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It will be interesting to watch people trade their privacy for convenience. I just hope that Intel wakes up and give new architecture a push or maybe they'll st
by varispeed 6y ago
It will be interesting to watch people trade their privacy for convenience. I just hope that Intel wakes up and give new architecture a push or maybe they'll start licensing x86 in a similar way that ARM does and we could finally get more players in the PC space.
- rbanffy 6y agoIt's not like Intel is stellar in terms of privacy. If you want to actually be secure, you'll need something where everything is de-blobbed and open, such as the POWER9 workstations from Raptor.
- varispeed 6y agoI missed this arch. It looks awesome!
- danieldk 6y agoIt's not like Intel is stellar in terms of privacy. I think the grandparent means that using an M1 implies using macOS, which had its share of potential privacy issues recently (regularly phoning home on launching apps, having Apple service circumvent VPNs and application firewalls).
- klelatti 6y agocough Intel Management Engine cough
- rbanffy 6y agocough Windows telemetry cough
- Grazester 6y agoIt X86-64 not being as locked down we can install any compatible OS desired. One is not limited to Window!
- klelatti 6y agoSame is true for the M1!
- ben-schaaf 6y agoUntil the point in time where Apple decides to publish documentation so that drivers can be written in order to actually run other operating systems, the M1 will remain as locked down as any iPhone - minus finding a way to jailbreak. X86 is on a completely different level, see: https://01.org/linuxgraphics/documentation/hardware-specification-prms https://01.org/linuxgraphics/documentation/hardware-specific...
- klelatti 6y agoIt's a matter of opinion I suppose but in my view 'locked down' is not the same as not providing driver support. The former implies actively preventing people from running other OSs on the hardware - which they could have done but chose not too.
- Grazester 6y agoWe can install Linux on the M1 now? Is there something I missed?
- vetinari 6y agoIME is strictly local, and is concerned with handling the hardware. AMT, built on top of IME is not, it has networking, but if you have AMT, you know very well, because you paid extra for it. None of the above is at the same level as phoning home or ignoring the user's firewall.
- josephg 6y agoAt least Apple’s certificate checks are (ostensibly) anonymised. Windows telemetry is explicitly designed to build a personalised profile about you for advertisers. There are a lot of options you can disable throughout windows’ control panel, but I’d be shocked if you can actually turn all of it off for good without registry tweaks.
- vetinari 6y agoThat's why I addressed Intel IME, not Windows telemetry. I put Windows telemetry into same bag as the Apple calling mothership.
- klelatti 6y agoNeither Apple or Microsoft are in the right on this - but given the multiple issues associated with it neither is IME.
- valuearb 6y agoIn the same bag?!? You are really jumping through hoops to try to make a platform designed to protect your privacy equivalent to one designed to sell it.
- fsflover 6y agocough https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner cough
- klelatti 6y ago> me_cleaner currently works on most of the Intel platforms; while this doesn't mean it works on all the boards (due to the different firmware implementations)
- sneak 6y agoFaster isn't just convenience. It's also lower power consumption for the same compute, which means a smaller/lighter battery, or longer runtime at the same weight. This is not a privacy-vs-convenience battle, sadly; this is a very carefully planned circumstance where you can maintain privacy, or you can be effective in life. It's already impossible to use most mobiles in a private fashion, and within a few years, effective desktop computing will be exactly the same way. You're going to have to provide ID to do anything with a "normal" phone or computer. Recently I learned that Apple will only give out NetworkExtension API entitlements for apps (that are required for VPN apps to work on macOS) to apps distributed via the Mac App Store. Aside from the obvious antitrust issues here (you can't self-distribute VPN apps, or run a competing app store that can distribute apps with the same functionality as Apple's), this means that you can't get access to e.g. the WireGuard app on macOS without IDing yourself to Apple to get an Apple ID and installing it via the Mac App Store. Want privacy via a VPN? You're going to have to show ID first.
- danieldk 6y agoFaster isn't just convenience. It's also lower power consumption for the same compute, which means a smaller/lighter battery, or longer runtime at the same weight. As has been discussed in various threads the last few weeks, the difference in power efficiency is not that large compared to recent AMD Ryzen APUs, accounting for a move from 7nm to 5nm node.
- nojito 6y agoOnly because measuring M1 power consumption can only be done from the wall.
- danieldk 6y agoI surely hope that this is one of the outcomes of Apple and Amazon's ARM push. Perhaps Intel will realize that's it is better to have competition on its own architecture than complete ecosystems moving to foreign architectures. One could well argue that ARM/RISC is more elegant. But x86_64 besides backwards compatibility has the large benefit that it is an open platform when it comes to operating systems. Moving to ARM will be an excuse for many vendors to lock bootloaders to their blessed software (such as the iOS/Android ecosystems).
- klelatti 6y agoSorry, not going to happen. Why would Intel add more competitors into a market where it has a duopoly?
- danieldk 6y agoWhich scenario is better for Intel? - The server and desktop markets move to ARM. The AArch64 instruction set becomes the default that people develop and deploy on. Optimizing for x86_64 CPUs becomes an afterthought. Intel only sells CPUs to organizations that have legacy systems somewhere that cannot be emulated. Intel has to enter the highly commoditized ARM market to stay competitive. - The server and desktop markets largely stay on x86_64 as a result of Intel licensing x86_64 to three other vendors, increasing competition. The market is not commoditized, because Intel can decide who they license x86_86 to and also control extension to the instruction set. They lose market share due to the increased competition. But they can compete on their own architecture that they control. Of course, these are extremes. But given that the current fastest supercomputer uses ARM and Apple showed that ARM is fit for the desktop, I am pretty sure that Intel is (or should be) worried about the first scenario.
- klelatti 6y agoThe one thing that Intel has at the moment is x86 and the historic effort that has gone into generating and optimising code for the x86 instruction set. Sharing that with three other vendors (think three other AMDs all competing with Intel) would catastrophically undermine their CPU business. In any event it's too late. They maybe had an chance of fending off Arm a few years ago - by the time any licensing now kicks in Arm will have established itself in the server / PC market. So the only sensible strategy for Intel is to make the most of x86 whilst they can.
- f6v 6y agoHas nothing to do with Intel, I guess? PC = Windows for most people, I heard them complaining about ads running in their OS. But what are you gonna do? Switch to Ubuntu?