6 ms·

Yes, lots of Linux devices apply it like that today: You can't use your banking app or consume DRM crippled media on your Android phone if you have root or run

• Aeolun 4y ago
  > if you have root Because god forbid you have control of your own PC?
  • Ycombigatorz 4y ago
    Because if you have control, so many numerous other parties.
    • feanaro 4y ago
      This doesn't follow at all. Those other parties cannot authenticate as me.
    • palata 4y ago
      Those are independent. Having root access does not mean that other parties do, but more importantly, NOT having root does not mean AT ALL that other parties don't.
  • npteljes 4y ago
    Yep! Basically, it's safer if you don't own your PC. Think about users with a million toolbars and Bonzi Buddy installed. Of course, the system for it is rudimentary, and puts a disproportionate amount of control in the hands of providers. And that works very well for them too.
    • 29athrowaway 4y ago
      • TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
        In a sane society these features would allow secure voting. In this one... that's not what they'll be used for. This is the end game for the corporate internet. Not only can all your activity be logged, but if any of it is unwelcome - on any scale, from family to school to work to country to world - you can be locked out.
        • 29athrowaway 4y ago
          An operating system that prevents other operating systems from being installed is the equivalent of a citizen that becomes a dictator.
      • throwaway1348b3 4y ago
        Oh, modern democracies solved this nasty problem of voters possibly making the wrong choice by simply providing only the right choices to chose from: you get two slightly different brands of shit whose policies mostly coincide, enjoy your right to vote.
      • npteljes 4y ago
        I feel like it's flawed. Voters and politicians abuse it left and right - pun intended. I don't think we ever came up with anything more humane though, and I don't wish to change it for anything other - to be honest, for the simple reason of not wanting the responsibility that goes along with it. Choosing a party is not like choosing an OS for your PC, though. Choosing the OS would be like choosing the political system - and recognizing the incredible privilege I have by being born into a democracy, I very much wouldn't like other people to change it. Going further into democracy, while you might put an X on a paper sometimes, still forbids a very high number of actions. I'd liken it to having the power of choosing between Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store for your phone. Which, getting back to the point, is safer for the users than installing any third party software. Like how in a well functioning democracy, I'm forbidden to do a great many things, but also I can feel safe in the thought that others have the same restrictions too.
        • 4y ago
    • adev_ 4y ago
      > Yep! Basically, it's safer if you don't own your PC. Think about users with a million toolbars and Bonzi Buddy installed. And it is a pretty terrible solution to the problem. - It is also keeping the good guys outside too: Anyone that want to analyse and understand the security of the system for good reasons cannot. Excepted if explicitly allowed by the corporation X and that is a terrible security property. - No root access also means very little control or ability to scan the system itself if your are not the X corporation controlling it. That means no possibility to mandate reviewer corporation Y to check that corporation X is doing the right thing. TPMs currently make that even worst by design, they are undocumented and complex, therefore rely on blind trust that company X do the rthe ight thing. And since the Intel management engine fiasco, we do know they are not doing the right thing. - Bonzi Buddy and toolbar type of problem can be easily avoided by separating properly the normal user account from any admin account(the unix way). It should be painful to be admin but not impossible, just to make sure your grandma do not install a rootkit by mistake when she want her 20% coupon. In summary: That is mainly bullshit from company X to keep full control on the entire user device, and not for their own good.
      • npteljes 4y ago
        I agree. In a proposal like this, security is basically a byproduct, and sometimes not even that[0]. This is also a domain where the governmental and corporate powers have a similar goal, which is wresting away the control from the public / individual. They basically work in synergy, only to a point of course, but still. Regarding Bonzi Buddy, I disagree. I think user data is as important, if not more important, than root access - which is why I'm dumbfounded when ancient server security features, like Linux's sudo system, are applied to the consumer device like a PC or a smartphone. These contexts are much better server by a sandboxing, permission-based whatever that seems to pick up steam, like the current permission systems on smartphones. Grandma's logins and bank data will be stolen from her own user account just the same as an admin account. Related XKCD[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater [0] https://xkcd.com/1200/ https://xkcd.com/1200/
        • iggldiggl 4y ago
    • userbinator 4y ago
      Think about users with a million toolbars and Bonzi Buddy installed. I say let them be. As long as they also have the freedom to remove or not install such software, it's a good thing. Instead we have locked-down devices with the functional equivalent of such unwanted software, protected so that you cannot remove it without somehow getting root. "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."
      • lotsofpulp 4y ago
        My parents grew up in a non English speaking developing country, and they cannot be reasonably expected to learn the nuances of malware laden links to figure out which English text link is good or bad. Do they deserve to not be able to shop online without fear of having their payment information stolen? Or mistyping a URL in their non native language and ending up at a scam website that installs malware? Or simply having a device that comes to a crawl such that they cannot reliably video call their grandkids?
        • agileAlligator 4y ago
          The problem you are describing will be irrelevant in a generation or two, as kids grow up on the internet.
          • corrral 4y ago
            I can assure you that the upcoming generations aren't much better at any of this, on average. And no, it's not smartphones' faults. Most people just don't "get" desktop OS paradigms, or how web pages work, or any of that, and they don't really care to.
            • userbinator 4y ago
              Most people just don't "get" desktop OS paradigms, or how web pages work, or any of that, and they don't really care to. That's because they "won't miss freedom they never had".
            • 4y ago
  • Arnt 4y ago
    Uhm, these things don't really take away your control, rather, they shift it from you to you. The software you boot sets up some state and then toggles a bit, and after that something can't be changed. The state is secure against much modification after that time, but not before that time. The "you" that boots the device are in control, and the "you" that uses the device after that have exactly what "you" set up at boot time, neither more nor less. If both "you" are the same person, then there's no loss of control. But of course they're often not really the same person. If you want to boot a Microsoft-signed image, the party that boots is more or less Microsoft, not you personally. But in that case, you also want to use that Microsoft-signed OS, right? So the shift towards boot-time control is then a shift from mostly-Microsoft use-time control to mostly-Microsoft boot-time control. Mostly Microsoft here, mostly Microsoft there, even if the two mostlies aren't quite the same percentage it's difficult to regard this as a significant loss of control.
    • raxxorraxor 4y ago
      This is false and just redefining control.
      • Arnt 4y ago
        How so? Redefines from what to what? Please elaborate. Perhaps you mean that if you, as owner and legitimate user of a device, are able to perform a particular change only during a brief window of time rather than at any time of your choosing, then that limits your control over the device? If so, then my answer is yes, certainly it does. But it also limits the access of anyone who impersonates you (such as the evil exploity javascript I make your browser execute).
        • feanaro 4y ago
          You're wrong because the bootloader is more often locked than not, and there are various other nefarious controls in place that prevent you from doing it without voiding your warranty, such as one-time fuses. In theory, yes, you could implement it like you said, but that's not what happens in practice nor the direction we've been tending towards in recent times.
  • kahnclusions 4y ago
    I think this is more for Android phones, and preventing a malicious app on your phone from using the root access to hijack data from your banking app.
    • ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      Well that's the problem.... the next step would be requiring users to use MS Edge, because a malicious version of firefox could capture/modify banking/transaction data. Want to pay bills? Give money to microsoft first.
      • kahnclusions 4y ago
        Are you saying the bank doesn’t have the right to define what kinds of software are permitted to access its systems? We’re not just talking about the freedom to run software on your own device here, we’re talking about interacting with outside systems. There is an important distinction in context.
        • ajsnigrutin 4y ago
          It's a browser. As long as it adheres to basic web standards, I believe no, the bank should have no say in what browser you use to access their webpage.
    • fulafel 4y ago
      If this was the reason they'd be blocking access from phones that are not up to date on security updates and are being actively exploited by malware to get root. But it's the other way around, if you improve your old device by installing a up to date Android on your vendor-abandoned previously vulnerable device, you go from working banking to banned from banking.
  • newsclues 4y ago
    For me that’s a problem for the average user? That’s everyone else’s problem that idiots don’t care to control their technology and need big tech to do so with an iron fist
    • acdha 4y ago
      Calling the problem is “idiots” is a cognitive trap which prevents you from meaningfully dealing with it. Everyone is at risk from zero-days, almost anyone can be phished (yes, this includes you), many people have no way or time to investigate whether some well-known vendor is misrepresenting their product, and even security experts have to trust other people on a daily basis because they don’t have time to reverse-engineer every software update. Most people who get snide about this are a single malicious package in their favorite programming language away from a big mess! The best progress we’ve seen in decades came from most people using locked-down phone operating systems, followed by stricter desktop OSes. If you don’t like that trajectory, you should be focused on how to get the benefits with other trade offs. One of the first steps is respecting people enough to understand their needs rather than calling them idiots.
  • api 4y ago
    This is the root of the pro market / mainstream market split. For the pro market people want control. Pros also generally know a bit more about how to use that control and tend to be less likely to end up getting pwned immediately. For regular users people just want shit that works. Not having control is a feature, because if you have control then the malware you are tricked into installing from "ɡeτflrêfox.com" also has control. You can see it in the Apple ecosystem with iOS vs. macOS. Macs and iPads are now almost the same hardware. (The M chips are just A chips on 'roids.) But Macs can run other OSes and you can "sudo root." That's because Macs are for pros.
    • katbyte 4y ago
      You can also disable all the system integrity protection stuff on macOS pretty easily if you do want to mess around where apple rather people not.