5 ms·

In the meantime, corporate is thinking about locking browsers down. Remember this? https://chromestatus.com/feature/5796524191121408 https://chromestatus.com/f

by baq 1y ago

In the meantime, corporate is thinking about locking browsers down. Remember this? https://chromestatus.com/feature/5796524191121408 https://chromestatus.com/feature/5796524191121408 They’ll try again, with big business and governments cheering on them.

matheusmoreira 1y ago
> They’ll try again, with big business and governments cheering on them. No doubt. They only have to win once. We have to keep defending our own freedoms against non-stop assault until the end of time. I'm so tired and disillusioned.
- Pentamerous 1y ago
  Freedom is a constant struggle
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    Y'know what's troubling to me, freedom as a struggle is indirectly related to other people/ social-political issue. Like, the people if they decide, they want freedom, are almost guaranteed to get it. But nobody demands it in the truest sense and it feels like the govt. isn't controlled by the people but rather almost by lobbying and that social media etc. have made people complacent in the sense that either we think that others will fight for us or that social media has become a propaganda machine. I almost broke last night realizing that nuclear can be completely green energy but it isn't the issue of technology but rather political. To me, it felt like a lot of really quality of life changes (like water access, clean cities, good air quality index, atleast where I live) are all almost political issues at this point. But I am not hopeful towards people, I am hopeful towards tech though. It feels like people have free will, so they might actually pick a net negative option for everybody (trump?), so I am not an optimist because I feel like I have to trust people in the process and I feel like people can do both good and bad, so I wonder how much better our lives have been compared to our ancestors. Maybe trade-offs? I genuinely felt so weird realizing this, its hard to explain. Like it felt like I can do nothing but watch. And to me I feel like I am being a pessimistic because a lot of people in power feel stupid/inefficient man. We just don't have a choice. WE have a choice b/w 2 parties and call it freedom. Of course, freedom will be a constant struggle. People have made it as such. Its on all of us, we all need to take accountability. I get it, accountability is hard, but its much better than waiting for a hero to save us all. We can do it if we realize this.
    - wolvesechoes 1y ago
      > To me, it felt like a lot of really quality of life changes (like water access, clean cities, good air quality index, atleast where I live) are all almost political issues at this point. This is why I struggle when discussing anything on this website - these were always political issues. Everything that touches the way society functions is a political issue. Tech is just a vehicle of political agenda. Freedom is purely political notion, this is why different traditions have different concepts of it. And to obtain it, as well as other things, you need political action. Yet, most HN users, at least that is my impression, tend to think that it is about creating yet another software project or founding startup. And this is why corpos and government are winning.
      - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
        Well, political action is hard to bring and you would need an average citizen to weigh his vote into action and not just use his vote for his own biases and as I also said, its really depressing when we think of this to be as a reality and I myself, would like to hide or somehow "prove" that this isn't the case if that makes sense. So no wonder the majority of us techie/hn users feel this way, you aren't wrong for the impression, I also feel like that's true atleast in my opinion being in this community and there is nothing wrong with that but the reality is kinda bitter.
      - fsflover 1y ago
        > Yet, most HN users, at least that is my impression, tend to think that it is about creating yet another software project or founding startup. I don't think that a startup is sufficient, but it can be an important step in the right direction. I came to my bank, showed them my Librem 5 phone and asked where I can download an app for it. It was a much clearer message than "but Android isn't free!" (which is of course true). I do the same with governmental services.
- SlowTao 1y ago
  Yep, there are times when I feel like it is best just to let them win to the point it completely break the bottom of the bucket. Rather than a slow creep, a sudden lurch so that everyone can see it.
- bambax 1y ago
  One approach, not ideal by a long shot but one of the easiest, is to only use old devices and old OSes. Things that have been cracked and/or are easy to root. "But it's not secure!" -- yeah, that really is the point.
  - matheusmoreira 1y ago
    Utterly pointless. We'll be systematically discriminated against at every turn. We'll lose access to finances, services, communities and even simple sites because our computers aren't corporate owned. We'll become so marginalized we'll only be able to visit places like HN, places that at least try to pay some lip service to everything the word "hacker" stands for. And then they will make it so our devices need to pass hardware remote attestation to connect to the internet and even that will be taken away from us. I don't know what to do anymore. The future is bleak. The free computing we love is being destroyed by forces outside our control, forces that cannot be stopped no matter what we do because they have trillions of dollars and their interests are aligned with those of governments the world over.
    - bambax 1y ago
      They may try that, sure, but 1/ it will take some time, during which we can still enjoy some amount of freedom and 2/ they may not succeed everywhere, or all of the time.
    - CalRobert 1y ago
      Get in to woodworking and ham radio I guess
  - ddalex 1y ago
    This is not going to be successful once they demand strong authentication of clients on the server side - the banking apps already do this, you can't have your phone rooted or compromised. Wait until the authorities will require strong client side authentication for social media sites, news sites, and everywhere user generated content is accepted, tied to official ID issued by the government
- mdp2021 1y ago
  > We have to keep defending our own freedoms As always. > I'm so Shake it off, because, see point 1, the struggle is the same as it has been even decades ago. Nothing has changed: we fight for it. Only the battles have changed, not the war.
  - 0xEF 1y ago
    I'm not the person you replied to, but I am in their shoes. I'm tired, too. Trust me, I used to champion your sentiment, keep fighting/keep moving and all that jazz, but...at my age, this War of Attrition that is the fight for user data rights and privacy has gone on so long, against a foe that has a much large reach and seemingly infinite resources. Many of us are not only exhausted, but exasperated at the fact that the good majority of the consumer market continues to give permission to the very activities we are all supposed to be denying. In the end, we vote with our dollars, so we, the vocal minority can be as loud as we want but if the majority continues to buy, use and comply with the product, it's really just a lot of yelling for no reason, isn't it? That's how it feels, anyway. I know, I know; can't start a fire without a spark. But I've been at it for two decades, since the first smartphone dropped, something I resist adopting for nearly a decade. I'm seeing my kid's generation growing up in this world, condition by it from the start despite our best efforts and they simply don't seem to care. From where I'm standing, I feel old, brittle and tired from all this, but there's nobody to pass the torch to. So understand that when one of us comments "I'm so tired and disillusioned," we do so after years of resisting, and those words are not uttered lightly.
    - ygjb 1y ago
      > So understand that when one of us comments "I'm so tired and disillusioned," we do so after years of resisting, and those words are not uttered lightly. My great-grandfather fled France with his family during the second world war. My grandfather fought in the second world war - essentially after he got to Canada, he enlisted and headed back to fight against fascism. He eventually came back to Canada because the rest of his surviving family was here. I get tired of fighting for privacy, and standing up for users, and pushing back against some of the most egregious abuses of tech companies, including the tech companies I work for. When I think that it's not worth fighting, or I think that I could probably get a promotion and way more money if I just suck it up and start building ad-tech or surveillance tech, I think about how disappointed my grandfather would be with my decision. Stoicism isn't the shitty memes that folks post online re-enforcing toxic masculinity, it's getting up in the morning after taking a break from the good fight, and continuing to push back despite being tired. Understand that when you wake up in the morning, or feel the need to comment "I'm so tired and disillusioned", remember that there are many, many other people tired and disillusioned along side you or OP continuing the fight. Take a break if you need to, and come back to keep fighting.
- safety1st 1y ago
  > We have to keep defending our own freedoms against non-stop assault until the end of time That's the human condition. The price of liberty. However, there are easier ways and harder ways to do it. The key concept to think about is sovereignty. What do you own? What do you control that depends on as few externalities as possible? The big shift people are going to have to start thinking about is abandoning the network, because the enemies of freedom are increasingly locking it down. - I own PC hardware that runs Linux. I own a copy of Linux which runs entirely offline. To the extent I get updates to it, they are licensed and distributed in such a manner that it's very hard for the bad guys to mess with them, as Microsoft does with Windows 11. - I own copies of many media, books, music, movies, TV series, games, these reside as non-DRM'ed bits on my SSD that do not phone home, they don't need the network. I have local copies of software that does not require the network to play them. I have physical copies of these things in some cases. This is not to say that I never use Netflix, Youtube, Spotify, Steam etc. but I keep them at arm's length and cut back on my usage of them at every opportunity. They are all network tools owned by our enemies, and need to be treated as such. There really isn't shit they can do to me that would sting, short of cut off the electricity. In the event that the Internet purveyors of slop go Full Evil, and they probably will, I am well equipped. Now of course the topic of sovereignty is far far bigger than consuming media, and we could get into things like desktop applications or where you interact with your friends as well. But the principles are the same. Go offline.
ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
Government in EU will want it once they introduce the Chat Control legislation and observe that it is trivial to circumvent by either modifying clients to not scan or using free open source alternatives. Logical next step is to lock down all devices and thereby also ensure total and utter surrender of all our digital infrastructure to the current duopoly in the mobile device market (Apple and Google).
- mdp2021 1y ago
  Can I tweak it? Can I simulate a NN autocomplete? "Government in EU [which is a very marginal part of the production of electronic devices, wants to implement a "Digital Euro" that requires relying] all our digital infrastructure to the current duopoly in the mobile device market (Apple and Google)[, completely external yet planned crucial part of the forthcoming monetary system]." <think> They do not sound pretty sound to me. </think> -- Edit: speak up, snipers (we are in front of a freefall and you play the fool)... I think it is rational in the discourse to show that in malice or stupidity there is a relevant upper level that shows a more radical condition. The EU is posing towards reliance of «all our digital infrastructure to the current duopoly in the mobile device market (Apple and Google)», which is controlled by third parties.
- hoppp 1y ago
  So, people who need can always use linux and can even just compile everything from source.
  - baq 1y ago
    They can, but if service providers start requiring client attestation, it won't help at all.
    - goku12 1y ago
      This isn't a technical problem. It's a political problem. We should be fighting this with our wallets, votes, voices and influence, not technology. Politicians and industrialists should be informed in no uncertain terms that the enaction such draconian measures will result in significant hits to their ambitions.

by baq 1y ago

matheusmoreira 1y ago

> They’ll try again, with big business and governments cheering on them. No doubt. They only have to win once. We have to keep defending our own freedoms against non-stop assault until the end of time. I'm so tired and disillusioned.

Pentamerous 1y ago
Freedom is a constant struggle
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  Y'know what's troubling to me, freedom as a struggle is indirectly related to other people/ social-political issue. Like, the people if they decide, they want freedom, are almost guaranteed to get it. But nobody demands it in the truest sense and it feels like the govt. isn't controlled by the people but rather almost by lobbying and that social media etc. have made people complacent in the sense that either we think that others will fight for us or that social media has become a propaganda machine. I almost broke last night realizing that nuclear can be completely green energy but it isn't the issue of technology but rather political. To me, it felt like a lot of really quality of life changes (like water access, clean cities, good air quality index, atleast where I live) are all almost political issues at this point. But I am not hopeful towards people, I am hopeful towards tech though. It feels like people have free will, so they might actually pick a net negative option for everybody (trump?), so I am not an optimist because I feel like I have to trust people in the process and I feel like people can do both good and bad, so I wonder how much better our lives have been compared to our ancestors. Maybe trade-offs? I genuinely felt so weird realizing this, its hard to explain. Like it felt like I can do nothing but watch. And to me I feel like I am being a pessimistic because a lot of people in power feel stupid/inefficient man. We just don't have a choice. WE have a choice b/w 2 parties and call it freedom. Of course, freedom will be a constant struggle. People have made it as such. Its on all of us, we all need to take accountability. I get it, accountability is hard, but its much better than waiting for a hero to save us all. We can do it if we realize this.
  - wolvesechoes 1y ago
    > To me, it felt like a lot of really quality of life changes (like water access, clean cities, good air quality index, atleast where I live) are all almost political issues at this point. This is why I struggle when discussing anything on this website - these were always political issues. Everything that touches the way society functions is a political issue. Tech is just a vehicle of political agenda. Freedom is purely political notion, this is why different traditions have different concepts of it. And to obtain it, as well as other things, you need political action. Yet, most HN users, at least that is my impression, tend to think that it is about creating yet another software project or founding startup. And this is why corpos and government are winning.
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      Well, political action is hard to bring and you would need an average citizen to weigh his vote into action and not just use his vote for his own biases and as I also said, its really depressing when we think of this to be as a reality and I myself, would like to hide or somehow "prove" that this isn't the case if that makes sense. So no wonder the majority of us techie/hn users feel this way, you aren't wrong for the impression, I also feel like that's true atleast in my opinion being in this community and there is nothing wrong with that but the reality is kinda bitter.
    - fsflover 1y ago
      > Yet, most HN users, at least that is my impression, tend to think that it is about creating yet another software project or founding startup. I don't think that a startup is sufficient, but it can be an important step in the right direction. I came to my bank, showed them my Librem 5 phone and asked where I can download an app for it. It was a much clearer message than "but Android isn't free!" (which is of course true). I do the same with governmental services.
SlowTao 1y ago
Yep, there are times when I feel like it is best just to let them win to the point it completely break the bottom of the bucket. Rather than a slow creep, a sudden lurch so that everyone can see it.
bambax 1y ago
One approach, not ideal by a long shot but one of the easiest, is to only use old devices and old OSes. Things that have been cracked and/or are easy to root. "But it's not secure!" -- yeah, that really is the point.
- matheusmoreira 1y ago
  Utterly pointless. We'll be systematically discriminated against at every turn. We'll lose access to finances, services, communities and even simple sites because our computers aren't corporate owned. We'll become so marginalized we'll only be able to visit places like HN, places that at least try to pay some lip service to everything the word "hacker" stands for. And then they will make it so our devices need to pass hardware remote attestation to connect to the internet and even that will be taken away from us. I don't know what to do anymore. The future is bleak. The free computing we love is being destroyed by forces outside our control, forces that cannot be stopped no matter what we do because they have trillions of dollars and their interests are aligned with those of governments the world over.
  - bambax 1y ago
    They may try that, sure, but 1/ it will take some time, during which we can still enjoy some amount of freedom and 2/ they may not succeed everywhere, or all of the time.
  - CalRobert 1y ago
    Get in to woodworking and ham radio I guess
- ddalex 1y ago
  This is not going to be successful once they demand strong authentication of clients on the server side - the banking apps already do this, you can't have your phone rooted or compromised. Wait until the authorities will require strong client side authentication for social media sites, news sites, and everywhere user generated content is accepted, tied to official ID issued by the government
mdp2021 1y ago
> We have to keep defending our own freedoms As always. > I'm so Shake it off, because, see point 1, the struggle is the same as it has been even decades ago. Nothing has changed: we fight for it. Only the battles have changed, not the war.
- 0xEF 1y ago
  I'm not the person you replied to, but I am in their shoes. I'm tired, too. Trust me, I used to champion your sentiment, keep fighting/keep moving and all that jazz, but...at my age, this War of Attrition that is the fight for user data rights and privacy has gone on so long, against a foe that has a much large reach and seemingly infinite resources. Many of us are not only exhausted, but exasperated at the fact that the good majority of the consumer market continues to give permission to the very activities we are all supposed to be denying. In the end, we vote with our dollars, so we, the vocal minority can be as loud as we want but if the majority continues to buy, use and comply with the product, it's really just a lot of yelling for no reason, isn't it? That's how it feels, anyway. I know, I know; can't start a fire without a spark. But I've been at it for two decades, since the first smartphone dropped, something I resist adopting for nearly a decade. I'm seeing my kid's generation growing up in this world, condition by it from the start despite our best efforts and they simply don't seem to care. From where I'm standing, I feel old, brittle and tired from all this, but there's nobody to pass the torch to. So understand that when one of us comments "I'm so tired and disillusioned," we do so after years of resisting, and those words are not uttered lightly.
  - ygjb 1y ago
    > So understand that when one of us comments "I'm so tired and disillusioned," we do so after years of resisting, and those words are not uttered lightly. My great-grandfather fled France with his family during the second world war. My grandfather fought in the second world war - essentially after he got to Canada, he enlisted and headed back to fight against fascism. He eventually came back to Canada because the rest of his surviving family was here. I get tired of fighting for privacy, and standing up for users, and pushing back against some of the most egregious abuses of tech companies, including the tech companies I work for. When I think that it's not worth fighting, or I think that I could probably get a promotion and way more money if I just suck it up and start building ad-tech or surveillance tech, I think about how disappointed my grandfather would be with my decision. Stoicism isn't the shitty memes that folks post online re-enforcing toxic masculinity, it's getting up in the morning after taking a break from the good fight, and continuing to push back despite being tired. Understand that when you wake up in the morning, or feel the need to comment "I'm so tired and disillusioned", remember that there are many, many other people tired and disillusioned along side you or OP continuing the fight. Take a break if you need to, and come back to keep fighting.
safety1st 1y ago
> We have to keep defending our own freedoms against non-stop assault until the end of time That's the human condition. The price of liberty. However, there are easier ways and harder ways to do it. The key concept to think about is sovereignty. What do you own? What do you control that depends on as few externalities as possible? The big shift people are going to have to start thinking about is abandoning the network, because the enemies of freedom are increasingly locking it down. - I own PC hardware that runs Linux. I own a copy of Linux which runs entirely offline. To the extent I get updates to it, they are licensed and distributed in such a manner that it's very hard for the bad guys to mess with them, as Microsoft does with Windows 11. - I own copies of many media, books, music, movies, TV series, games, these reside as non-DRM'ed bits on my SSD that do not phone home, they don't need the network. I have local copies of software that does not require the network to play them. I have physical copies of these things in some cases. This is not to say that I never use Netflix, Youtube, Spotify, Steam etc. but I keep them at arm's length and cut back on my usage of them at every opportunity. They are all network tools owned by our enemies, and need to be treated as such. There really isn't shit they can do to me that would sting, short of cut off the electricity. In the event that the Internet purveyors of slop go Full Evil, and they probably will, I am well equipped. Now of course the topic of sovereignty is far far bigger than consuming media, and we could get into things like desktop applications or where you interact with your friends as well. But the principles are the same. Go offline.

ulrikrasmussen 1y ago

Government in EU will want it once they introduce the Chat Control legislation and observe that it is trivial to circumvent by either modifying clients to not scan or using free open source alternatives. Logical next step is to lock down all devices and thereby also ensure total and utter surrender of all our digital infrastructure to the current duopoly in the mobile device market (Apple and Google).

mdp2021 1y ago
Can I tweak it? Can I simulate a NN autocomplete? "Government in EU [which is a very marginal part of the production of electronic devices, wants to implement a "Digital Euro" that requires relying] all our digital infrastructure to the current duopoly in the mobile device market (Apple and Google)[, completely external yet planned crucial part of the forthcoming monetary system]." <think> They do not sound pretty sound to me. </think> -- Edit: speak up, snipers (we are in front of a freefall and you play the fool)... I think it is rational in the discourse to show that in malice or stupidity there is a relevant upper level that shows a more radical condition. The EU is posing towards reliance of «all our digital infrastructure to the current duopoly in the mobile device market (Apple and Google)», which is controlled by third parties.
hoppp 1y ago
So, people who need can always use linux and can even just compile everything from source.
- baq 1y ago
  They can, but if service providers start requiring client attestation, it won't help at all.
  - goku12 1y ago
    This isn't a technical problem. It's a political problem. We should be fighting this with our wallets, votes, voices and influence, not technology. Politicians and industrialists should be informed in no uncertain terms that the enaction such draconian measures will result in significant hits to their ambitions.