4 ms·

> But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. I agree,

> But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. I agree, but it's frustrating to me because it's an illusion: if your device is running proprietary software, you don't control the device. At that point there's little difference between your device and a server in the cloud, aside from technical characteristics like latency and compute power.

bcrosby95 5y ago
The difference is I supposedly own my device. This is a line we use for all sorts of things, such as, say, hacking charges.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  You explicitly do not own the software running on the device. It's Apple's software running both on your device and on their servers.
stetrain 5y ago
I think Apple is getting so much heat for this because they have at least maintained an outward appearance of separation between device and cloud for so long. Some of this was just due to being further behind on the SaaS ramp than MS and Google. Everyone expects a Google-services enabled Android device to basically be a cloud thin client, but less so an iPhone. And Apple has actually stood up for encryption and not putting in openly exploitable backdoor capabilities just to appease law enforcement, see their back and forth with the FBI a couple of years ago. Apple seems to be coming up with awkward solutions as they try to do the "right thing" in some places (more end to end encryption) while governments / law enforcement don't want hidden data because of "the children", terrorism, etc. They announced this proudly as though they had finally found the holy grail to negotiate this quagmire but the messaging did not go over at all how they seemed to expect. I don't think there's a path forward for fully open and non-proprietary software that everyone uses. It hasn't happened on the desktop so I doubt it will on mobile devices. And most people want their devices to be cloud terminals, not sovereign system states. So I think it comes back down to a legal and political issue of what requirements governments put on these tech companies, how data and privacy protections are guaranteed (or forced to be broken), and how that gets enforced.
amatecha 5y ago
Yeah, by even using the device at all, you already agreed to a very long EULA which includes provisions for whatever the vendor of the product wants to do. So, like you say, there's really no reason to have a shred of trust in proprietary software where you can never see for yourself what backdoors (etc.) might be there.

bcrosby95 5y ago

The difference is I supposedly own my device. This is a line we use for all sorts of things, such as, say, hacking charges.

helen___keller 5y ago
You explicitly do not own the software running on the device. It's Apple's software running both on your device and on their servers.

stetrain 5y ago

I think Apple is getting so much heat for this because they have at least maintained an outward appearance of separation between device and cloud for so long. Some of this was just due to being further behind on the SaaS ramp than MS and Google. Everyone expects a Google-services enabled Android device to basically be a cloud thin client, but less so an iPhone. And Apple has actually stood up for encryption and not putting in openly exploitable backdoor capabilities just to appease law enforcement, see their back and forth with the FBI a couple of years ago. Apple seems to be coming up with awkward solutions as they try to do the "right thing" in some places (more end to end encryption) while governments / law enforcement don't want hidden data because of "the children", terrorism, etc. They announced this proudly as though they had finally found the holy grail to negotiate this quagmire but the messaging did not go over at all how they seemed to expect. I don't think there's a path forward for fully open and non-proprietary software that everyone uses. It hasn't happened on the desktop so I doubt it will on mobile devices. And most people want their devices to be cloud terminals, not sovereign system states. So I think it comes back down to a legal and political issue of what requirements governments put on these tech companies, how data and privacy protections are guaranteed (or forced to be broken), and how that gets enforced.

amatecha 5y ago

Yeah, by even using the device at all, you already agreed to a very long EULA which includes provisions for whatever the vendor of the product wants to do. So, like you say, there's really no reason to have a shred of trust in proprietary software where you can never see for yourself what backdoors (etc.) might be there.