3 ms·

Disk activity indicators, the ramping up of fan speeds, or the flashing of network activity lights used to tell me when my computer was doing something I wanted

Disk activity indicators, the ramping up of fan speeds, or the flashing of network activity lights used to tell me when my computer was doing something I wanted it to do. When my computer started (or stopped) doing a bunch of things unexpectedly it was an indication of compromise or of an application gone rogue. These days, any number of people feel entitled to use our computers whenever they like for whatever they like. The company who makes your mouse driver might want to phone home, then silently download and install a bunch of software you never asked for. The maker of your OS sends themselves a steady stream of data about what you've been doing on your computer: which files you've had open recently, what software you have installed, etc. With countless people using our devices for their own benefit on their own schedules it's nowhere near as useful to know when your computer is doing "something" because it's always doing something. Personally, I've always preferred the soft whir of fans and the clicks of old hard drives. For a time they were a wonderful source of white noise for sleeping and I would sometimes find myself waking up if a computer I'd tasked with something overnight suddenly fell silent because it encountered a problem. I'd get up, fix the issue, and go back to sleep comforted by the sounds of my computer working away for me once more. Today our machines can be always silent while never being still, and they can spend at least as much time working for others as they do for us. Indications of activity can still be useful to me at times, but they're never comforting the way they used to be.

Zenst 3y ago
Like the times of early dialup modems you could tell what was going on by the sound of modem, then came cable as things got faster. You would know your computer so well from that extra feedback from disc lights, noise of the disc head moving, and just a microsecond change in the noise on startup had you in investigation mode. Then things got faster and all those tactile feedbacks of knowing the health of your system got lost. Though in the early days, such feedback was the best AV you had. But as life moves on, and you get older, you start to appreciate the times as a child when your grandparents would reminisce the same things, and you would think old folks crazy as your baseline of life and technology is still being set at a fast pace, that eventually slows down. Until, you're telling tales of whirring media and 5MB hard drives the size of a washing machine and costing more than a house at the time. Which is just crazy talk to kids today. That's nostalgia, which is always a good positive comfort go to place as you get older. I'm equally somewhat reminded of the Star Trek TNG Episode - Relics when Scotty is in the holodeck simulating his Enterprise and tells Picard how he knew the Enterprise, his Enterprise and how fast it was going and the health of the engines by the feel and vibrations in the deck plate and none of that in the future he is on Picard's Enterprise. Great episode.
- mrexroad 3y ago
  Picard: The first vessel that I served on as captain was called Stargazer. It was an overworked, underpowered vessel, always on the verge of flying apart at the seams. In every measurable sense, my Enterprise is far superior. But there are times when I would give almost anything... to command the Stargazer again.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mcsniff 3y ago
This is why people should/can opt to use free and open source software under their control. I am not worried about my Fedora/Debian/Arch/whatever systems collecting personal data. I am not worried about GrapheneOS scooping up the location information from my phone. Home Assistant developers don't want to know when my lights and oven are turned on.
- chaxor 3y ago
  It's a decent starting point, but it's an assumption that they're not collecting data (because it is discoverable if it's written in the code); however is not always true. You should check the source code for every project you're using as much as possible to really ensure that there isn't anything obviously nefarious like telemetry included, because in some cases it's still there. See Sunxi's Linux SBC backdoors on git for one of many examples of undocumented insecure or privacy-breaking code. In other cases it may be more documented, such as Golangs baked-in telemetry. There should be better ways to check these problems. The best I have found so far is Crev https://github.com/crev-dev/crev/ https://github.com/crev-dev/crev/. It's most used implementation is Cargo-crev https://github.com/crev-dev/cargo-crev https://github.com/crev-dev/cargo-crev, but hopefully it will become more required to use these types of tools. Certainty and metrics about how many eyes have been on a particular script, and what expertise they have would be a huge win for software.
  - MCUmaster 3y ago
    Google’s Go has telemetry?
smegger001 3y ago
You complaints read like my list of reasons I switched to running linux and use open source software everywhere I can. My mouse doesn't need a bespoke driver let alone one that phones home or have administrative privileges to install software. My OS shuts up and doest force updates at random times to force me to beta test them for their enterprise clients, or shove ads in my menus and searches or upload my files and file histry to their cloud. I can still figure out what programs are talking to the internetat a given time.

Zenst 3y ago

Like the times of early dialup modems you could tell what was going on by the sound of modem, then came cable as things got faster. You would know your computer so well from that extra feedback from disc lights, noise of the disc head moving, and just a microsecond change in the noise on startup had you in investigation mode. Then things got faster and all those tactile feedbacks of knowing the health of your system got lost. Though in the early days, such feedback was the best AV you had. But as life moves on, and you get older, you start to appreciate the times as a child when your grandparents would reminisce the same things, and you would think old folks crazy as your baseline of life and technology is still being set at a fast pace, that eventually slows down. Until, you're telling tales of whirring media and 5MB hard drives the size of a washing machine and costing more than a house at the time. Which is just crazy talk to kids today. That's nostalgia, which is always a good positive comfort go to place as you get older. I'm equally somewhat reminded of the Star Trek TNG Episode - Relics when Scotty is in the holodeck simulating his Enterprise and tells Picard how he knew the Enterprise, his Enterprise and how fast it was going and the health of the engines by the feel and vibrations in the deck plate and none of that in the future he is on Picard's Enterprise. Great episode.

mrexroad 3y ago
Picard: The first vessel that I served on as captain was called Stargazer. It was an overworked, underpowered vessel, always on the verge of flying apart at the seams. In every measurable sense, my Enterprise is far superior. But there are times when I would give almost anything... to command the Stargazer again.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mcsniff 3y ago

This is why people should/can opt to use free and open source software under their control. I am not worried about my Fedora/Debian/Arch/whatever systems collecting personal data. I am not worried about GrapheneOS scooping up the location information from my phone. Home Assistant developers don't want to know when my lights and oven are turned on.

chaxor 3y ago
It's a decent starting point, but it's an assumption that they're not collecting data (because it is discoverable if it's written in the code); however is not always true. You should check the source code for every project you're using as much as possible to really ensure that there isn't anything obviously nefarious like telemetry included, because in some cases it's still there. See Sunxi's Linux SBC backdoors on git for one of many examples of undocumented insecure or privacy-breaking code. In other cases it may be more documented, such as Golangs baked-in telemetry. There should be better ways to check these problems. The best I have found so far is Crev https://github.com/crev-dev/crev/ https://github.com/crev-dev/crev/. It's most used implementation is Cargo-crev https://github.com/crev-dev/cargo-crev https://github.com/crev-dev/cargo-crev, but hopefully it will become more required to use these types of tools. Certainty and metrics about how many eyes have been on a particular script, and what expertise they have would be a huge win for software.
- MCUmaster 3y ago
  Google’s Go has telemetry?

smegger001 3y ago

You complaints read like my list of reasons I switched to running linux and use open source software everywhere I can. My mouse doesn't need a bespoke driver let alone one that phones home or have administrative privileges to install software. My OS shuts up and doest force updates at random times to force me to beta test them for their enterprise clients, or shove ads in my menus and searches or upload my files and file histry to their cloud. I can still figure out what programs are talking to the internetat a given time.