4 ms·
I would like a world where buying something means you get final say over how it operates even if you might do something dangerous/harmful/illegal.
by Zak 11mo ago
I would like a world where buying something means you get final say over how it operates even if you might do something dangerous/harmful/illegal.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- miki123211 11mo agoI would like a world where I have the final say over whether I should have a final say. One way to achieve this is to only allow sideloading in "developer mode", which could only be activated from the setup / onboarding screen. That way, power users who know they'll want to sideload could still sideload. The rest could enjoy the benefits of an ecosystem where somebody more competent than their 80-year-old nontechnical self can worry about cybersecurity. Another way to do this would be to enforce a 48-hour cooldown on enabling sideloading, perhaps waived if enabled within 48 hrs of device setup. This would be enough time for most people to literally "cool off" and realize they're being scammed, while not much of an obstacle for power users.
- HumanOstrich 11mo agoI'm not sure I like the idea of "you have to wait 48 hours now for sideloading in case you are an idiot". Most idiots will then have sideloading on after 48 hours and still get hit with the next scam anyway.
- vrighter 11mo agoYou can sideload, I mean INSTALL, software on any linux desktop. Yet there are still tons of people saying that desktop linux has gotten good enough for most of everyone's grandma to daily-drive.
- stackghost 11mo agoWhen everyone's Grandma is running Linux then the Indian scammers will know how to trick Grandma into thinking dmesg spam is "a virus" and just install this totally-not-malware, just like they do with the windows event viewer. In other words, it's not any quality of Linux other than how niche it is.
- uyzstvqs 11mo agoThe actual stopping power here is that any grandma who uses a Linux desktop has a family member (or other contact) who helps with technical matters. They've been educated about internet & phone scams, and will immediately call their technical contact when anything is suspicious.
- Lammy 11mo agoIt's an excellent example of the fruitlessness of technical solutions to people problems. Some people are just destined to get scammed, and it isn't worth throwing away General Purpose Computing to try to help them. Be present in Grandma's life and she won't be desperate to trust the nice man on the phone just to have someone to talk to. If it weren't this it would be iTunes gift cards, or Your Vehicle's Extended Warranty, or any number of other avenues.
- jraph 11mo agoThese two solutions wouldn't work for me. My phone is covered, I use a custom ROM, but I like being able to help people install cool stuff that's not necessarily on the Play store, organically, without planning.
- consp 11mo ago> which could only be activated from the setup / onboarding screen Yea no. Now companies have to supply two phones, one for dev and one for calling. It is hard enough to get one...
- curtisnewton 11mo ago> more competent than their 80-year-old nontechnical self can worry about cybersecurity 80-year-old nontechnical self can easily operate machines and devices that are much more complex and easily more dangerous than a smartphone. And yet we're here pretending that those same people will install apps without even thinking about it. Careless people are careless, we know that, we don't make them safer by treating everyone else like toddlers with a gun in their hands.
- Zak 11mo agoThis becomes a problem when someone asks me for help with their phone and I want to point them to some apps from F-Droid to reduce their exposure to surveillance marketing. Of course that's a side effect Google probably wouldn't be sad about.