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Well no, if your parents truly are tech illiterate, I would give them Ubuntu and not an iPhone. With the iPhone they get the risk of answering to a scam call o

Well no, if your parents truly are tech illiterate, I would give them Ubuntu and not an iPhone. With the iPhone they get the risk of answering to a scam call or scam sms and giving them the access of their bank account. Ubuntu is almost bullet proof for beginners. In fact, that's what I've done for my parents and I had to retire the computer and get another one because it's the hardware which became too old after 15 years of running Ubuntu without any problem. Security for users isn't just about bootloader expoits.

charcircuit 1y ago
Like the parent said Ubuntu has horrible security. It would be better to just not buy a phone line for the iphone if you don't want phone calls or texts.
- realusername 1y ago
  It hasn't, security isn't just technical features but a social contract. Even on an iPhone without a sim card, they can download one of the scam casino games from the appstore and give away a lot of money, on Ubuntu they can't do that. There's more to security than just bytes. The threats to your average user isn't a bootloader exploit built by some Israeli firm but privacy breaches, social engineering and scams.
  - josephg 1y ago
    Sure; but technical features can certainly make security better. Like, iOS makes most unsafe actions incredibly clear. Apple pay always requires the user to double tap the power button. The OS makes it impossible for an application to charge you money through apple pay without an explicit user action. Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive. Any program you download and run from the internet on a desktop computer can do all of this stuff and more. We shouldn't allow that stuff by default on desktop computers either. Phones have the right idea. I just don't want Apple and Google to be the only ones who can modify the system at the OS level.
    - realusername 1y ago
      Double taping to pay is actually making things worse for tech illiterate users. There's a lot of scam games on the appstore and it's way to easy to fall into it if they aren't too careful. And then no, it's not clear for me (even as a developer!) how data transfer between apps work, how the advertising id works and how much data Apple and Google really have that they shouldn't. If it's not clear to me as a software engineer, it certainly isn't for your average user. The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps. > Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive. It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu. Even if that stuff somehow existed, I don't think they would have the tech knowledge to mark the downloaded virus as executable anyways.
      - josephg 1y ago
        > The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps. I'd like that security model to be the default for desktop apps on my computer as well. Its weird that davinci resolve and spotify and all the rest have full access to look through all my files. > It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu. Probably just because so few regular people use ubuntu, scammers & malware authors don't bother targeting it. Still good for your parents though!
        realusername 1y ago
        > I'd like that security model to be the default for desktop apps on my computer as well. Its weird that davinci resolve and spotify and all the rest have full access to look through all my files. That's how it works on Ubuntu, proprietary apps are usually distributed through snaps which are sandboxed. And unlike on mobile, the OS doesn't have an advertising ID or built-in ad networks. Normal apps don't need that though because there's a chain of trust which doesn't exist on mobile. > Probably just because so few regular people use ubuntu, scammers & malware authors don't bother targeting it. Still good for your parents though! No, it's because the bar on publishing on Ubuntu is much much higher than on an iPhone. Nobody would ever accept those scam casino games on Ubuntu.

charcircuit 1y ago

Like the parent said Ubuntu has horrible security. It would be better to just not buy a phone line for the iphone if you don't want phone calls or texts.

realusername 1y ago
It hasn't, security isn't just technical features but a social contract. Even on an iPhone without a sim card, they can download one of the scam casino games from the appstore and give away a lot of money, on Ubuntu they can't do that. There's more to security than just bytes. The threats to your average user isn't a bootloader exploit built by some Israeli firm but privacy breaches, social engineering and scams.
- josephg 1y ago
  Sure; but technical features can certainly make security better. Like, iOS makes most unsafe actions incredibly clear. Apple pay always requires the user to double tap the power button. The OS makes it impossible for an application to charge you money through apple pay without an explicit user action. Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive. Any program you download and run from the internet on a desktop computer can do all of this stuff and more. We shouldn't allow that stuff by default on desktop computers either. Phones have the right idea. I just don't want Apple and Google to be the only ones who can modify the system at the OS level.
  - realusername 1y ago
    Double taping to pay is actually making things worse for tech illiterate users. There's a lot of scam games on the appstore and it's way to easy to fall into it if they aren't too careful. And then no, it's not clear for me (even as a developer!) how data transfer between apps work, how the advertising id works and how much data Apple and Google really have that they shouldn't. If it's not clear to me as a software engineer, it certainly isn't for your average user. The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps. > Phone apps also can't take control of my entire device, or steal my cookies or cryptolocker my hard drive. It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu. Even if that stuff somehow existed, I don't think they would have the tech knowledge to mark the downloaded virus as executable anyways.
    - josephg 1y ago
      > The browser is just a much easier mental model, especially that I can install an ad blocker on it to make them safer, which I can't on mobile apps. I'd like that security model to be the default for desktop apps on my computer as well. Its weird that davinci resolve and spotify and all the rest have full access to look through all my files. > It never happened once with my parents in 15 years of running Ubuntu. Probably just because so few regular people use ubuntu, scammers & malware authors don't bother targeting it. Still good for your parents though!
      - realusername 1y ago
        > I'd like that security model to be the default for desktop apps on my computer as well. Its weird that davinci resolve and spotify and all the rest have full access to look through all my files. That's how it works on Ubuntu, proprietary apps are usually distributed through snaps which are sandboxed. And unlike on mobile, the OS doesn't have an advertising ID or built-in ad networks. Normal apps don't need that though because there's a chain of trust which doesn't exist on mobile. > Probably just because so few regular people use ubuntu, scammers & malware authors don't bother targeting it. Still good for your parents though! No, it's because the bar on publishing on Ubuntu is much much higher than on an iPhone. Nobody would ever accept those scam casino games on Ubuntu.