The worst part is all these people wanting to restrict my freedom to run what I want on my hardware just because of some dubious claims about security.
Wait, so there are people who are expecting hardware manufacturers to dictate to users what their products can or cannot be used for? Is this the war on general purpose computing I've been hearing about?
I think it's besides the point that there are alternatives. Locked down hardware should be universally frowned upon, no matter who is trying to control it - whether that's Microsoft, Apple, or anyone else. It's downright sickening to see this being accepted at all. There are no - I repeat, NO - valid reasons to lock down hardware. It's anti-competitive, it's malicious and most of all it's an affront to Freedom. I also find it quite sad that people (with RMS among them) predicted this years, if not decades ago, and people called them paranoid.
We need to fight this. Do not buy locked down hardware. Boycott businesses and corporations pushing this. Tell the hardware suppliers that you will not take this. Use free operating systems and hardware whenever and where-ever at all possible. Pursue other people to do the same.
Finally, disregard laws which forbid you to circumvent, render ineffective or deactivate these kinds of restrictions. Spread ways to do this if you can, anonymously. Once information is out there, it cannot be subdued again.
This is the same sort of logic that some people have that people shouldn't be allowed to make choices in life because they "might get it wrong". People should be allowed to make their own choices in what they believe to be their best interests and they should be allowed to get things wrong.
> For most people, if there computer was ‘theirs’, it would be that way for about 10 minutes until it was pwned by a bad actor.
This may have been true back in the early 2000s when people first had good broadband. However all the major operating systems have pretty decent security out of the box mainly due to the embarassment of events like MS Blaster Worm.
> The general issue of other people (I.e. Apple et al) having a lot of control over your computer, is entirely valid even if some of the points in the piece are exaggerations.
The problem is that if you buy a general purpose computing device. You should be able to run whatever you like on it.
They should just have a button somewhere in whatever the equivalent of the BIOS on these machines is that says "I am an adult and I accept the risks of turning off these protections" and then let you install Temple OS if you so choose to.
This is something that needs to be enforced by legal means IMO, something similar to right to repair.
> The problem is that people want it that way.
I don't know about that. They frequently get irritated by it and are just resigned to it IME.
However the popularity of single board computers such as the Raspberry Pi, People building their own gaming rigs and people tinkering with gadgets goes someway in refuting this notion. There will be of course many people that just won't care and will use "iDevice" and that is fine, however there is a large spectrum between "I only run stuff from the app store" to "I run custom Arch Install with optimised kernel with tk kernel patches".
> The presence of open software isn’t enough without a way for people to know what is trustworthy without being experts.
I agree. This is a failing of the open source community. I've actually written a draft manifesto called "better than freedom". This may actually push me to at least have it critiqued by my friends.
> Until we provide that, this situation cannot change.
Something has to change. We are sliding back into the 1980s where all the computer hardware was incomptable with one another.
Why do you expect them to restrict what you can put on it (i.e. enforce a single OS), when the point seems to be for people to do whatever they want with it?
First it was "secure boot", now it's "boot guard"? It seems that the PC, which was once a very open platform (IBM published schematics and the source code of the BIOS up to the PC/AT), is gradually becoming another locked-down walled-garden ecosystem.
The worst part is that the masses are going to think these anti-user measures are helping them, "because security". They'll see only the "prevents hackers" part being advertised and agree wholeheartedly, or even if they realise that it means they won't be able to choose the firmware they run, they'll shrug it off as "I'm basically never going to do that, so why should it matter to me?" The majority have spoken for security over freedom, and lead us down this path, where eventually almost no one will own the computers they use, or be allowed to do anything with them (including write software) except as permitted by the organisations that control them.
This is really, really scary. It's quite reminiscent of the dystopia in Stallman's "The Right to Read":
It won't be easy to turn the situation around, but if anything I believe it will have to start with education - to reverse the brainwashing that companies and governments have propagated, and show people the power they can have when they control their computing devices. It is particularly hard when the majority are barely computer-literate, and there is vested interest in keeping them that way.
I don't think the situation has gotten to the point where it's necessary to stockpile older and freer computers, but that could be an option in the future. However, I'm certainly not going to be replacing my Thinkpad X60 with anything else for as long as possible.
I think this famous quote really needs to be made more aware of among those preparing to fight against the war on general-purpose computing: "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."
This is unfortunately true and a reason I am finally installing linux at this very moment. The worst were those monthly post-login series of screens trying to override my consent for various options so some PM at Microsoft could hit their quarterly KPIs (because they Measure What Matters) followed by a smarmy screen at the end saying the computer was now "all yours" (so my own home computer I've had for 8 years isn't mine?). It was just such a gross, pushy thing to have respect for my consent clearly trashed in that way. I deserve not to be abused in this way by my own computer I use every day.
I've decided to really dive deep in linux. This is a rest-of-my-life thing now. I'm going through the Arch install process, really enjoying reading the wiki and enabling the services and fiddling with all the options. Windows treated me poorly enough that I no longer care about things "just working". I need to take this stuff into my own hands.
This offensive, paternalistic attitude towards users needs to stop. You do not get to decide these things for end users.
> It's unfair to expect most users to be able to protect themselves.
Correct. Problems in this area are the fault of the vendor, not the user, for producing shoddy software, not caring enough about security, and/or not going far enough to educate the user about important thins they do need to understand. None of this requires stealing user data (or "telemetry"), nor does it require taking agency away from the user.
Your "solution" is to take away the General Purpose Computer from the user. I realize that General Purpose Computers are frightening when in the hands of people who might make a mistake* or run some software you don't like, but that is what we call "freedom"[1]. Instead of supporting freedom, you seem determined to force centralized control on people. Do you not see how this is a major shift in power?
> Therefore, as a matter of public safety, we're going to have to put safety and security rules on publicly networked computers.
This is a cheap excuse to not address actual security. The negligent security practices of most businesses over the last few decades are becoming a serious problem, and as usual the guilty are trying to deflect the blame onto the people least responsible: the users.
> It used to be that when you bought a computer, it was yours. It did your bidding, nobody elses. Security features it had were about keeping other people out, not keeping you out of your own device.
Yeah, but when your device can infringe on others, it's ok to curtail those features. No one has unlimited rights.
How dare we run an operating system of our own choosing, or expect control over our own hardware. Why can't we just submit to using a sensible proprietary operating system on our most personal devices?
DRM hurts honest consumers and doesn't prevent piracy — at all. So why are we being pushed to accept this level of outside control over our computing devices?
Do you complain that your microwave oven firmware isn't hackable? Do you think that it's no fun that you can't reprogram your car's fuel system? Do you bitch that your TV isn't user serviceable? How's that "locked down shit" HP calculator?
A computer is no longer a general purpose tool but a special purpose appliance for most people.
So long as there's a market for open systems, they will be made, but don't expect grandma to want one.
Why is this so hard for some people to accept? For most people "open" means they'll have to assume responsibility for protecting themselves against threats and managing things they don't want to.
They're mandating who your privately-owned computer must trust. That is a severe overstepping of boundaries, and the concern shown is, if anything, too small.
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