4 ms·
Serious question: What are the "valid concerns" about people securing their computing devices against third parties?
by pc86 8mo ago
Serious question: What are the "valid concerns" about people securing their computing devices against third parties?
- ambicapter 8mo agoThink of the children
- horacemorace 8mo agoThe leaders of US government certainly do. Much too fondly.
- shaky-carrousel 8mo agoCorrupt government officials gunning down inconvenient people.
- pc86 8mo agoI'd love to hear what you think that has to do with this?
- nutjob2 8mo agoIf we've learned anything from this administration it is that the government can ignore the law longer than you can stay alive. Arming yourself against lawless government in every legal way is advisable.
- pc86 8mo agoI'm not even saying you're wrong, I'm saying what does that have to do with a valid search warrant being executed?
- macintux 8mo agoThere's a fair bit of dispute about whether this is valid. The active criminalization of journalism is worrisome.
- extraaccounts 8mo ago[dead]
- pc86 8mo agoIt's signed by a judge, it's valid. What is in dispute, exactly?
- macintux 8mo ago> The Justice Department failed to tell a magistrate judge about a 1980 law protecting journalists in its application materials for a warrant https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/us/politics/doj-press-law-warrant-application-washington-post-journalist.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/us/politics/doj-press-law... Previously: > U.S. Magistrate Judge William B. Porter wrote in his order that the government must preserve any materials seized during the raid and may not review them until the court authorizes it https://san.com/cc/judge-blocks-fbis-access-to-washington-post-reporters-seized-devices/ https://san.com/cc/judge-blocks-fbis-access-to-washington-po...
- shaky-carrousel 8mo agoSure you will.
- nicoburns 8mo agoOne valid concern about "locked down computing" is the potential for 3rd parties to secure computing devices against their owners.
- hypfer 8mo agoThis (I think) refers not to the people securing their devices against third parties but the vendors "securing" the devices against loss of profits. Essentially, the question referenced here is that of ownership. Is it your device, or did you rent it from Apple/Samsung/etc. If it is locked down so that you can't do anything you want with it, then you might not actually be its owner. ___ _Ideally_ you wouldn't need to trust Apple as a corp to do the right thing. Of course, as this example shows, they seem to actually have done one right thing, but you do not know if they will always do. That's why a lot of people believe that the idea of such tight vendor control is fundamentally flawed, even though in this specific instance it yielded positive results. For completeness, No, I do not know either how this could be implemented differently.
- mschuster91 8mo ago> Essentially, the question referenced here is that of ownership. Is it your device, or did you rent it from Apple/Samsung/etc. If it is locked down so that you can't do anything you want with it, then you might not actually be its owner. Both goals actually are possible to implement at the same time: Secure/Verified Boot together with actually audited, preferably open-source, as-small-as-possible code in the boot and crypto chain, for the user, the ability to unlock the bootloader in the EFI firmware and for those concerned about supply chain integrity, a debug port muxed directly (!) to the TPM so it can be queried for its set of whitelisted public keys.
- pbhjpbhj 8mo agoThe TPM can be programmed (ie designed) to lie about the whitelist though.
- mschuster91 8mo agoThat's where the open source part gets relevant. Harder to sneak in a backdoor when the entire design is open sourced, formally proven and (at least theoretically, given that this needs skill and is a destructive attack) everyone can verify with a microscope and a camera that the actual silicon layout matches what is specified in the design.
- buckle8017 8mo agoLockdown mode significantly effects the usability of the phone. It completely disables JIT js in Safari for example.
- pc86 8mo ago"Don't secure your phone it might mess up JavaScript" is not something I had on my 2026 bingo card.
- buckle8017 8mo agoI mean I tried it for a bit and I have to say it was a significant compromise. All kinds of random things don't work.
- Marsymars 8mo agoI find all kinds of random things already don't work on mobile Safari - the web is effectively unusable without an adblocker, and over the past few months I've seen an explosion in the use of sites using "AdShield" which, if they detect ad-blocking, breaks websites (and lies to the user about the cause). Desktop browsers are able to handle this still, but on mobile Safari it just results in a bunch of the web being broken.
- odo1242 8mo agoJavaScript is actually the only reason that the iPhone has runtime code generation capabilities at all, so it kinda makes sense
- blibble 8mo agoyou can enable it for certain trusted websites
- prophesi 8mo agoYou can choose to exclude Safari from these protections[0]. Honestly, looking at the list of "limitations" you'll have while running Lockdown mode, I'm surprised most of them aren't the system default. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120 https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120 - under "How to exclude apps or websites from Lockdown Mode"
- whynotminot 8mo agoI get so annoyed by this Socratic line of questioning because it’s extremely obvious. Terrorist has plans and contacts on laptop/phone. Society has a very reasonable interest in that information. But of course there is the rational counter argument of “the government designates who is a terrorist”, and the Trump admin has gleefully flouted norms around that designation endangering rule of law. So all of us are adults here and we understand this is complicated. People have a vested interest in privacy protections. Society and government often have reasonable interest in going after bad guys. Mediating this clear tension is what makes this so hard and silly lines of questioning like this try to pretend it’s simple.
- anonymous908213 8mo agoThe better rational counter argument is that "privacy is a human right enshrined in international law". Society has zero business knowing anyone's private communications, whether or not that person is a terrorist. There is nothing natural about being unable to talk to people privately without your speech being recorded for millions of people to view forever. Moreover, giving society absolute access to private communications is a short road to absolute dystopia as government uses it to completely wipe out all dissent, execute all the Jews or whatever arbitrary enemy of the state they decide on, etc. You do not get to dispense with human rights because terrorists use them too. Terrorists use knives, cars, computers, phones, clothes... where will we be if we take away everything because we have a vested interested in denying anything a terrorist might take advantage of?
- whynotminot 8mo agoWho decided absolute privacy in all circumstances is a fundamental human right? I don’t think any government endorses that position. I don’t know what international law you speak of. You’re basing your argument on an axiom that I don’t think everyone would agree with. This sounds like a Tim Cook aphorism (right before he hands the iCloud keys to the CCP) — not anything with any real legal basis.
- anonymous908213 8mo ago
- Joel_Mckay 8mo agoSome platforms will side-load anything the telecom carrier sends. It is naive to assume iOS can be trusted much more than Android. =3
- pc86 8mo agoLet's assume for the sake of argument you're making a valid point. What does that have to do with my question?
- Joel_Mckay 8mo agoLocation telemetry, listening devices, and exfiltration of protected sources. A 3rd party locked down system can't protect people from what the law should. =3
- bayindirh 8mo agoI don't have to have any concern to be able to secure my device against third parties, it's just good operational discipline. I don't do anything classified, or store something I don't want to be found out. On the other hand, equally I don't want anyone to be able to get and fiddle a device which is central to my life. That's all. It's not "I have nothing to hide" (which I don't actually have), but I don't want to put everything in the open. Security is not something we shall earn, but shall have at the highest level by default.
- zuminator 8mo agoIn this case I think "valid concerns about locked down computing" is referring to the owner's use of the phone being restricted, so that they can't download applications they want to use, they don't have unrestricted access to the filesystem, they are forced to pay an Apple commission to engage in certain forms aloft commerce, etc. These may be acceptable tradeoffs but they're valid concerns nonetheless.
- blitzar 8mo agoOh, come on. Don't look at another man's Portal Gun history. We all go to weird places.
- reactordev 8mo agoPegasus. Jedi. SKyWIper. Rogue Actors. Rogue thief’s. Rogue governments. Your spouse. Separating corporate IT from personal IT. There’s plenty of reasons.
- pc86 8mo agoThese are reasons to be able to secure your devices against third parties, not reasons you shouldn't be able to.
- reactordev 8mo agoIf you shouldn’t be able to lock it down, then you’re basically carrying a tracking device that anyone can spy on. Might as well set your password to password