by some aspect of the jailbreak? (Very real problem, easy to cause crashes in other apps when you mess around with root access) Should I still get a battery replacement within warranty from Apple even though I've used software that runs the battery hotter and faster than it would on average on a non-jailbroken iPhone?
I feel like changing the software shouldn't void your warranty, but I can see arguments against that. I probably fall on the side of losing all software support if you make changes like this, but even then it's not clear cut.
mordae · 43m ago
Imagine Lenovo refusing to service your ThinkPad because you've compiled your own kernel.
Charging IC has NTC thermistor and battery absolutely must withstand the system running on 100% and then some.
As for battery lifetime, batteries are cheap, unless you glue them to an expensive assembly and force people to replace whole assembly as phone vendors do.
seany · 2h ago
It's up to the manufacturer to prove that the software modification had a material impact on the issue being covered. Yes that's expensive, yes that's the point.
crazygringo · 5h ago
The line is definitely crossed if you jailbreak your phone. It seems pretty clear. Either you're using the device as the manufacturer intended or not. If I take a device rated for 2m of water down scuba diving to 25m, it voids my warranty too.
betaby · 6h ago
EU is dropping the ball here. Instead of mandating open hardware they trying to force companies to comply with random stuff, mostly censorship and spying. In theory EU can mandate open bootloaders like EU mandates USB-C charging, but they won't. Open hardware is the enemy of the EU, since that means everyone would be able to bypass the chatcontrol of the day.
hoppp · 6h ago
Eu has the Digital Markets Act and what google is doing is illegal in Eu.
Gatekeepers must allow people to side-load software by regulation.
Makes me think that google did this now since trump has been criticizing the DMA, so now they feel empowered by their leader to break the law
SchemaLoad · 5h ago
Google does still let you sideload though. The publisher has to submit ID but other than that, there are no restrictions.
kuschku · 3h ago
Google has to approve the publisher (so Google can ban any developer, also no more apps from countries the US sanctions, e.g. Iran or Venezuela) and only one person can publish the same namespace (so no more fdroid).
bccdee · 4h ago
Apple also permits people who follow an application process to sideload software. That's still illegal. I'm not sure what the details are of this EU law, but it's entirely possible that Google will be noncompliant here.
betaby · 4h ago
Side loading is absolutely not equal open bootloader!
mullingitover · 6h ago
Command+F 'drivers'
0 results
These things are never thought through. Sure, Apple could unlock the whole thing, tell everyone to go nuts. Who's writing the damn drivers? Apple's certainly not obligated to open source theirs, I also can't imagine them signing someone else's. So we end up with a bunch of homebrew drivers, devices crashing, getting pwned, and the dozens of people who install a third party OS on their iPhone write furious articles that get voted up to the front page of HN.
Almondsetat · 5h ago
Open source drivers are the overlooked heroes that make everything work. If linux hadn't had all these drivers written or ported to it (think of your intel NICs) the OS would be dead in the water
SlowTao · 5h ago
Bingo. They may not be as fast or feature complete but they do work.
can16358p · 41m ago
Or:
One (a big entity with enough resources) should take this as an opportunity and create a new, third truly open alternative to iOS and Android (no, I'm not talking about an AOSP fork, I'm saying something totally new) and let iOS/Android have their thing as they want, letting consumers decide between the three instead of forcing vendors into ridiculous business decisions like forcefully opening their own platforms for others.
kylecazar · 7h ago
It's a matter of ownership vs. licensing. You own the hardware you buy, but you license the software. I agree with the author that as long as you use that software, you should be subject to the constraints of the license.
The key is that if you choose not to run that software, your hardware should not be constrained. You own the hardware, it's a tangible thing that is your property.
Boils down to a consumer rights issue that I fall on the same side of as the author.
EvanAnderson · 7h ago
The hardware should not be equipped with undefeatable digital locks. Put a physical switch on the hardware (like Chromebooks have-- had?) to allow the owner to opt out of the walled garden.
Also worrisome are e-fuses, which allow software to make irrevocable physical changes to your hardware. They shouldn't be allowed to be modified except by the owner. (See Nintendo Switch updates blowing e-fuses to prevent downgrades.)
charcircuit · 5h ago
E fuses are needed so people can't downgrade the device to old insecure software to exploit it. Without it or an equivalent like a secure monotonic counter how do you think such attacks be protected?
SchemaLoad · 5h ago
There's a disagreement on who the attacker is. From Nintendo's perspective, the owner of the device is the attacker. From the owners perspective it's Nintendo.
Obviously the parent commenter believes you should be able to exploit your own device and downgrade the OS if you wish.
bccdee · 4h ago
That's an oddly legalistic line to draw. What if they start licensing the hardware too? Surely if we care about users being respected by technology, the line between software and hardware or between ownership and licensing is immaterial. These are all excuses to deny users the opportunity to do things they should be entitled to do, like installing arbitrary applications.
glitchc · 6h ago
First, we had bespoke computer systems where the hardware and software were tailored to solve specific problems. Then, as computers became commoditized, the hardware was more standardized and software interacted with it through an abstraction layer. Now, we're circling back to heterogeneous hardware where software and hardware are tightly coupled for the best performance and power efficiency. Of course there's always a trade-off. In this case, it's flexibility.
The smartphone does not consist of just one processor, it's a collection of dedicated processors, each running custom algorithms locally. Sure, there's software running in the application layer, but it's playing more of a coordination role than actually doing the work. Just think of sending a packet over the internet and how different it is between a smartphone and a computer, how much more complex a cellular modem is compared to a network card.
It's less about software now and more about hardware accelerated modules. Even CPUs run primarily on microcode which can be patched after the fact.
These patterns are cyclical. It will take a number of years before we return to standardized compute again, but return we will. Eventually.
hibikir · 6h ago
When the hardware is complicated enough that the software required to run it al all would take many millions of dollars to replicate, hardware freedom alone doesn't cut it. Just like a modern processor needs mountains of microcode to do anything you'd actually want. And that's without companies needing to obfuscate their hardware to avoid interoperability they don't want.
In practice, a whole lot software would have to be open source too so that the hardware is reasonably usable. The layers you'd need to let an iPhone run android well, or a Pixel phone to run iOS are not small.
daft_pink · 6h ago
There’s something weird about it. My phone needs to be hyper secure, and a lot of companies went to monetize that and introduce insecurities with their software.
That’s why I love my iPhone, but I’m not super happy about what happens with my Mac.
There’s something in the reality that it’s the app developers not the user that are being restricted by Apple. Apple keeps the app developers from doing things I don’t like for the most part. I don’t feel very restricted.
But I don’t want my computer to become a walled garden. It’s only OK for my phone.
Aachen · 13m ago
> There’s something in the reality that it’s the app developers not the user that are being restricted by Apple.
Reading this comment as a user and developer in one person, it's so weird to see this disjointed picture of developers and users. You should have rights and feel unrestricted as a user but I shouldn't? Have you considered that being a developer is about the same as being a writer instead of a reader? We're the same...
> I don’t want my computer to become a walled garden
Why not? I don't think I can articulate an answer to the "I don't feel restricted" remark earlier better than you can probably do yourself by seeking what it is that rebels against these walls
OsrsNeedsf2P · 4h ago
What does this have to do with the article?
pparanoidd · 4h ago
Flexibility is usually inverse of security
nazgu1 · 55m ago
It is interesting, that when Apple, with small steps, slowly disallowed any kind of sideloading merely nobody took notice of it... and now Google is doing the same, and whole internet protest. Who knows, maybe fact that now there is no alternative for tech-savy, and people are angry now it is good thing in longer perspective for both platforms.
Aachen · 25m ago
Because I used to have a choice. Since dipping my toes in Android, I remember distinctly in 2012 or maybe 2013 the feeling when I got Xorg and Wireshark running on a Galaxy Note device within the first days. Dead simple! Heck, VirtualBox let me emulate Windows. I could play Rollercoaster Tycoon by attaching a USB keyboard and mouse over this little OTG dongle! Coming from Symbian and having recently started to run Linux on my desktop, and now all that being compatible on my phone, it felt like a miracle
Ahem, where was I
Ah yes: ever since dipping my toes in Android, I've always said I'd never buy an Apple device where I can't run my own software or control what proprietary software does. Now that the freedom is being taken away, the world is changing and I care about it. Until now, it was just a matter of buying any brand except one closed one. Not that hard to avoid
notatoad · 6h ago
The inevitable conclusion of this battle is an acknowledgment that you never really own an iPhone or android in the first place, and the companies stop selling the hardware at all. You’ll only be able to rent a device as part of your service plan.
lugu · 32m ago
In order to create a new type of right, we need a term that can be promoted. For exemple "The Right to Digital Autonomy".
YmiYugy · 59m ago
I like the idea of course, but such legislation would also be very disruptive, because it affects the entire supply chain.
Every maker of any gadget, be it random white label android smartphone, set top box or smart home camera would have to negotiate with all their component suppliers to obtain full documentation instead of just driver and firmware blob.
So would these suppliers with their suppliers.
For mor niche components it seems plausible that no proper hardware spec exists and it’s instead through a combination of hardware descriptor languages, the driver code and good old tribal knowledge.
Forcing Google and Apple to allow side loading on their OSs just requires them to flip a switch.
I think there are also compelling reasons why smartphones are special. It’s a duopoly and most people have got to have one to properly participate in modern society.
upbeat_general · 54m ago
This seems like the perfect case for legislation that starts out targeting higher volume devices/larger companies and lower over time.
I don’t see why the industry couldn’t move to providing this documentation/full source over a few years.
mordae · 50m ago
Good. It only needs to be done once and the datasheets are already written and often circulate underground.
Component supplier should not be allowed to only provide datasheet upon signing an NDA and only to some customers while providing chips to the resellers. If you put it on the open market, cough up the FULL datasheet, period.
klamann · 1h ago
This ist what the four essential freedoms are all about.
The hardware aspect is quite irrelevant to the whole point: the hardware only runs with software that does not respect your freedom and there's no feasible way to make the hardware run software that does respect our freedom. And of course our banks and streaming services and whatever else we need also don't offer us any software that respect our freedoms. So no, it's not about hardware, it's about free software. Always has been.
liendolucas · 1h ago
One 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 interests work that the little device that you carry is bascially a brick at the mercy of its vendors?
edg5000 · 1h ago
I do think there is growing discontent with MS and Google, and you see Linux sentiment changing and the userbase growing. But it's still a small fraction of the populus even though it's grown a lot in the last decade probably
zwnow · 1h ago
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.
avodonosov · 17m ago
Ha-ha.
Android doesn't even let you access your files. It has famously blocked acess to the subfolders of /Android/data - every app has a subfolder there where it sfores files. And you can not visit these subfolders since Android 11.
A buggy app accumulates gigabytes (literaly, i am not exagregating) of temp files there, but i cant visit the folder to delete them.
Google explains that "it's for you safety".
I have to call it with the strong word "idiotic".
There are apps now where storing files in a shared, accessible folder is a payed option.
And in this world you want to own your hardware.
fastball · 6h ago
Much harder to make a secure device that is resistant to getting pwn'd if you can run any code you want. I personally prefer my iPhone to be more secure than to be more open.
Buy a more open phone if you want one, but stop trying to use legal means to force the software on my phone to be worse for my use-case just because you want to have your cake and eat it too.
Aachen · 8m ago
Nobody said that...
You can keep your device enslaved to Apple all you want. You don't have to use the administrator permissions on Windows if you don't want them. Some of us do want freedom
You've got it completely backwards that having the option to control your hardware means you, as an individual, are impacted by anything at all if you don't want to administrate your own device
fastball · 5m ago
[delayed]
gdulli · 5h ago
Once you decide to trade your liberty for security, it becomes the norm and then no one has liberty.
fastball · 5h ago
Apple is a company, not a government. I haven't traded my liberty for anything. Again, you can buy a different phone – that is where liberty comes into this equation.
If the USG decides to pass a law saying you can only buy iPhones, then we will have more to talk about w.r.t. liberty.
Nothing actually prevents you from modifying your iPhone however you see fit, btw. If you are incapable of breaking Apple's security without bricking the phone, that's a "you" problem.
tavavex · 4h ago
> If the USG decides to pass a law saying you can only buy iPhones, then we will have more to talk about w.r.t. liberty.
Is what the US government does the only concern to you? This feels like a very semantic argument that tries to define the government as the sole arbiter of what's expected in our society. Majority consensus has an equal if not greater reach in telling us what we can and can't do. Case in point: the only two types of smartphones you can reasonably use nowadays are iOS devices and Android devices (and that is Google-sanctioned Android devices, custom ROMs are being rooted out as we speak). Sure, you can technically buy a random dumbphone, and just accept losing access to most of society, including services where using specific apps on specific platforms is mandatory. Is that liberty to you? Everyone telling you that you must pick from one of these options, but you're not forced to at gunpoint, so it's fine?
> Nothing actually prevents you from modifying your iPhone however you see fit, btw. If you are incapable of breaking Apple's security without bricking the phone, that's a "you" problem.
I would agree if we were still in the 2000s, when people could actually plug their phones in and flash whatever firmware they desired on them. Current-day phones, iPhones especially, are black boxes that are designed to be impenetrable by anyone by Apple, under the guise of 'security'. Everything is cross-checked to ensure that you can't as much as screw your phone open without consequences. The threat vectors they're supposedly addressing are utterly ludicrous. It's gotta be stuff like "Oh, what if a malicious actor steals grandma's iPhone, opens it, installs a battery that wasn't blessed by Apple, and explodes it after giving it back to her?".
Everyone knows they're doing this because they want every facet their devices to be in their tight grip, so that you just obtain temporary permission to do some things with it under their watchful eye, as long as you stay in your lane. Best of all, they can just incessantly scream something about "safety", "security" or "integrity" and that will be good enough justification.
And 99% of people don't even have the capacity to care about any of this, they'll just pick "security" and cheer on for any new "secure" update that tightens corporate control over you and what you can do. The 1% is too small of a market to care about, they will just reluctantly use the socially acceptable option because what choice do they have?
fastball · 2h ago
You're being a conspiracy theorist. You can in fact replace the battery with a non-Apple battery without issue. The things that break when you replace them without a properly signed version are in fact related to the security of the device. It's not a "guise". I don't want someone with physical access to my phone to be able to access anything on the phone. If I can do this, so can anyone else.
SlowTao · 5h ago
Completely agree. This is a general issue with technology in general, if someone uses a new technology to their advantage and at your disadvantage, you are essentially forced to adopt said technology just to keep up. In that sense a lot of technological change isn't voluntary. This also explains why a lot of open source/proprietary software is always chasing each other to keep up.
srcreigh · 5h ago
Closed devices are secure, yes. Apps can use pinned https certs. Apple signs the binary. This ensures that when your personal data is exfiltrated, it will go undetected by malicious third parties such as yourself.
VagabundoP · 1h ago
The first step is legally mandated unlocking of bootloaders.
More and more phones are locking them down until exploits are found to unlock them.
Tempest1981 · 7h ago
Including cars, TVs, and home appliances -- those are the items I really want to hack.
nicce · 6h ago
And tractors
jerbearito · 5h ago
This feels like an arbitrary level of abstraction for how much control a user should have. When you buy a phone, you're buying a combination of components designed and paired for that manufacturer's software. Can the user potentially replace that software? Sure, but should they be expected to?
If they just wanted hardware, they could buy their own and piece something together, if we're exploring those kinds of hypotheticals. But buying an Apple or Android device is a different choice and I think, within that context, a user should be able to run the software they want.
SlowTao · 5h ago
I think it is more a case of, at least provide the option to have another OS. Chances are that nobody else will be able to make it work but having it closed off before even getting a chance to try feels a little unfair to those that buy the hardware.
skybrian · 3h ago
For a technical user, being able to install any software you like means you have full control. But another perspective is that if someone else installs the wrong software (such as if a housemate installs spyware), your phone could betray you.
Security-conscious people might actually prefer to own hardware-limited devices. An example of this is having a camera with a physical shutter, or a light that shows camera activity that can't be disabled by software.
Similarly, some people might prefer to own devices that don't allow side-loading at all, since it disables a potential vulnerability. Maybe it would be best if Google allowed this to be a configurable option when buying an Android phone. (I suppose they could buy an iPhone, though.)
breve · 4h ago
Start with buying the right hardware. Fairphone offers more control over the hardware:
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 not to say I disagree with what they do. They allow you to unlock the bootloader and they even supply an open and degoogled version of the OS! That is more than any other vendor I'm aware of. Every time I need a new phone, I check if the latest Fairphone fits my needs, and even though it's a compromise, I've tried it out in the past for several weeks. It's really worth supporting. But Google's new restriction will almost certainly affect Fairphone users, too
noisy_boy · 3h ago
I feel like such initiatives miss one obvious target - the well heeled tech savvy user (who quite often is also privacy minded) and wants the latest. At the price point they are selling a Snapdragon 7 device, I can get a Snapdragon 8 Elite phone from the market quite easily. Now I am happy to pay more because of what they stand for but I don't see them selling a model that features the latest and greatest + the privacy focus. Surely the latest hardware and privacy/environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive. I change my phone every 4-5 years on average so I try to not contribute to the landfills but I do want the latest when I buy.
HacklesRaised · 26m ago
This seems counter intuitive.
All nflix da should require is the interfaces outer needs.
Network stack
CODECS
CRYPTO stack (DRM)
The OS seems irrelevant.
I mean sure you worked be limited to whatever interface a browser could provide.
It's not as if certification of a certain operating system means anything other than the certificate.
Netflix used play4sure beck in my days at Apple, and literally t out was a tick box for them to assure the content owners they had DRM.
Nobody certified apple's netflix app for ATV back then, I know, Ben Lee and I wrote it...
We desperately need OS research, exokernels should be a thing by now, at least then the question becomes moot.
Windows, (alphabet)OS, Linux and BSD all provide operating systems that enable productive work but there's a lot of cruft
zkmon · 3h ago
Where do you draw the boundary between code and hardware? System code has become more like a firmware. Vendor sees it as device, not as code + hardware. It's like a TV or a cassette player. There is no code. You can bring your content and "play" it. Any additional ability that you build on your own (you want the cassette player to play DVDs?), would void the warranty. But you can buy a DVD module from the vendor that is made to fit into your cassette player.
In reality, what you are expecting is, to be able to use your common tools to modify the device. But the vendor uses some weirdly shaped screws for which you don't have tools to work with. That is the real complaint.
htrp · 7h ago
You don't own the hardware, it's now a license just like the software..... problem solved.
taran_narat · 37m ago
We need a Linux like OS for mobile devices!
kelnos · 3h ago
I don't really agree with this take.
I do think that it should be easier for people to build and install alternative OSes on their phones.
However, building your own mobile OS is just really hard. And on top of the technical challenges, the UX challenges, the overall polish challenges, there are non-technical challenges that are often impossible for alternative OSes.
* Industry connections problems. As an example, no open source mobile OS has a contactless payments app, at least not one that is generic and can support more or less any credit card out there. That is, you can't build an Apple/Google Wallet analogue and have it work.
* As much as I wish Jobs had stuck to his guns on the "no iPhone SDK" thing, and had instead developed and improved the mobile web stack, that's not the reality today. There are many things you just cannot do current mobile OSes through its web browser. Native apps are required there. And so that means companies need to choose the platforms they build for. Today that's easy: iOS and Android. But getting governments and banks and various companies to build apps for your niche mobile OS is going to be essentially impossible. And with closed-source kitchen-sink libraries like Google Play Services, it's incredibly difficult even to get a lot of Android apps running properly (and consistently reliably) on "de-Googled" Android phones.
Ultimately the real problem is that there's no capable, standardized, OS-agnostic platform for building mobile apps. The web platform could have been it, but it's not, and now Apple and Google have a vested interest in ensuring that it never can be, because building native iOS and Android apps locks people and companies into those ecosystems.
Ultimately^2 the real problem is that free markets are a myth, and don't work. Companies want to become monopolies, and want to bar new entrants. I would absolutely love some mandate/legislation/whatever that made it mandatory that we have a fully open source mobile OS, and that all the players involved need to be allowed to build equivalent functionality into it that Android and iOS have. I know that sounds radical and like government overreach (and current governments wouldn't go for it anyway). But the alternative is what we have today: monopolists that don't care about the rights of their customers. There's really no "free-market" way out of this.
hedora · 6h ago
I think fighting for the ability to write a custom OS for a phone misses the point.
It should be possible to participate in the modern economy using standard technology.
To this end, I think there should be a mandate that all govt and commercial infrastructure apps offer a progressive web app with at least feature parity with proprietary phone apps.
Want me to use a phone to pay for lunch, EV charging, parking or a toll? Great. It needs to be doable with anything running firefox, safari or chrome.
soonc · 2h ago
> 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.
Why?
The author doesn't explain why and I've yet to see any justification for this other than, essentially, "because I want to" - usually evoking supposed freedoms and rights that exist only in the realm of wishful thinking.
seviu · 2h ago
Genuine question and some random thoughts please downvote if you think I am ranting too much: one argument played by Google on this is that they want to protect users from malware, specially for banking apps, etc. However my queations/two cents regarding this:
Banks offer web frontends and many make you use 2FA and even hardware keys, which work on phones. We have been doing e-banking even before smartphone phones existed. We still do. On our full of malware and virus windows desktops.
These mobile apps are in reality web frontends disguised as mobile apps with biometrics on top of it. Nothing else really. I develop an iOS app for a bank. It’s really like that.
Despite that I have to obfuscate the binaries, check for cydia, make sure I am not jaibtoken and all kinds of useless stuff.
When you buy a PlayStation you are buying a piece of hardware that Sony sells you at a break even or a loss so that you can buy their games. You are not buying your hardware. You are buying means to run video games on a piece of hardware Sony is selling to you.
When I buy an iPhone I am paying a lot of money for my pocket computer, my internet communicator. The margins are so big, it doesn’t even make sense to squeeze more out of them.
When I buy an Android phone I fail to see the end game except that Google wants to have absolute control over everything I do in my life.
I cannot really deny them their right to do whatever they want.
Still I can’t see really how they want to protect users by having full control. That’s a big lie.
Cyclone_ · 4h ago
The first thing that came to mind when I heard hardware we own was vehicles like a Rivian where they do run a lot of software. I can understand why they'd not want people to run software in order to avoid bad press. If someone writes something and things go wrong, it will look bad for the manufacturer, even if they're not at fault.
d_sem · 4h ago
It has never been easier to realize your own open source hardware platform. Those dedicated to freedom can chose to offer alternatives. The challenge is we don't live in a post job society and people need to make money to survive. Until that changes, practical professionals will gravitate towards non-ideal systems that optimize for short term value over freedom.
skeltoac · 5h ago
The situation we have is fine. You can make hardware with features these people want, or you can make hardware with features those people want.
sirjaz · 4h ago
We as tech enthusiasts killed a viable 3rd option. For all its warts Microsoft created a great mobile os, but we killed it. If we could convince them to bring it back to be the true alternative to the existing duopoly in might fix these issues.
ACCount37 · 4h ago
I wouldn't expect Microsoft, of all people, to be a "viable third option". They weren't exactly keen on user freedom either - they aren't now, and they weren't in Windows Phone 7 days.
andy99 · 7h ago
I don't think government should be involved here, but what they can do is (a) always provide alternatives where interacting with government doesn't require a smartphone or apps, and (b) mandate the same for regulated or essential industries like banks and airlines etc.
I'm not convinced there is some inalienable right to load an OS onto any hardware but said hardware/OS should never be on the critical path to anything a citizen needs to do.
yesbut · 7h ago
If left to the generosity of companies to allow us to control the hardware we purchase then we will never be able to modify the hardware we purchase again. There are no inalienable rights that we, as humans, do not define and legislate ourselves. If we want unfettered control of the hardware that we purchase then we need to codify it into law.
b_e_n_t_o_n · 5h ago
You already have that ability, afaik there is nothing stopping you or your friends from loading and running whatever software you want except your own technical ability.
If you want the government to force other people to do the work to let you have your cake and eat it too, I can't support that.
umanwizard · 3h ago
iPhones have a locked bootloader; it is impossible to run an OS not signed by Apple unless you find an exploit.
b_e_n_t_o_n · 2h ago
So what? Should security features be illegal so people can more easily run their own OS's on phones?
umanwizard · 2h ago
Well no. I agree with your overall point in that I don’t really think vendors should be forced to allow you to install whatever software you want. I’m just pointing out that the way you described the current situation is inaccurate.
b_e_n_t_o_n · 2h ago
Ah ok my bad.
beambot · 4h ago
The only way this happens is if people & organizations vote with their $$.
My immediate follow-up to people who take this position: Are you using Framework laptops, pinephone or other OSS devices already? If not, then it's just empty air -- vote with your $$.
glitchc · 6h ago
Why not launch a new startup focused on building an open smartphone? This is HN after all, with the right pitch someone will throw money at it.
Biganon · 2h ago
Because only a bunch of nerds would use it, your bank wouldn't support running its shitty app on it, and it's back to square 1.
hereme888 · 7h ago
I'm two days into switching my Pixel 6 from Android to GrapheneOS. No issues so far. I haven't set up my banking app, but it's supposed to be supported.
tonyhart7 · 2h ago
isn't that google just make the android reach parity with iOS???
this is happening with apple ecosystem since forever and people fine with it, so what is the issue here???
oh I know, people mad because someone take what they been able used to
not because they cant sideload. you can (just need an developer account for that)
jrm4 · 4h ago
Technically true, the worst kind of true.
The original phrase is good as is and much better than this nitpicking if we'd like to see actual movement on the issue.
“I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own”
Aurornis · 3h ago
I worked on a product where we tried to keep it open for end users to modify what they wanted.
To be honest, it was way more of a problem than I ever imagined. The average user who tries to mod their system isn’t as proficient as you imagine they would be. As an engineer you imagine other engineers approaching the system as you would. In practice, it’s a lot of people with a lot of free time who copy and paste things into terminal sessions from forum posts and YouTube video comments. When it doesn’t work, they try to get your customer support team to fix it. They will deny, deny, deny when asked if they’ve modified the system because they want to trick support into debugging it anyway. When customer support refuses to handle their modified system, they try to RMA or return it for a refund in protest.
Over time, it drains you. You see the customer support request statistics and realize that a massive support burden could be avoided by locking it down. You see the RMA analysis and realize a lot of perfectly good devices are being returned with weird hacks applied. Every time you change an API or improve the system you have to deal with a vocal minority of angry modders who don’t want you to change anything, ever, because they expect the latest updates to work perfectly with all of their customer software.
It’s tiresome. I think the only way this works is if customers have to log in to a system and agree to surrender all customer support and warranty service for a device to enable the free-for-all mode for them. That doesn’t work, though, because warranty laws require that you service the device regardless unless you can prove it was the modification that caused the RMA, which is a model that works with vehicle service but not the $100 consumer hardware device.
So I get. I wish every device could be totally open, but doing that with normal customer service and support is a huge burden. The only place it really works is devices like Raspberry Pi where it’s sold as something where you’re on your own, not something where customer support agents have to deal with what the product was supposed to do before all of the different mods were applied.
SilverElfin · 5h ago
Absolutely must have the right to run any software on hardware we own. It should be mandated for hardware built by large companies, who are soaking up the capital and labor that’s available. It’s sensible regulation.
Interesting perspective but unfortunately with smartphones you'll have cellular carriers lock down their bootloaders because of bogus "security" reasons.
hellisothers · 3h ago
Realistically there would be a non-zero cost to allowing this, tech support, or compliance issues, or even PR issues when somebody’s modified hardware does something bad. So few people actually care or want this, it doesn’t feel like a fight worth having as a unilateral mission.
marcus_holmes · 6h ago
I know I'm going to get downvoted to hell for this, but I genuinely think it's OK for a device manufacturer to say: "we are building this device to run this software. If you don't want to run this software, then don't buy this device. There are plenty of other devices out there that will run other software, you can buy one of those if you want to run other software - our devices are designed to only run our software, and we're only going to support that".
I think that's a huge difference from the sideloading issue, though. Which is effectively saying "you must purchase all your software for this device from us, even if it's not our software, and even if it's available elsewhere for less".
I get how one statement creates the monopoly that allows the other statement, but I think they are still two separate statements.
scosman · 6h ago
+1. Smartphones aren't a monopoly. GrapheneOS is a thing. More companies can build hardware for it if there's demand. Not every piece of hardware needs to be general purpose computer.
I've been delighted to get my parents on iPhone+iPad for simplicity (and they have too). It feels this crowd sometimes assumes every barrier put in place is anti-consumer, but it's not. Blocking access to sensors, limiting background runtime, blocking access to other app's data, limiting it to reviewed apps... are all great things for most people. Most people don't have the technical literacy to have "informed consent" prompts popping up every 5 minutes, and most of them know it too. Most folks don't mind trusting Apple to make the tougher technical calls for them, and actually appreciate it.
Make cool hacker centric hardware. Make cool easy to use, locked down, and foolproof hardware. Both can and should exist.
serf · 6h ago
>There are plenty of other devices out there that will run other software, you can buy one of those if you want to run other software - our devices are designed to only run our software, and we're only going to support tha
except in about a hundred million examples where the niche software that is running on the niche hardware has no viable alternative.
In The Real World when you have a component that breaks somewhere, and the manufacturer of the thing either fails to help or no longer exists you contract a third party to retrofit a repair module of some sort, or you do the work yourself to get the thing working.
How does this principle apply when the producer of the thing booby traps it with encryption and circuit breakers?
Software is special, comparing it to other industries never works well.
marcus_holmes · 5h ago
I agree that there's a difference between just not supporting the device running other software, and actively preventing the device from running other software. The latter doesn't serve anyone.
mixmastamyk · 6h ago
> There are plenty of other devices out there...
No there isn't, and one of the main problems.
SchemaLoad · 5h ago
There are if you are willing to have two devices. One secure phone for banking, phone calls, etc. And a portable linux device for installing whatever you want on. Where installing malware doesn't risk losing all of your money.
mixmastamyk · 4h ago
> secure phone for banking
Secure from the owner doesn't equal security in general.
I know of no reasonable, modern Linux devices besides the Starlite tablet and potentially the Furiphone. And boy, have I looked and looked. But the second has not been around long enough to be reviewed by a reputable entity.
notepad0x90 · 1h ago
I agree with this take, but my view is that it is one step detached from the root cause. The right to property is fundamental and inalienable. A person who can't own things isn't free, they have no claim on liberty.
That said, service providers, corporations and the like should be allowed one remedy: They can refuse future services and business to anyone if that person violates whatever b.s. rule they came up with.
However, the government (any government) has no authority to police post-ownership activity in a manner that deprives the owner of their property rights. In other words, they can say "You can't own an AK-47" or "You can't generate sound over certain dB" , but they can't say "You can't shoot your AK-47 on your property, even if it pauses no risk of harm to others, but you can own it", and they can't say "You can't use your speaker at maximum volume" (they can police the sound you generate but not the usage of your property, if the speaker passes the legal threshold then the speaker isn't relevant, the sound generated is).
This also applies to free (not commercial) sharing of property (copyright laws are fundamentally invalid).
The problem is, I am talking logic and reason which doesn't translate well into real-world scenarios. In the real world, the guys with the biggest guns make up random rules and pretend it is just and valid.
The reason I'm stating all this, is in the hopes that I can convince anyone who reads this and maybe if enough of us agree, some day democracy might work and laws can change.
The government can prevent ownership of things. It cannot however pass laws that dicate you can come into possesion of things and by all reason it is your property, but as a matter of technicality it can't be considered property and is subject to arbitrary usage laws by the government or rules by third-parties.
That said (I promise, my last one!), access to network services is special. If someone made some software where to function it requires some network service, and they came up with random rules on the network service side, then that is also their right, since that service is on their property. The remedy people have for this is to avoid that service. And if that service is the only one of its kind and using it is required, then the government has a natural obligation to protect the public against monopolies.
I had a hole other post/thread that got negative feedback and some interesting discussion about Google, Android and their sideloading policies. If you glean anything from this post of mine, please let it be that I am advocating for solving of the root causes of these problems. It is all too easy to be reactionary and fall into these rage-baiting events. Solving root causes is never easy, but good solutions are often simple. If reasonable minds can have a healthy discourse to find these solutions then many problems are solved, instead of playing whack-a-mole forever.
bccdee · 4h ago
> Forcing Apple to change core tenets of iOS by legislative means would undermine what made the iPhone successful.
Even if this is true… so what? Perhaps the App Store monopoly has helped make the iPhone successful, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
> If you want to play Playstation games on your PS5 you must suffer Sony’s restrictions, but if you want to convert your PS5 into an emulator running Linux that should be possible.
Why? What if Sony's restrictions are bad? Why are we ceding corporations the right to treat us however they want, so long as we're using their software?
You shouldn't have to flash a new OS onto your hardware in order for it to respect you as its user & owner. You shouldn't need to be tech-savvy, either. The happy path for the median user should be privacy and freedom.
Free/libre alternatives to consumer software are always going to be second-class, because respecting users is at odds with making money off them. If we people to be treated well by tech, it's not enough to provide an alternative ecosystem. We have to deny corporations the option to treat users badly in the first place.
trinsic2 · 4h ago
> When Google restricts your ability to install certain applications they aren’t constraining what you can do with the hardware you own, they are constraining what you can do using the software they provide with said hardware.
No. Incorrect. Because the argument that we should be focusing on software is a distraction. They use restricting the OS as an argument to restrict the Hardware. Their is pressure put on on hardware devs to toe this line.
You can see this with secure enclaves. If they didn't care about what software was running on their hardware, they wouldn't be designing hardware to restrict the kind of OS you can run on the hardware. Secure Boot/UEFI is going in that direction and Mobile devices are already there to some extent.
This whole argument is a distraction designed to lure people away from the real problem. That all technology (Hardware and Software) is being designed to restrict freedoms. If you are focus on this distraction, you are missing the point.
b3ing · 3h ago
Right to repair and right to modify
shermantanktop · 3h ago
These arguments always suggest that the hardware/software divide is rigid. A cell phone does not have a single OS, it has many.
Nursie · 6h ago
I want my less tech savvy family members to be able to buy locked-to-the-company-store hardware, that they can’t run other things on, as it protects them from one avenue of scams and hacks. This protection can and will be worked around if it can be easily disabled.
Fully open phone systems consistently fail to sell enough to make a difference, which is a bit of a shame, but honestly at this point the market has spoken.
greatgib · 20m ago
Nothing prevents that the device is locked by you instead of the "store" or even that the device has a "safe" mode that has to be explicitly disabled by the user in a non obvious way like connecting the device to a computer and running a command or so.
The only important thing is for the bank, Netflix and co to not be able to discriminate. But again nothing would provide the bank to offer a setting for the user to restrict where it can use it's banking app if it was not discriminatory. But we know well where this goes, in the end if you don't enable it
hoppp · 6h ago
That is understandable, most people are not technical but the few who has a need for it should have an option for it.
As a developer I write apps for myself and I side-load them. Why take away my right to do so, just because other people can't then nobody should?
mensetmanusman · 5h ago
Run doom on my Air conditioner?
tamimio · 6h ago
Not defending Apple, but when they restrict sideloading it's because they made both the software and the hardware. They didn't exploit thousands of open source developers who basically worked for free making Android what it is right now, only to be hijacked by Google. I used to use Android but I did notice a huge decline around 2015, which was around the time when the Android creator left Google.
sciencesama · 7h ago
Cuda disagrees with you !
anothernewdude · 7h ago
If sideloading goes, so does their OS.
surajrmal · 7h ago
What are you planning to use instead?
halfi · 3h ago
Termux
dbg31415 · 4h ago
Some things shouldn't be left to amateurs to repair. Just because you "own" the hardware doesn't mean you're equipped to fix it safely or securely. Modern devices are tightly integrated systems -- tinkering with them can make them less reliable, less secure, and sometimes outright dangerous. Manufacturers lock down certain layers not just out of greed, but because risk management protects both users and the people around those users.
If you agree with this article, do you also agree with these statements?
* "We should be able to repair our firearms with freely available full-auto conversions kits."
* "We should be able to repair our own cars, and add software like Volkswagen did to bypass EPA and state inspection testing."
* "We should be able to repair our own homes and offices, and ignore building codes and ADA guidelines."
wiredpancake · 2h ago
We are talking about software.
halfi · 3h ago
apt
Pkg install nmap
otikik · 6h ago
That doesn’t benefit the corporations, so it’s communism.
WhereIsTheTruth · 3h ago
no, however, bootloader muck be unlocked and software must be open sourced when device reaches EOL
add-sub-mul-div · 6h ago
As for the new Android restrictions I assume my Galaxy S20 will be immune to them because it's not getting (major) updates anymore. I'll continue using it as long as I can to avoid this. Does anyone know the most recent Galaxy phone that will be safe from this? I want to get a backup.
odo1242 · 4h ago
It likely won't be safe - they're probably going to enforce it through a Google Play Services update rather than an Android update, which means all previous Android OS versions after 5.0 (Lollipop, released in 2014) will be hit with the changes. In order to bypass that you'd need to install a Custom ROM or stop using and uninstall the Google Play Store entirely (since it's not possible to selectively disable just this).
Android uses Google Play Services updates to update some features or security without relying on manufacturers to update the OS and drivers.
seviu · 3h ago
I seriously doubt they can restrict sideloading through Google play services.
But if they do then it’s worse than what I thought.
micromacrofoot · 7h ago
tbh I don't even care about support, just give me the keys
but ultimately it doesn't matter, if the market could bear the additional cost a competitor could emerge... but they barely do anywhere
honestly at this point in life I think it would be easier to change society to be structured in a way to make the people running these companies want to give it to you
yesbut · 7h ago
Anyone who doesn't agree with this is a collaborator and should be publicly shamed.
DrillShopper · 7h ago
No, says the man in Hollywood - those cycles belong to the MPAA
No, says the car manufacturers, those cycles belong to us
No, says the nerds in Redmond, your computer belongs to us
add-sub-mul-div · 7h ago
Weird last example, Windows is freer than Apple/Google. There's no path to locking down Windows like Android or iOS, half the world would break. Apple originated and normalized this, Google is following.
Spooky23 · 6h ago
Microsoft will absolutely go down this path, they just have longer commitments and product cycles.
I’d guess in 5 years you’ll start getting friction for using AD, and heavy push towards cloud services first. You’ll probably have to subscribe to legacy features or migrate to Azure to use them.
Their legacy systems management tool is a zombie product, and the replacement is Intune, which and an MDM solution which locks you out of your computer similar to Android or iOS.
I’ll be retired, so IDNGAF, but in 15 years, Microsoft will be capturing all of the value they give you for free in windows. The future will look like a 1980s mainframe.
rogerrogerr · 6h ago
A few weeks ago someone was posting links to a thing MS is trying to push, which would require signed code for local execution. It had a weird name but seemed like they’re trying.
Krutonium · 7h ago
Windows 10/11 S is that path. Microsoft has walked it already; They just have to push the net wider over time.
fijiaarone · 5h ago
We’ve got a solution to that.
What makes you think you can own hardware, you fascist capitalist pig dog!
mikewarot · 6h ago
A gentle reminder to the readers here at HN that it doesn't have to be this way. Computer Security is a solved problem[1], and has been so since the 1980s[2].
It's my strong opinion that the only methods you've seen to this point[3-7] were deliberately chosen to be ones that don't work, and make things worse in the long run.
There's no reason we shouldn't be able to run what we want on our hardware, without having to trust anything other than the microkernel inside the operating systems.
Your opinion is not "a gentle reminder", "a friendly reminder" or "a public service announcement". It's just your opinion and nothing more.
7373737373 · 5h ago
It's obvious you don't understand what is written in those links. The capability security architecture breaks the false dichotomy of either having to have a fully locked down or open operating system, it provides the technical foundation to grant individual programs, and even parts of these programs, recursively, only the (data, filesystem, network) access and resource consumption (cpu, memory) rights that they need. This is not an opinion, this is a decades old technical solution that humanity ignores at its own peril. While I wouldn't argue that it completely solves computer security, it allows programmers and users to minimize the attack surface of their systems.
fareesh · 6h ago
the Android change doesn't impact your ability to plug in your own device and run your own code or someone else's code
the change impacts closed source software distributed without verification which is by definition unknown so the "want" is not possible - i.e. you can't know if you want to run it.
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 own operating system because it's not in Netflix's financial interest for you to do so. Or your banks, or your government. They all benefit from you not having control, so you can't.
This is why it's so important to defend the real principles here not just the technical artefacts of them. Netflix shouldn't be able to insist on a particular type of DRM for me to receive their service. Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things. I should be able to opt into all this if I want more security, but it can't be mandatory. However all of these things are not technical, they are principles and rights that we have to argue for.
You understand it, but even in this thread you have people proposing solutions to switch from traditional banking to bitcoin, stop using Netflix and starts torrenting again etc.
Tech crowd always tries to solve non-technical problems through technical means, and this is why I don't have much hope.
Maybe conceptually you will be able to run some kind of open operating system with your own code, but it will be unable to access software or services provided by corporate or governmental entities.
This has been obvious for some time, and as soon as passkeys started popping up the endgame became clear.
Pleading to the government definitely can't save us now though, because they want the control just as much as the corporations do.
That's why I'm 100% against passkeys. I'll never use them and I'll make sure nobody I know does.
They're just a lock-in mechanism.
Before the branding they were known as FIDO2 "discoverable credentials" or "resident keys".
Two things have changed with the rebrand:
1. A lot of platforms are adopting support for FIDO2 resident keys. This is good actually.
2. A lot of large companies have set themselves up as providers of FIDO2 resident keys without export or migration mechanisms. This is the vendor lock-in part (no export feature), but it's not a feature of the underlying tech itself.
Fwiw FIDO are actively working on some standard for exporting/importing keys so that's something.
If you want to use passkeys without lockin, just use Bitwarden or KeepPassXC - they all have full support. Or you can also store a limited number of passkeys on your FIDO2-compatible hardware key like Yubikey or the open-source Nitrokeys.
You can choose not to do this, and that's fine. Hardware attestation is dead because Apple refuses to implement it, so no one can force you to.
Why do you think they would even allow this? If you think that governments don't have the incentives or the means to criminalize running non-approved OSes, or the unauthorized use of non-approved hardware, you're insufficiently cynical.
But once it touches the money-extraction path, like DRM, things expectedly lock up.
[a] whether that's a single device like a fingerprint scanner, or a device like a phone or tablet
[b] no crippled or low-performance open source driver
[c] any OS, including Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, or some obscure minor OS as long as such OS is readily available for free or for a reasonable price
The reason is that the desktop PC security model is deeply flawed. In modern desktop operating systems, we protect user A from user B. But any program running on my computer is - for some reason - completely trusted with my data. Any program I run is allowed to silently edit, delete or steal anything I own. Unless you install special software, you can't even tell if any of this is happening. This makes every transitive dependency of every program on your computer a potential attack vector.
I want computers to be hackable. But I don't also want my computer to be able to be hacked so easily. Right now, I have to choose between doing banking on my (maybe - hopefully - safe) computer. Or doing banking on my definitely safe iphone. What a horrible choice.
Personally I think we need to start making computers that provide the best of both worlds. I want much more control over what code can do on my computer. I also want programs to be able to run in a safe, sandboxed way. But I should be the one in charge of that sandbox. Not Google. Definitely not Apple. But there's currently no desktop environment that provides that ability.
I think the argument against locked down computers (like iphones and androids) would be a lot stronger if linux & friends provided a real alternative that was both safe and secure. If big companies are the only ones which provide a safe computing experience, we're asking for trouble.
You can also choose to do your banking at the physical branch.
We already had "best of both worlds", especially on mobile OSes - granular permissions per-app were quite good, and on Android until few years ago root was widely available if you needed it as well; these permissions could be locked or frozen if there is concern about users, just like work devices are provisioned with limitations. It all depends on your threat model.
There are plenty of places where mobile phones don't work, especially in the summer when there are leaves on the trees. This means SMS won't really work. So for this path, SMS, the bank has an alternative -- call a number on your account with a voice reading the 2FA code. Thus, landlines or VOIP work here.
When it comes to an app, forcing Canadians to use a phone OS controlled by US companies, still has pushback. An example being, the concept of "A Canadian having to use software from a US company, to identify themselves to a Canadian company" is still a hotspot. Especially with the US wanting to annex us.
So this lock in has not yet occurred.
Really, the phone call to a phone number on your account, not using SMS is as solid a protection, as an app running on a phone controlled by a foreign country's company. It's an alternate path. And it solves the whole 'rural person' access.
Many people living in rural areas don't even bother with a phone type device. Some have Kindles. But by buy a phone, if it doesn't work where you live?
This logic, combined with them closing rural banks, means they have to be quite sensitive here. EG, closing rural banks, then making it difficult to do online banking is political poison for our banks.
That doesn't stop scammers. They also keep getting more sophisticated, often using a combination of social engineering and technical skill, and they keep tricking people into giving them money. So unfortunately, while malware is pretty much a non-factor, scammers still thrive.
The ones banks that do have physical presence are closing left and right? Also, I don’t think I can money transfers at the physical office of my bank.
So what? The lack of perfect security is a terrible argument against better security.
For example, lockpicks exist. Is that a reason to stop locking your house? Our TLS ciphers might eventually be broken. Should we throw away TLS and go back to unencrypted HTTP?
I'm not expecting anything to 100% stop all scams. But modern computer security is a joke. We could do an awful lot better than we are today at keeping people safe from this stuff.
> We already had "best of both worlds", especially on mobile OSes - granular permissions per-app were quite good, and on Android until few years ago root was widely available if you needed it as well
Yes. I want something like this on desktop too - but I want to own the signing keys, of course. It seems strange that this is so controversial.
AI voice and video cloning scams are also only going to increase. Why would scammers need to get people to install random APKs when they can just impersonate a family member and tell them what to give directly?
To me it seems very much like the classic "think of the children" type argument. It's not going to really fix anything in the end but it will benefit Google.
- If you want to run an alternative operating system, you got to learn how it works. That is a trade off not even many tech savvy people want to make.
- There is a trade-off with a desktop OS. I actually like the fact that it isn't super sand-boxed and locked down. I am willing to trade security & safety for control.
> Personally I think we need to start making computers that provide the best of both worlds. I want much more control over what code can do on my computer. I also want programs to be able to run in a safe, sandboxed way. But I should be the one in charge of that sandbox. Not Google. Definitely not Apple. But there's currently no desktop environment that provides that ability.
The market and demand for that is low.
BTW. This does exist with Qubes OS already. However there are a bunch of trade-offs that most people are unlikely to want to make.
https://www.qubes-os.org/
like if there are OS utopia exist that has all the advantage without the downside then everybody would use that
but people complaining don't live in reality
It isn't even a freedom vs security. It is usability vs security.
I think a lot of it is "nobody has bothered building it yet" vs security.
Eg Qubes runs everything in Xen isolates - which is a wildly complex, performance limiting way to do sandboxing on modern computers. There are much better ways to implement sandboxing that don't limit performance or communication between applications. For example SeL4's OS level capability model. SeL4 still allows arbitrary IPC / shared memory between processes. Or Solaris / Illumos's Zones. But that route would unfortunately require rewriting / changing most modern software.
All of this takes considerable time, money to build and after that you need to get people to buy into it anyway. Large billion dollar software companies have difficulty doing this. If you think it is so easy, go away and build a proof of concept.
BTW They have implementing sand-boxing in most desktop operating system. It is often a PITA. Phone like permissions model already exist in Windows, Linux and I suspect MacOS in various guises.
For development there are various solutions that already exist.
e.g.
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/devcontainers/containers
So these things already exist and often people don't use them. The reason for that is that there is usually reduces usability by introducing annoyances.
> Eg Qubes runs everything in Xen isolates - which is a wildly complex, performance limiting way to do sandboxing on modern computers.
It exists though today. If I care about security enough, I am willing to sacrifice performance. That is a trade off that some people are willing to make.
> There are much better ways to implement sandboxing that don't limit performance or communication between applications. For example SeL4's OS level capability model. SeL4 still allows arbitrary IPC / shared memory between processes. Or Solaris / Illumos's Zones. But that route would unfortunately require rewriting / changing most modern software.
If you solution starts with "rewriting most modern software". Then it isn't really a solution.
BTW what you are suggesting is a trade off. You have to trade resources (time and money typically) to build the thing and then you will need to spend more resources to get people to buy into using your tech.
Get some real sandboxing, let me install whatever I want in my sandbox.
That's a bare minimum.
I also want "I am an adult" mode where I get to do what I want. If Google wants to flag secure net, fine. Not every thing is going to work.
What's wrong with that?
I know angle grinders exist. I still lock up my bike.
Main way people around me get scammed by far like 90% is social engineering
All or nothing thinking is counterproductive.
Purists always forget this point :) What is best for 99% of people.
And dumb Euro bureaucrats.
I found my parents to install random crappy adware apps from official stores too. What protects their banking application is granular permissions, not root access.
The only reason we have convenient banking, gov and streaming apps today is because of guaranteed and enforced mobile security by big boys Apple and Google. (Google being Ad company is another matter, not relevant here).
There is no "just works" technical solution for a problem caused mainly by naivete and gullibility. Governments and the private sector know this, of course; as others have said, the real purpose is to control users, not to protect them.
Disagree. No banking app can resist root access owned by attacker.
This was just useful for them.
Don't rewrite history.
again, no incentive to improve it. its either unpaid work or the OS vendor has a stake in it being insecure. (both exists)
This stuff is not just for the elderly and computer illiterate. It's for you as well. You think they're going to stop?
You're giving up freedom for safety. You will have neither.
No! Which is why I don't want every npm package I install to have unfettered access to my internet connection and to access all my files. If this is being exploited now, I might not even know! How sloppy is that!
> You're giving up freedom for safety.
At the limit, sure, maybe there are tradeoffs between freedom and security. But there's lots of technical solutions that we could build right now that give a lot more safety without losing any freedom at all.
Like sandboxing applications by default. Applications should by default run on my computer with the same permissions as a browser tab. Occasionally applications need more access than that. But that should require explicit privilege escalation rather than being granted to all programs by default. (Why do I need to trust that spotify and davinci resolve won't install keyloggers on my computer? Our computers are so insecure!)
Personally I'd like to see all access to the OS happen through a capability model. This would require changes in the OS and in programming languages. But the upside is it would mean we could fearlessly install software. And if you do it right, even `npm install` could be entirely safe. Here's how we do it: First, all syscalls need to pass unforgable capability tokens. (Eg SeL4). No more "stringy" syscalls. For safe 3rd party dependencies, inside processes we first make an "application capability" that is passed to main(). 3rd party libraries don't get access to any OS objects at all by default. But - if you want to use a 3rd party library to do something (like talk to redis), your program crafts a capability token with access to that specific thing and then passes it to the library as an argument.
Bad:
Good: This way, the redis library can only make outgoing connections on the specified TCP port. Everything else - including the filesystem - is off limits to this library.This would require some PL level changes too. Like, it wouldn't be secure if libraries can access arbitrary memory within your process. In a language like rust we'd need to limit unsafe code. (And maybe other stuff?). In GC languages like C# and javascript its easier - though we might need to tweak the standard libraries. And ban (or sandbox) native modules like napi and cgo.
Everything you have suggested in this post takes away freedom. There is no solution that doesn't take away freedom / your control. There is always a trade off.
> Like sandboxing applications by default. Applications should by default run on my computer with the same permissions as a browser tab. Occasionally applications need more access than that. But that should require explicit privilege escalation rather than being granted to all programs by default. (Why do I need to trust that spotify and davinci resolve won't install keyloggers on my computer? Our computers are so insecure!)
This already exists on Linux.
I run Discord/Slack in Flatpak. Out of the box the folders and clipboard permissions are restricted. Only the ~/Downloads folder on my PC is accessible to Discord/Slack. You can't drag and drop things into these apps. Which makes sharing content a PITA.
If you don't want to worry about things like keyloggers, you should run an open source OS and use open source programs where you can verify that there are no key loggers. You should also make sure you find out what firmware your keyboard is using (many keyboards themselves have complex micro controllers on them that can be programmed).
Huh? In what way does application sandboxing take away my freedom? What can I do today that I can't do with a sandbox-everything-by-default model?
In my mind, it gives me (the user) more freedom because I can run any program I want without fear.
> I run Discord/Slack in Flatpak. Out of the box the folders and clipboard permissions are restricted. Only the ~/Downloads folder on my PC is accessible to Discord/Slack. You can't drag and drop things into these apps. Which makes sharing content a PITA.
Cool! Yeah this is the sort of thing I want to see more of. The drag & drop problem is technically solvable - it just sounds like they haven't solved it yet. (Capabilities would be a great solution for this.. just sayin!)
I've just explained that sand-boxing causes issues with file access, clipboard sharing etc.
Every hoop you add in makes it more difficult for the user to gain back control, even if that is modifying permissions yourself. Most people will just remove permissions out of annoyance.
If you remove control, you remove people's freedom.
> In my mind, it gives me (the user) more freedom because I can run any program I want without fear.
Any security mechanism has a weakness or it will be bypassed by other means. So all this will give you a false sense of security.
The moment you think you are safe. Is when you are most unsafe.
> Cool! Yeah this is the sort of thing I want to see more of. The drag & drop problem is technically solvable - it just sounds like they haven't solved it yet. (Capabilities would be a great solution for this.. just sayin!)
I don't. It is a PITA. Eventually people just turn it off. I did.
The reality is that if you want ultimate security you have to make a trade offs. Pretending you can make some theoretical system where those trade off don't exists just isn't realistic.
You've explained that flatpak has issues with file access and clipboard sharing. My iphone does sandboxing too, but the clipboard works just fine on my phone.
I don't think "failing clipboards" is a problem specific to sandboxing. I think its a problem specific to flatpak. (And maybe X11 and so on.)
> If you remove control, you remove people's freedom.
Sandboxing gives users more control. Not less. Even if they use that control to turn off sandboxing, they still have more freedom because they get to decide if sandboxing is enabled or disabled.
Maybe you're trying to say that security often comes with the tradeoff of accessibility? I think thats true! Security often makes things less convenient - for example, password prompts, confirmation dialogue boxes, and so on. But I think the sweet spot for inconvenience is somewhere around the iphone. On the desktop, I want to get asked the first time a program tries to mess with the data of another program. Most programs shouldn't be allowed to do that by default.
> Pretending you can make some theoretical system where those trade off don't exists just isn't realistic.
I think you might be arguing with a strawman. I totally agree with you. I don't think a perfect system exists either. Of course there are tradeoffs - especially at the limit.
But there's still often ways to make things better than they are today. For example, before rust existed, lots of people said you had to make a tradeoff between memory safety and performance. Well, rust showed that by making a really complex language & compiler, you could have memory safety and great performance at the same time. SeL4 shows you can have a high performance microkernel based OS. V8 shows you can have decent performance in a dynamically typed language like JS.
Those are the improvements I'm interested in. Give me capabilities and sandboxing. A lot more security in exchange for maybe a little inconvenience? I'd take that deal.
Your argument would suggest that virtual memory takes away user freedom, because it's now much harder to access hardware or share data between programs, but that sounds ridiculous from a modern perspective. I think it's better to keep freedom and complexity separate, and speak about loss of freedom only when something becomes practically impossible, not just a bit more complex.
With the iPhone they get the risk of answering to a scam call or scam sms and giving them the access of their bank account.
Ubuntu is almost bullet proof for beginners.
In fact, that's what I've done for my parents and I had to retire the computer and get another one because it's the hardware which became too old after 15 years of running Ubuntu without any problem.
Security for users isn't just about bootloader expoits.
Even on an iPhone without a sim card, they can download one of the scam casino games from the appstore and give away a lot of money, on Ubuntu they can't do that.
There's more to security than just bytes.
The threats to your average user isn't a bootloader exploit built by some Israeli firm but privacy breaches, social engineering and scams.
Like, iOS makes most unsafe actions incredibly clear. Apple pay always requires the user to double tap the power button. The OS makes it impossible for an application to charge you money through apple pay without an explicit user action.
Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive. Any program you download and run from the internet on a desktop computer can do all of this stuff and more. We shouldn't allow that stuff by default on desktop computers either.
Phones have the right idea. I just don't want Apple and Google to be the only ones who can modify the system at the OS level.
And then no, it's not clear for me (even as a developer!) how data transfer between apps work, how the advertising id works and how much data Apple and Google really have that they shouldn't. If it's not clear to me as a software engineer, it certainly isn't for your average user.
The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps.
> Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive.
It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu. Even if that stuff somehow existed, I don't think they would have the tech knowledge to mark the downloaded virus as executable anyways.
I'd like that security model to be the default for desktop apps on my computer as well. Its weird that davinci resolve and spotify and all the rest have full access to look through all my files.
> It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu.
Probably just because so few regular people use ubuntu, scammers & malware authors don't bother targeting it. Still good for your parents though!
Another though; if we were actually able to pass laws that helped people, one that I’d like to see would be: for a totally locked down proprietary device, everything done with it should be the legal liability of the vendor. If your bank account gets broken into via the device, you can’t audit what happened, you couldn’t have have broken it, so it ought to be their responsibility.
The digital hermit argument is not going to resonate with 99.9% of users. People buy devices because they want to do stuff. Telling them they shouldn't do what they want to do is never going to convince anyone.
The real question is where are the representatives who are supposed to be acting in the interests of their people while all this is happening? We seem to have regulatory capture on a global scale now where there isn't really anyone in government even making the case that all these consumer-hostile practices should be disrupted. They apparently recognize the economic argument that big business makes big bucks but completely ignore the eroding value of technology to our quality of life.
Establishing trust with hardware, firmware, and operating system software is currently an intractable problem. Besides the halting problem and the reflections on trusting trust problem (i.e., supply chain problems) the sheer size of these codebases and object code (since you'll need to confirm that the object code is not altered as in the reflections on trusting trust paper) is just too big for the public to be able to understand it. Sure, maybe we could use AI to review all of this, but... that's expensive if every person has to do it, and... that's got a bootstrapping problem.
Basically the walled garden is unlikely to go away anytime soon. It would be easier to change the rules politically to do things like reduce transaction fees, but truly allowing the wide public to run anything they want seems difficult not just politically but technically, because the technical problems will lead to political ones.
There is no way countries agree to have American companies getting so much control on key infrastructures especially in the current context.
- If you want to run something other than iPadOS or Google TV, go for it. (Smart TVs are just tablets with a don’t-touch screen.)
- If you want to install spyware on someone’s phone, you can’t; the HSM keys held by their OS are lost when you try to install a patched version and restore from a backup, and their backup doesn’t restore properly because half of it depends on the HSM or the cloud and everything is tagged with the old OS’s signature.
- If you want to patch macOS and then deploy it to your fleet, you can; it won’t be Signed By Apple but you’re an enterprise and don’t care about the small losses of functionality from that.
- If you want to dual boot, go ahead; the issues with the HSMs not permitting you to host two OSes worth of partitioned keystones can be resolved by regulatory pressure.
This satisfies all the terms of “let me install whatever I want”, while allowing the OG App Store to continue operating in Safe Mode for everyday users in a way that can’t be entrapped without the scammer on the phone telling them to delete everything, which destroys the data the scammer wants.
My car already allows me to do this. My phone should too.
If you're referring to CarPlay and/or Android Auto you should know that it's not actually running on your car. It's basically RDPing your phone onto your car screen. You can already install RDP apps on your phone and connect to systems that provide more freedom, of course.
Theres nothing stopping a hardware vendor from being able to delete the system installed keys/certificates, breaking trust to allow you to install your own. Sure netflix might not like it but you still have the right to run your own code and netflix has the right not to trust your OS.
>Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things.
Agreed.
One of the articles: https://palant.info/2023/01/02/south-koreas-online-security-...
What are you prepared to do to reverse the contemporary tide of tyranny? What have you done to make those in power afraid to move forward with policy founded in loathing of humanity?
We need to make that illegal. Classify it as discrimination. They should be obligated to treat any client that tries to connect the same as they would treat their own software. Anything else is illegal discrimination against users, a crime comparable to racial discrimination.
Anything short of this means they've won. Everything the word "hacker" ever stood for will be destroyed. Throw all FOSS into the trash. None of it matters anymore. What's the point of free software that we can't run? That can't actually do anything useful because it fails remote attestation? Completely useless.
Unfortunately for now it seems our representatives are letting them have it so personally I'm rooting for a snake-eating-its-tail moment as a result of Windows 10 losing support. There will inevitably be erosion of security and support for applications on Windows 10 once Microsoft declares it yesterday's OS - as we've seen with past versions of Windows. This time there is the added complication that a lot of perfectly good hardware can't run Windows 11 - largely because of the TPM/verification issue we're discussing.
So probably a lot of people who haven't moved to 11 yet aren't going to unless their current computer breaks and they get 11 by default when they buy a replacement. If the charts are correct then 11 only recently overtook 10 in user numbers. After all this time and despite all the pressure from Microsoft and the imminent EOL of Windows 10 over 40% of Windows users are still running that version. (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/d...) So how exactly do the big organisations that want to control the client plan to deal with that over the next few years?
Unfortunately unless there is also some sort of intervention to deal with the collusion and market manipulation by vested interests I doubt enough Windows 10 refugees will jump to open platforms when their current devices fail for those open platforms to reach a critical mass of users. If five years from now Windows 10 user levels are negligible and almost all of the former users are now on Windows 11+ by default then the controlled client side probably wins effectively forever. I think it would take something dramatic happening that increased the desktop market share of open alternatives like Linux to say 10+% to avoid this fate. The only likely source of that drama I can see is if Valve's support for gaming on Linux encourages significant numbers of home users to switch and then general public awareness that you don't have to run Windows or macOS increases.
I don't think you can really solve this problem as long as there's an operating system monopoly, or even duopoly/triopoly. The lure of total control is just too great. Every operating system vendor, hell every intellectual property vendor will always dream of it. A company that becomes powerful enough to put chains on its users will do so.
From the British Raj to Standard Oil to IBM and Microsoft, monopolies are some of the most powerful forces in history. There is a case to be made that we were on a similar path with Microsoft until a combination of the Internet and a half-assed but not completely ineffective anti-trust campaign brought them to their knees, for a while.
I think that the solution is to highlight the abuses perpetrated by the biggest tech giants specifically, and advocate for radical government action on multiple levels. #1 to break up these companies. #2, to shackle them and anyone who gets as large as them so that they can't do anything like this again. #3, publicly fund the development of competing, open operating systems.
If you are a US citizen then #1 and #2 are the more realistic paths and you should be watching the various anti-trust cases against Big Tech like a hawk, the celebrity du jour is really Amit Mehta who is scheduled to release his Google remedies any day now. You need to make it clear to your representatives that this is your top issue at the ballot box. We need a second American Progressive Era that's seasoned with digital rights and anti-megacorp sentiment and with "doomscroll" and "Luigi" having entered the vernacular I think we could be closer than many here believe.
If you are an EU or Chinese citizen you should support the development and adoption in those polities of alternative, Linux-based operating systems. In the way the South Korean government specifically encouraged the growth of Samsung into a company with a global footprint, you should do that for local companies which develop OSes that compete with Apple and Google's. These geographies fundamentally can't do much to influence the American legal system so they should instead lean into public sentiment around nationalism and sovereignty and tie these to software freedom because that is likely the only elemental, emotional force that will capture enough public attention and support. Use state-scale resources to create competition for the American tech giants and establish a balance of power, because they are assuredly your enemies at this point.
And lastly for the ten millionth time I'll say it - Stallman predicted this. He saw it all coming. He warned us. He told us what would happen and what we needed to do. It's time to listen and to think big.
The Stallman generation is slowly leaving this realm, the opportunity has been lost already.
What if I want to require (for anti-piracy reasons) that to use my software you must also give me complete access to your computer, all the data on it, and all your communications. You might say, "Well, if anyone is stupid enough to make that deal, let them." But it's easy to sugar coat what you're doing, especially with less technical users. I think it's better to say, "That's just not something you are allowed to do. It's trampling on rights more important than your anti-piracy rights."
In the same way, you cannot murder someone even if they agree to be murdered (an actual case in Germany).
That's exactly what happens with anti-cheat kernel modules. As one might expect, ordinary people couldn't care less, as long as it works good enough.
We cannot expect those rootkits to be properly supported long term for any security issues they may cause. I would think that the solution is simple: nobody forces them to make their IP available in non hacked computers...
If they want a hardened computer to deliver their IP, then they should sell their own hardware. But forcing their blocking into the whole stack is not acceptable.
For instance: I cannot see any udemy or netflix content from my computer, because their IP protection blocks the lenovo docking station I use to connect my monitors to my MBP... each part is standard! And somehow nobody tested that scenario. So, no, that tech is barely tested, it must not be forced into any computer.
As I understand it, Netflix wishes to authenticate the device, and DRM their content. I'm not aware of anything beyond that (but I'm also not paying attention. )
Now you may have used the example of what might happen, but then Netfix seems a strange example. Surely Apple and/or Google are more likely players in that example?
OP said "What if", it's clearly a hypothetical scenario and not something Netflix is doing or planning to do
power asymmetry
There's a lot of media worth studying, analyzing, and preserving. And in that sense, between the constant churn of catalog items, exclusive content, and the egregious DRM, I think these sorts of streaming services are, unfortunately, kind of harmful.
Now, if you want to do an in-depth study of film and television material as a whole, you're actually better off avoiding Netflix and making use of archives such as public libraries, university libraries, and the Internet Archive.
I say "know-how" and "access" because, while I'd still argue decrypting, say, Widevine L3 is not exactly super common knowledge, decrypting things like 4K Netflix content, among other things, generally requires you to have something like a Widevine L1 CDM from one of the Netflix-approved devices, which typically sits in those hardware trusted execution environments, so you need an active valuable exploit or insider leaks from someone at one of the manufacturers.
But also on top of all of that, you also need to hope other people kept the upload alive by the time you decide to access it, and then you also often need to have access to various semi-elitist private trackers to consistently be able to even find some of this stuff.
The legal issues with DRM here are hardly exclusive to Netflix and other streaming services, but at least in the case of things like Blu-rays or whatever — even if it is technically illegal in most countries to actually make use of virtually any backed-up disc due to AACS — you usually don't have the same time-pressure problem nor the significant technical expertise barrier.
>If streaming services like Netflix are harmful then we should avoid using them. Thus it should not be important for our freedom-preserving computers to be able to access Netflix.
I generally do avoid them whenever possible, though, yes. And I've explicitly disabled DRM support in Firefox on my computer. But I am just one person and I don't think my behavior reflects the average person, for better or for worse.
Edit: i mean to say this is true whether or not you've even heard of the company.
This is why they limit service to certain devices or OS versions, even when it comes at the expense of convenience.
You can do manually like the old days, EXPLICTLY ALLOWING NON GOOGLE/APPLE to do banking in their own mobile phone meaning THERE ARE MILLIONS OF USERS that can fall victim to scammer+cracker
how cant you see all of that???? ITS JUST NOT ABOUT YOU
edit: please educate first, y'all need to know differences between mobile banking and internet banking
You can downvote me all you want, but I don't want to hear lecture from non-security compliant engineer about what to do about security
Users on Apple and Windows are not safer because a bank has chosen to block Linux.
internet banking via browser has been OS agnostic way before mobile banking exist
please educate/research what is mobile banking before making an literally false argument that is not about mobile banking
Before you ask, no, other banks aren't any better where I live. They all stopped using physical 2FA keys years ago. And no, they won't let you come in physically for things that can be done online.
its just browser/internet banking
also mobile banking has much more capabilites in forms of app than just "web page"
Yep. They control our information - how we make it, what we are allowed to find, and what we can say. And they are large enough to not face real competition. So let’s treat them like the state owned corporations they are and regulate heavily. Smaller companies can be left unregulated. But not companies worth 500 billion or more.
To push further, Google and Apple have basically as much power as the US.
The UK going after Apple, only to get rebutted by the US is the most simple instance of it. International treaties pushed by the US strongly protecting it's top corporations is the more standard behavior.
Any entity fighting the duopoly is effectively getting into a fight with the US.
If this is true then why is Tim Cook visiting Trump? Shouldn’t it be the other way around.
There is a whole antropologic field around that, but to keep it short, if you pay your palace and all expenses with the money funneled to you as gifts, you're not the one in control.
Fun read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
Without that fraudulent marketing, Android never would have crowded out other options so quickly in the marketplace.
The solution is to either have Google back down on breaking its promise that Android would be open or to have an antitrust lawsuit strip Android from Google's control.
I was part of this problem. I've accepted what Apple is doing because I had Android. I didn't think they'd come for me next so I didn't speak up
And that is what is wrong here. Even the smallest nation should be far more powerful than the largest corporation. But corporations are now more powerful than most nations, including some really big ones. So the only way to solve this is to for an umbrella for nations that offsets the power that these corporations have.
The first thing you notice when you arrive at Brussels airport is the absolute barrage of Google advertising that tries to convince you that Google is doing everything they can to play by the rules. When it is of course doing the exact opposite. So at least Google seems to realize that smaller nations banding together wield power. But they will never wield it as effectively as a company can, so we still have many problems.
Company aims for profit.
Bigger scale allows for better efficiency.
So companies naturally grow big. The bigger they are, the easier for them to compete.
Big companies have access to tremendous resources, so they can push laws by bribing law makers, advertising their agenda to the masses.
There's no way around it, not without dismantling capitalism. Nations will serve to the corporations, no other way around.
There are natural boundaries of the growth scale, which are related to the inherent efficiency of communications between people and overall human capability. Corporations are controlled by people and people have limited brains and mouths. I feel that with AI development, those boundaries will move apart and allow for even greater growth eventually.
Yes there is, the population passing laws to regulate this. The problem is though, that most people don't understand and don't care enough until its too late.
Since nations can be really small, I don't agree.
I think it's shocking how many people Google can affect through its search algorithms (more than any nation on Earth) and yet there is no democratic system to hold them accountable.
A nation that did that would be able to do that exactly once before everyone decides to never do business with it ever again, which they can afford to do because it's such a small market. Exercising arbitrary power is not the trump card you think it is. Hell, even a tiny nation with reasonable but annoying (from the point of view of a corporation) laws may not be worth it to deal with.
While it would be a burden to require a degree of openness, it's not like companies are all rugged individualists who would never want to see legal restrictions in the field.
It's just a question of what is overall best and fairest.
Restrictions can both help and hinder innovation, and it's innovation that in the ling run makes things improve IMO.
If only it were so. But it's not just that. It's also a question of which section of society has the power to demand or prevent the creation of such a system.
Whether enacting labor protections or the Magna Carta, these beneficial restrictions require some leverage. Otherwise what is overall beat and fairest won't be coming up.
I'm not sure innovation is really impacted when restricting the private sector. Traditionally, innovation happens in public (e.g, universities) or military spaces.
> building those alternatives is basically impossible
For smart people it is not impossible. Just few years ago, few folks wrote complicated drivers for completely closed hardware, and I'm talking about M1 Macbook.
Google Pixel, on the other hand, was pretty open until very recently. I might be wrong about specifics, but I'm pretty sure that most of software was open, so you could just look at the kernel sources in the readable C to look for anything. You can literally build this kernel and run linux userspace and go from there to any lengths of development. Or you can build alternative systems, looking at driver sources.
I don't understand why mobile systems do not attract OS builders.
My guess would be that it's a continuously moving target. There's no point in spending years working to support some weird integrated wifi adapter+battery controller when by the time you're done the hardware is already obsolete and no longer being manufactured. Repeat that for every device on the phone. The only ones who can keep up with that pace are the manufacturers themselves. It'd be different if there was some kind of standardization that would make the effort worthwhile, though.
Cellphones are not very useful as programming tools (too small), which is what Open Source excels at.
Also, cellphones need to handle some annoying things, like it should always be possible and easy to call emergency services. Which is to say, the UI work seems stressful.
Sometimes owner control, cf. corporate control, can be had by sacrificing hardware functionality, i.e., features, closed source drivers. Choice between particular hardware feature(s) working and control over the hardware in general.
Apple and Google are still a problem, but they are a secondary problem.
The sheer technical difficulty is what makes this kind of thing impractical.
The network does validate that a SIM card is a real SIM card, but you can put a "real SIM card" in anything.
The M1 Macbook Air is 5 years old now, has an active development, lots of community funding and attention, yet is still missing basic functionality like external monitors and video decoding. Because it's just a mammoth task to support modern hardware. Unless you have a whole paid team on it you've got no hope.
The problem right now is that even if I had a couple of million dollars lying around, I STILL couldn't reliably get a piece of hardware certified for the cellular network. I would have to set up a company, spend untold amounts of money bribing^Wwooing cellular company executives for a couple years, and, maybe, just maybe, I could get my phone through the certification process.
The technical aspects of certification are the easy part.
The problem is that the cellular companies fully understand that when it happens their power goes to zero because they suddenly become a dumb pipe that everybody just wants to ignore.
That's why this will take legislation.
Lets be real, they do not have more power than any nations. They have a lot of power in a few tiny silos that happen to make up like 90% of the mental space of a lot of terminally online folk.
Heck they probably have less power than Coca Cola or Pepsi did during the Cola wars, or United Fruit Company at its height.
Wake me up when Apple rolls a tank into red square or Google does anything but complain about national security legislation it then goes and assertively complies with.
https://www.realbusinessrescue.co.uk/advice-hub/companies-wo... https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/29/so-who-watches-the-watchme... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/23/amazon-tesl...
www.realbusinessrescue.co.uk/advice-hub/companies-worth-more-than-countries
techcrunch.com/2023/06/29/so-who-watches-the-watchmen
www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/23/amazon-tesla-meta-climate-change-democracy
EDIT: Now in plain text since the last URL does not show up otherwise. And why is it rendering with --, its only - in the URL?
It should be able to make an OS. It should be able to write drivers. It should be able to port code to new platforms. It should be able to transpile compiled binaries (which are just languages of a different language) across architectures.
Sure seems we are very far from that, but really these are breadth-based knowledge with extensive examples / training sources. It SHOULD be something LLMs are good at, not new/novel/deep/difficult problems. What I described are labor-intensive and complicated, but not "difficult".
And would any corporate AI allow that?
We should be pretty paranoid about centralized control attempts, especially in tech. This is a ... fragile ... time.
You can feed it assembly listings, or bytecode that the decompiler couldn't handle, and get back solid results.
And corporate AIs don't really have a fuck to give, at least not yet. You can sic Claude on obvious decompiler outputs, or a repo of questionable sources with a "VERY BIG CORPO - PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL" in every single file, and it'll sift through it - no complaints, no questions asked. And if that data somehow circles back into the training eventually, then all the funnier.
I haven't heard much from the major projects yet, but I'm not ear-to-the-ground.
I guess that is what is disappointing. It's all (to quote n-gage) webshit you see being used for this, and corpo-code so far, to your point.
How is it going to do that without testing (and potentially bricking) hardware in real life?
>It should be able to transpile compiled binaries (which are just languages of a different language) across architectures
I don't know why you would use an LLM to do that. Couldn't you just distribute the binaries in some intermediate format, or decompile them to a comprehensible source format first?
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 should not expect manufacturers of phones and tablets to allow anyone to run any code on every device, since this will cause harm to many users.
There should be more open and hackable products available in the market. The DIY mindset at the junction of hardware and software is crucial for tech innovation - we wouldn't be where we are today without it. However, I also want regulations and restrictions on the phones I buy for my kids and grandparents. They need protection from themselves and from bad actors.
The market should serve both groups: those who want to tinker and innovate, and those who need a safe, managed experience. The problem isn't that locked-down devices exist - it's that we don't have enough truly open alternatives for those who want them.
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 or the URL the user typed in...)
There should also be a reset option, which might involve a jumper or physical key (E.G. clear CMOS) that factory resets any TPM / persistent storage. Yes it'd nuke everything in the enclave but it would release the hardware.
You don't need the NSA to target someone and replace their device with a malware driven one. Just a porch pirate and your own delivery - two to three years and you're almost guaranteed an attack window.
We need a mobile bill of rights for this stuff.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should not be owned by companies after purchase.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should not have transactions be taxed by the companies that make them, nor have their activities monitored by the companies that make them. (Gaming consoles are very different than devices we use to do banking and read menus at restaurants.)
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should not enforce rules for downstream software apart from heuristic scanning for viruses/abuse and strong security/permissions sandboxing that the user themselves controls.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should be strictly regulated by governments all around the world to ensure citizens and businesses cannot be strong-armed.
- The devices all of society has standardized upon should be a burden for the limited few companies that gate keep them.
Never give up your freedom.
If you have to give up your privacy to ensure your freedom, so be it.
If you have to give up your security to ensure your privacy, so be it.
This goes for governments and phones.
Reality is that people pay a lot of money because they 'trust' Apple (and to a lesser extent Google), but Meta is the sleaziest one of them all. (And I don't use their shit either.) But people want Whatapp and Instagram, and so you are telling them now they have sell-out and go to the "Meta App Store" to talk to their friends. That fucking sucks. And I think you agree with that.
I think you have a reason for defending Apple. Maybe you love the company, maybe you've got their stock, maybe you've worked for them.
Apple is a trillion dollar behemoth that has distorted the market and removed freedom and choice. They're a menace that needs to be regulated. Period.
I also think Zuckerberg's tracking needs to be regulated, but that's a battle for another day. It's one we haven't so egregiously lost yet.
People don't need Meta. People need smartphones. And smartphones are draconian dictatorships that the government has been too asleep and too lax to regulate.
Apple does not have the ability to throw me in prison or take away my freedoms. Only to not grant me extra freedoms subsidized by their R&D budget.
Their R&D budget is at the expense of a free market that would have delivered the same or better products.
Did you ever see how wild and innovative the Japanese mobile phones were before iPhone monoculture took over?
I want crazy stuff like a smartphone that has the form factor of a Raspberry Pi. Or a smartphone with e-Ink. Crazy new categories of devices.
Sadly, the Apple/Google monopoly has turned smartphones into one of the shittiest, most locked down device categories. It's a death place for innovation.
If you do decide to buy their products, nothing has changed since the day of your purchase, so they haven’t taken away anything from you.
Their “monoculture” didn’t “take hold” - it beat the Japanese offerings through innovation and a better product.
They operate in a free market, their R&D budget is made possible by their market success. If things change in the market (e.g. AI) the market will vote the way it always does.
The market is now so depressed that everyone has to jump through these companies' hoops to participate in the most important computing form factor in the world.
Don't apologize for trillion dollar hyperscalers. They don't need your love, adoration, or apology. They do not care about you at all.
Too much power has accrued to these two and it's being leveraged against all of society and the open market. Competition is supposed to be difficult, ruthless, challenging, and frenetic. I see two companies resting on their laurels that are happy to tax us into the next century while we wear their little straightjackets.
In that case, the free market sucks and I want government intervention.
No. A free market will eventually produce a single monopolistic winner.
If you have ability to buy your competition, and most of people consider it a job and not some religious calling, monopoly is the most logical outcome.
Same way a black hole is the most logical outcome of gravity.
Open question:
Any idea on making it so difficult that grandma isn't even able to follow a phisher’s instructions over the phone but yet nearly trivial for anyone who knows what they’re doing?
Then you put grandma's device in closed mode and explicitly tell her never to do the scary thing that takes it back out again and call you immediately if anyone asks her to. Or, for someone who is not competent to follow that simple instruction (e.g. small children or senile adults), you make the factory reset require a password and then don't give it to them.
I’m sure I’m missing a problem with the following approach: shipping in _closed_ mode with a sticker on the front notifying the person they should do a factory reset immediately to make sure they can do everything they want to do. During the reset, include a scary message for those who opt in to get to open mode.
Everyone simply goes by defaults so it would only be technical people presumably who would even get into the open mode in the first place. And then require the debugger to leave closed mode like you said.
Edit: this comment worries about solo/asocial/“orphaned” members of our society
There is no reason anyone purporting to be from a business or the government should be able to place a call without cryptographically proving their identity.
And presumably we could set up notifications so our elderly relatives’ phones would alert us to calls from unverified numbers not in their contact list lasting longer than a minute or two.
False positives from PC virus scanners are very rare.
You can't expect services and organizations to last forever, there is always some risk they'll collapse when you are around.
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The problems is that vendors use "locked down devices" as an excuse to limit competition.
Suppose you have a "locked down" device that can only install apps from official sources, but "official sources" means Apple, Google, Samsung or Amazon. Moreover, you can disable any of these if you want to (requiring a factory reset to re-enable), but Google or Apple can't unilaterally insist that you can't use Amazon, or for that matter F-Droid etc.
Let the owner of the device lock it down as much as they want. Do not let the vendor do this when the owner doesn't want it.
Not for lack of trying. See for yourself
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_p...
The list is not short.
Plenty of companies have attempted this over the years but it’s not obvious that a big enough customer base exists to support the tremendous number of engineering hours it takes to make a phone. Making a decent smart phone is really hard. And the operations needed to support production isn’t cheap either.
My hardware. My decision.
The existence of locked-down hardware eliminates the feasibility of open hardware through network effects. That is what is happening now.
Everyone else can put on their loincloths and go back to living in flinstones-esque rock huts.
Open hardware is essentially useless if I need to carry both an open phone and a phone with the parking app, the banking app, messenger app to contact friends, etc.
Grandma and grandpa aren't reading the source code and certainly not up at a professional level. This is one of the core misconceptions of the "free/libre" formulation of OSS.
This is one of the core misconceptions of the anti "free/libre" formulation of OSS. Most users don't need to read the entire Debian source to know that it is safe to use. You are free to look up who maintains any part of the project and look at the history of changes that have been made. A lot of projects have nice, easy to read notes along with the actual code.
If you are so paranoid that you can't even trust open release notes then why would you trust a closed project at all?
This alone doesn't improve the quality of the source.
> Paranoid
Nothing to do with it. Please be logical. Having millions of people who can't program trust maintainers doesn't make those maintainers do better work.
The whole idea of more eyeballs is an appeal to a vision of crowdsourcing that was a new idea in the early internet. What we found out is that complacency sets in, the notes eventually don't mean anything, and most source code is not read.
This vision of more programmers spending more time reading other people's programs is wholly born from within programmer communities, from programmers talking to other programmers, forgetting that the average user will never program and not because they lack access. It's a romanticized ideal that is only even a plausible idea in a room full of programmers.
Until you focus on how the non-programmer is going to meaningfully improve the review and production of the open technologies, you will never have a scalable or equitable solution.
More users != more contributors. As software gets more popular, you begin getting 10, 100, 1000, 1,000,000 users for every contributor.
This doesn't just affect non-programmers. We can't even police NPM.
People want it to be true so that it will be a talking point, but it's not true, and we need to find new talking points that align with facts that are evident outside the echo chambers.
Citation needed. Seriously.
I could make the same argument about MongoDB of a decade ago implying that all open source is trash...
Plenty of examples I've heard about but haven't actually used myself so I can't confidently assert the quality of the software. But Windows ME, Norton, and McAfee, I have personal experience with.
Oh, and also Windows Vista.
Plenty of badly-written open source software, too; won't argue against that. But one of the biggest reasons, for me at least, why I prefer to use open-source software rather than commercial if I have a choice is bug fixes. I've reported over a dozen bugs against open-source software I use over the years; most of them have been fixed (in a couple cases I was able to fix it myself). I've rarely even been able to report a bug against closed-source software, let alone get those bugs fixed. So even if if were true that commercial software as a whole has similar or better quality than open-source, my personal experience is the other way around: open-source quality gets better over time while the closed-source software that I have to use (lacking open-source alternatives) doesn't improve the same way.
I would argue most code of any license is not actually regularly audited if at all, and certainly nowhere near the levels people seem to think they are.
> We all know that most commercial code is much shittier than open source
citation needed
Every device should run OpenBSD. And only the audited part.
Thats fine! Just make sure it is possible for someone to take the same device and remove the locked down protections.
Make it require a difficult/obvious factory reset to enable, if you are concerned about someone being "tricked" into turning off the lockdown.
If someone wants baby mode on, all power too them! Thats their choice. Just like it should be everyone else's choice to own the same hardware and turn it off.
Is there also a way to make it obvious to the user that a device is running non-OEM software? For example, imagine someone intercepts a new device parcel, flashes spyware on it, then delivers it in similar/the same packaging unbeknownst to the end user. The same could be said for second-hand/used devices.
It's potentially possible the bootrom/uefi/etc bootup process shows some warning for x seconds on each boot that non-OEM software is loaded, but for that to happen you need to be locked out of being able to flash your own bootrom to the device.
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 (having control over how exactly the device I own runs), but I can also see the interests of phone manufacturers — protecting revenue streams, managing liability and regulatory risks, optimizing hardware–software integration, and so on. I don't see how my own interests here outweigh collective interests here.
I also don’t see Apple or Google as merely companies that assemble parts and selling us "hardware". The decades when hardware and software were two disconnected worlds are gone.
Reading technical documentation on things like secure enclaves, UWB chips, computational photography stack, HRTF tuning, unified memory, TrueDepth cameras, AWDL, etc., it feels very wrong to support claims like the OP makes. “Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.
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?
(Hell: I'd personally be OK without "documentation"... it should simply be illegal to actively go out of your way to prevent people from doing this. This way you also aren't mandating anyone go to extra effort they otherwise wouldn't bother with: the status quo is that, because they can, they thrown down an incredible amount of effort trying to prevent people from figuring things out themselves, and that really sucks.)
heh.
That when you buy a phone you're also buying software components doesn't change the fact that the phone is owned entirely by you. You're not entering into a partnership to co-own the phone with anyone else, it's entirely yours. No one should get to decide how you use it but you.
>But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.
So the argument is that by taking a piece of electronics I paid for that is running on electricity I pay for, and making it run some arbitrary piece of software, I'm putting people's lives at risk?
However the interests you mention aren't collective at all but very singularly the ones of the manufacturer only
And there should also be the right to be able to opt out of the manufacturers' protections of course.
> There are many ways to protect security, leaving all your keys in the hands of one party is not the only one.
When youre dealing with idiots its a bit harder than you might expect. Tons of idiots own phones and if apple allowed them to be the victim of security vulnerabilities they get terrible pr.
Or worse, blow them up.
In fact it further argues that the degree of vertical integration is monopolistic. Why should a Sony CMOS camera be tied to some Apple computational photography code only available in Apple firmware or iOS? What if I do not like that it makes up images that don't exist? What if someone has a better method but now cannot bring it to market?
Break it up and open it up. I assure you it can be done.
I was writing in reference to this quote ^
It would have been more accurate for me to say "support the development of arbitrary software stacks," but where do you draw the line between "supporting the development of" and "supporting"?
Regardless, we're talking about products here—"authoritarian" is a word reserved to situations where the threat of force is involved.
In this specific example, forcing a company to do something is authoritarian (because they will be fined or jailed if they do not comply with the rules). Corporations are not, as a rule, authoritarian—they may, however, do things that are not to your benefit or liking.
Will it be as good as the iOS implementation? Probably not. But it's hardly an impossible fact and not one that has to be done entirely over and over for every device. The Asahi folks showed it could be done despite hostile conditions.
So basically market forces and profit optimization is at work here as always.
However, if we can still unlock the boot loader and install Lineage OS or something like that and have a way to pay for developers to release their apps on stores like f-droid we can use the hardware.
The biggest problem with having freedom to use our devices is that the model is broken for the developers who support them. You "can donate", but from the numbers I've seen it's like 1 in 1000 donate. No pay == developers can't invest their time to improve the software.
So if there is "really" a substantial number of enthusiasts that are ready to pay for the freedom they crave, then companies like Librem will have enough customers to create decent and usable products for this audience. Want digital freedom - prepare to support the people who provide it.
Yes, that might mean that we'll need to have 2 devices, 1 for "banking/government services" that is "certified" and one for our own usage. Shitty but we'll be forced to do that sooner on later. The efficiencies for the government to enforce the policies is so strong that they can't helps themselves. And corporations like to have more data to squeeze every cent from the customer.
So if there is a working business model for "freedom" we might have a partial freedom. If there isn't we'd be just a digital farm animals to be optimized for max profits and max compliance.
Actually enforcing the anti-monopoly rules on the books would help, too.
And while we're making wishes, we could kill the VC-backed tech play by enforcing a digital version of anti-dumping laws.
With those rules in place, we'd see our market engine quite a bit more aligned with the social good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
If a manufacturer makes a device locked down, it's the technological protections preventing you from running your own code. Not IP/copyright. Sometimes they get jailbroken but sometimes not.
What do you think when you say ownership?
I think - "this is totally mine. Nobody else's. I can do with this what I want. It is entirely up to me."
Do you own your passport? In fact, you probably do not. Most passports have a page stating to the effect that "this passport remains the property of <relevant authority>".
DO you own your device? I feel like I own my devices. I will defend them from theft, or loss. Because they are "mine". But ownership in a broader or legal context implies more rights that I don't think I have. I don't own the IP to the hardware and software on the device. These components have licenses to which I agree and am bound simply because I possess and use the device. These contracts restrict the things I am allowed to do. So my "ownership" also comes with certain "responsibilities" - which I personally don't believe I ever think about. But they exist.
For instance, probably somewhere in these contracts something is said to the effect that I cannot reverse engineer, reproduce and resell components or plans for these components. And myriad other things. Designed to protect the business and investment and people who invented and built them.
"Ownership" in the age of complex "finished products" that result from trillions dollar global supply changes of incomprehensible complexity is more nuanced than the idea that I found a log in the forest, and now the log is mine.
I agree that there is currently no expectation for Sony to open up their OS to run just any software (such as pirated games). Nobody said that. There should be an open widely supported mobile OS because that's fast becoming about as fundamental to modern life (in my country at least) as roads and electricity are
Android being so easy to make software for is what hooked me as a teenager, after failing to develop for my previous Symbian phone. Taking that away is possible now because the alternatives are all gone. Where are you going to migrate to without making major concessions in your life? You'll have to forfeit popular messengers that your family, friends, landlord, etc. are on; no more mobile banking; extra fees to use online banking at all; extra fees to legally use public transport; no downloading of episodes or music from streaming services for offline use; no phone calls depending on your country's 2G status; etc.
However, at least in Sweden, a smart phone is practically mandatory since it has become a means of identification used by banks, police, our IRS counterpart etc. Even our physical mail is slowly being digitalised, and these services practically require you to own a smart phone. You can get by without one, but it’s a real struggle.
Therefore there should be laws requiring more transparency of these devices, in my opinion.
Freedom to use something you bought the way you want, without having a private foreign company decide for you.
I’ve given talks on how various jailbreak exploits work in order to teach people how to protect their own software but also with the suggestion that we should be able to do this.
It’s nuts that personal computers aren’t personal anymore. Devices you might not think of as PC’s… just are. They’re sold in slick hardware. And the software ecosystem tries to prevent tampering in the name of security… but it’s not security for the end user most of the time. It’s security for the investors to ensure you have to keep paying them.
However, I strongly believe that - should one choose to do so - you should not be stopped from jailbreaking, cracking, etc. manufacturer restrictions on the hardware you own. Companies aren't obligated to support me doing this - but why should legislation stop me if I want to try? (You can easily guess my thoughts on the DMCA.)
Where does one draw the line on support? If I jailbreak an iPhone, should I still get Apple customer support for the apps on it, even though they may have been manipulated by some aspect of the jailbreak? (Very real problem, easy to cause crashes in other apps when you mess around with root access) Should I still get a battery replacement within warranty from Apple even though I've used software that runs the battery hotter and faster than it would on average on a non-jailbroken iPhone?
I feel like changing the software shouldn't void your warranty, but I can see arguments against that. I probably fall on the side of losing all software support if you make changes like this, but even then it's not clear cut.
Charging IC has NTC thermistor and battery absolutely must withstand the system running on 100% and then some.
As for battery lifetime, batteries are cheap, unless you glue them to an expensive assembly and force people to replace whole assembly as phone vendors do.
Makes me think that google did this now since trump has been criticizing the DMA, so now they feel empowered by their leader to break the law
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These things are never thought through. Sure, Apple could unlock the whole thing, tell everyone to go nuts. Who's writing the damn drivers? Apple's certainly not obligated to open source theirs, I also can't imagine them signing someone else's. So we end up with a bunch of homebrew drivers, devices crashing, getting pwned, and the dozens of people who install a third party OS on their iPhone write furious articles that get voted up to the front page of HN.
One (a big entity with enough resources) should take this as an opportunity and create a new, third truly open alternative to iOS and Android (no, I'm not talking about an AOSP fork, I'm saying something totally new) and let iOS/Android have their thing as they want, letting consumers decide between the three instead of forcing vendors into ridiculous business decisions like forcefully opening their own platforms for others.
The key is that if you choose not to run that software, your hardware should not be constrained. You own the hardware, it's a tangible thing that is your property.
Boils down to a consumer rights issue that I fall on the same side of as the author.
Also worrisome are e-fuses, which allow software to make irrevocable physical changes to your hardware. They shouldn't be allowed to be modified except by the owner. (See Nintendo Switch updates blowing e-fuses to prevent downgrades.)
Obviously the parent commenter believes you should be able to exploit your own device and downgrade the OS if you wish.
The smartphone does not consist of just one processor, it's a collection of dedicated processors, each running custom algorithms locally. Sure, there's software running in the application layer, but it's playing more of a coordination role than actually doing the work. Just think of sending a packet over the internet and how different it is between a smartphone and a computer, how much more complex a cellular modem is compared to a network card.
It's less about software now and more about hardware accelerated modules. Even CPUs run primarily on microcode which can be patched after the fact.
These patterns are cyclical. It will take a number of years before we return to standardized compute again, but return we will. Eventually.
In practice, a whole lot software would have to be open source too so that the hardware is reasonably usable. The layers you'd need to let an iPhone run android well, or a Pixel phone to run iOS are not small.
That’s why I love my iPhone, but I’m not super happy about what happens with my Mac.
There’s something in the reality that it’s the app developers not the user that are being restricted by Apple. Apple keeps the app developers from doing things I don’t like for the most part. I don’t feel very restricted.
But I don’t want my computer to become a walled garden. It’s only OK for my phone.
Reading this comment as a user and developer in one person, it's so weird to see this disjointed picture of developers and users. You should have rights and feel unrestricted as a user but I shouldn't? Have you considered that being a developer is about the same as being a writer instead of a reader? We're the same...
> I don’t want my computer to become a walled garden
Why not? I don't think I can articulate an answer to the "I don't feel restricted" remark earlier better than you can probably do yourself by seeking what it is that rebels against these walls
Ahem, where was I
Ah yes: ever since dipping my toes in Android, I've always said I'd never buy an Apple device where I can't run my own software or control what proprietary software does. Now that the freedom is being taken away, the world is changing and I care about it. Until now, it was just a matter of buying any brand except one closed one. Not that hard to avoid
I don’t see why the industry couldn’t move to providing this documentation/full source over a few years.
Component supplier should not be allowed to only provide datasheet upon signing an NDA and only to some customers while providing chips to the resellers. If you put it on the open market, cough up the FULL datasheet, period.
The hardware aspect is quite irrelevant to the whole point: the hardware only runs with software that does not respect your freedom and there's no feasible way to make the hardware run software that does respect our freedom. And of course our banks and streaming services and whatever else we need also don't offer us any software that respect our freedoms. So no, it's not about hardware, it's about free software. Always has been.
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 interests work that the little device that you carry is bascially a brick at the mercy of its vendors?
Android doesn't even let you access your files. It has famously blocked acess to the subfolders of /Android/data - every app has a subfolder there where it sfores files. And you can not visit these subfolders since Android 11.
A buggy app accumulates gigabytes (literaly, i am not exagregating) of temp files there, but i cant visit the folder to delete them.
Google explains that "it's for you safety".
I have to call it with the strong word "idiotic".
There are apps now where storing files in a shared, accessible folder is a payed option.
And in this world you want to own your hardware.
Buy a more open phone if you want one, but stop trying to use legal means to force the software on my phone to be worse for my use-case just because you want to have your cake and eat it too.
You can keep your device enslaved to Apple all you want. You don't have to use the administrator permissions on Windows if you don't want them. Some of us do want freedom
You've got it completely backwards that having the option to control your hardware means you, as an individual, are impacted by anything at all if you don't want to administrate your own device
If the USG decides to pass a law saying you can only buy iPhones, then we will have more to talk about w.r.t. liberty.
Nothing actually prevents you from modifying your iPhone however you see fit, btw. If you are incapable of breaking Apple's security without bricking the phone, that's a "you" problem.
Is what the US government does the only concern to you? This feels like a very semantic argument that tries to define the government as the sole arbiter of what's expected in our society. Majority consensus has an equal if not greater reach in telling us what we can and can't do. Case in point: the only two types of smartphones you can reasonably use nowadays are iOS devices and Android devices (and that is Google-sanctioned Android devices, custom ROMs are being rooted out as we speak). Sure, you can technically buy a random dumbphone, and just accept losing access to most of society, including services where using specific apps on specific platforms is mandatory. Is that liberty to you? Everyone telling you that you must pick from one of these options, but you're not forced to at gunpoint, so it's fine?
> Nothing actually prevents you from modifying your iPhone however you see fit, btw. If you are incapable of breaking Apple's security without bricking the phone, that's a "you" problem.
I would agree if we were still in the 2000s, when people could actually plug their phones in and flash whatever firmware they desired on them. Current-day phones, iPhones especially, are black boxes that are designed to be impenetrable by anyone by Apple, under the guise of 'security'. Everything is cross-checked to ensure that you can't as much as screw your phone open without consequences. The threat vectors they're supposedly addressing are utterly ludicrous. It's gotta be stuff like "Oh, what if a malicious actor steals grandma's iPhone, opens it, installs a battery that wasn't blessed by Apple, and explodes it after giving it back to her?".
Everyone knows they're doing this because they want every facet their devices to be in their tight grip, so that you just obtain temporary permission to do some things with it under their watchful eye, as long as you stay in your lane. Best of all, they can just incessantly scream something about "safety", "security" or "integrity" and that will be good enough justification.
And 99% of people don't even have the capacity to care about any of this, they'll just pick "security" and cheer on for any new "secure" update that tightens corporate control over you and what you can do. The 1% is too small of a market to care about, they will just reluctantly use the socially acceptable option because what choice do they have?
More and more phones are locking them down until exploits are found to unlock them.
If they just wanted hardware, they could buy their own and piece something together, if we're exploring those kinds of hypotheticals. But buying an Apple or Android device is a different choice and I think, within that context, a user should be able to run the software they want.
Security-conscious people might actually prefer to own hardware-limited devices. An example of this is having a camera with a physical shutter, or a light that shows camera activity that can't be disabled by software.
Similarly, some people might prefer to own devices that don't allow side-loading at all, since it disables a potential vulnerability. Maybe it would be best if Google allowed this to be a configurable option when buying an Android phone. (I suppose they could buy an iPhone, though.)
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/104924762388...
https://www.fairphone.com/
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 not to say I disagree with what they do. They allow you to unlock the bootloader and they even supply an open and degoogled version of the OS! That is more than any other vendor I'm aware of. Every time I need a new phone, I check if the latest Fairphone fits my needs, and even though it's a compromise, I've tried it out in the past for several weeks. It's really worth supporting. But Google's new restriction will almost certainly affect Fairphone users, too
All nflix da should require is the interfaces outer needs.
Network stack CODECS CRYPTO stack (DRM)
The OS seems irrelevant.
I mean sure you worked be limited to whatever interface a browser could provide.
It's not as if certification of a certain operating system means anything other than the certificate.
Netflix used play4sure beck in my days at Apple, and literally t out was a tick box for them to assure the content owners they had DRM.
Nobody certified apple's netflix app for ATV back then, I know, Ben Lee and I wrote it...
We desperately need OS research, exokernels should be a thing by now, at least then the question becomes moot.
Windows, (alphabet)OS, Linux and BSD all provide operating systems that enable productive work but there's a lot of cruft
In reality, what you are expecting is, to be able to use your common tools to modify the device. But the vendor uses some weirdly shaped screws for which you don't have tools to work with. That is the real complaint.
I do think that it should be easier for people to build and install alternative OSes on their phones.
However, building your own mobile OS is just really hard. And on top of the technical challenges, the UX challenges, the overall polish challenges, there are non-technical challenges that are often impossible for alternative OSes.
* Industry connections problems. As an example, no open source mobile OS has a contactless payments app, at least not one that is generic and can support more or less any credit card out there. That is, you can't build an Apple/Google Wallet analogue and have it work.
* As much as I wish Jobs had stuck to his guns on the "no iPhone SDK" thing, and had instead developed and improved the mobile web stack, that's not the reality today. There are many things you just cannot do current mobile OSes through its web browser. Native apps are required there. And so that means companies need to choose the platforms they build for. Today that's easy: iOS and Android. But getting governments and banks and various companies to build apps for your niche mobile OS is going to be essentially impossible. And with closed-source kitchen-sink libraries like Google Play Services, it's incredibly difficult even to get a lot of Android apps running properly (and consistently reliably) on "de-Googled" Android phones.
Ultimately the real problem is that there's no capable, standardized, OS-agnostic platform for building mobile apps. The web platform could have been it, but it's not, and now Apple and Google have a vested interest in ensuring that it never can be, because building native iOS and Android apps locks people and companies into those ecosystems.
Ultimately^2 the real problem is that free markets are a myth, and don't work. Companies want to become monopolies, and want to bar new entrants. I would absolutely love some mandate/legislation/whatever that made it mandatory that we have a fully open source mobile OS, and that all the players involved need to be allowed to build equivalent functionality into it that Android and iOS have. I know that sounds radical and like government overreach (and current governments wouldn't go for it anyway). But the alternative is what we have today: monopolists that don't care about the rights of their customers. There's really no "free-market" way out of this.
It should be possible to participate in the modern economy using standard technology.
To this end, I think there should be a mandate that all govt and commercial infrastructure apps offer a progressive web app with at least feature parity with proprietary phone apps.
Want me to use a phone to pay for lunch, EV charging, parking or a toll? Great. It needs to be doable with anything running firefox, safari or chrome.
Why?
The author doesn't explain why and I've yet to see any justification for this other than, essentially, "because I want to" - usually evoking supposed freedoms and rights that exist only in the realm of wishful thinking.
Banks offer web frontends and many make you use 2FA and even hardware keys, which work on phones. We have been doing e-banking even before smartphone phones existed. We still do. On our full of malware and virus windows desktops.
These mobile apps are in reality web frontends disguised as mobile apps with biometrics on top of it. Nothing else really. I develop an iOS app for a bank. It’s really like that.
Despite that I have to obfuscate the binaries, check for cydia, make sure I am not jaibtoken and all kinds of useless stuff.
When you buy a PlayStation you are buying a piece of hardware that Sony sells you at a break even or a loss so that you can buy their games. You are not buying your hardware. You are buying means to run video games on a piece of hardware Sony is selling to you.
When I buy an iPhone I am paying a lot of money for my pocket computer, my internet communicator. The margins are so big, it doesn’t even make sense to squeeze more out of them.
When I buy an Android phone I fail to see the end game except that Google wants to have absolute control over everything I do in my life.
I cannot really deny them their right to do whatever they want.
Still I can’t see really how they want to protect users by having full control. That’s a big lie.
I'm not convinced there is some inalienable right to load an OS onto any hardware but said hardware/OS should never be on the critical path to anything a citizen needs to do.
If you want the government to force other people to do the work to let you have your cake and eat it too, I can't support that.
My immediate follow-up to people who take this position: Are you using Framework laptops, pinephone or other OSS devices already? If not, then it's just empty air -- vote with your $$.
this is happening with apple ecosystem since forever and people fine with it, so what is the issue here???
oh I know, people mad because someone take what they been able used to
not because they cant sideload. you can (just need an developer account for that)
The original phrase is good as is and much better than this nitpicking if we'd like to see actual movement on the issue.
“I should be able to run whatever code I want on hardware I own”
To be honest, it was way more of a problem than I ever imagined. The average user who tries to mod their system isn’t as proficient as you imagine they would be. As an engineer you imagine other engineers approaching the system as you would. In practice, it’s a lot of people with a lot of free time who copy and paste things into terminal sessions from forum posts and YouTube video comments. When it doesn’t work, they try to get your customer support team to fix it. They will deny, deny, deny when asked if they’ve modified the system because they want to trick support into debugging it anyway. When customer support refuses to handle their modified system, they try to RMA or return it for a refund in protest.
Over time, it drains you. You see the customer support request statistics and realize that a massive support burden could be avoided by locking it down. You see the RMA analysis and realize a lot of perfectly good devices are being returned with weird hacks applied. Every time you change an API or improve the system you have to deal with a vocal minority of angry modders who don’t want you to change anything, ever, because they expect the latest updates to work perfectly with all of their customer software.
It’s tiresome. I think the only way this works is if customers have to log in to a system and agree to surrender all customer support and warranty service for a device to enable the free-for-all mode for them. That doesn’t work, though, because warranty laws require that you service the device regardless unless you can prove it was the modification that caused the RMA, which is a model that works with vehicle service but not the $100 consumer hardware device.
So I get. I wish every device could be totally open, but doing that with normal customer service and support is a huge burden. The only place it really works is devices like Raspberry Pi where it’s sold as something where you’re on your own, not something where customer support agents have to deal with what the product was supposed to do before all of the different mods were applied.
I think that's a huge difference from the sideloading issue, though. Which is effectively saying "you must purchase all your software for this device from us, even if it's not our software, and even if it's available elsewhere for less".
I get how one statement creates the monopoly that allows the other statement, but I think they are still two separate statements.
I've been delighted to get my parents on iPhone+iPad for simplicity (and they have too). It feels this crowd sometimes assumes every barrier put in place is anti-consumer, but it's not. Blocking access to sensors, limiting background runtime, blocking access to other app's data, limiting it to reviewed apps... are all great things for most people. Most people don't have the technical literacy to have "informed consent" prompts popping up every 5 minutes, and most of them know it too. Most folks don't mind trusting Apple to make the tougher technical calls for them, and actually appreciate it.
Make cool hacker centric hardware. Make cool easy to use, locked down, and foolproof hardware. Both can and should exist.
except in about a hundred million examples where the niche software that is running on the niche hardware has no viable alternative.
In The Real World when you have a component that breaks somewhere, and the manufacturer of the thing either fails to help or no longer exists you contract a third party to retrofit a repair module of some sort, or you do the work yourself to get the thing working.
How does this principle apply when the producer of the thing booby traps it with encryption and circuit breakers?
Software is special, comparing it to other industries never works well.
No there isn't, and one of the main problems.
Secure from the owner doesn't equal security in general.
I know of no reasonable, modern Linux devices besides the Starlite tablet and potentially the Furiphone. And boy, have I looked and looked. But the second has not been around long enough to be reviewed by a reputable entity.
That said, service providers, corporations and the like should be allowed one remedy: They can refuse future services and business to anyone if that person violates whatever b.s. rule they came up with.
However, the government (any government) has no authority to police post-ownership activity in a manner that deprives the owner of their property rights. In other words, they can say "You can't own an AK-47" or "You can't generate sound over certain dB" , but they can't say "You can't shoot your AK-47 on your property, even if it pauses no risk of harm to others, but you can own it", and they can't say "You can't use your speaker at maximum volume" (they can police the sound you generate but not the usage of your property, if the speaker passes the legal threshold then the speaker isn't relevant, the sound generated is).
This also applies to free (not commercial) sharing of property (copyright laws are fundamentally invalid).
The problem is, I am talking logic and reason which doesn't translate well into real-world scenarios. In the real world, the guys with the biggest guns make up random rules and pretend it is just and valid.
The reason I'm stating all this, is in the hopes that I can convince anyone who reads this and maybe if enough of us agree, some day democracy might work and laws can change.
The government can prevent ownership of things. It cannot however pass laws that dicate you can come into possesion of things and by all reason it is your property, but as a matter of technicality it can't be considered property and is subject to arbitrary usage laws by the government or rules by third-parties.
That said (I promise, my last one!), access to network services is special. If someone made some software where to function it requires some network service, and they came up with random rules on the network service side, then that is also their right, since that service is on their property. The remedy people have for this is to avoid that service. And if that service is the only one of its kind and using it is required, then the government has a natural obligation to protect the public against monopolies.
I had a hole other post/thread that got negative feedback and some interesting discussion about Google, Android and their sideloading policies. If you glean anything from this post of mine, please let it be that I am advocating for solving of the root causes of these problems. It is all too easy to be reactionary and fall into these rage-baiting events. Solving root causes is never easy, but good solutions are often simple. If reasonable minds can have a healthy discourse to find these solutions then many problems are solved, instead of playing whack-a-mole forever.
Even if this is true… so what? Perhaps the App Store monopoly has helped make the iPhone successful, but that doesn't make it a good thing.
> If you want to play Playstation games on your PS5 you must suffer Sony’s restrictions, but if you want to convert your PS5 into an emulator running Linux that should be possible.
Why? What if Sony's restrictions are bad? Why are we ceding corporations the right to treat us however they want, so long as we're using their software?
You shouldn't have to flash a new OS onto your hardware in order for it to respect you as its user & owner. You shouldn't need to be tech-savvy, either. The happy path for the median user should be privacy and freedom.
Free/libre alternatives to consumer software are always going to be second-class, because respecting users is at odds with making money off them. If we people to be treated well by tech, it's not enough to provide an alternative ecosystem. We have to deny corporations the option to treat users badly in the first place.
No. Incorrect. Because the argument that we should be focusing on software is a distraction. They use restricting the OS as an argument to restrict the Hardware. Their is pressure put on on hardware devs to toe this line.
You can see this with secure enclaves. If they didn't care about what software was running on their hardware, they wouldn't be designing hardware to restrict the kind of OS you can run on the hardware. Secure Boot/UEFI is going in that direction and Mobile devices are already there to some extent.
This whole argument is a distraction designed to lure people away from the real problem. That all technology (Hardware and Software) is being designed to restrict freedoms. If you are focus on this distraction, you are missing the point.
Fully open phone systems consistently fail to sell enough to make a difference, which is a bit of a shame, but honestly at this point the market has spoken.
The only important thing is for the bank, Netflix and co to not be able to discriminate. But again nothing would provide the bank to offer a setting for the user to restrict where it can use it's banking app if it was not discriminatory. But we know well where this goes, in the end if you don't enable it
As a developer I write apps for myself and I side-load them. Why take away my right to do so, just because other people can't then nobody should?
If you agree with this article, do you also agree with these statements?
* "We should be able to repair our firearms with freely available full-auto conversions kits."
* "We should be able to repair our own cars, and add software like Volkswagen did to bypass EPA and state inspection testing."
* "We should be able to repair our own homes and offices, and ignore building codes and ADA guidelines."
Android uses Google Play Services updates to update some features or security without relying on manufacturers to update the OS and drivers.
But if they do then it’s worse than what I thought.
but ultimately it doesn't matter, if the market could bear the additional cost a competitor could emerge... but they barely do anywhere
honestly at this point in life I think it would be easier to change society to be structured in a way to make the people running these companies want to give it to you
No, says the car manufacturers, those cycles belong to us
No, says the nerds in Redmond, your computer belongs to us
I’d guess in 5 years you’ll start getting friction for using AD, and heavy push towards cloud services first. You’ll probably have to subscribe to legacy features or migrate to Azure to use them.
Their legacy systems management tool is a zombie product, and the replacement is Intune, which and an MDM solution which locks you out of your computer similar to Android or iOS.
I’ll be retired, so IDNGAF, but in 15 years, Microsoft will be capturing all of the value they give you for free in windows. The future will look like a 1980s mainframe.
What makes you think you can own hardware, you fascist capitalist pig dog!
There's no reason we shouldn't be able to run what we want on our hardware, without having to trust anything other than the microkernel inside the operating systems.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_operating_sys...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppArmor
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security-Enhanced_Linux
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_permissions
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module
the change impacts closed source software distributed without verification which is by definition unknown so the "want" is not possible - i.e. you can't know if you want to run it.