4 ms·

PRISM didn't kill companies, Apple home button scandal didn't touch it, sony infecting its users with a rootkit didn't make it sell less playstations, HP lying

PRISM didn't kill companies, Apple home button scandal didn't touch it, sony infecting its users with a rootkit didn't make it sell less playstations, HP lying cartridges had no impact on its long term business... Fines and green washing are budgeted and only a small fractions of the profit they make by misbehaving. On this very site you can read regularly people telling you we should forget about the MS of the past because now they are good guys. So they can get away with corruption, sabotage, monopoly abuse, insulting the competition, stealing, lying, patent trolling, etc. No problem. Bill Gates is a wonderful person and a great philanthropist nowadays. The corporations and billionaires have found the recipe to get away with everything. The humans were always hackable.

lynx23 3y ago
Well said, I couldn't agree more, unfortunately... I also noticed the "MS is cool now"-cult, felt surreal and almost like deliberate misinformation. Classic counterpart to FUD, Honeypotting. However, more people seem to fall for that because it is less known, and games the "assume good intentions"-virus.
usrusr 3y ago
Not so sure about HP. I mean yeah, their inkjet ploy still pays for itself I suppose, but at this point I consider home photo printing as basically dead, killed by greed, and those printer divisions as little more than autonomous external marketing divisions for those ubiquitous b/w Brother boxes.
azalemeth 3y ago
I guess part of the problem with boycotts is that it's very hard to know who will not buy your product because of e.g DRM, and who won't buy it because they're not interested in it. I haven't bought a single Sony product since the rootkit fiasco, but I've never been able to tell them this directly. I don't buy products with DRM in them. I just don't. I'm not going to be appearing in the balance sheet, however, and won't appear in the calculus of lost growth for an MBA. The only time I think boycotts do work is when they cause a direct negative action to a company's bottom line that is sufficiently obvious that an accountant can see it. Long, slow protests -- such as exist against Nestlé for example -- are worthy but likely for the birds.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Oh they have an entire department dedicated to understand what people think about each product, so they would know.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Market research departments notwithstanding, companies can be quite oblivious about why their products are bought and, especially, not bought.
berkeleyjunk 3y ago
I can see the other things but "Apple home button scandal" either does not belong in the same league or there might be something I do not know about. Can you expand a little bit on your thinking?
- Pomfers 3y ago
  When Apple introduced a fingerprint unlock in the home button, it wanted to keep the fingerprint scans secure. The security chip that stores the fingerprint scans needs to verify that the home button's fingerprint scanner is trustworthy, to prevent man in the middle attacks. However, when an unauthorized or unofficial button is used as a replacement for repair, the phone will permanently brick itself. No warning is given that the fingerprint scanner's trustworthiness can not be verified, no ability to just use the phone with the fingerprint scanner disabled. Just straight to a permanent bricking.
  - Retric 3y ago
    IMO it wasn’t nearly as egregious as the other examples. I only defend them because they didn’t do this when you replaced the screen etc. You don’t want phones to work if someone swaps out that specific piece of hardware without your knowledge. Bricking the phone forever makes it harder for people to find back doors around that security feature as they would risk large numbers of expensive phones. Presumably people developing replacement fingerprint readers would notice the issue before most customers where harmed. Further, anyone actually harmed would have gotten hardware from an very untrustworthy source. They reversed course after a backlash, but I can see an argument for them standing their ground on this one.
  - themagician 3y ago
    As a user, that’s what I’d want it to do. If someone is trying to bypass the fingerprint sensor by replacing it because they know that’s where the authorization is stored, that’s exactly what I’d want the phone to do.
    - circuit10 3y ago
dec0dedab0de 3y ago
ony infecting its users with a rootkit didn't make it sell less playstations They sold atleast one less PS3. I caved and let my kid get a 4 and 5 when they came out. But he's gotta keep them at his mother's house.

lynx23 3y ago

Well said, I couldn't agree more, unfortunately... I also noticed the "MS is cool now"-cult, felt surreal and almost like deliberate misinformation. Classic counterpart to FUD, Honeypotting. However, more people seem to fall for that because it is less known, and games the "assume good intentions"-virus.

usrusr 3y ago

Not so sure about HP. I mean yeah, their inkjet ploy still pays for itself I suppose, but at this point I consider home photo printing as basically dead, killed by greed, and those printer divisions as little more than autonomous external marketing divisions for those ubiquitous b/w Brother boxes.

azalemeth 3y ago

I guess part of the problem with boycotts is that it's very hard to know who will not buy your product because of e.g DRM, and who won't buy it because they're not interested in it. I haven't bought a single Sony product since the rootkit fiasco, but I've never been able to tell them this directly. I don't buy products with DRM in them. I just don't. I'm not going to be appearing in the balance sheet, however, and won't appear in the calculus of lost growth for an MBA. The only time I think boycotts do work is when they cause a direct negative action to a company's bottom line that is sufficiently obvious that an accountant can see it. Long, slow protests -- such as exist against Nestlé for example -- are worthy but likely for the birds.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Oh they have an entire department dedicated to understand what people think about each product, so they would know.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Market research departments notwithstanding, companies can be quite oblivious about why their products are bought and, especially, not bought.

berkeleyjunk 3y ago

I can see the other things but "Apple home button scandal" either does not belong in the same league or there might be something I do not know about. Can you expand a little bit on your thinking?

Pomfers 3y ago
When Apple introduced a fingerprint unlock in the home button, it wanted to keep the fingerprint scans secure. The security chip that stores the fingerprint scans needs to verify that the home button's fingerprint scanner is trustworthy, to prevent man in the middle attacks. However, when an unauthorized or unofficial button is used as a replacement for repair, the phone will permanently brick itself. No warning is given that the fingerprint scanner's trustworthiness can not be verified, no ability to just use the phone with the fingerprint scanner disabled. Just straight to a permanent bricking.
- Retric 3y ago
  IMO it wasn’t nearly as egregious as the other examples. I only defend them because they didn’t do this when you replaced the screen etc. You don’t want phones to work if someone swaps out that specific piece of hardware without your knowledge. Bricking the phone forever makes it harder for people to find back doors around that security feature as they would risk large numbers of expensive phones. Presumably people developing replacement fingerprint readers would notice the issue before most customers where harmed. Further, anyone actually harmed would have gotten hardware from an very untrustworthy source. They reversed course after a backlash, but I can see an argument for them standing their ground on this one.
- themagician 3y ago
  As a user, that’s what I’d want it to do. If someone is trying to bypass the fingerprint sensor by replacing it because they know that’s where the authorization is stored, that’s exactly what I’d want the phone to do.
  - circuit10 3y ago

dec0dedab0de 3y ago

ony infecting its users with a rootkit didn't make it sell less playstations They sold atleast one less PS3. I caved and let my kid get a 4 and 5 when they came out. But he's gotta keep them at his mother's house.