People in prior threads about the Android sideloading issue often mentioned Cory Doctorow; this is his newly-posted take on the matter.
zb3 · 1h ago
> Law, not technology, is the true battlefield in the War on General Purpose Computing
I'd say it's law AND technology. Because even if it was technically possible to break some protections, it wouldn't mean it'd always be economically viable to do that. It really gets harder because the security is being improved (albeit this "security" is for the device manufacturer, not me).
While it isn't legal to break these protections and make a product around that, it is legal to try to break them and get a reward if a company offers such program. I guess both Google and Apple offer them, but of course governments indirectly pay more for these exploits.
bitpush · 3h ago
Does Cory use Android?
cdoctorow · 2h ago
Yup.
metalman · 1h ago
right on all counts
though resistance is amusing
the whole set up is symetrical in that it still requires many millions of individuals to self manage a significant portion of the sales, and so having a bit of web frontage and making a buck is easy
millions of people, blithly causing every kind of chaos without any specific intent to
resist or oppose anything just trying for a piece of the pie, no malice, no grand plan for world domination, but fearsly focused on getting something for themselves, and will lie and cheat and steal, and break things, but just a little bit
and so, today, we can see the attempts by various
powers to institue some order around here, though there laments are startlingly similar to the chant's of the god's decrying how they could not get any peace ir rest,because of all the noise and trouble caused by the people of mesoptamia 4000 years ago
I'd say it's law AND technology. Because even if it was technically possible to break some protections, it wouldn't mean it'd always be economically viable to do that. It really gets harder because the security is being improved (albeit this "security" is for the device manufacturer, not me).
While it isn't legal to break these protections and make a product around that, it is legal to try to break them and get a reward if a company offers such program. I guess both Google and Apple offer them, but of course governments indirectly pay more for these exploits.
though resistance is amusing
the whole set up is symetrical in that it still requires many millions of individuals to self manage a significant portion of the sales, and so having a bit of web frontage and making a buck is easy
millions of people, blithly causing every kind of chaos without any specific intent to resist or oppose anything just trying for a piece of the pie, no malice, no grand plan for world domination, but fearsly focused on getting something for themselves, and will lie and cheat and steal, and break things, but just a little bit
and so, today, we can see the attempts by various powers to institue some order around here, though there laments are startlingly similar to the chant's of the god's decrying how they could not get any peace ir rest,because of all the noise and trouble caused by the people of mesoptamia 4000 years ago
always almost