14 ms·

Why don't companies come out and tell people what they're doing these days? Telemetry is getting to the point where people such as doctors and lawyers might be

Why don't companies come out and tell people what they're doing these days? Telemetry is getting to the point where people such as doctors and lawyers might be violating the law by using a modern computer. And people in the defense industry? Doesn't Apple employ thousands of forns? Who's audited their datasystems and ensured that this stuff stays private? Much easier and better to just stop using it all and move to a system like Linux or BSD. 99% of people do everything in a browser these days anyhow.

FpUser 6y ago
>"99% of people do everything in a browser these days anyhow." This exaggeration is clearly absurd.
- MintelIE 6y ago
  Are you certain about this? I think I was being conservative. It's easy for us tech nerds in our little gadget bubbles to suppose that everybody is like us. But most people are simple browser users, and Office 365 and Google Docs have all but killed off office software on the desktop for many users.
  - jeremyjh 6y ago
    > Office 365 and Google Docs have all but killed off office software on the desktop for many users. That hasn't been my experience at all. While those tools are definitely used - especially for collaboration - most people on my company's Office 365 subscription are downloading and using the full products for their daily work. This is true in both very large companies and the (non-tech) startup I work at now.
    - dathinab 6y ago
      Honestly my experience with collaboration with Office 365 last year was pretty beer bad. At least for sight technical cases people they are many better solutions.
  - kgraves 6y ago
    > But most people are simple browser users, and Office 365 and Google Docs have all but killed off office software on the desktop for many users. In reality, I see most people use desktop software instead of the browser (without using the internet in some cases) to do their work. (Think CAD, Adobe, DAW software, Excel, video production software) even on mobile/tablets Office can be used where no internet connection is available. I seriously doubt that users would spend all their time in a browser window other than for consumption purposes like social media and video sites. The idea of 99% of people doing everything in the browser seems questionable to me and some data about this would be helpful here. Apart from the computer science department, I also doubt that people would find it easier to go to Linux, BSD or the other galaxy of distros.
  - abjKT26nO8 6y ago
    On the contrary, it's easy in our tech bubble to assume that everybody else uses a computer just for mail, netflix and spreadsheets, when in reality most people have niche needs. It's just that there are many niches. E.g. I know people from scientific circles who use CAS software I've never even heard of, my sister is an architect and needs to use CAD software. YouTube video authors often use advanced video editing software. Musicians use audio editing software. Publishers use Adobe InDesign. Then there are gamers. This "not geek => mainly spreadsheet user" stereotype is really strange. And basically everybody, whom I know personally, complains about the UX of anything web-based, so don't even think about putting CAD, CAS or InDesign into the browser.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I work in an office that mostly uses Office, but doesn't use the web version for everything. Microsoft never fully implements everything when they make a substitute, so you're always faced with a case-by-case choice as to which one. And the software people use includes things that aren't part of the basic apps, like Project, PowerPoint, Visio, I don't know what else.
- ajkjk 6y ago
  Why do you think so?
  - FpUser 6y ago
    The ball is actually not in my court. The original claim 99% should be somehow substantiated. It is not. On a practical note desktop software is being used by countless professionals. There is nearly infinite amount of those tools in countless areas. Amount of small businesses is insane as well and you can hardly find one without some old PC/Laptop running some of their desktop software. None of that would exist if there was no market. 99% claim does not really fit into the picture.
nojito 6y ago
"Telmetry" has been co-opted by the tin foil hat wearing privacy keyboard warriors. It's akin to the people spending tens of thousands of dollars on disaster prep. The only people who lose are the end-users of software. Who are forced to use crappy software.
- salawat 6y ago
  You mean, like all the software that has been written since companies got into the habit of embedding telemetry in everything? That crappy software? Telemetry has a specific use-case. Taking measurements in a place you can't go. What industry employs it for nowadays is much closer to spyware in the sense you can get so much more of it done without it producing a noticeable effect for the user in terms of how much work their computer is actually doing. So what if you spin through a couple rounds of telemetry gathering while the user's process is blocked, am I right? Not like they're using it. /s
saagarjha 6y ago
Sorry, what's a forn?
- katmannthree 6y ago
  Foreign national, probably.
  - barsonme 6y ago
    Yep.
- zionic 6y ago
  The acronym used on files is often NOFORN == no foreign nationals.
ancarda 6y ago
If only moving to Linux were an option for everyone. The other day I tried for the 100th time to move to Linux. I installed a recent build of a maintained, popular distribution (no it doesn't matter which one - I have tried them all), on hardware that is famous for it's Linux support. Everything worked for a day and a half, then the sound just fucking died. No input or output. I get millions of people use Linux daily, and are happy with it -- I'm genuinely grateful that's a thing. I would love to also use Linux, but I really don't have the time to diagnose why it broke yet again. Any suggestions for people stuck on macOS? I guess I could block all Apple domains in my DNS resolver? Other than app updates, I can't think of anything that would stop working. That still sounds less painful than trying to deal with Linux's atrocious UX.
- kgraves 6y ago
  > Everything worked for a day and a half, then the sound just fucking died. No input or output. my condolences.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  Vagrant. https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html Spin up a Linux box in macOS and ssh into it directly. It is a true joy if you are comfortable working with text files (programming, admin, focused writing, etc.) It will default to using VirtualBox as the underlying virtualization. That works a treat and hides all the GUI madness of VirtualBox. However, if you open up VirtualBox then you can interact with the host you just created with “vagrant up” just fine, including using a graphical environment.
  - ancarda 6y ago
    I've never used that before, but it sounds a bit like Docker? As in, it's got a VM in the background and I can interact with it?
    - gorgoiler 6y ago
      Technology aside, I would describe as being a bit more like an AWS instance, except it is running on your local machine.
NikolaeVarius 6y ago
It would be nice if my laptops bluetooth and audio would work > 99% of the time. Right now its a crapshoot
userbinator 6y ago
I don't know about BSD, but even "mainstream" Linux (i.e. Ubuntu and the like) has telemetry now. This sort of spyware is everywhere. I think Windows 10 was the first to really normalise such behaviour on the desktop, and all the others just followed along. where people such as doctors and lawyers might be violating the law by using a modern computer That reminds me of a story I heard not long ago --- a company wanted to have more defense against malware, so signed up for a "security solution" from one of the big vendors and got it installed on all the company's machines. After a developer who was doing network tracing discovered that it was phoning home on every executable being run, and further digging discovered that it was periodically uploading file hashes and sometimes actual files --- not just the executables being run but other random files --- to the security vendor's servers, the reaction was "oh hell no!" and they immediately terminated the service and removed the product from all their machines.
- ISL 6y ago
  Does Debian do any telemetry besides popcorn? I'd be real surprised.
  - m463 6y ago
    I haven't seen much with debian. they do updates and ntp pools but they are not for telemetry. arch didn't seem to do anything. heck, even pfsense phones home. Last I remember there was some data file it downloaded each time they used for metrics. ubuntu phones home a lot.
- m463 6y ago
  ubuntu has lots. huge privacy settings pane with legalese, motd-news phones home, snapd continues to reinstall itself and use resources, whoopsie and kerneloops phone home. amazon app, apport, ubuntu-report, unattended-upgrades... I haven't tried 20.04 yet, don't know if it is worse or better.
ken 6y ago
> Why don't companies come out and tell people what they're doing these days? It's a mystery. I'd certainly be much more willing to buy a machine if it came with good documentation. Back in the 1980's, they (Apple and others) used to include complete schematics for their computers.

FpUser 6y ago

>"99% of people do everything in a browser these days anyhow." This exaggeration is clearly absurd.

MintelIE 6y ago
Are you certain about this? I think I was being conservative. It's easy for us tech nerds in our little gadget bubbles to suppose that everybody is like us. But most people are simple browser users, and Office 365 and Google Docs have all but killed off office software on the desktop for many users.
- jeremyjh 6y ago
  > Office 365 and Google Docs have all but killed off office software on the desktop for many users. That hasn't been my experience at all. While those tools are definitely used - especially for collaboration - most people on my company's Office 365 subscription are downloading and using the full products for their daily work. This is true in both very large companies and the (non-tech) startup I work at now.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    Honestly my experience with collaboration with Office 365 last year was pretty beer bad. At least for sight technical cases people they are many better solutions.
- kgraves 6y ago
  > But most people are simple browser users, and Office 365 and Google Docs have all but killed off office software on the desktop for many users. In reality, I see most people use desktop software instead of the browser (without using the internet in some cases) to do their work. (Think CAD, Adobe, DAW software, Excel, video production software) even on mobile/tablets Office can be used where no internet connection is available. I seriously doubt that users would spend all their time in a browser window other than for consumption purposes like social media and video sites. The idea of 99% of people doing everything in the browser seems questionable to me and some data about this would be helpful here. Apart from the computer science department, I also doubt that people would find it easier to go to Linux, BSD or the other galaxy of distros.
- abjKT26nO8 6y ago
  On the contrary, it's easy in our tech bubble to assume that everybody else uses a computer just for mail, netflix and spreadsheets, when in reality most people have niche needs. It's just that there are many niches. E.g. I know people from scientific circles who use CAS software I've never even heard of, my sister is an architect and needs to use CAD software. YouTube video authors often use advanced video editing software. Musicians use audio editing software. Publishers use Adobe InDesign. Then there are gamers. This "not geek => mainly spreadsheet user" stereotype is really strange. And basically everybody, whom I know personally, complains about the UX of anything web-based, so don't even think about putting CAD, CAS or InDesign into the browser.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I work in an office that mostly uses Office, but doesn't use the web version for everything. Microsoft never fully implements everything when they make a substitute, so you're always faced with a case-by-case choice as to which one. And the software people use includes things that aren't part of the basic apps, like Project, PowerPoint, Visio, I don't know what else.
ajkjk 6y ago
Why do you think so?
- FpUser 6y ago
  The ball is actually not in my court. The original claim 99% should be somehow substantiated. It is not. On a practical note desktop software is being used by countless professionals. There is nearly infinite amount of those tools in countless areas. Amount of small businesses is insane as well and you can hardly find one without some old PC/Laptop running some of their desktop software. None of that would exist if there was no market. 99% claim does not really fit into the picture.

nojito 6y ago

"Telmetry" has been co-opted by the tin foil hat wearing privacy keyboard warriors. It's akin to the people spending tens of thousands of dollars on disaster prep. The only people who lose are the end-users of software. Who are forced to use crappy software.

salawat 6y ago
You mean, like all the software that has been written since companies got into the habit of embedding telemetry in everything? That crappy software? Telemetry has a specific use-case. Taking measurements in a place you can't go. What industry employs it for nowadays is much closer to spyware in the sense you can get so much more of it done without it producing a noticeable effect for the user in terms of how much work their computer is actually doing. So what if you spin through a couple rounds of telemetry gathering while the user's process is blocked, am I right? Not like they're using it. /s

saagarjha 6y ago

Sorry, what's a forn?

katmannthree 6y ago
Foreign national, probably.
- barsonme 6y ago
  Yep.
zionic 6y ago
The acronym used on files is often NOFORN == no foreign nationals.

ancarda 6y ago

If only moving to Linux were an option for everyone. The other day I tried for the 100th time to move to Linux. I installed a recent build of a maintained, popular distribution (no it doesn't matter which one - I have tried them all), on hardware that is famous for it's Linux support. Everything worked for a day and a half, then the sound just fucking died. No input or output. I get millions of people use Linux daily, and are happy with it -- I'm genuinely grateful that's a thing. I would love to also use Linux, but I really don't have the time to diagnose why it broke yet again. Any suggestions for people stuck on macOS? I guess I could block all Apple domains in my DNS resolver? Other than app updates, I can't think of anything that would stop working. That still sounds less painful than trying to deal with Linux's atrocious UX.

kgraves 6y ago
> Everything worked for a day and a half, then the sound just fucking died. No input or output. my condolences.
gorgoiler 6y ago
Vagrant. https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html Spin up a Linux box in macOS and ssh into it directly. It is a true joy if you are comfortable working with text files (programming, admin, focused writing, etc.) It will default to using VirtualBox as the underlying virtualization. That works a treat and hides all the GUI madness of VirtualBox. However, if you open up VirtualBox then you can interact with the host you just created with “vagrant up” just fine, including using a graphical environment.
- ancarda 6y ago
  I've never used that before, but it sounds a bit like Docker? As in, it's got a VM in the background and I can interact with it?
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    Technology aside, I would describe as being a bit more like an AWS instance, except it is running on your local machine.

NikolaeVarius 6y ago

It would be nice if my laptops bluetooth and audio would work > 99% of the time. Right now its a crapshoot

userbinator 6y ago

I don't know about BSD, but even "mainstream" Linux (i.e. Ubuntu and the like) has telemetry now. This sort of spyware is everywhere. I think Windows 10 was the first to really normalise such behaviour on the desktop, and all the others just followed along. where people such as doctors and lawyers might be violating the law by using a modern computer That reminds me of a story I heard not long ago --- a company wanted to have more defense against malware, so signed up for a "security solution" from one of the big vendors and got it installed on all the company's machines. After a developer who was doing network tracing discovered that it was phoning home on every executable being run, and further digging discovered that it was periodically uploading file hashes and sometimes actual files --- not just the executables being run but other random files --- to the security vendor's servers, the reaction was "oh hell no!" and they immediately terminated the service and removed the product from all their machines.

ISL 6y ago
Does Debian do any telemetry besides popcorn? I'd be real surprised.
- m463 6y ago
  I haven't seen much with debian. they do updates and ntp pools but they are not for telemetry. arch didn't seem to do anything. heck, even pfsense phones home. Last I remember there was some data file it downloaded each time they used for metrics. ubuntu phones home a lot.
m463 6y ago
ubuntu has lots. huge privacy settings pane with legalese, motd-news phones home, snapd continues to reinstall itself and use resources, whoopsie and kerneloops phone home. amazon app, apport, ubuntu-report, unattended-upgrades... I haven't tried 20.04 yet, don't know if it is worse or better.

ken 6y ago

> Why don't companies come out and tell people what they're doing these days? It's a mystery. I'd certainly be much more willing to buy a machine if it came with good documentation. Back in the 1980's, they (Apple and others) used to include complete schematics for their computers.