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I grew up at a time when a computer was a thing that any website you accidentally clicked on could totally and permanently hijack. I don't miss it. One-click ze

I grew up at a time when a computer was a thing that any website you accidentally clicked on could totally and permanently hijack. I don't miss it. One-click zero-friction execution of arbitrary code with the full privileges of your user account was a bad and wrong design. Malware scanning, signatures, and heuristics were a hilariously inadequate answer to the risks. One of the best things that's ever happened in computing is moving beyond all this.

angryasian 4y ago
let not be naive in saying that its still not possible. It is but a lot less. Companies have been getting better at bug bounties, education, and in general people working more with the technology
- closeparen 4y ago
  A huge part of the improvement has been sandboxing, code signing, and trusted distribution channels. In the Windows XP era, a freeware game or utility you downloaded turning out to be a virus was 100% your fault. It wasn’t a defect in Windows that your whole computer got owned, that was just how computers worked. Crazy to me that people want to go back there.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    No, that was absolutely how Windows worked. XP security was atrocious, and there were already better, functional models of how to structure things out there.
    - iggldiggl 4y ago
      > and there were already better, functional models of how to structure things out there. Even today, no file sandboxing solution I'm aware of really properly handles more complex file formats that don't consist of a single atomic file. Only macOS goes beyond the simple "allow the user to pick a single file or directory and that's that" model, and even then according to the documentation I found it only handles simple sidecar files that only differ in the file extension from the main file, but still breaks down for anything more complicated than that.
  - adql 4y ago
    Well, tech-competent people mostly survived that without scratch so they want same experience of actually owning machine today as they had 10 years ago. The push for containerization and sandboxing is in right direction if user have control over it. By all means run the new app I downloaded in nice little box and ask me when it wants to access any file from outside of it, but if I want to I should have option to give it permission to whatever I want.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > Crazy to me that people want to go back there. It's not so crazy if you understand that there are people who want to be able to have complete control over their own machines. These modern security measures trade that control for security. But there are many circumstances where that tradeoff is undesirable. Perhaps the machine will never be connected to a network. Perhaps the owner of that machine is willing and able to take responsibility for the security. Etc.
    - closeparen 4y ago
      Then they can use devices and operating systems with that philosophy. A Linux sysadmin absolutely can and should be free to do whatever they need to their company’s servers. Instead people are angry about the existence of any consumer device with barriers to arbitrary code execution.
      - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
        The broader problem then becomes the smartphone duopoly. You can choose Android instead of Apple, but this is a compromise in terms of privacy. You can also choose an alternative Android distribution or a Linux phone, but this is a compromise in terms of being able to run apps. Video game consoles are just as locked down as iPhones, but ~nobody complains about that since you can just buy a PC instead. There is no good equivalent (in terms of compatibility and privacy) to iPhone/Android, though.
        closeparen 4y ago
        The fact that Android is a compromise in terms of privacy is not incidental to but because of its prioritization of app developers' freedom.
        Tijdreiziger 4y ago
        Does not track. Windows before Windows 8 gave developers freedom, was private, and was the most popular computing platform on the planet.
sublinear 4y ago
I think this is a false dichotomy. Nobody sane is arguing for a vulnerable computer. The desire is just less friction and fewer restrictions on what code can be written and executed by the owner on the device. Really this is what virtualization is for, and the only thing keeping mobile operating systems working as they do is that most consumers don't demand the same features as businesses, but in my opinion they should.
- User23 4y ago
  I'm not even seeing a false dichotomy, it's just wrong. Running arbitrary code from the Internet isn't at all the same thing as running arbitrary code that you yourself just wrote.
- closeparen 4y ago
  Most malware is executed by the machine's owner in some sense. The level of friction that establishes that the owner knows what's going on and actually intends to execute particular code with particular privileges is not small. It's important that it be surmountable, but it's not small.
  - behnamoh 4y ago
    > The level of friction that establishes that the owner knows what's going on and actually intends to execute particular code with particular privileges is not small. That level of friction is $99 :/
  - sublinear 4y ago
    In a properly virtualized environment it doesn't matter since all resources are decoupled from the environment the software runs in. This gives all the control back to the user. Nobody should be bullied into just accepting all permissions the developer wants. The developer should be forced to gracefully degrade their UX when their dependencies are denied without preventing access to the core service and should be sued into oblivion when they violate this basic promise under accessibility laws. From a developer perspective virtualization would also make accomplishing this much easier since they no longer have to be limited to crappy APIs that are not just sometimes vulnerable and incompatible but restricted on purpose under bogus pretense. If the user can't determine what an app does with the resources it wants it should be trivial for the OS to mock the resources, see what happens, and report it back to the user. i.e. when enabling networking the app attempts to phone home somewhere shady, when enabling file system access it attempts to read/write outside its own directories, etc. I am pretty sure this would not scare off users, but make them curious.
gjpolly 4y ago
Those are the same concerns I hear from my grandma. Fortunately systems are designed for multi users, with sandboxes and access controls and heuristics now, and it's less of a problem for most people. Our ability to sideload apps, or install pwa that are full featured doesn't need to affect your safe little bubble of protection. You'll be ok, I promise.

angryasian 4y ago

let not be naive in saying that its still not possible. It is but a lot less. Companies have been getting better at bug bounties, education, and in general people working more with the technology

closeparen 4y ago
A huge part of the improvement has been sandboxing, code signing, and trusted distribution channels. In the Windows XP era, a freeware game or utility you downloaded turning out to be a virus was 100% your fault. It wasn’t a defect in Windows that your whole computer got owned, that was just how computers worked. Crazy to me that people want to go back there.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  No, that was absolutely how Windows worked. XP security was atrocious, and there were already better, functional models of how to structure things out there.
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    > and there were already better, functional models of how to structure things out there. Even today, no file sandboxing solution I'm aware of really properly handles more complex file formats that don't consist of a single atomic file. Only macOS goes beyond the simple "allow the user to pick a single file or directory and that's that" model, and even then according to the documentation I found it only handles simple sidecar files that only differ in the file extension from the main file, but still breaks down for anything more complicated than that.
- adql 4y ago
  Well, tech-competent people mostly survived that without scratch so they want same experience of actually owning machine today as they had 10 years ago. The push for containerization and sandboxing is in right direction if user have control over it. By all means run the new app I downloaded in nice little box and ask me when it wants to access any file from outside of it, but if I want to I should have option to give it permission to whatever I want.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > Crazy to me that people want to go back there. It's not so crazy if you understand that there are people who want to be able to have complete control over their own machines. These modern security measures trade that control for security. But there are many circumstances where that tradeoff is undesirable. Perhaps the machine will never be connected to a network. Perhaps the owner of that machine is willing and able to take responsibility for the security. Etc.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    Then they can use devices and operating systems with that philosophy. A Linux sysadmin absolutely can and should be free to do whatever they need to their company’s servers. Instead people are angry about the existence of any consumer device with barriers to arbitrary code execution.
    - Tijdreiziger 4y ago
      The broader problem then becomes the smartphone duopoly. You can choose Android instead of Apple, but this is a compromise in terms of privacy. You can also choose an alternative Android distribution or a Linux phone, but this is a compromise in terms of being able to run apps. Video game consoles are just as locked down as iPhones, but ~nobody complains about that since you can just buy a PC instead. There is no good equivalent (in terms of compatibility and privacy) to iPhone/Android, though.
      - closeparen 4y ago
        The fact that Android is a compromise in terms of privacy is not incidental to but because of its prioritization of app developers' freedom.
        Tijdreiziger 4y ago
        Does not track. Windows before Windows 8 gave developers freedom, was private, and was the most popular computing platform on the planet.

sublinear 4y ago

I think this is a false dichotomy. Nobody sane is arguing for a vulnerable computer. The desire is just less friction and fewer restrictions on what code can be written and executed by the owner on the device. Really this is what virtualization is for, and the only thing keeping mobile operating systems working as they do is that most consumers don't demand the same features as businesses, but in my opinion they should.

User23 4y ago
I'm not even seeing a false dichotomy, it's just wrong. Running arbitrary code from the Internet isn't at all the same thing as running arbitrary code that you yourself just wrote.
closeparen 4y ago
Most malware is executed by the machine's owner in some sense. The level of friction that establishes that the owner knows what's going on and actually intends to execute particular code with particular privileges is not small. It's important that it be surmountable, but it's not small.
- behnamoh 4y ago
  > The level of friction that establishes that the owner knows what's going on and actually intends to execute particular code with particular privileges is not small. That level of friction is $99 :/
- sublinear 4y ago
  In a properly virtualized environment it doesn't matter since all resources are decoupled from the environment the software runs in. This gives all the control back to the user. Nobody should be bullied into just accepting all permissions the developer wants. The developer should be forced to gracefully degrade their UX when their dependencies are denied without preventing access to the core service and should be sued into oblivion when they violate this basic promise under accessibility laws. From a developer perspective virtualization would also make accomplishing this much easier since they no longer have to be limited to crappy APIs that are not just sometimes vulnerable and incompatible but restricted on purpose under bogus pretense. If the user can't determine what an app does with the resources it wants it should be trivial for the OS to mock the resources, see what happens, and report it back to the user. i.e. when enabling networking the app attempts to phone home somewhere shady, when enabling file system access it attempts to read/write outside its own directories, etc. I am pretty sure this would not scare off users, but make them curious.

gjpolly 4y ago

Those are the same concerns I hear from my grandma. Fortunately systems are designed for multi users, with sandboxes and access controls and heuristics now, and it's less of a problem for most people. Our ability to sideload apps, or install pwa that are full featured doesn't need to affect your safe little bubble of protection. You'll be ok, I promise.