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- Hacker News
- Executive Summary: run Linuxby mrbluecoat
- Until EU forbids you to like they plan in 2027.by egorfine
- Won't matter. Remote hardware attestation means they will know you're trying to bypass their control. You'll be denied service at every turn. Can't even log into your bank account.
- > [Apple] promised apps with no viruses and no risks; a place where everything was curated and safe.
Apart from the viruses, nothing of the above is true any more. Apple doesn't care if you're getting screwed over by an app, and neither does Google. If they can increase their profits by taking away our freedom and/or control over "our" devices, then it WILL happen, as sure as death and taxes.
by isolay - Answer: companies realized that they can milk you for more money by restricting your options and alternatives.by buyucu
- Yes, this is the main idea behind iOS and the App Store. I don't get why smart people are falling for this.by amelius
- I place a large part of blame of why the public is accepting of this trend of restrictive computing to Microsoft’s decision to loosen security despite of David Cutler’s excellent Windows NT. Cutler came from DEC VMS and built Windows NT to be an enterprise OS with separation between kernel and user space and enterprise level security. Microsoft to go after the consumer space ran a lot of apps and drivers in the kernel space. This meant for over two decades consumers learnt hackers could easily hack, bypass, and take control over their PCs. If you could disguise your code as a driver, it got God permissions to your PC.by rawgabbit
- It seems like the path we’re heading to for the next 5-10 years is that we’ll still have general purpose compute, but many things will require a locked down smartphone as an access token. This is already the case in many corporate environments. More and more webpages are going to go this route in the name of security (along with only allowing access from a “trusted” browser authenticated with a TPM).
So you’ll still be able to write code and scripts and play on the side on your laptop, but if you want to access your banks webpage (or really, anything you get through someone else’s server: streaming media, the news, porn, whatever) you’ll be forced to Chrome + laptop with TPM + authentication through smartphone app.
Not ideal.
by QuiEgo - I worry that this global push for 'Know Your Developer' and the attempt to make them legally liable for what they produce, is going to destroy open source, An 'open' linux included.
After that, certified locked down BigTech 'Personal Computing' will be the only menu choice.
by whitehexagon - Exactly. It’s a tactic so big tech doesn’t have to engage in activity that would justify anti-trust action if they want to ban a developer or even a whole class of apps. It’s also usable in general to benefit the wealthy.
They force anyone distributing software into the legal system so a “3rd party” can sue and destroy the life of anyone that goes against the system they want. Anything they don’t like will be accused of violating patents, etc. and the option to distribute anonymously for the good of users / society will no longer exist.
by donmcronald - ReactOS needs donations NetBSD is running a new round of donations F-Droid needs donations
There are more
AROS, GNU-HURD and more
you can always contribute code, maintain an app, report a bug
You can buy HW to run AOSP, like Raspberry-PI or RISC-V
We are the consumers, we have the wallet.
by fithisux - I was there, 3000 years ago, when we started ringing the bell about “trusted computing”. Honestly it’s not as bad as I expectedby khalic
- The future is likely bifurcated trust: Official, encrypted, attested systems; and unofficial, unencrypted, unattested systems.
The GNU freedoms never specified the right to run free software side by side with proprietary software on the same hardware; so the FSF should actually be fine with such an outcome.
by gjsman-1000 - I have an ugly hunch that systemd gonna be Google Play Services of Linux at some point.
I beg history to prove me wrong.
For anyone interested, please look at Hardware attestation and TiVoization, thanks.
by bayindirh - Trusted computing is just another name for vendor lock-in. It was never about security.by buyucu
- Mobile is where it’s bad. It never took hold fully on desktop since desktop is used for development and too many other things.by api
- > it’s not as bad as I expected
yet :D
by photios - I don't agree, it is absolutely dreadful, and we saw this coming and did nothing about it.
Think about it: you need permission to run software on your own hardware. Every time you launch a Mac App, it checks in with its masters to be sure its okay to do so - every time you install an app on your mobile device, it does the same thing.
People accept this terrible state of affairs because the "user experience is better" - but this is a fallacy. Under the cover of 'security issues' that their are incapable of fixing, due to very poor architecture decisions, OS vendors have instead bolted on an insanity and sold it to the user as progress.
Every computing device should have everything it needs, onboard, to write software for that computing device. That they don't is because the OS vendors are cowardly running from the bloat of yesteryear and adding more bloat tomorrow to cover it all up.
There will be a backlash against this. We see it already in the retro-computing and alternative-platform hacking communities, which are growing and growing, exponentially, by the year.
Its only a matter of time that someone wraps up this freedom-to-use concept in hardware that is sexy enough to compete with the totalitarian-authoritarian platform providers. Any .. day .. now ..
by aa-jv - Alternate take: it's exactly as bad as you expected, but your timeline was off.
And even so, perhaps it's later than you realize. Device attestation in the browser is the final nail in the coffin, and it's a question of "when" not "if" major sites start requiring it in the name of "safety" from bots.
by JeremyNT - > However, there is an increasing userbase whose first experience of computing was in these locked-down tablet and smartphone environments. They aren’t so demanding about little things like proper filesystem access or the ability to run unsigned code. They might not blink if that goes away.
I would also suggest that there is another user base who has been using computers for a long time, before GUIs existed, is fed up with fighting malware, welcomes the protection of a sandboxed, protected system, but doesn't understand the importance of having the option of escaping the sandbox. These users might not see the loss of not being able to install a kext on Mac OS without booting into Recovery Mode. But they will notice the loss when, at some point, we can't run anything that isn't signed on any platform.
Google and Microsoft are slowly moving towards the Apple model because it works as far as decreasing support costs go.
When the day comes that there isn't any hardware we can purchase that we can't install OpenBSD/Linux/whatever we want, it will be too late. We have to push back before then somehow.
by TYPE_FASTER - Which means that in the future will be less engineers and software developers because they never had a chance to learn. And if somebody will know how all of this works really, they won't be working for peanuts. So in an essence all of those companies are eating their own tails. Which is expected since all of it is driven by the stock exchange executives that are interested only by short term profit. Yes it will be terrible but on the other hand all empires are terrible at some point ridden by the stagnation and multitude of radicoulus laws. Will it be the same with technocracy? Probably yes if they lock it all down, new generations will never learn, they will be less and less people with knowledge to maintain the infrastructure and without maintenance it will collapsee eventually.by npodbielski
- I'm sure there are people in high places believing this is not important because AGI.by MisterTea
- > Vote with your wallet Doesn't work when the only options are bad. Every Android OEM embraces the closing of android because it'll allow them to ship all the spyware they already do without the user being able to remove them (or disable them soon enough). Having 2 or 100 options has no difference if they're all bad.by hollow-moe
- How will Google know about my choice? I want to let them know that now there is no reason anymore to prefer to Android over another ecosystem.
Also, my hardware, my choice. It seems there is no way to actually let them know.
by linuxhansl - I hear you but we are a minority. Apple will demolish the market when Gen Alpha grows up. Look at what phones are used to film at concerts by the crowd in the US. it's hard to find a single non-iPhone. Also for a more unbiased take, look up stats for teen preferences. It's not Gen Z that will change the world.by NaomiLehman
- It's important to understand that we could genuinely lose general purpose computing. I don't think it's in serious danger at the moment, but we've been in the midst of a slide in that direction for the last 10-15 years. Part of it is mobile phones, part of it is TPM, part of it is market forces. The latest turn is strictly political. We've really foolishly built the technology necessary for authoritarianism just a few years head of a general global trend towards authoritarianism. At the moment, anyone can use Linux; it's better and easier than ever. Will the laws of your country make it harder or more difficult to avoid? Will major vendors lock you out of basic functions? Will age verification require an agent run on your Windows or macOS computer? (or worse, require the use of a smart phone just to use the internet?)
We're not anywhere there yet, but we're closer than we've ever been, and things keep moving in the wrong direction.
by everdrive - >At the moment, anyone can use Linux; it's better and easier than ever. Will the laws of your country make it harder or more difficult to avoid? Will major vendors lock you out of basic functions?
Somewhat related, but if x86 loses dominance it will be even more difficult if not impossible to install Linux or other alternate OS's on ARM devices. The majority of consumer ARM electronics make it hard enough, and normally requires you to run a specific patched (and most likely outdated) Linux kernel in order to boot.
There are ARM devices which meet the ARM System Ready standard which allows you to boot whatever OS you want, but they are mostly enterprise devices such as servers. Cheapest one I've seen which your average consumer might buy was an ARM workstation with a starting price of about $1500
by robotnikman - Oh wow... The idea of losing general purpose computing is a terrifying thought I've never considered before.
- > We've really foolishly built the technology necessary for authoritarianism just a few years head of a general global trend towards authoritarianism.
Hum... It was foolish, but it was decades after the trend started.
Looks to me that the real trend was started mostly by the wide distribution of TV and the subsequent media consolidation (that happened everywhere).
Also, who is "we" here? Because it was exactly the authoritarian-wannabes that created most of it.
by marcosdumay - This! I think we were all too naïve in having "we would never let it happen, right?" be the motto for our complacency and inaction.
I hope more people come around and recognize that Richard Stallman deserves a big, resounding "you were right, we're sorry" after being attacked for his dislike of "trusted computing" and TPMs [0].
by rolandog