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I have seen no assurance that the slope is well-gritted. There is a proven inverse correlation between corporate powers and consumer freedoms. It's not fallaci

I have seen no assurance that the slope is well-gritted. There is a proven inverse correlation between corporate powers and consumer freedoms. It's not fallacious in the slightest, you're simply enjoying the slide for now.

fragmede 3y ago
That's your opinion. Smartphones have already brought about the trusted computing only world you fear, for non-technical users. The biggest distinction of general computing then, is the ability to run untrusted executables. Hardware is cheap enough these days that having a secure device dedicated to banking/whatever isn't out of the question. And with Google making virtual machines basically a primitive on Android, having an unlocked system but with trusted VMs inside seems to be the next step in allowing users to have local admistrative access, if they so choose. I don't doubt that ChromeBooks and iPadOS devices will. continue to be popular, but at the very least, there will always be a need for developers to have unrestricted systems to develop on, which, I believe, means that they'll exist until all software ever needed has been written.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  > Smartphones have already brought about the trusted computing only world you fear, for non-technical users. What's the purpose of this statement? "You've already lost" anime-style bullshit? This is proof that it's gotten worse as time has gone on. That is, it's evidence that the slope is slippery. Receding into a VM doesn't give people control; the host OS can still view everything happening in that VM. It has to in order to do its job virtualizing. I agree that we will always have a need somewhere for machines to just run code. However, I do not trust that developers will be steadfast enough to resist the inevitable anti-features that make their way into products to take control from the user. Smartphones and UEFI+secure boot enabled devices are a testament to this. It's possible to root and install your own ROM, on some models, but for how long? It's been a cat and mouse game between hackers and phone manufacturers. Today's developer systems are already infected with nannyware, unless they're running OpenPOWER or a similarly open and unencumbered system. I'm on a Librem 14 with a mostly-neutered IME (so, still x86_64), and honestly I wonder if what Purism was able to do to isolate it was enough. AMD pushes PSP with their chips, and ARM is its own strange song and dance, and licensing is a bitch. We need hardware that can be verified and trusted not by business, but by consumers. How do you think people will get developer systems if this culture of "no code is good unless it's corpo code" continues to prevail?
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Technology ultimately can't protect you from government and corpo snooping. It's only laws that can limit what happens, at least to some extent. And those laws are better focused on the actual collection and uses of data, than minutiae about the hardware/software. It's ultimately irrelevant that the OS could listen on you if it doesn't.
    - zlg_codes 3y ago
      Windows does listen to you. So does Android.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  > an unlocked system but with trusted VMs inside seems to be the next step in allowing users to have local admistrative access There's not a single example of that happening, as far as I know. What we get is "oh, you want general purpose access? here's a sandbox for you to play in", with the system itself remaining locked.

fragmede 3y ago

That's your opinion. Smartphones have already brought about the trusted computing only world you fear, for non-technical users. The biggest distinction of general computing then, is the ability to run untrusted executables. Hardware is cheap enough these days that having a secure device dedicated to banking/whatever isn't out of the question. And with Google making virtual machines basically a primitive on Android, having an unlocked system but with trusted VMs inside seems to be the next step in allowing users to have local admistrative access, if they so choose. I don't doubt that ChromeBooks and iPadOS devices will. continue to be popular, but at the very least, there will always be a need for developers to have unrestricted systems to develop on, which, I believe, means that they'll exist until all software ever needed has been written.

zlg_codes 3y ago
> Smartphones have already brought about the trusted computing only world you fear, for non-technical users. What's the purpose of this statement? "You've already lost" anime-style bullshit? This is proof that it's gotten worse as time has gone on. That is, it's evidence that the slope is slippery. Receding into a VM doesn't give people control; the host OS can still view everything happening in that VM. It has to in order to do its job virtualizing. I agree that we will always have a need somewhere for machines to just run code. However, I do not trust that developers will be steadfast enough to resist the inevitable anti-features that make their way into products to take control from the user. Smartphones and UEFI+secure boot enabled devices are a testament to this. It's possible to root and install your own ROM, on some models, but for how long? It's been a cat and mouse game between hackers and phone manufacturers. Today's developer systems are already infected with nannyware, unless they're running OpenPOWER or a similarly open and unencumbered system. I'm on a Librem 14 with a mostly-neutered IME (so, still x86_64), and honestly I wonder if what Purism was able to do to isolate it was enough. AMD pushes PSP with their chips, and ARM is its own strange song and dance, and licensing is a bitch. We need hardware that can be verified and trusted not by business, but by consumers. How do you think people will get developer systems if this culture of "no code is good unless it's corpo code" continues to prevail?
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Technology ultimately can't protect you from government and corpo snooping. It's only laws that can limit what happens, at least to some extent. And those laws are better focused on the actual collection and uses of data, than minutiae about the hardware/software. It's ultimately irrelevant that the OS could listen on you if it doesn't.
  - zlg_codes 3y ago
    Windows does listen to you. So does Android.
yencabulator 3y ago
> an unlocked system but with trusted VMs inside seems to be the next step in allowing users to have local admistrative access There's not a single example of that happening, as far as I know. What we get is "oh, you want general purpose access? here's a sandbox for you to play in", with the system itself remaining locked.