4 ms·

With some fleshing out, this is an excellent rendition of the { DRM, malware, spyware } evolutionary path, pretty close to what was described to me by RealNetwo

With some fleshing out, this is an excellent rendition of the { DRM, malware, spyware } evolutionary path, pretty close to what was described to me by RealNetworks back in the dotcom era. Need to add anti-reverse-engineering techniques - obfuscation, self-modifying code, custom and hard to reason about embedded VMs, etc. other than anti-debugger and test harness detection. I think earlier on.

paulryanrogers 7y ago
I thought it went: DRM, spyware, then co-opted for malware by others.
- diminish 7y ago
  Unfortunately I tend to think RM Stallman is right - smartphones are a prison with tracking enabled. We're all foolish to yield that much power to vendors. Most software on the smartphones aren't under our control, we aren't able to stop them, disable them, inspect them, or see the source code. I think we should undo everything done in the smartphone since 2008 and come up with a true open source smartphone.
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    The vast majority of people do not understand why this might be needed and even many of those who understand do not really believe or see it as a problem (or even see it as a benefit if they are profiting from it). Some even consider it as a good thing because it is presented as "security" and for many anything that could be secure in theory is enough to make them shut down their brains and try to see the negative sides. To make what you mention work, that smartphone will not only need to be open source, but also be much better in both UX and features and cheaper than anything similar.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Purism is working on it. I think they're selling them now. No idea if it is good just that it's happening.
    - gentleman11 7y ago
      Purism phones aren’t as polished as other phones, but it’s amazing that they exist. We need to support them until they get to version 2-3 and have everything slick and polished

paulryanrogers 7y ago

I thought it went: DRM, spyware, then co-opted for malware by others.

diminish 7y ago
Unfortunately I tend to think RM Stallman is right - smartphones are a prison with tracking enabled. We're all foolish to yield that much power to vendors. Most software on the smartphones aren't under our control, we aren't able to stop them, disable them, inspect them, or see the source code. I think we should undo everything done in the smartphone since 2008 and come up with a true open source smartphone.
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  The vast majority of people do not understand why this might be needed and even many of those who understand do not really believe or see it as a problem (or even see it as a benefit if they are profiting from it). Some even consider it as a good thing because it is presented as "security" and for many anything that could be secure in theory is enough to make them shut down their brains and try to see the negative sides. To make what you mention work, that smartphone will not only need to be open source, but also be much better in both UX and features and cheaper than anything similar.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Purism is working on it. I think they're selling them now. No idea if it is good just that it's happening.
  - gentleman11 7y ago
    Purism phones aren’t as polished as other phones, but it’s amazing that they exist. We need to support them until they get to version 2-3 and have everything slick and polished