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Ask HN: Will you switch to FOSS following Trump's reelection?

9 points by _npid 2y ago

I’m German and deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem, using a MacBook and iPhone with all my files and data synced to iCloud. With Trump’s reelection as U.S. president, I worry the country might drift toward a surveillance dictatorship, one that even Apple’s advancements in encryption and privacy couldn’t counter. So my question is: Is it time to cut ties with U.S. tech companies and finally switch to alternatives like Linux, Nextcloud, and others?

tolerance 2y ago
It all boils down to your threat model, your use cases and whether you truly feel like your privacy would’ve been less at risk had the Trump lost the election and whether the idea of the U.S. becoming a surveillance dictatorship was any less feasible between in the fifteen years before Trump first took office. Great blog by the way. I don’t care for the subject matter per se, but the fact that it reads like it is written in a way that is indifferent to public perception despite being public is a good trait for a blog I reckon. It reads like a human wrote it and as a human you owe me nothing as far as a blog is considered, because I don’t know you I just know that you’re a human, that I can tell.
- mwinatschek 2y ago
  The problem is that I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes at American tech companies or how secure their systems truly are from their own state agencies. Can I safely upload furry porn and torrented anime to my (by Apple encrypted) iCloud Drive without worrying that it might be used against me in the future? How much does the Trump administration seek to tighten control over people compared to the Biden administration? At what point is it wiser to sacrifice convenience, time, and appealing design for (presumably) safer but more labor-intensive software? Also, thank you for complimenting my blog. I love hearing (or in this case reading) comments like that because it’s exactly what I aim for: writing as a human for other humans who might find something of interest in my thoughts on both important and (mostly) less important things.
cen4 2y ago
[flagged]
- mwinatschek 2y ago
  The problem with dictatorships is that you often don’t realize you’re in one until it’s too late.
JSDevOps 2y ago
What is it with these questions? People need to get a grip. Your already in a surveillance dictatorship
- valunord 2y ago
  Too true. This is all of modern society.
- mwinatschek 2y ago
  I would argue that Apple had an easier time defending its system against government surveillance under the Biden administration than it might under the next one, depending on how far Trump’s team extends their vision of control.
  - JSDevOps 2y ago
    Utter nonsense. What are you basing this on?
  - krapp 2y ago
    Why do you think Apple does anything to defend it system against government surveillance, beyond token gestures to provide plausible deniability? It's a PRISM company. Anything the American intelligence or law enforcement apparatus wants from any American company, it gets. Anyone making claims to the contrary is naive or a liar.
RGamma 2y ago
FWIW there's E2EE for iCloud data. Not sure how robust that is. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
- mwinatschek 2y ago
  I already have this activated, but the issue is that you still essentially have to trust Apple that their encryption is as robust as advertised and that there’s no secret backdoor the next government could misuse.
flanked-evergl 2y ago
[flagged]
- _npid 2y ago
  Right-wing groups like the Republicans in the U.S. or the AfD in Germany promise concrete solutions to the problems and fears of the majority of voters. Even if people know they’re being lied to, the slim chance these groups might fix some issues often feels more appealing than the vague promises of their opponents. It’s also clear that endorsements from random wealthy individuals don’t sway voters. I hope this election is the final wake-up call the EU needs to truly advance its own technological portfolio. A good start would be to significantly increase funding for FOSS projects, as the alternative, investing in closed startups, hasn’t proven effective over the past decades.
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    No, we have to look to Iran or China, Europe cannot stand on its own. The future is multipolar. We have to invest in Iran and China, Europe has "invested" in itself enough on the backs of black and brown people.
  - flessner 2y ago
    Most of the "funding" that Germany does usually goes to companies that can "play" the bureaucratic process instead of the ones that would actually deliver anything of value - so it probably won't be an effective strategy to accelerate FOSS. A good starting point would be to require all government software to be OSS in the EU - similar to what Switzerland started a couple months ago.
    - flanked-evergl 2y ago
      I think Germany and Europe has invested enough into Europeans. I think it would make more sense to mandate all government software to be developed by black and brown indigenous people of colour. Now is the time for Europe to pick up the DEI commitment that the United States has failed to deliver on.
h2odragon 2y ago
If you think Apple will obey Trump orders to spy on its users, but that they wouldn't obey Biden/Harris orders to do the same; I think you have an unrealistic view. the corporate stance is irrelevant: all it takes is one low level schmuck with access and enough police record to be subject to "pressure".
- mwinatschek 2y ago
  I do think Apple would comply with either administration, but Trump might change the laws enough to make it harder for Apple to protect its system integrity.
- Terretta 2y ago
  > all it takes is one low level schmuck with access and enough police record to be subject to "pressure". This isn't the case with advanced data security, the true E2EE mode. OTOH, then it's you that gets the rubber hose. https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
nsabine 2y ago
If you’re concerned about these issues, please consider donating to a civil liberties or legal defense fund.
flessner 2y ago
Hi, German here as well - there are plenty of political news for us to sit through these days... I personally don't feel compelled to move away from my Apple devices as of yet, but this'll certainly influence my future purchasing decisions. Why? - With politicians like Trump you'll always have to draw the line between campaign talk and real politics - When actions start or the relationship between the EU and US starts to deteriorate it makes more sense to jump ship. From a bureaucratic standpoint I hope that the EU takes this as a wake up call to finally deregulate - to allow more innovation and trade with other parts of the world if it comes down to it.
marssaxman 2y ago
I switched a long time ago. It is past time! - but better late than never.
devjab 2y ago
I’m considering it for future purchases. I doubt anything will happen, but if it does it’ll be better to have something that can run GrapheneOS or similar rather than being stuck with something they can only run iOS. As far as computers go, you can already run Linux on your Mac so it’s not like you have to do anything about it. If nothing happens, which it probably won’t, then it’ll have been a waste of effort. The cloud is similar, there is no reason to leave iCloud now and you should already have backups outside of it anyway. I’m far more interested in what will happen with enterprise organisations and their reliance on Microsoft. Breaking they reliance would be a good thing though, regardless of who leads the US. I think the biggest thing is actually going to buying your hardware before the tariffs.

sillystuff 2y ago

I don't understand why you think a celebrity endorsement would matter-- at all. One endorsement that mattered was Dick Cheney, the man behind the US's illegal and immoral torture campaigns, and who shared responsibility for the US killing of over a million innocent civilians in the US illegal war of aggression against Iraq. Harris welcomed the endorsement and talked up her war hawk credentials. She promised to give even more money to the military (it is a zero sum game-- a contributing factor to why Americans can't have nice things that Europeans enjoy, like medical care). She promised to continue to enable genocide of the indigenous Palestinian population by the Israeli settler state. She is reprehensible. Her center-right to right party attacked left parties, like the Greens (our Green party is anti-war and pro human rights, unlike the European Greens, and is not affiliated with the European Greens). The so-called Democratic party sued to have the Greens removed from the ballot in several states. The Democratic party should be called the anti-democracy party. So, many people on the actual left couldn't hold their noses and vote for her due to POLICIES of her and her party. In states where good candidates like Dr. Jill Stein, or Dr. Cornell West were on the ballot, they may have voted for these, or they may have withheld their votes entirely. This includes a sizable number of young people disgusted by the current administration's complicity in genocide, and the extreme suppression of protest whether they identify as on the left, or not. People where specific policy was not a deciding factor in their votes, may have voted against the Democrats because they, rightly or wrongly, blame the insane increases in costs of living on the party that was in charge when rent/house prices/loan interest rates, food, and energy prices went through the roof. Also, the endorsements of several establishment Republicans for Harris cemented her as the candidate of the establishment. And, the majority of folks in the lower income tiers don't have anything good to say about the establishment that keeps making their lives harder. Trump won decisively in under $100K/yr. earning males. A significant number of people want to see the whole damn corrupt system burn. It is concerning that the far-right controls all federal branches of government. Hopefully there will be in-fighting, so they do not do too much damage. But, realistically, with the ever rightward movement of the Democrats, eventually, we would have reached the same point. On-topic: there are multiple examples of US companies (and a US owned Swiss one too), installing back-doors in equipment, encryption, etc. I don't think the political party controlling the executive branch matters a bit for this.

flanked-evergl 2y ago
> I don't understand why you think a celebrity endorsement would matter-- at all. I'm sorry, but I'm going to go ahead and trust the opinion of the most qualified person to be President of the United States of America — i.e. vice president Kamala Harris — over yours. You are not an expert at campaigning, she is. She ran the best presidential campaign in history. Celebrity endorsements matter.
- sillystuff 2y ago
  > She ran the best presidential campaign in history. She lost. If you liked her, that is fine, sorry for your loss. But, I think this quote from you sounds delusional. If you were arguing she and her party's policies and record were deeply unpopular, and could not be overcome by even a great campaign, I'd give you that. But, I don't think she had a good campaign. She alienated vast swaths of voters. She lost Michigan because of her policy of continuing to enable genocide of Palestinians by Israel and she, and her party, being actively hostile to any who speak out, even mildly, against it. At a campaign stop, she responded to a woman who had told her she was recently made homeless because of medical bills, that if she were elected, she would would prevent medical debt from being reported on credit reports. This makes her sound almost as out of touch as Romney famously admitting, during his presidential run, that he'd never stepped foot into a grocery store; that was a duty for his servants. In an interview, she said, she couldn't think of a single thing she would change from Biden's policies. Her lack of proposals to help the working class, and her promise to maintain the (painful) status quo, lost her the majority of working class families, throughout the country, to Trump-- The status quo is not good for the majority of Americans. Harris effectively told working class Americans, that they will continue to struggle and suffer if she is elected-- working class America took note, and the majority, all across the country, voted for Trump (he may be just as bad, or worse, but he didn't promise to keep things terrible; I believe he will be, at least, as bad, but he represents some small hope that things might get better, for a lot of Americans).
  - flanked-evergl 2y ago
    It was her turn.