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My linux machines don't have a lot of privacy problems and don't have the overbearing corporate control. Walled gardens are great, but so are gates.

by flukus 8y ago

quantummkv 8y ago
The typical Linux gardens have caretakers with backgrounds in navy seals and are fully capable of protecting their gardens without gates. The average iOS and Android users don't even know they are in a garden, much less know how to protect it.
- flukus 8y ago
  You're looking at the current state and not the model itself. > The average iOS and Android users don't even know they are in a garden, much less know how to protect it. If you took those same users and put them on the linux equivalent (ignoring other practicalities) the same will be true, any software they want will be coming from the ubuntu software center or something equivalent and they wouldn't have to protect themselves. Yet they'd still have the freedom to get software from other sources if they wished. Corporate users could build their own repository and have software installed from there without involving anyone else. Windows didn't have such a malware problem because they gave users the freedom, it was because downloading installers from websites was the default way to install software. Without this history windows could be (I don't know how trusted the windows store should be) in the same position as linux today, with users trained to install what they want from the store but still able to go around it. The apple desktop is in basically the same situation as windows. Android isn't a walled garden, you can install apps from elsewhere. Unfortunately the play store isn't a trustworthy source of software like apple store or a linux repository, all sorts of crap ends up there. Google even generates a per device Id to help software track you.
geofft 8y ago
Your Linux machine is neither a walled garden nor a gate; it's an unlocked house in the countryside. Its lack of privacy problems is because it's not a target. Have you built something from source by downloading a tarball and running `make install`? Did you look at the Makefile before you did so?
- flukus 8y ago
  It's a walled garden because the default way to install apps is from the repository, a trusted source that isn't filled with spyware. The gate is that I can download and run software without it. It's the best of both worlds and has been before app stores existed. An unlocked house in the countryside would be running software without my intent, the only place that happens is inside the browser. You trust the app store just as I trust the repositories, I just have other choices available as well. > Have you built something from source by downloading a tarball and running `make install`? Did you look at the Makefile before you did so? Again, it's all about trust. Under this model companies like google can even build their own extensions to the garden.
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    As a Linux user I agree with GP that Linux is only as safe as it is because it's not a target. It's pretty clear that large tech companies cannot be trusted, I definitely wouldn't run a binary provided by Facebook on my machine. I am hesitant about running apps like Slack and Dropbox, and would prefer not to give them full access to my user account[0], but I need to use them so. Desktop container technologies are maturing nicely, so hopefully one day we'll have permission prompts where we can restrict what an app can access. [0] Yes I understand I could run them as a different user but that's not very user friendly at the moment.
    - z3t4 8y ago
      You could use Apparmor.
- glennpratt 8y ago
  I don't understand. Some Linux machines I'm responsible for are targets. I build what few things I need from source in a sandbox, fetch the source from entities I trust and verify the integrity. And yes, I do read the code, because if I'm building it that usually means I needed to patch it.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
Scene_Cast2 8y ago
The enforcing of privacy was done at a political level, not at a technical level. Linux (as a group? vague hand-wavy term) focuses hard on the technical merits of its own product, but ignores the ecosystem.

My linux machines don't have a lot of privacy problems and don't have the overbearing corporate control. Walled gardens are great, but so are gates.

by flukus 8y ago

My linux machines don't have a lot of privacy problems and don't have the overbearing corporate control. Walled gardens are great, but so are gates.

quantummkv 8y ago

The typical Linux gardens have caretakers with backgrounds in navy seals and are fully capable of protecting their gardens without gates. The average iOS and Android users don't even know they are in a garden, much less know how to protect it.

flukus 8y ago
You're looking at the current state and not the model itself. > The average iOS and Android users don't even know they are in a garden, much less know how to protect it. If you took those same users and put them on the linux equivalent (ignoring other practicalities) the same will be true, any software they want will be coming from the ubuntu software center or something equivalent and they wouldn't have to protect themselves. Yet they'd still have the freedom to get software from other sources if they wished. Corporate users could build their own repository and have software installed from there without involving anyone else. Windows didn't have such a malware problem because they gave users the freedom, it was because downloading installers from websites was the default way to install software. Without this history windows could be (I don't know how trusted the windows store should be) in the same position as linux today, with users trained to install what they want from the store but still able to go around it. The apple desktop is in basically the same situation as windows. Android isn't a walled garden, you can install apps from elsewhere. Unfortunately the play store isn't a trustworthy source of software like apple store or a linux repository, all sorts of crap ends up there. Google even generates a per device Id to help software track you.

geofft 8y ago

Your Linux machine is neither a walled garden nor a gate; it's an unlocked house in the countryside. Its lack of privacy problems is because it's not a target. Have you built something from source by downloading a tarball and running `make install`? Did you look at the Makefile before you did so?

flukus 8y ago
It's a walled garden because the default way to install apps is from the repository, a trusted source that isn't filled with spyware. The gate is that I can download and run software without it. It's the best of both worlds and has been before app stores existed. An unlocked house in the countryside would be running software without my intent, the only place that happens is inside the browser. You trust the app store just as I trust the repositories, I just have other choices available as well. > Have you built something from source by downloading a tarball and running `make install`? Did you look at the Makefile before you did so? Again, it's all about trust. Under this model companies like google can even build their own extensions to the garden.
- fyfy18 8y ago
  As a Linux user I agree with GP that Linux is only as safe as it is because it's not a target. It's pretty clear that large tech companies cannot be trusted, I definitely wouldn't run a binary provided by Facebook on my machine. I am hesitant about running apps like Slack and Dropbox, and would prefer not to give them full access to my user account[0], but I need to use them so. Desktop container technologies are maturing nicely, so hopefully one day we'll have permission prompts where we can restrict what an app can access. [0] Yes I understand I could run them as a different user but that's not very user friendly at the moment.
  - z3t4 8y ago
    You could use Apparmor.
glennpratt 8y ago
I don't understand. Some Linux machines I'm responsible for are targets. I build what few things I need from source in a sandbox, fetch the source from entities I trust and verify the integrity. And yes, I do read the code, because if I'm building it that usually means I needed to patch it.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago

Scene_Cast2 8y ago

The enforcing of privacy was done at a political level, not at a technical level. Linux (as a group? vague hand-wavy term) focuses hard on the technical merits of its own product, but ignores the ecosystem.