points by dingaling 14 hours ago | 0 comments
Largely, I believe, when phones crossed over from being basic communication devices to being smartphones, but retained their 'appliance' nature.
An entire generation thereby grew up with personal computing represented by vendor-controlled handheld appliances, and naturally regarded actual PCs in the same manner.
And their skills to manage a PC atrophied too, leading to a feedback loop.
[–] ryandrake 11 hours ago
[–] mixmastamyk 7 hours ago
Sounds like you’d like our group: https://trustworthy.technology/
There’s an invite link to a chat group as well, at the bottom of the page.
[–] Obscurity4340 2 hours ago
Great resource!
[–] skinfaxi 14 hours ago
It's even reflected in the language used by younger generations, asking if things are "allowed" or assuming things are illegal by default.
[–] dylan604 13 hours ago
In some Linux distros like Debian, everything is illegal/prohibited until you explicitly allow it and only comes with the bare minimum of software necessary to make the OS work. Contrast that to other distros like Ubuntu where everything comes preinstalled and is very permissive. These obviously target different audiences. Smart phones are targeting different audiences too. The power users annoyed by the dumb things the device does just means you're not the target audience and are just bonus buyers for their bottom line.
[–] hparadiz 5 hours ago
Complete nonsense. You get passwordless root upon install.
[–] gf000 9 hours ago
> In some Linux distros like Debian, everything is illegal/prohibited until you explicitly allow it
Bit of a nitpick, but this is certainly not true of their userspace, where an `npm install` can just install a keylogger or read your ssh keys, or do whatever it wants -- except for updating your video card driver.
[–] dylan604 8 hours ago
I would hope that someone deliberately choosing to run a headless Debian install would be wise enough to not go around running `npm install` willy nilly. In my personal experience, I've never once needed an `npm install` in Debian environment. I've only ever used them in server environments and to be honest thinking about it, that was all pre-npm when javascript was kept where it belonged in your browser and not my server. Someone screwed us all allowing JS on the server, but that's an entirely different conversation.
[–] gf000 8 hours ago
Well, it's enough to use a trusted app as your own user on non-trusted data. The former just has to have a memory vulnerability, which is not rare given most of it is C.
So yeah, don't be so confident in it working out. Unfortunately gnu/linux desktop is severally lacking in security (and by desktop I mean a headless personal use as well)
[–] Xirdus 5 hours ago
I used to run npm install unsupervised from a script on headless Debian that I deliberately chose dozens of times everyday. Later I moved my CI to Alpine.
[–] direwolf20 11 hours ago
Side effects of living in an authoritarian panopticon
[–] ssss11 34 minutes ago
And PC’s became appliance like with updates, accounts, and now ads
When I buy a table saw, I don't expect DeWalt to hang around my workshop telling me what I can and can't cut, watching and logging what wood I use and when I use it, what my finished product looks like, changing the features and buttons on the saw in the middle of the night. Why the fuck do we tolerate this from software??
It's gotten to the point that Linux is the only sensible option, and not all distributions! Some of them are letting telemetry and metrics and A/B testing creep in. And some third party Linux software is just as intrusive and demanding as commercial Windows/Mac software.