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Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. Just not using it is really unrea

Someone commented on a HN threads on just de-googling and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. Just not using it is really unrealistic for the average person at this moment

Schiendelman 8mo ago
Apple isn't on the evil list, aside from the kowtowing every powerful leader must do not to have their business attacked.
- anonym29 8mo ago
  Apple was a PRISM partner. They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google.
  - gruez 8mo ago
    >They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google. For something like icloud vs gmail/gdrive, they're approximately the same, but that doesn't mean "they share just as much [...] as Microsoft and Google. If they never collected data in the first place, they don't have to share with NSA. The most obvious would be for location data, which apple keeps on-device and google did not (although they did switch to on device a few years ago).
  - mrcwinn 8mo ago
    Remember when Apple PR spent a bunch of time putting Tim Cook alongside images of RFK? Civil rights hero! That campaign wouldn’t land these days.
    - wredcoll 8mo ago
      Rfk the brainworms guy?
      - trevwilson 8mo ago
        In this case, the same-named father of the brainworms guy
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > Apple isn't on the evil list Yeah, Tim Apple handing over a 24-karat gold plaque to the sitting president is completely normal behavior for CEOs to engage in, and not at all about just making as much money as possible. He had to do that, otherwise Apple as a company would disappear tomorrow. They're just trying to survive.
  - ambicapter 8mo ago
    Unless you're going to demonstrate that handing over a golden plaque implies handing over privacy data to government agencies, I'm going to prefer the former over the latter.
    - somenameforme 8mo ago
      Apple has already been outed as one of the participating companies in PRISM. [1] So that privacy boat has long since sailed. The public legal wrangling is likely just a mutually beneficial facade. PRISM is almost certainly illegal, but nobody can legally challenge it because the data provided from it is never directly used. Law enforcement engage in parallel construction [2] where they obtain the same evidence in a different way. So nobody can prove they were harmed by PRISM, and thus all challenges against it get tossed for lack of standing. It's very dumb. But in any case the legal battles work as nice PR for Apple (see how much we care about privacy) and also as a great scenario for the government because any battles they win are domains where they can now legally use information directly to the courts and sidestep the parallel construction. That also takes the burden off of Apple PR in giving that information up because it can be framed as the courts and government forcing them, rather than them collaborating in mass data collection. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
  - brookst 8mo ago
    I don’t like that we’ve gotten to a place where presumably serious people think that giving a token prize to a narcissist is the same thing as engaging in massive surveillance of the entire population.
devsda 8mo ago
I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change the status quo within the country or overseas.
- throwawayqqq11 8mo ago
  I have little hope, since the EU is lobbyist-infested like the US, but there is a chance the EU will fund FOSS platforms over centralized solutions. There are already several EU wide or national funds for that and it would help immensly when that money would go to burning out solo devs and maybe even to orgs like mozilla. https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/ https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/
- this_user 8mo ago
  > make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. None of this is legally easy to implement or enforce, and any attempt of doing it is virtually guaranteed to create an unbelievable amount of unintended consequences as people figure out ways to game this new set of rules.
  - devsda 8mo ago
    We need something similar to FIPS for interoperable software and standards. Organizations will fall in line when money is at stake. Say for example your local/state/federal agency publishes (or accepts) documents exclusively in ods/odf instead of proprietary formats, that will automatically drive adoption of software and prevent lock-in.
    - rzerowan 8mo ago
      Agressive interoperability at the protpcol and exchange format - its why email mostly works even forcing Google to back off when they tried to change email to be rendered by their cdn (i forget the name of the offering - but was similar to what news pages were being pushed for speedup). Bad actors will always abound - like Microsoft spiking the documnt standards by pushing through ooxml when odt/odf was gaining traction. Or basically just coercing the decision makers like in Berlin(?) where they moved their offices into hte city to get them to drop Linux/Openoffice.
prmoustache 8mo ago
> [...] and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. How so?
- jasonjayr 8mo ago
  A lot of schools use apps like 'ParentSquare' to interact and manage the student/teacher/parent relationship, and do not offer the same level of communication through traditional channels anymore.
  - SoftTalker 8mo ago
    This is because social media has trained today's young parents to be completely entitled assholes and teachers can only take so much of their abuse. What teacher is going to want to sit down for a conference with a parent who whips out a phone to record the meeting and then posts selectively edited excerpts online in order to get a few upvotes on a social platform.
  - prmoustache 8mo ago
    And these apps require a google account?
    - jasonjayr 8mo ago
      They require a phone that can log into an App store, so unless parents can work around that, then yes?
      - jjulius 8mo ago
        Nonsense. My kid just started kindergarten this past year - I've never been required to log into ParentSquare through a GMail address and I have only ever accessed it through a browser on a laptop. (Damn, I failed at my attempt to stop posting.)
        joquarky 8mo ago
bad_haircut72 8mo ago
Everything counts, this attitude is very defeatist. Stop using it the easy ways at first, and then make conscious steps to get off these services going forward.
- prophesi 8mo ago
  It's probably at the same scale as gas/oil companies and recycling at this point. I'd like to believe my individual efforts will make a dent in the surveillance state, but at this volume legislation is truly the only meaningful effort to defang these multi-billion dollar companies.
shevy-java 8mo ago
While that may be true, people need to start somewhere. Otherwise the future will just be even more sniffing done by private entities. Do we want a sneaky Skynet that looks more like 1984?
- joquarky 8mo ago
  The guy who is obsessed with using Lord of the Rings to name his companies certainly does want that.
trinsic2 8mo ago
Yea I noticed many of these sevices won't allow an email address not hosted with a provider that wasn't Google,Microsoft, or apple where they can collect other details. I think i tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in.
- rsync 8mo ago
  "... tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in ..." I don't know what "VanceAI" is but I am confused ... why would they not want corporate (as in, Fortune 500) users to sign up ?
iugtmkbdfil834 8mo ago
Oh well, I guess there is nothing to be done. Pack it up everyone. It is over. You can't do anything. No one can learn anything. No. You heard the guy above. It is over. Go home. Do nothing.
- oceansky 8mo ago
  I don't mean to say that nothing can be done, I was just agreeing that it's often more complicated than it looks.
  - bdangubic 8mo ago
    it is not complicated at all if you have resolve and understand what the ramifications of not doing anything are. I quit all social media 6 years ago, thought it would be hard, took about a week total to not even think about it. had same “trouble” in school with whatsapp groups and whatnot, threatened to sue, everything got moved to the SMS within a week………

Schiendelman 8mo ago

Apple isn't on the evil list, aside from the kowtowing every powerful leader must do not to have their business attacked.

anonym29 8mo ago
Apple was a PRISM partner. They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google.
- gruez 8mo ago
  >They share just as much with the NSA as Microsoft and Google. For something like icloud vs gmail/gdrive, they're approximately the same, but that doesn't mean "they share just as much [...] as Microsoft and Google. If they never collected data in the first place, they don't have to share with NSA. The most obvious would be for location data, which apple keeps on-device and google did not (although they did switch to on device a few years ago).
- mrcwinn 8mo ago
  Remember when Apple PR spent a bunch of time putting Tim Cook alongside images of RFK? Civil rights hero! That campaign wouldn’t land these days.
  - wredcoll 8mo ago
    Rfk the brainworms guy?
    - trevwilson 8mo ago
      In this case, the same-named father of the brainworms guy
embedding-shape 8mo ago
> Apple isn't on the evil list Yeah, Tim Apple handing over a 24-karat gold plaque to the sitting president is completely normal behavior for CEOs to engage in, and not at all about just making as much money as possible. He had to do that, otherwise Apple as a company would disappear tomorrow. They're just trying to survive.
- ambicapter 8mo ago
  Unless you're going to demonstrate that handing over a golden plaque implies handing over privacy data to government agencies, I'm going to prefer the former over the latter.
  - somenameforme 8mo ago
    Apple has already been outed as one of the participating companies in PRISM. [1] So that privacy boat has long since sailed. The public legal wrangling is likely just a mutually beneficial facade. PRISM is almost certainly illegal, but nobody can legally challenge it because the data provided from it is never directly used. Law enforcement engage in parallel construction [2] where they obtain the same evidence in a different way. So nobody can prove they were harmed by PRISM, and thus all challenges against it get tossed for lack of standing. It's very dumb. But in any case the legal battles work as nice PR for Apple (see how much we care about privacy) and also as a great scenario for the government because any battles they win are domains where they can now legally use information directly to the courts and sidestep the parallel construction. That also takes the burden off of Apple PR in giving that information up because it can be framed as the courts and government forcing them, rather than them collaborating in mass data collection. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- brookst 8mo ago
  I don’t like that we’ve gotten to a place where presumably serious people think that giving a token prize to a narcissist is the same thing as engaging in massive surveillance of the entire population.

devsda 8mo ago

I know it is probably not the American way but the only way to address this problem is to make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. Unfortunately, the status quo also means the US (and its tech giants) has real power and control over other countries' technology sector. So, no party in America will make or enforce laws that will change the status quo within the country or overseas.

throwawayqqq11 8mo ago
I have little hope, since the EU is lobbyist-infested like the US, but there is a chance the EU will fund FOSS platforms over centralized solutions. There are already several EU wide or national funds for that and it would help immensly when that money would go to burning out solo devs and maybe even to orgs like mozilla. https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/ https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/
this_user 8mo ago
> make laws that prevent a duopoly, penalize anti-competitive behavior and push open-source standards for software/hardware. None of this is legally easy to implement or enforce, and any attempt of doing it is virtually guaranteed to create an unbelievable amount of unintended consequences as people figure out ways to game this new set of rules.
- devsda 8mo ago
  We need something similar to FIPS for interoperable software and standards. Organizations will fall in line when money is at stake. Say for example your local/state/federal agency publishes (or accepts) documents exclusively in ods/odf instead of proprietary formats, that will automatically drive adoption of software and prevent lock-in.
  - rzerowan 8mo ago
    Agressive interoperability at the protpcol and exchange format - its why email mostly works even forcing Google to back off when they tried to change email to be rendered by their cdn (i forget the name of the offering - but was similar to what news pages were being pushed for speedup). Bad actors will always abound - like Microsoft spiking the documnt standards by pushing through ooxml when odt/odf was gaining traction. Or basically just coercing the decision makers like in Berlin(?) where they moved their offices into hte city to get them to drop Linux/Openoffice.

prmoustache 8mo ago

> [...] and he couldn't even pick up his kids without a gmail or apple account. How so?

jasonjayr 8mo ago
A lot of schools use apps like 'ParentSquare' to interact and manage the student/teacher/parent relationship, and do not offer the same level of communication through traditional channels anymore.
- SoftTalker 8mo ago
  This is because social media has trained today's young parents to be completely entitled assholes and teachers can only take so much of their abuse. What teacher is going to want to sit down for a conference with a parent who whips out a phone to record the meeting and then posts selectively edited excerpts online in order to get a few upvotes on a social platform.
- prmoustache 8mo ago
  And these apps require a google account?
  - jasonjayr 8mo ago
    They require a phone that can log into an App store, so unless parents can work around that, then yes?
    - jjulius 8mo ago
      Nonsense. My kid just started kindergarten this past year - I've never been required to log into ParentSquare through a GMail address and I have only ever accessed it through a browser on a laptop. (Damn, I failed at my attempt to stop posting.)
      - joquarky 8mo ago

bad_haircut72 8mo ago

Everything counts, this attitude is very defeatist. Stop using it the easy ways at first, and then make conscious steps to get off these services going forward.

prophesi 8mo ago
It's probably at the same scale as gas/oil companies and recycling at this point. I'd like to believe my individual efforts will make a dent in the surveillance state, but at this volume legislation is truly the only meaningful effort to defang these multi-billion dollar companies.

shevy-java 8mo ago

While that may be true, people need to start somewhere. Otherwise the future will just be even more sniffing done by private entities. Do we want a sneaky Skynet that looks more like 1984?

joquarky 8mo ago
The guy who is obsessed with using Lord of the Rings to name his companies certainly does want that.

trinsic2 8mo ago

Yea I noticed many of these sevices won't allow an email address not hosted with a provider that wasn't Google,Microsoft, or apple where they can collect other details. I think i tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in.

rsync 8mo ago
"... tried to sign up for VanceAI, it would only accept gmail or discord connected account as a sign in ..." I don't know what "VanceAI" is but I am confused ... why would they not want corporate (as in, Fortune 500) users to sign up ?

iugtmkbdfil834 8mo ago

Oh well, I guess there is nothing to be done. Pack it up everyone. It is over. You can't do anything. No one can learn anything. No. You heard the guy above. It is over. Go home. Do nothing.

oceansky 8mo ago
I don't mean to say that nothing can be done, I was just agreeing that it's often more complicated than it looks.
- bdangubic 8mo ago
  it is not complicated at all if you have resolve and understand what the ramifications of not doing anything are. I quit all social media 6 years ago, thought it would be hard, took about a week total to not even think about it. had same “trouble” in school with whatsapp groups and whatnot, threatened to sue, everything got moved to the SMS within a week………