4 ms·

Man, I yearn for a return to computers we could trust - or at least, had the tools onboard to establish, easily, whether that trust was warranted or not - i.e.

by mmjaa 8y ago

Man, I yearn for a return to computers we could trust - or at least, had the tools onboard to establish, easily, whether that trust was warranted or not - i.e. compiler, dev tools, open access, and so on. The more I think about where we've arrived after the last 20 years the more I realise the OS vendors betrayed us. We got fat on the sugarcandy of framework-obsession - they got rich on the meat of our data. If only there were OS vendors out there who wanted to really innovate again and bring the power back to the users...

z3phyr 8y ago
There is no direct profit in Operating Systems now. I blame it squarely on MS for it's corporate practices; and the rise of linux, which negated any motivation to build other oses for profit like in BeOS and Amiga days.
im3w1l 8y ago
You just have to do what you always had to do. Check the reputation of whoever made the apps you install. Blindly downloading things from the appstore isn't quite as bad as downloading blindly from the internet, but it's not great either. Oh and permissions. Sure they help a bit, but everything asks for everything and their are ways to infer data you didn't ask for so it's not a complete solution.
- antpls 8y ago
  We could also use the web of trust. An app already downloaded by people you trust is maybe-probably more secure. Google Play Store could allow third party audit badges on the apps store page, so different agencies could give an official rating or an approbation level for the app. Basically a "verified" badge ala FB and Twitter, but more organizations than just the app-store owner could give their checks. You would have "Google-approved" badge, "Open-source-approved" badge, "Mozilla-approved" badge, and even "Government-approved" badge. Then you let the user makes his/her own decision based on what entities or friends he/she trusts.
snaky 8y ago
There definitely are vendors out there who want to really innovate in the OS field. Huawei for example is working on next-gen microkernel leveraging hardware-software co-design [1]. That's not about to bring the power back to the users mainly due the fact it doesn't seems to be particularly profitable. [1] https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/hardware_software_co_design/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/hardware_software_co_...
mindslight 8y ago
It's not about about the computers, but about pervasive network connectivity. IMHO assuming the trustable computing problem is never actually solved, a few decades from now we'll see unfettered network connectivity as a security problem, and firewalls will be based around type systems over PDUs.

by mmjaa 8y ago

z3phyr 8y ago

There is no direct profit in Operating Systems now. I blame it squarely on MS for it's corporate practices; and the rise of linux, which negated any motivation to build other oses for profit like in BeOS and Amiga days.

im3w1l 8y ago

You just have to do what you always had to do. Check the reputation of whoever made the apps you install. Blindly downloading things from the appstore isn't quite as bad as downloading blindly from the internet, but it's not great either. Oh and permissions. Sure they help a bit, but everything asks for everything and their are ways to infer data you didn't ask for so it's not a complete solution.

antpls 8y ago
We could also use the web of trust. An app already downloaded by people you trust is maybe-probably more secure. Google Play Store could allow third party audit badges on the apps store page, so different agencies could give an official rating or an approbation level for the app. Basically a "verified" badge ala FB and Twitter, but more organizations than just the app-store owner could give their checks. You would have "Google-approved" badge, "Open-source-approved" badge, "Mozilla-approved" badge, and even "Government-approved" badge. Then you let the user makes his/her own decision based on what entities or friends he/she trusts.

snaky 8y ago

There definitely are vendors out there who want to really innovate in the OS field. Huawei for example is working on next-gen microkernel leveraging hardware-software co-design [1]. That's not about to bring the power back to the users mainly due the fact it doesn't seems to be particularly profitable. [1] https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/hardware_software_co_design/ https://fosdem.org/2019/schedule/event/hardware_software_co_...

mindslight 8y ago

It's not about about the computers, but about pervasive network connectivity. IMHO assuming the trustable computing problem is never actually solved, a few decades from now we'll see unfettered network connectivity as a security problem, and firewalls will be based around type systems over PDUs.