6 ms·
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 pe
by 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 agoA 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 agoNo, 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 agoWell, 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 agoThen 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 agoThe 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 agoThe 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 agoDoes not track. Windows before Windows 8 gave developers freedom, was private, and was the most popular computing platform on the planet.