As Apple has demonstrated, neither has the presence of closed software. Between Apple and Microsoft, they're nearly 100% likely to get software that is not trustworthy, and cannot be made so.
This would be less worrisome if the state did not compel these organizations to provide their data to the military on demand without a warrant, but due to the vertical integration of big tech companies and US military spying, this becomes a major threat to our society and the basic exercise of civic participation.
It's hard to do things like, for example, investigative reporting against corrupt government officials if the government officials know every time you open Premiere, and where you do it, because they forced your chip/OS manufacturer to tell them.
Sure a government agency may be forcing Apple or MS to help them spy on you, just as they could have compromised whatever else you are using.
But when you download software from at least the Apple App Store, you are in fact protected from many kinds of harmful software.
Let’s not lie and pretend that isn’t a real benefit to many people, even though there are serious downsides to it.
But even if you were right about the equivalence - what’s the point in the handwringing?
There is no way out unless we build our way out.
Shaking your fist at the man just isn’t going to do anything.
The reason there is no alternative is that we haven’t solved the problems yet. People are in fact trying.
Nothing you can say about Microsoft or Apple will make an alternative appear.
That’s a nasty communication you chose to receive by installing ad supported software.
It has nothing to do with security or really even computers.
A claim that "buying Apple makes you safer" makes one less safe, due to perception of extra safety.
"The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better." -- George Orwell, 1984
I own a company which manufactures and sells showerheads. Since "most" people are prone to a fall while taking a shower, my company also mandatorily installs a camera alongside, so that we can monitor for accidents, given our deep concern for our customers.
"Some" customers have raised concerns about their privacy, but this is for the greater good. My company is very ethical in its practices, and really values each customer's privacy (pinky promise).
The footage of you and your loved ones showering is completely safe with us, although you can choose not to be recorded while showering by not purchasing our products.
Oh by the way, our showerheads are sleeker and more convenient than anything else in the market.
I remember very well the times where when you’d connect a fresh Windows XP SP2 to the internet without a router or firewall it immediately showed malicious popups and eventually a BSOD.
No, the real story here is that Corporations in the USA, and other Global North countries, have both 1) benefited from state/taxpayer-funded subsidies, grants, and research, and 2) are now locking up and monopolizing these discoveries using the international TRIPS system, 'claiming' Patents and Copyrights, 'kicking away the ladder':
"How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. Adopting a historical approach, Dr Chang finds that the economic evolution of now-developed countries differed dramatically from the procedures that they now recommend to poorer nations. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing counties from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used."
+
“Rich countries have ‘kicked away the ladder’ by forcing free-market, free-trade policies on poor countries. Already established countries do not want more competitors emerging through the nationalistic policies they themselves successfully used in the past.” [1]
Professor Yash Tandon adds:
“During the 1980s and 1990s I worked in many countries in eastern and southern Africa, and then for four years at the South Centre—2005–09. I can say from my experience that the industrialised countries of the North have been trying systematically to block all efforts by the countries of the South to industrialise. Their mega-corporations have tried—and, alas, succeeded—in privatising knowledge, and using it to promote corporate profits over the lives of people."
[...]
“It is the seeds and pharmaceutical companies of the West that have pirated the knowledge of seeds and medicinal products from the South. But whereas in the South this knowledge was shared as a public asset, the Western companies, having learnt from the South, proceeded to claim it as their private property. They are guilty—morally guilty—for the avoidable deaths of millions of people in the South who cannot afford their ‘patented’ medicines against, for example, AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other killer diseases. It is a sordid story. But it is not all doom and gloom. Those who control the system (the global corporations and the international organisations that the West controls) do not get their own way entirely. Wars do not always end in the victory of the militarily or ‘intellectually’ powerful.” [2]
All of this then comes together through Tech's Great-Man theory, that has us idolizing those monopolizers:
"In the movie Steve Jobs, a character asks, “So how come 10 times in a day I read ‘Steve Jobs is a genius?’” The great man reputation that envelops Jobs is just part of a larger mythology of the role that Silicon Valley, and indeed the entire U.S. private sector, has played in technology innovation. We idolize tech entrepreneurs like Jobs, and credit them for most of the growth in our economy. But University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzucato, who has just published a new U.S. edition of her book, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths, makes a timely argument that it is the government, not venture capitalists and tech visionaries, that have been heroic.
“Every major technological change in recent years traces most of its funding back to the state,” says Mazzucato. Even “early stage” private-sector VCs come in much later, after the big breakthroughs have been made. For example, she notes, “The National Institutes of Health have spent almost a trillion dollars since their founding on the research that created both the pharmaceutical and the biotech sectors–with venture capitalists only entering biotech once the red carpet was laid down in the 1980s. We pretend that the government was at best just in the background creating the basic conditions (skills, infrastructure, basic science). But the truth is that the involvement required massive risk taking along the entire innovation chain: basic research, applied research and early stage financing of companies themselves.” The Silicon Valley VC model, which has typically dictated that financiers exit within 5 years or so, simply isn’t patient enough to create game changing innovation." [3]
[1] https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb
[2] https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/trade-war-yash-tandon-2nd-ed...
> For most people, if there computer was ‘theirs’, it would be that way for about 10 minutes until it was pwned by a bad actor.
This may have been true back in the early 2000s when people first had good broadband. However all the major operating systems have pretty decent security out of the box mainly due to the embarassment of events like MS Blaster Worm.
> The general issue of other people (I.e. Apple et al) having a lot of control over your computer, is entirely valid even if some of the points in the piece are exaggerations.
The problem is that if you buy a general purpose computing device. You should be able to run whatever you like on it.
They should just have a button somewhere in whatever the equivalent of the BIOS on these machines is that says "I am an adult and I accept the risks of turning off these protections" and then let you install Temple OS if you so choose to.
This is something that needs to be enforced by legal means IMO, something similar to right to repair.
> The problem is that people want it that way.
I don't know about that. They frequently get irritated by it and are just resigned to it IME.
However the popularity of single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi, People building their own gaming rigs and people tinkering with gadgets goes someway in refuting this notion. There will be of course many people that just won't care and will use "iDevice" and that is fine, however there is a large spectrum between "I only run stuff from the app store" to "I run custom Arch Install with optimised kernel with tk kernel patches".
> The presence of open software isn’t enough without a way for people to know what is trustworthy without being experts.
I agree. This is a failing of the open source community. I've actually written a draft manifesto called "better than freedom". This may actually push me to at least have it critiqued by my friends.
> Until we provide that, this situation cannot change.
Something has to change. We are sliding back into the 1980s where all the computer hardware was incomptable with one another.
No, it's not at all the same sort of logic. We are talking about technology here, not overall life experience. Everyone starts out life on the same footing, with zero experience, and has the innate potential to learn how to live it. But computers are a very specific, highly specialized machinery that the vast parts of the population will never be able to directly understand or fix. I can drive a car but I don't know the first thing about fixing it.
You could claim that no one should own technology if they don't understand it intimately, but that is a different kind of logic and argument. It's silly to conflate the two.
Can you point out where he made such a claim? Because I don't see it.
>But computers are a very specific, highly specialized machinery that the vast parts of the population will never be able to directly understand or fix.
Computers are all that only in the vaguest of sense. They're actually not specialised at all. They're actually extremely general purpose. But whether that's the case at all there's a lot items, equipment and tools that are very specialised that most people don't understand but if they were made in act in any way similar to this because someone somehow managed to use them in a retarded way it would surely raise some eyebrows.
Company incentives are trash and I trust them A LOT lot less to not make stuff designed to fail, to lock in customers, to snoop data, etc, etc than I trust myself to not do stupid shit when i want an exception to some safety feature or the like.
>I can drive a car but I don't know the first thing about fixing it.
And would you buy a car with the hood welded shut? With the tires needing some kind of manufacturers signature to not be locked? One that locks up if you try to use some 3rd party seatcovers? No.
And yeah there's some type of modifications to them and actions that we generally try to prevent...but that's because we're talking about a highspeed deathmobile to surrounding drivers/pedestrians if you start putting spikes on it or fuck up your breaks. That however is not the case for a pc, phone, printer or what have you.
Please see again the phrasing I used. Specifically, the clause using the word “could“.
> Everyone starts out life on the same footing, with zero experience, and has the innate potential to learn how to live it. But computers are a very specific, highly specialized machinery that the vast parts of the population will never be able to directly understand or fix.
I started off with zero experience and learned more over time to throw your own words back at you.
I learned how to program on a computer when I was 10 years old (which was 28 years ago now) after my Grandfather (who was born in the 1920s) learned how to operate his own computer at home. We had manuals and trial and error and the library. It was much more difficult to learn back then because there was no internet, no youtube and almost nobody had a computer. Computers back then were a lot more difficult to use as well. So don't give me this nonsense about it being so opaque it is impossible for an ordinary person.
Also most people will know a friend or relative that is handy with a PC or you could go to a local specialist for help. A large multi-billion company "looking out for the plebs" isn't required.
Apple has been quite good it seems as selling this narrative.
> I can drive a car but I don't know the first thing about fixing it.
Plenty of people used to be able to work on their own cars in the past (and still do today). Most of them would be considered "laymen". Plenty of people fix their own phones and computers, or go to a repair shop where people have taught themselves to repair electronics and turned it into a business. Just because you choose to be ignorant (which is absolutely fine) doesn't mean other people aren't able or willing to.
Do you think that all people are born with the innate ability to master computers, programming, and other technical tasks?
Just as not all people are born with innate ability to write a good novel, paint a masterpiece, write a symphony, or lead a nation, I'd say no.
But all people are born with the ability to live their own life and learn how best to do it in the direction that seems natural for themselves.
You are confusing the spirit of this discourse.
> You should be able to run whatever you like on it.
You are contradicting yourself. People are explicitly choosing iphone, a walled garden. Then you say that that's a wrong choice because you believe it's a general purpose computing device and should work differently.
If people buy it then, well, they are fine with it.
I don't think people have much choice these days. If you want a smartphone then you will either get something from Apple or from Android people. There are other choices but are they mainstream? In my local shops I can't see anything else. Android or Apple.
That's why I'm buying PinePhone and going to waste lots of my life to make it fit my needs, but I hope once time is spent I will be happier human being ;)
Well, choice is about compromise. You have to choose between freedom and convenience, but you can choose. I'm saying that as a person who used 4 linux phones as daily drivers for last 10 years (n900, n9, jolla, xperia with sailfish).
> There are other choices but are they mainstream
Well there are. Maybe they are not mainstream because people value convenience over freedom, which is unfortunate to me, but who am I to dictate them my values.
At least there are always some linux phones to choose from, and hopefully fabless/new open platforms would even increase the amount of such. I mean, 10 years ago it was nokia or nothing, today there are pinephone, fairphone, librem
They could literally put in a button to let you install what you like. In fact they already did this in the past.
There are many open source products that have had huge investments without monetization.
Like what?
If you read the rest of my comment I specifically mentioned some sort of mechanism for turning off the walled garden protections. I would imagine it would work something like secure boot. I have a motherboard that lets me turn off that machanism if wanted to via the BIOS software.
If the only way for it to happen is through lobbying politicians and requiring it by law (not a solution I would prefer) so be it.
Also it is quiite clearly a general computing device as it has all the characteristics of one. It isn't a matter of belief.
Well you are free to provide a platform that is as convenient as ios and as free as linux.
In practice that's not easy to say modestly since convenience require quite an investment in design and developement which free platforms tend to lack.
So in reality it's either a well monetized platform (which is either a walled garden or just sells your data), or free platform which is far behind in terms of convenience and support.
> Also it is quiite clearly a general computing device as it has all the characteristics of one. It isn't a matter of belief.
No, it's exactly your belief. Apple doesn't advertise it to you that way, they doesn't say you'll be able to run whatever you'd like on it, so I dunno where did you get this misconception that they should provide you such an ability.
Respectfully you obviously don't understand what I wrote.
I was quite clearly talking about the ability to run an alternative OS on the platform. Not whether there Lineage OS or similar is as good as iOS.
You can install whatever operating system you want on a Laptop or a PC. You can already run other ROM images on Android (though some phones you have to root the device which is not okay.
It isn't about an OS already being there. It being able to run whatever OS might be available.
> No, it's exactly your belief. Apple doesn't advertise it to you that way, they doesn't say you'll be able to run whatever you'd like on it, so I dunno where did you get this misconception that they should provide you such an ability.
There is no misconception on my part. If you look up what makes a general purpose computer, that includes things such as PC, laptops, servers and smartphones. The iPhone has all the properties that make it one.
So whether you like it or not, it fits all the criteria. It doesn't matter what Apple market it as or whether they artifically lock it down. That doesn't fundamentally make it a different thing.
I got it, and explained how it will hurt monetization of their product. Android is a different story with different (I dare say way more scummy) strategies of monetization.
The point is you can't have a convenient platform which doesn't produce revenue allowing to make it convenient and rewarding the investment.
As to whether it would hurt monitisation. I don't think it will and even if it did I don't care they have more money than most countries do. If they must be required to by legal means so be it.
Also they already kinda allow some of this when you enable developer mode via a Mac with the appropriate iOS developer account. So there is no reason why they cannot do this tomorrow without the paywall.
> So there is no reason why they cannot do this tomorrow without the paywall
Sure you don't when you are dismissing economics of software development so vigorously. Try to look at things from the perspective of economic incentives, not pure technical standpoint. You'll understand why free platforms are way less convenient, and closed platforms are as they are.
I am not making any argument that can be construed as this. You are misreading me if you think I am. I agree that people should be allowed to make their own choices which is why I strongly oppose government regulation of software distribution. It’s also why I support people’s right to choose platforms like iOS.
“Something has to change. We are sliding back into the 1980s where all the computer hardware was incompatible with one another.”
I’m not sure freedom and compatibility always go hand in hand, but I agree that something has to change.
As to the tinkerers and people building their own rigs - the idea that there is a large spectrum. I potentially agree.
Serving those people well is a hugely untapped potential. I used to believe that Apple would see this, but I no longer do. I suspect that Jobs would have done.
I would like to think the open source community and commercial ecosystem outside of Apple and Microsoft can seize the opportunity.
We won’t if we spend our time feeling victimized by corporations doing what corporations do.
Fair enough. I've read some of your other replies on here and I got the wrong end of the stick.
As for the rest of your comment here. I agree.
Is this an argument for forced autonomous cars or stopping selling of knives because they are scary and you can cut yourself while cooking?
I vehemently oppose government regulation of software distribution, precisely because otherwise we won’t be able to develop a true alternative.
I don’t want people to be prevented from using dangerous tools such as sharp knives, or manual vehicles.
But neither do I want them to be forced to take risks they don’t want to take.
Stopping selling of knives: Yes, once we have a safer way of cutting things. Though the real problem is probably people cutting each other on purpose, rather than themselves by accident.
Selt belt wearing is rarely enforced anywhere (especially in Europe, in Italy nobody wears one even though it is illegal).
As for autonomous cars. If they ever work, one of the first mods people will do is to add a steering wheel.
> Stopping selling of knives: Yes, once we have a safer way of cutting things.
Knives are a safe way of cutting things. Billions of people use them everyday without issue.
> Though the real problem is probably people cutting each other on purpose, rather than themselves by accident.
How are you going to stop people from making knives? Humans have been making them for several 1000s of years, IIRC Chimps can make them now. In prisons they literally make shives out of toilet paper.
In the UK carrying knives is banned and their sale is heavily restricted. However in our capital city we still have a lot of knife violence. Guns are also heavily restricted but people still have those illegally and people do get shot. My uncle is a convicted bank robber, he had plenty of guns.
You are solving the wrong problem. You must solve the problem of why people are being violent to one another. That will actually make people safer.
Maybe where you live. Everybody wears one here.
> Knives are a safe way of cutting things. Billions of people use them everyday without issue.
You probably missed the part where I said we would only outlaw knives if we had a safer way of cutting things (reliably).
Enforcement and compliance are two different things. I was saying that it cannot be enforced. Not that people won't comply.
> You probably missed the part where I said we would only outlaw knives if we had a safer way of cutting things (reliably)
You seemed to misunderstand. The way we have is perfectly safe as it is. Billions of people use them everyday without issue. There is neither the incentive or need to.
You cannot enforce the ban of knives as they are soooo trivial to make (you can make a knife by hitting a large stone against a piece of flint). Even in a very locked down environment such as a prison inmates still manage to acquire them or produce them.
Even if in your fantasy world you did outlaw them and was successful. People would hit each other with Baseball bats, Umbrellas, Pieces of wood, Bricks, lumps of metal.
You must solve the problem of why people are being violent not what they are using to be violent.
That's a good list of items less deadly than a knife.
It is obvious that you are either idiotic or disingenuous. Judging by the user name, I would guess the second. Have a nice day.
The general issue of other people (I.e. Apple et al) having a lot of control over your computer, is entirely valid even if some of the points in the piece are exaggerations.
The problem is that people want it that way.
They are in fact correct that computers are scary and too complex for them to manage, and they want someone they can trust to do it for them.
Stallman may have predicted the issue, but he really didn’t do much to solve the real problems.
The presence of open software isn’t enough without a way for people to know what is trustworthy without being experts.
Until we provide that, this situation cannot change.