[HN Gopher] Right to root access
___________________________________________________________________
Right to root access
Author : medhir
Score : 392 points
Date : 2025-01-12 22:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (medhir.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medhir.com)
| p_ing wrote:
| Author seems to want 'hardware-level locks' regulated, i.e.,
| allow the government to get into your encrypted devices.
| drannex wrote:
| That is absolutely not what the author is saying here, just
| that users should have the ability to install their own
| software on their own hardware, and that locked bootloaders and
| the like should not be allowed.
| zb3 wrote:
| I want to install my own software on my smartphone. However,
| I don't want others with physical access to be able to do
| this... here we hit a problem, because if the device allows
| extracting the data, bruteforce becomes feasible..
|
| Also I don't want others to be able to use my phone after
| stealing it.. here FRP lock helps me but in order for it to
| work it must also limit how I can use the phone.
|
| I wish we stopped falling for this technical trap and finally
| focus on the substance - hardware/software companies get away
| with anti-user features that run on the user's device. This
| shouldn't be allowed.
|
| I don't need an unlocked bootloader, I just don't want the
| preinstalled Google spyware. Google should not be allowed to
| hold my device hostage like this.
| p_ing wrote:
| Yes, that is exactly what the author is saying, wanting
| government regulation. For one, the government won't simply
| say "keep the device open for the end user" (or a "smart"
| government wouldn't), but even if they did, you've now opened
| that device to any attacker, law enforcement included.
| stavros wrote:
| So because I can sudo on my computer, my computer is open
| to any attacker? What's wrong with this comments section?
| Has anyone here used a computer before?
| p_ing wrote:
| What does the operating system have to do with an
| attacker? What's wrong with this comments section? Has
| anyone seen Israeli offline attacks of iPhones before?
| stavros wrote:
| The iPhones that famously won't let you unlock their
| bootloader? Yes we have, and I don't think that's making
| the argument you think it's making.
| zb3 wrote:
| > Root access refers to the highest level of privileges a user
| can be granted to a computer system.
|
| This is no longer true. You might have root access on your
| smartphone, but you still don't have access to the TEE (on ARM
| this is implemented using the "TrustZone" "feature").
|
| Also, AVF is coming to Android, and protected VMs won't work with
| unlocked bootloader.. so expect the situation to deteriorate
| further once manufacturers make use of pVMs..
| zb3 wrote:
| The TEE is where both the device encryption keys (not DRM) and
| Widevine keys (DRM) are stored..
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| So basically a TDM?
| geraldhh wrote:
| basically a hardwired authenticator dongle that the user
| cannot touch
| causality0 wrote:
| There's not nearly enough awareness of this. Even with root
| access, on modern Android you have to set up a virtual USB
| connection just to get at the files in the data folders of
| android apps if you want to, for example, sync the savegames
| between your mobile emulators and your desktop emulators. It's
| fucking disgusting. With every new edition they shave off a
| little more user agency.
| stavros wrote:
| What do you mean "a virtual USB connection"? With root access
| I can see all the files on my Android phone.
| causality0 wrote:
| A PC can access those folders but even with root and "all
| files access" android file managers can't on recent
| versions of Android. Shizuku or apps like it allow file
| managers to access those folders by pretending to be a PC.
| Folders like the contents of android/data for each app.
| Without it you just see empty folders. It's ridiculous.
| stavros wrote:
| Hmm really? That sucks, I guess this is after 14 or so?
| I'm running 12 or 13.
| qmr wrote:
| It's sad how Google has perverted what Android was meant to
| be.
| puppycodes wrote:
| Yeah I mean theres not even any way to really know what your
| communicating with without taking the thing apart and following
| the traces + an ocilliscope. If it was worth obfuscating to a
| determined company it would be hell to figure out.
|
| You could just be a sandbox root which is pointed at a guest
| user in a higher namespace.
| mixdup wrote:
| For some, the absolute locked down-ness is a selling point. Why
| should those who want to buy something that _can 't_ be messed
| with not be able to?
|
| If you don't want to buy something you can't install whatever you
| want onto, don't buy it. 100% the ability or inability to modify
| the firmware of a device should be disclosed, but if it's
| disclosed the seller should be able to set the policy to whatever
| they want
| stavros wrote:
| This is an extremely weak argument, and I'd like to stop seeing
| it perpetuated. If you don't want an unlocked bootloader, just
| don't unlock your bootloader. Why should we remove the ability
| to unlock the bootloader entirely just because some people
| don't want to use it?
| mixdup wrote:
| Because the fact that it can't be unlocked makes me
| reasonably reassured that I can trust the software running on
| it comes from the vendor of the device
|
| It's the same reason I don't want "the good guys" to have
| decryption keys to my messaging service, because even if I
| did trust the FBI, the fact that there is a backdoor at all
| means it could be exploited by someone I don't trust
|
| Again, if you don't want to use a device that has a locked
| bootloader, don't buy it. I fail to see how this business
| model should be legally foreclosed upon. You'll always have
| the option to buy a device that can be unlocked, someone will
| always sell such a device. But if you _can 't_ lock them,
| then I can't buy one even if I want to
| Magnusmaster wrote:
| Phones with unlockable bootloaders aren't going to be sold
| for much longer just like dumb TVs aren't sold anymore.
| There's just too much profit to be earned by corporations
| locking devices, plus banks and governments want to lock
| down phones. And once they lock down phones they'll go for
| desktops as well.
| mixdup wrote:
| Dumb TVs are still sold, they just cost more. Same will
| probably be true for the low volume, no-stolen-data (or
| no-apple-tax) unlockable phones, too
| Magnusmaster wrote:
| Maybe in the US, but not in my country. I tried looking
| for "signage displays" but all I could find was Samsung
| professional monitors that still had the smart stuff
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, this is just a fundamental misunderstanding of how
| bootloader unlocking works. The people repeating this
| argument seem to think that their bootloader will unlock if
| they look at their phone wrong, when in reality the
| bootloader unlock process can be made such that the user
| must consent. If some malware can bypass that, then it
| could bypass your bootloader in the first place.
| mixdup wrote:
| It's not just about malware you might accidentally
| download, it's also about adversaries that may have
| physical access to your device and can provide that
| consent
|
| No matter how convoluted you make the rube goldberg
| machine to bypass the cryptography, if there's a way to
| bypass it it will be bypassed
| stavros wrote:
| Please detail this attack vector where someone can
| compromise a phone with an unlockable bootloader but not
| one you can't unlock.
| mixdup wrote:
| That's not what I claimed?
| stavros wrote:
| > it's also about adversaries that may have physical
| access to your device and can provide that consent. No
| matter how convoluted you make the rube goldberg machine
| to bypass the cryptography, if there's a way to bypass it
| it will be bypassed
|
| You claimed that an adversary with physical access to
| your device can compromise your unlockable phone, but
| presumably this won't happen with a phone that can't be
| unlocked. Is that not what you claim? If so, please
| detail how.
| mixdup wrote:
| I was talking about a device with an unlockable
| bootloader, not one that cannot be unlocked
|
| Wanting an uncompromisable bootloader is about more than
| just protection against malware that might modify the
| software on the device, it's about protecting a phone
| that can be unlocked from having the software modified by
| someone with the ability to provide the consent that the
| end-user would normally give. For example when I hand my
| phone over in customs, or if it's seized by the police.
| If my bootloader is not unlockable, I haven't provided
| them with the keys to unlock the software, and those keys
| are reasonably strong, then I can be reasonably confident
| they haven't compromised by device
|
| But, if they can unlock the bootloader for whatever
| reason, I have no idea now what is running on the device
| or what was run on it even if they restore it back to a
| locked condition
| stavros wrote:
| If they unlock the bootloader, the phone will wipe
| itself, that's what most phones nowadays do.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| This is why I had mentioned in another comment, that it
| might make sense to require opening it with a screwdriver
| to enable/disable some features, and that you can add
| glitter or something like that if you want to detect
| physical tampering.
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| Every device I've ever unlocked warns you on boot that
| it's unlocked. So if that's your threat model, just
| reboot the phone after the maid hands it back to you and
| see if you get a scary warning.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| At least historically, that wasn't always fool-proof :-)
| - I know at least some Motorolas from around ten years
| ago where the bootloader warning was simply an
| alternative boot animation, so you could suppress that
| message by overwriting the "bootloader unlocked"
| animation with the regular boot animation.
| cwalv wrote:
| There are ways to do it so that 'bypass' means you
| effectively wipe the device. If that's not good enough,
| how do you protect against them just replacing your
| device with a compromised one that looks similar?
| mixdup wrote:
| So because we can't eliminate every possibility, we
| should just give up on all protections?
| cwalv wrote:
| I think you are misunderstanding my point. You aren't
| giving anything up by enabling unlocking if the act of
| unlocking wipes the device.
| jbombadil wrote:
| > If you don't want an unlocked bootloader, just don't unlock
| your bootloader.
|
| That kind of logic cuts both ways: "If you don't want a
| device with a locked boot loader, just don't buy a device
| with a locked bootloader".
|
| Unfortunately, as consumers, we're trapped between a rock and
| a hard place. On the one hand, I would want 100% freedom to
| use my device exactly as I see fit and run any software I
| want, without any form of curation from the manufacturer. On
| the other hand, there are plenty of software companies who do
| shitty things when given absolute freedom over what to do in
| a user's device (tracking / spying / etc) and I welcome
| buying a device where the manufacturer helps me fight some of
| that.
|
| So I can absolutely see both arguments. And I think both
| types can coexist. I am happy my iPhone doesn't allow Meta to
| say "to use WhatsApp, you must install the MetaStore(r), give
| it root and install it from there". I would not be happy with
| those restrictions on my desktop.
| mixdup wrote:
| I would also be happy with those restrictions on a
| traditional PC-class computing device (laptop or desktop).
| Would I personally buy one? Probably not, but I'd feel a
| whole hell of a lot better if my non-techie wife or mother
| or brother were using one and they were no more susceptible
| to some kind of exploit on their PC device than they were
| on their phone
|
| That's the whole thing--there should be choice
| cwalv wrote:
| I could see Microsoft saying "we're only allowing apps
| installed through our 'store', for safety/security
| reasons, unless you opt out (gated by some scary warning
| that doing so is unsafe).
|
| Even if they never charged a fee for running the store, I
| bet this would raise a lot of eyebrows.
| mixdup wrote:
| Microsoft has been going in the opposite direction.
| Nowadays you can post any win32 app to the store, they
| are loosening not tightening
| cwalv wrote:
| I haven't used it in ages, but last I looked their store
| was entirely pointless. I wouldn't be surprised if they
| just got rid of it altogether.
|
| My point was more about how people would react if MS did
| such a thing (i.e. installs to come from the store by
| default).
| stavros wrote:
| Those restrictions aren't on your desktop, where you do
| have root. Why would they be on your phone if you had root
| on that?
| jbombadil wrote:
| They are on your desktop. Have you tried installing any
| game you bought through Steam lately? They all install a
| custom launcher / updater / stuff that ends up in
| startup.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| What? No they don't. I'm not saying that no game does
| this, but I play lots of games on Steam and none of the
| ones I play do it.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Literally 0 games I own on steam have any startup items.
| Custom launchers yes, but not startup items. A few games
| have kernel anticheat, but they all start with the game.
|
| The exception is FaceIt for counter strike, but that's
| not distributed through steam and is entirely third-
| party.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| > I am happy my iPhone doesn't allow Meta to say "to use
| WhatsApp, you must install the MetaStore(r), give it root
| and install it from there".
|
| I think the inverse is a much more credible threat, though.
| "Sorry, you cant sign in to your bank because you are using
| Linux. Please try again on windows 11 with secure boot
| turned on" doesn't seem far fetched at all.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Not that I would agree with such a policy (I currently do
| online bank using Linux), but why is it not within the
| bank's rights to make that restriction? If they determine
| (with whatever degree of accuracy) that online banking
| from Linux/rooted androids/jailbroken iphones is too
| risky, why should they be required to allow it?
| hamandcheese wrote:
| I don't think I asserted that it isn't within their
| rights. But this is the direction things are headed, and
| it is a threat to free and libre computing.
| cesarb wrote:
| > "Sorry, you cant sign in to your bank because you are
| using Linux."
|
| That's not an hypothetical for us here in Brazil: online
| banking was Windows-only for quite some time, because
| there was no Linux version of the invasive "security
| plugin" banks require for online banking (the current
| version of that "security plugin" has a Linux version).
| alex7734 wrote:
| > I am happy my iPhone doesn't allow Meta to say "to use
| WhatsApp, you must install the MetaStore(r), give it root
| and install it from there". I would not be happy with those
| restrictions on my desktop.
|
| You fix that by making root access inconvenient enough that
| companies can't rely on the average random user having it
| enabled.
|
| For example force you to wipe the device to unlock it as
| another person said in another comment. Or make it so that
| if you don't unlock it within 7 days of the device purchase
| and first boot, you cannot unlock it anymore.
| jmb99 wrote:
| > You fix that by making root access inconvenient enough
| that companies can't rely on the average random user
| having it enabled.
|
| _AI TikTok voice_ "Hey guys, if you just bought a new
| iPhone, make sure you remove Apple's restriction locks so
| they can't control what you install. Just follow these
| easy steps, but make sure you do it as soon as possible,
| since you'll have to set up your phone again!"
|
| With the comments filled with people talking about how
| terrible Apple is for locking down their phones,
| everyone's an idiot for buying such a locked down phone
| so they better at least unlock the bootloader, etc.
|
| This is not a far-fetched scenario based on some videos
| I've seen sent to me by friends.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Don't forget in the video to tell them that it will allow
| them to install apps that get them more performance,
| better battery life, better cell signal, etc.
| cwalv wrote:
| > And I think both types can coexist.
|
| E.g. macos
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I think that making a suitable operating system design can
| help with avoiding some of these problems (and others
| mentioned elsewhere) (I had mentioned some of my ideas
| about operating system design before on Hacker News). In
| combination with this, there is also hardware design to
| consider (including considerations having to do with the
| instruction set), and you can also have a package manager
| with a package repository where whoever manages the package
| repository will verify them (something that is already done
| in many systems, although the verification that is already
| done is often not good enough in some ways); this package
| repository management is not actually necessary for the
| security features of the system but makes it more difficult
| for authors of programs to work around these security
| features.
| puppycodes wrote:
| not sure if your in the US, but we can't even get net neutrality.
| Unfortuantely the likelyhood of this is a hell freezing over
| situation.
|
| I would start with, laws should be logical and informed and go
| from there... the number of prerequisite changes required to come
| mildly close to this is unreal. Including but not limited too:
| copyright law, insurance law, patents, contract law, federal vs
| state law, an agency competent enough to enforce this, lobby from
| the most powerful companies in the world, and more.
|
| In dream land I support you though.
| qmr wrote:
| California is typically pro consumer, tenant, employee.
|
| If it could be passed in California it would trickle down
| elsewhere.
|
| e.g. California emissions mandates leading to less emissions in
| the entire country because it makes more sense at scale to
| build 1 SKU.
| puppycodes wrote:
| I agree states can more quickly change laws, but thats a far
| cry from what's proposed here. Can you imagine enforcement of
| such a law? Can you imagine a state employee checking for
| root access? You break at least five California laws an hour
| there just walking around as the beauracratic machine
| consumes any reasonable enforcement. This would be considered
| absolutely niche and no politician would likely care because
| it wont get them reelected. Call me cynical I guess but our
| track record of change for the better is pretty poor in this
| arena.
|
| In my dream we abolish copyright all together but alas we
| live in a profit oriented society not a knowledge oriented
| one.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Let's _not_ have more of a single state passing de facto laws
| for the entire country, please. You 're right that this
| happens, but it's an awful thing that we need to fight, not
| promote more of.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > I believe consumers, as a right, should be able to install
| software of their choosing to any computing device that is owned
| outright.
|
| Manufacturers will then claim that people don't own devices,
| merely a perpetual license to use it.
| zb3 wrote:
| ... plus the license to smash those devices with a hammer :)
| shmerl wrote:
| That's a slippery slope, because they list devices as sold, not
| as rented. So they can't claim that. Some still try, especially
| using copyright on software on the devices as leverage.
| jmb99 wrote:
| More than likely, they'll instead just start actually renting
| you the products. See Apple's 2-year rental program for a
| (relatively) non-predatory implementation, or NZXT's for a
| very predatory implementation.
| shmerl wrote:
| It's one thing if they rent for cheaper and sell for more.
| But if they'll only rent it will be messed up.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Manufacturers will then claim that people don't own devices,
| merely a perpetual license to use it.
|
| It would be refreshing for them to be honest about their
| monetary greed instead of telling false stories about
| "security" and what's "good for users".
| emmelaich wrote:
| I used to think this way but then I saw how non-techy people use
| their devices.
|
| Something like this would inevitably be abused and result in wave
| of malware so massive that it would render the internet too
| hostile for all but the most careful, knowledgable and paranoid
| users.
| Palomides wrote:
| "everyone is too stupid to be trusted with general purpose
| computers" is a pretty grim position to hold
| emmelaich wrote:
| You left out the vital clause. "... if they have total
| unfettered control". Also, not everyone. Obviously.
|
| It's a position I came to rather regretfully and sadly.
| LocalH wrote:
| How do you propose we limit access to general-purpose
| computing without doing so across the board for everyone?
| How would you block bad actors from general-purpose
| computing? Require licensing to use development tools, and
| track what they're used for so you can react when someone
| crosses that "line"? Congratulations, you've just destroyed
| computing.
| jmb99 wrote:
| While obviously not perfect, what we have today is
|
| > limit[ing] access to general-purpose computing without
| doing so across the board for everyone
|
| I imagine the vast majority of people on this site run
| (or at least have used) Linux, *BSD, etc. on a daily
| basis. No average person is going to set up Arch on their
| main PC, but lots of us do. Your average person enjoys
| their locked-down Samsungs and iPhones, while we enjoy
| unlocked problem-ridden (but personally solvable) Linux
| environments.
|
| Would it be better if every person who could buy an
| iPhone was sufficiently technically competent to not
| install malware on their easily-rootable phone? Yes. But
| that's not the world we live in. Maybe I'm succumbing to
| the "First They Came..." mindset, but until I can't run
| Linux on a PC I've built with components of my choosing,
| I don't really care if my phone is a semi-closed semi-
| black box. I used to enjoy jailbreaking iOS devices, but
| eventually decided I'm happy with my phone just being a
| phone. If I want to tinker, I've got a rack full of
| servers and 3 different workstations I have the freedom
| to break whenever I want. It's nice to have a phone that
| can just do phone things 100% of the time - I haven't had
| an iOS system crash (or any bug preventing use) in about
| 5 years, which was the last time I had a jailbroken
| phone.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| A grim position that is completely accurate for over 90% of
| people.
| lightedman wrote:
| A grim position that accurately reflects my 36 years of
| experience involving people and computers.
| lapcat wrote:
| As the author mentions, desktop computers have always been
| (mostly) unlocked. This comment is just over the top
| scaremongering.
| emmelaich wrote:
| Even with access controls, people do things like download
| chrome from random web sites, then do their banking with the
| result. If the fake-chrome requested admin access then you'd
| never be able trust anything on that computer ever again.
| Even re-installing the OS wouldn't fix it.
|
| It would no longer be _your_ computer.
| stavros wrote:
| So because it would no longer be _our_ computer, we should
| buy one that 's not ours from the start?
| emmelaich wrote:
| I guess, pretty much. For the vast majority of computer
| users, all we can do is buy it from someone we mostly
| trust (to be competent and trustworthy).
|
| Pretty sad state of affairs, huh?
| stavros wrote:
| No, I don't think that's true. We got used to insecure
| systems, and then accepted Big Brother as a security
| model. We can have secure devices that aren't owned by a
| corporation, but judging by the comments section here,
| nobody knows that.
| emmelaich wrote:
| How might that work? You personally have the keys to the
| TPM? Then some confidence trickster will tell a naive
| user that to make big$buck$ on the internet you'll need
| to handover your TPM key. And people will.
| stavros wrote:
| Why would you need keys to a TPM? It's meant to store
| keys without ever getting them out.
| jmb99 wrote:
| Would you prefer for your technologically illiterate
| relatives (think grandparents/etc getting their first
| computing device):
|
| - A computer that is compromised by malware
|
| - A computer that doesn't permit the user to install
| malware, and as a consequence, possibly alternative
| operating systems
|
| Your phrasing implies that "it would no longer be _our_
| computer" is equivalent to "one that's not ours from the
| start." As far as I know, Microsoft and Apple aren't
| going to ransomware your computer /phone to make a few
| bucks. You just can't root an iPhone. Equating the two is
| arguing in bad faith, at best.
| stavros wrote:
| Why are those my only two options? A computer that's
| already infected or one I don't own?
| lapcat wrote:
| > A computer that doesn't permit the user to install
| malware
|
| Let me know when that's ever invented. It's certainly not
| iPhone. The crApp Store is full of scams and ripoffs,
| costing consumers millions if not billions of dollars.
|
| It's also worth noting how much goodware that users are
| not permitted to install, due to vendor lockdown and
| arbitrary restrictions, often motivated purely by the
| desire to squealch competition. Security, or in this case
| security theater, always has tradeoffs. Unfortunately,
| consumers often don't even know what they're missing,
| because the vendor restricts what they're allowed to see,
| but we developers know what kind of software that we
| can't make on locked down platforms.
|
| Vendor lockdown is a tool for authoritarian regimes that
| enables censorship. For example, these regimes force the
| vendors to remove VPN apps from their "curated" stores,
| and since sideloading is forbidden, there are no
| alternatives for the poor users under these regimes.
| playa06 wrote:
| > Would you prefer for your technologically illiterate
| relatives (think grandparents/etc getting their first
| computing device):
|
| Ah, the good old "think of the grandma". HN's version of
| "think of the children". And just like the conservative
| pearl clutchers, I don't think there's much sincerity in
| those thoughts. You are more afraid of the possibility
| that there would be less users to squeeze through adtech
| and crapware sold on appstores. Most HNers make a living
| from making the world an even worse place.
|
| There's a lot of devs here very happy to have a captive
| audience of people too ignorant to know better, either
| exposing their eyeballs to constant onslaught of ads on
| "free" apps, or paying for really basic functionality.
|
| I will never forget that show HN post that talked about
| selling a clone of Handbrake, a program that exists just
| to set a few flags on FFMPEG, and making a living out of
| it, because the Apple audience has been brainwashed to
| take out their wallet for the dumbest of things.
|
| Ah, there it is:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39987579
|
| The average HNer.
|
| The average value add of people constantly bemoaning the
| idea that there could be regulations to stop them from
| enslaving new generations to tech is lower than that of
| scammers.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > If the fake-chrome requested admin access
|
| If the user is doing banking on fake-chrome then admin is
| pointless; https://xkcd.com/1200/
|
| > then you'd never be able trust anything on that computer
| ever again. Even re-installing the OS wouldn't fix it.
|
| Why not? If the hardware is under user control, they just
| reimage the firmware, reimage the OS, and then it's clean.
| (Or, in practice, perhaps they hire the local computer shop
| to do so, but I don't think that changes anything.)
| emmelaich wrote:
| Yep, and if you connected a Windows95 machine to the internet
| it would be compromised within 15 minutes.
| qmr wrote:
| Stupidest take I've seen today.
|
| There are already myriad unlockable devices.
|
| What a bizarre fantasy you have constructed.
| emmelaich wrote:
| Let me clarify .. if you have an unlocked device, then
| software vendors should be able to ensure that their software
| is non-functional on such a device.
|
| Given that, then anything very useful would be rendered non-
| functional, resulting in the device probably being useless.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Why should a software vendor be allowed to say what I can
| and can't run on my machine?
| jmb99 wrote:
| Because it's their software? It is well within your
| bank's rights to deny you access to their online banking
| system for pretty much any (technical) reason they
| choose; why are you entitled to run their app on what
| they deem to be an insecure platform? If you don't like
| it, either pick a different bank or deal with not having
| access to their software.
|
| Freedom cuts both ways here; if you want absolute freedom
| to do whatever you want with your device, why should
| software vendors not have absolute freedom to choose what
| platforms their software is permitted to run on?
|
| Obviously none of this applies to FOSS.
| raxxor wrote:
| They do have that right as long as they do not sabotage
| the integrity of the system. Personally I would quickly
| use other software developers and banks. Competition
| would sort that out quickly.
|
| Today banks don't want to be liable for user error that
| lead to scams. They adhere to such policies out of fear,
| but they don't help as the most prominent victims of
| scams are still the same people, open system or not.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > why are you entitled to run their app on what they deem
| to be an insecure platform?
|
| For starters, because they're wrong, and they're wrong in
| a way that makes their users _less_ secure. Allowing the
| use of Windows or Android with open CVEs while blocking
| completely up-to-date Linux or aftermarket Android ROMs
| clearly shows that this nonsense is contrary to security.
|
| > If you don't like it, either pick a different bank or
| deal with not having access to their software.
|
| And that's the next biggest reason: Customers don't have
| the same amount of power that the companies have, so it's
| perfectly reasonable to tilt things in the customer's
| favor.
| hooverd wrote:
| Feel free to move to North Korea if you'd like to see that
| dream realized.
| oneshtein wrote:
| The vendor can install a Trojan horse on every phone, then
| activate it silently when his customers does something
| suspicious. It also very useful feature for law enforcement
| agencies and foreign spies.
| emmelaich wrote:
| You have to trust the vendor. You have no choice.
|
| You cannot personally tell whether it is trustworthy or
| not.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Good. Boot the normies offline again. Bring back the glory days
| of the internet being an exclusive club of nerds.
| lrvick wrote:
| I detest Google, but I do think they made the right call with
| Android devices and Chromebooks. You can unlock either as long as
| you are willing to totally wipe the device first and start over
| as a new device under a new security context.
|
| This removes the risk of this being abused to compromise the data
| of stolen devices or evil maid attacks unless a user that knows
| what they are doing has explicitly opted themselves into that
| risk.
| alex7734 wrote:
| This, or even sell "dev units" with the bootloader unlocked so
| that you explicitly have to accept the risk before purchasing
| the device.
|
| The problem though is that rooting by itself is not that useful
| when a lot of apps use remote attestation to deny you service
| if you're rooted.
|
| We don't just need root access, we need undetectable root
| access.
| cwalv wrote:
| > We don't just need root access, we need undetectable root
| access.
|
| At some point the argument morphs from 'I should be able to
| do whatever I want with _my_ device ' to 'I should be able to
| access _your_ service /device with whatever I want'.
|
| The fact that Google allows this shows that
|
| 1. Apple could do it with zero security impact on anyone who
| doesn't opt in
|
| 2. They could keep any service-based profit source intact
|
| But they still would never do it. Because it's not only
| service based profit they want to protect. They want to
| restrict customers from running competitor's software on
| their hardware, to ensure they get their cut.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > At some point the argument morphs from 'I should be able
| to do whatever I want with _my_ device ' to 'I should be
| able to access _your_ service /device with whatever I
| want'.
|
| I'm not demanding to be able to log in to your
| service/device and replace IIS with Apache on it. I'm just
| demanding to be able to access it as a normal user with
| Firefox instead of Chrome.
| cwalv wrote:
| I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to access from
| unlocked devices. I'm just saying it's a different
| argument.
| bboygravity wrote:
| I agree useful rooting should be easier, but it's definitely
| possible and not super hard to hide rooting.
|
| I'm typing this on a rooted phone where all (banking) apps
| work just fine. All it takes is downloading an app (magisk)
| and add apps to a list that need to have rooting hidden.
| pbmonster wrote:
| > it's definitely possible and not super hard to hide
| rooting.
|
| Worth noting that this could change with every update. It's
| an unstable situation right now, which is undesirable.
|
| For that reason, e.g. the GrapheneOS team isn't employing
| measures to fake compliance at all. They'd really like to
| get SafetyNet compliance for their operating system (you
| need that to get Google Pay/Wallet to work), but
| funamentally can't get it. Right now, they could just fake
| it, but that's not guaranteed to work reliably, forever
| (and doing so would probably threaten their official
| BasicIntegrity compliance).
| Magnusmaster wrote:
| Magisk only works because Google still supports devices
| that don't support hardware attestation. Very soon you
| won't be able to fool Play Integrity without hacking the
| TEE
| yndoendo wrote:
| I contacted the Google through the BBB. Made the statement that
| lack of ability to install and configure a Kernel level
| firewall, edit the HOSTS file, and remove unwanted bloat-ware
| reduces the security of the product. Google agreed their
| actions do this and said they find the lack of security
| acceptable. Having a firewall like Little Snitch should be
| acceptable to know where the phone is communicate, with whom,
| and how to prevent it.
|
| Re-imaging with a rooted image is not acceptable because this
| also reduces the device's security by prevent OTA updates!
|
| Gated community is broken when the end user cannot improve the
| security of the device above and beyond the lack polices of
| Google and Apple. For instant there should be no reason my
| device ever communicates with organizations I do not support
| such as Facebook or X-Twitter. X-Twitter is often used as
| command and control service in plain site.
|
| It is not just out-wards communicate to monitor but in-wards
| too. I've used Zone Alarm in the past at an international
| company to help find the infected servers and computers that
| where serving up viruses and other malware.
|
| *I would argue that the "Gated Community" analogy is flawed. A
| real world gated community still allows for the home owner to
| improve the security. By installing cameras, security system,
| and guards. Apple & Google prevent such actions.
| arsome wrote:
| There are indeed software firewalls on Android that use the
| VPN functionality to implement something like this so they
| don't even require root, I believe Glasswire offers one.
| stavros wrote:
| Agreed, that's a good solution. I can root my phone immediately
| when I buy it, or I can leave it locked if that's my choice.
| That's the best of both worlds.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I would argue that the best of both worlds is being able to
| add your own keys and then relock the bootloader. Which Pixel
| devices also do:) Not sure about Chromebooks; I kinda think
| you maybe could reflash the firmware and then put back the
| write-protect screw?
| botanical76 wrote:
| It does create an interesting choice, though. For example,
| certain apps will enforce attestation based on the bootloader
| status. Even if the user wipes their device and relocks their
| bootloader with their own keys, this doesn't count as fully
| secure per the bootloader status. Only Google's keys count. Of
| course, it is also almost prohibitively difficult to deliver
| yourself OTA updates after this point. I worry that one day I
| will have to keep two mobile phones; one for bank apps, which
| has not been altered from the vendor's security defaults, and
| one for everything else, that I am actually allowed to modify.
|
| At the moment, I just run GrapheneOS and don't bother with any
| modification. It is not worth the hassle. I've already had my
| bank account locked out because a Google Store-bought Pixel
| phone was flagged as "stolen", probably due to some attestation
| measure (they could not tell me why). They recommended that I
| purchase a new phone.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Right now, although it's _possible_ to use Android with
| either root or a third party ROM, attestation breaks all
| sorts of little things. Today this is mostly banking apps,
| and anything that involves NFC, but this isn 't where it's
| going to end.
|
| Attestation requirements are only going to become more
| prevalent. I predict that in a few years basically all
| proprietary software for Android will require attestation.
|
| So... you may still be able to unlock the device and make it
| yours, but you'll also be locked _out_ of the ever expanding
| and ever-more-isolated walled garden.
|
| If you can live off of GrapheneOS and F-Droid, that's great,
| but for a lot of users this won't be a real choice, because
| you increasingly need proprietary software for access to real
| things in the physical world (i.e. I needed to install a
| special app for event tickets recently).
| grishka wrote:
| The problem with bootloader unlocking on modern Android devices
| is that they have a hypervisor that you _don 't_ get to ever
| unlock but that will snitch on you and make some apps, like
| some banking ones, refuse to work because the "integrity" of
| your device could not be verified. In other words, because
| these apps can no longer be certain they are able to hide data
| from you the device owner.
|
| Magisk exists, yes, but it's a flimsy temporary solution. It
| only works because it's able to lie to Google that your device
| doesn't support hardware attestation. As soon as Google starts
| requiring that all devices support hardware attestation, it
| will stop working.
| flutas wrote:
| It's even worse now with the P9 series.
|
| They require hardware certification for the Pixel Screenshots
| app... and for anything that uses Gemini Nano (Call recorder
| summary, weather, pixel screenshots, etc).
| grishka wrote:
| Lol, I've had my Pixel 9 Pro for a month but I forgot about
| that pixel screenshots app. The other features are
| unavailable in my country anyway, especially anything that
| has to do with calls.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| If locking the bootloader and comparing signatures against keys
| burned into a secure enclave allow Apple to make certain security
| guarantees that helps them sell products, I'm all for their
| freedom to do so.
|
| Why doesn't OP merely champion competition, instead of
| encouraging regulation of what software others can write, what
| hardware others can ship?
|
| I too am afraid of general purpose computing going by the
| wayside, and I have the Precursor phone and Raptor Talos PowerPC
| machines on my wishlist, just as soon as I wrap my head around
| secure boot chains in general before having to implement one
| myself. But niche hardware is expensive to produce, so we're
| likely left with what AMD, Intel and Apple provides us.
|
| I guess one quirk that IMO is fair to criticize is that it's not
| necessarily consumers who are demanding to be locked out of their
| administrator privileges (the average computer user is of course
| not aware of the distinction of signed vs unsigned binaries), so
| I don't know where the pressure for secure enclaves really comes
| from. Is it the data centers buying thousands of chips that don't
| want to be pwned? government customers who refuse to buy a single
| die if they can't verify the bootloader? Or just patriotic
| engineers sensitive to a cybersecurity regime that demands we
| keep our guard up against enemies, foreign and domestic?
| lapcat wrote:
| > Why doesn't OP merely champion competition, instead of
| encouraging regulation of what software others can write, what
| hardware others can ship?
|
| This is false dichotomy. Why not both?
|
| We need individual consumer rights, and we _also_ need healthy
| market competition.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| > so I don't know where the pressure for secure enclaves really
| comes from.
|
| The pressure comes from shareholders. User control means users
| can use their device in a way that benefits them, e.g. blocking
| invasive tracking. This benefit provides zero or negative
| shareholder value.
| jmb99 wrote:
| > so I don't know where the pressure for secure enclaves really
| comes from.
|
| In my experience, security engineers who see them as finally
| solving the "root of trust" problem. Generally (ime) it's
| security engineers/teams that have been pushing for things like
| ssl/tls, global certificate stores, signed updates of those
| stores, signed kernels validating those updates. But if you
| break the kernel (or compromise the bootloader or EFI/BIOS)
| then it's all for naught. A secure enclave solves that problem
| (unless you find a bug in it/its implementation) - your
| bootloader is validated, which validates your kernel, which
| validates all the userland components you care about. Security
| teams rejoice.
| margana wrote:
| Because the phone market is a duopoly that was impenetrable for
| even Microsoft. This "why don't you just make your own Apple?"
| argument is ridiculous, it will not happen no matter how much
| you "encourage" it as a consumer. You even contradict this
| yourself by saying "we're left with what <megacrops> provide
| us".
| lapcat wrote:
| There are a ton of products on the market that are vastly more
| dangerous than computers: guns, cars, motorcycles, bicycles,
| chainsaws, table saws, cigarettes, alcohol, junk food. Yes,
| consumers do sometimes harm themselves by using these products.
| That's the price of _freedom_. I think it 's bizarre that we
| treat computers as the most dangerous products in the world that
| for some reason demand paternalism, when none of these other
| products are locked down by the vendor.
|
| The reason that computers are locked down by the vendors is _not_
| that computers are somehow more dangerous than other things we
| buy. The reason is simply that it 's technically possible to lock
| down computers, and vendors have found that it's massively,
| MASSIVELY profitable to do so. It's all about protecting their
| profits, not protecting us. We know that the crApp Store is full
| of scams that steal literally millions of dollars from consumers,
| and we know that the computer vendors violate our privacy by
| phoning home with "analytics" covering everything we do on the
| devices. This is not intended for our benefit but rather for
| theirs.
| mixdup wrote:
| There's a difference between being able to buy something
| dangerous and being _forced_ to do so
| lapcat wrote:
| Forced? I'm not sure I understand.
|
| My guess is that you're assuming, wrongly, that vendor locked
| devices are "safe" and unlocked devices are "unsafe".
|
| All computers that are connected to the internet are unsafe
| in some ways. The most dangerous apps on your computer are
| the vendor's own built-in web browser and messaging app.
|
| Also, the vendor-controlled software stores are unsafe
| cesspools. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum
| and villainy. Moreover, the vendors deliberately make it
| impossible for you to protect yourself. For example, iOS
| makes it difficult or impossible to inspect the file system
| directly, and you can't install software such as Little
| Snitch on iOS that stops 3rd party apps--as well as 1st party
| apps!--from phoning home.
|
| In any case, most computers, including Apple computers, have
| parental controls and the like, so you can lock down your own
| device to your heart's content if you don't trust yourself,
| or you don't trust the family member that you're gifting the
| device.
| mixdup wrote:
| Today, yes, I can lock down the iPhone I give to my son,
| but if it can be unlocked to run arbitrary software then he
| can in theory unlock it. Yes, it is on me to continue to
| monitor the device to make sure he hasn't done it, but the
| point stands
|
| And the assumption you refer to, there are varying
| definitions for "safe". Is a device with a locked
| bootloader 100% safe in all use cases and all
| circumstances? Of course not. But me being able to
| reasonably trust that someone hasn't put a compromised
| version of the OS on the device, or, won't be able to put a
| different firmware on the device to brute force my
| encrypted contents is a bit of safety in a certain set of
| circumstances that I want in my device
|
| If Apple, or anyone else, were precluded from locking the
| boot loader yes, I would be forced to buy a device that the
| FBI or anyone else could in theory poke around on enough to
| try to get at my data
| lapcat wrote:
| > Today, yes, I can lock down the iPhone I give to my
| son, but if it can be unlocked to run arbitrary software
| then he can in theory unlock it. Yes, it is on me to
| continue to monitor the device to make sure he hasn't
| done it, but the point stands
|
| You're scared of the wrong thing. The greater danger
| isn't arbitrary software but rather your son running up
| massive App Store charges on IAP of exploitative games
| and other scams. And if you think Apple will refund you,
| think again. Locking the device to the crApp Store isn't
| the solution. To the contrary, the solution is to enable
| parental controls to prevent access to the crApp Store.
|
| > But me being able to reasonably trust that someone
| hasn't put a compromised version of the OS on the device,
| or, won't be able to put a different firmware on the
| device to brute force my encrypted contents is a bit of
| safety in a certain set of circumstances that I want in
| my device
|
| These are possible without _vendor_ lockdown. Devices can
| be and are designed so that the _consumer_ can lock the
| device down and prevent modification, etc. Of course you
| can 't constrain _yourself_ , if you have the credentials
| to unlock the device, but you can constrain everyone
| else, whether they're children on the one hand or
| thieves/attackers on the other.
| godelski wrote:
| > but if it can be unlocked to run arbitrary software
| then he can in theory unlock it.
|
| I'm effectively the admin several machines with many
| users on them. I have root access. I'm not at all
| concerned that they'll gain root access. Just make
| yourself admin on your child's phone, I don't see the
| issue. Apple and Google can even make gaining root access
| require some technical (but documented) methods. Look at
| the requirements to gain root on an android phone
| currently. You should be comfortable going into a
| terminal and using ADB. I'm not worried about the average
| user doing this nor even the average smart child. Hell,
| follow Apple's lead and require a 1hr lockout if you're
| really concerned about someone getting root on your
| device. How often will that happen if it requires being
| connected to a computer for an hour?
| homebrewer wrote:
| We're heading the opposite way of _not_ being able to buy
| anything "dangerous" thanks to consumers that you're
| describing. I've been using a Xiaomi phone that stopped
| receiving updates in 2020, and have since been running
| LineageOS, which was made possible by the unlocked
| bootloader. Xiaomi has since changed its policy and it's
| basically impossible to unlock the bootloader on newer
| devices.
|
| If not for the "dangerous" unlocking, I would have to run
| with dozens of severe vulnerabilities right now, all five
| years worth of them. A decent phone costs large amounts of
| money here, the hardware on mine is still very good, and so I
| would have used it regardless. (Yes, I understand that the
| firmware does not receive updates, but it's still much better
| than nothing.)
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| This is a very popular HN opinion; but not a very popular real
| world opinion.
|
| The average customer wants a device that works consistently,
| every day, that is easy to use, with a collection of 3rd party
| apps who won't steal their life savings.
|
| Windows failed to deliver this; the average customer never
| downloads an Exe from a newer publisher without terror. The
| average consumer is literally dozens of times more likely to
| trust a new smartphone app than a new desktop app.
|
| We can also see this in the console market. Windows exists; old
| gaming PCs exist; the locked down console market will be with
| us forever because even Windows can't deliver a simple
| experience that reliably works.
| stavros wrote:
| And consumers can have that. That doesn't mean I should be
| unable to unlock my phone and do whatever I want with it.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| The problem is not the ability to unlock your phone.
|
| The problem is that 90% of people unlocking their phones
| will either be for piracy (against the company's
| interests), or against the customer's own interests
| (stalkerware, data extraction, sale of stolen devices).
|
| There is a reason malware is over 50 times as prevalent on
| Android.
| stavros wrote:
| Why do I give a shit about the company? I bought the
| phone, it's mine, I should be able to unlock it. If I
| catch malware, I'm an adult and I'll live with my
| choices.
|
| > There is a reason malware is over 50 times as prevalent
| on Android.
|
| What's the reason for that bogus-sounding statistic?
| alias_neo wrote:
| Let's say for a second it was accurate (It's probably
| not), perhaps it's because Android has a far higher
| market share globally, and it's much cheaper and easier
| to get started writing apps (or malware) for Android than
| say iOS.
|
| You also don't need to buy a single device from Google to
| get started. You can take the PC you're at and get
| started right away, and publish that app (or malware)
| without spending a penny (though I don't recall whether
| they still charge that nominal fee to get a developer
| account).
|
| Saying 90% of people root for piracy is hilarious, I
| rooted every Android device I owned until the last one or
| two, and I've never pirated anything, why did I root?
| Mainly for customisation and host-based ad-blocking.
|
| I can't understand the thought process of these people
| who think the things you own should be locked down to
| protect you.
|
| We should stop selling screwdrivers too in case someone's
| granny tries to open their toaster and electrocutes
| themselves, after all, a screwdriver is the pre-tech root
| access to all things electrical and electronic. I suspect
| those same people who argue in favour of locking these
| devices down would also say "don't by silly, my granny
| wouldn't open her toaster with a screwdriver, because
| she's not an engineer".
| stavros wrote:
| Yeah, agreed. This "I don't want to own my things because
| I want Big Brother to protect me" attitude is really
| frustrating, especially when you can have protection
| without Google holding all the keys. GrapheneOS isn't
| less secure than stock Android.
| alias_neo wrote:
| It's a kind of madness people only have towards our
| (technology/IT) industry.
|
| I don't know if it's because they don't understand it,
| and that's scary, so they think it's safer for the big
| boys to hold the keys, but imagine if people acted the
| same in other contexts?
|
| "The bank should keep hold of the keys because otherwise
| I might accidentally lock myself out, or lose my keys, or
| leave the door unlocked for a bad guy to come in and
| steal my stuff".
|
| That's fine if you can't trust yourself to look after
| them, let someone else handle your keys for you, perhaps
| someone "trust worthy" could offer it as a service, but
| I'll keep my keys in my own pocket thanks.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Having worked on catching Android malware, I can assure
| you that Android malware does not proliferate because
| people can unlock their phones.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Given that the vast majority of Android devices _aren 't_
| rooted, bootloader unlocked, or even installing apps from
| outside the store(s) that they ship with, what exactly do
| you think _is_ the reason for more malware on Android?
| (Taking the claim at face value)
| seszett wrote:
| > _The problem is that 90% of people unlocking their
| phones will either be for piracy (against the company's
| interests), or against the customer 's own interests
| (stalkerware, data extraction, sale of stolen devices)._
|
| Why would you think that?
|
| Many Android phones _can_ be unlocked, so it 's not a
| hypothetical situation. I does not enable software
| piracy, since piracy doesn't depend on root. I know a few
| persons would install of sort of shit on their phone,
| including obvious malware, and they lack the knowledge to
| root their phones.
|
| The data extraction problem happens today on unrooted
| phones in a "legal" way, it's done by your regular
| friendly companies like TikTok, Google or Meta. Rooting
| enables limiting this which is likely why they are
| against it.
|
| If you look around on forums that discuss the topic of
| unlocking/rooting Android phones you will see that there
| is little discussion of piracy and people seem mostly
| driven by the will to control their own machine instead.
| raxxor wrote:
| There would be no piracy on smartphones. That would
| require desirable applications. Those don't exist because
| the environment is that shitty.
| xorcist wrote:
| Where does the 50x figure come from and what types of
| malware does it include? It doesn't really match neither
| my experience or pricing on the grey exploit market.
|
| Malware has a wide definition however, and if you include
| all the spyware included with phones that aren't sold
| outside China and to a degree also India, you could
| probably hit that mark. But as they aren't allowed to
| access Google services or the official Play store, it's
| also a bit misleading.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It came out in the Apple vs Epic trial that 90% of all
| App Store revenue comes from in app purchase for games -
| mostly pay to win games.
|
| If they all went out of business, nothing of value would
| be loss.
|
| Then you have apps that are free clients for services.
|
| There is very little legitimate money being made by
| mobile from people actually buying apps
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| >The problem is that 90% of people unlocking their phones
| will either be for piracy (against the company's
| interests), or against the customer's own interests
| (stalkerware, data extraction, sale of stolen devices).
|
| The first point is irrelevant once I've _bought_ a thing.
| Once I own a thing it is mine to do with what I want, and
| the company 's interests ought to be irrelevant. As for
| your second point, that is mitigated by making the
| process sufficiently annoying (eg. hiding it in the
| developer menu).
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| The average customer wants a car that doesn't explode because
| you installed a sketchy spark plug. Does that mean the
| manufacturers should install locks on the hood of every new
| car, with the threat of jail time if you pick the lock and
| look underneath?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| A sketchy spark plug does not have the ability to make a
| car explode, so the analogy is pointless.
|
| On that note, even if someone stole your car, at least your
| car does not have access to your bank account, your
| passwords, your messages, and even your sexual history. The
| personal and reputational cost of losing a car is not
| comparable.
|
| Many people would actually probably prefer their car to be
| stolen than the contents of their phone be public.
|
| I think a more accurate comparison would be to an
| electrician. In Australia, doing your own electrical work
| is a crime even for the homeowner, because it can cause
| physical death, and is too likely to be done wrong. Yes,
| you will possibly go to jail for replacing $2 light
| switches. I assure you that most people's phones have
| things they would prefer physical death over being publicly
| distributed.
| lapcat wrote:
| > On that note, even if someone stole your car, at least
| your car does not have access to your bank account, your
| passwords, your messages, and even your sexual history.
| The personal and reputational cost of losing a car is not
| comparable.
|
| You're conflating vendor lockdown with device encryption.
| The latter does not require the former.
| eesmith wrote:
| While cars don't have access to your _complete_ sexual
| history, note that
| https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/privacy-nightmare-
| on-... points out:
|
| "The very worst offender is Nissan. The Japanese car
| manufacturer admits in their privacy policy to collecting
| a wide range of information, including sexual activity,
| health diagnosis data, and genetic data -- but doesn't
| specify how. They say they can share and sell consumers'
| "preferences, characteristics, psychological trends,
| predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence,
| abilities, and aptitudes" to data brokers, law
| enforcement, and other third parties."
| seszett wrote:
| > _In Australia, doing your own electrical work is a
| crime even for the homeowner, because it can cause
| physical death, and is too likely to be done wrong. Yes,
| you will possibly go to jail for replacing $2 light
| switches_
|
| And do you find this reasonable, and a good thing to
| expand to smartphone use?
| mattclarkdotnet wrote:
| It's bullshit, there are no laws banning you from
| replacing a light switch in Australia. At worst you might
| invalidate your home insurance.
| realusername wrote:
| > I think a more accurate comparison would be to an
| electrician. In Australia, doing your own electrical work
| is a crime even for the homeowner
|
| In this comparison Google and Apple have the role of the
| government, if you believe that argument, that also
| implies that you believe they should be broken apart for
| antitrust
| mattclarkdotnet wrote:
| It's not a crime to do your own electrical work in
| Australia, it just invalidates your insurance unless you
| get the work signed off. The websites saying it "could be
| illegal" strangely never reference the actual law you'd
| breach.
| lapcat wrote:
| > with a collection of 3rd party apps who won't steal their
| life savings.
|
| This is blatant unempirical scare mongering. How many desktop
| computer users have had their life savings stolen by 3rd
| party apps? Citation needed.
|
| > The average consumer is literally dozens of times more
| likely to trust a new smartphone app than a new desktop app.
|
| This is a false dichotomy. Almost all desktop computer users
| have a smartphone too. The people who have enough disposable
| income buy _both_ smartphones _and_ desktop computers. There
| 's no inherent conflict between the two.
|
| > the locked down console market will be with us forever
| because even Windows can't deliver a simple experience that
| reliably works.
|
| That's a competely ahistorical interpretation. Originally,
| the gaming consoles had no third-party games: the games were
| all written by the vendors. The first third-party game
| development company was Activision, a group of former Atari
| programmers who learned that their games were responsible for
| most of Atari's revenue, but Atari refused to give them a
| cut, so they left and formed their own company. There was a
| lawsuit, and it was ultimately settled, allowing Atari to get
| a cut of Activision while allowing Activision to otherwise
| continue developing console games. It had nothing to do with
| "reliablity" or "security" or any kind of made-up excuse like
| that.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| > This is blatant unempirical scare mongering. How many
| desktop computer users have had their life savings stolen
| by 3rd party apps?
|
| You're kidding, right? You seem to have completely
| forgotten, or put the drunk glasses, on what living in the
| 2000s was like. Also, I don't care that you made it, don't
| let your survival bias hit you on the way out.
|
| > Originally, the gaming consoles had no third-party games:
| the games were all written by the vendors
|
| What a stereotypical HN comment. Cite something that only
| applied to the 2nd generation of consoles to prove me
| wrong, even though my point spans almost all console
| generations.
| lapcat wrote:
| > You're kidding, right? You seem to have completely
| forgotten, or put the drunk glasses, on what living in
| the 2000s was like.
|
| Again, citation needed. I made it through the 2000s just
| fine, thank you.
|
| > What a stereotypical HN comment. Cite something that
| only applied to the 2nd generation of consoles to prove
| me wrong, even though my point spans almost all console
| generations.
|
| No, I was explaining the historical origin of the game
| console business model. Of course the business model
| continued, as these things usually do, through a
| combination of monetary incentives and inertia.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Of course. As we all know here, any business that gets
| started will go on forever regardless of market fit.
| lapcat wrote:
| This is a silly criticism. After all, as we all know here
| (right?), Atari itself fell on hard times. I was talking
| about the _business model_ , not a specific business.
| Vendor lockdown and taking a cut of 3rd party software is
| clearly quite lucrative for vendors, and that's why they
| do it. There's of course no _guarantee_ of success, but
| it 's obvious why other vendors have emulated that
| business model.
|
| It may be only for historical reasons that desktop
| computers aren't completely locked down too. It's a lot
| easier to lock down a new device class, like smartphones,
| than it is to lock down an existing open device class,
| without causing consumer outrage and rebellion.
| LocalH wrote:
| I worry about the long term health of general-purpose
| computing. It's not going anywhere today, but I fear for
| future generations that will likely eventually never know
| the joy of bending a computer entirely to their will,
| because they'll have never known computing without
| guardrails.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Again, citation needed. I made it through the 2000s
| just fine, thank you.
|
| Playing devil's advocate: banking trojans used to be
| really common here in Brazil back in the pre-smartphone
| era of the early 2000s (smartphones already existed, but
| weren't very commmon; most people who used online banking
| did it through their home computers). They're the reason
| why, for a long time, it was hard to use online banking
| on Linux: banks required (and still require) the use of
| an invasive "security plugin" on the browser (nowadays,
| there's also a Linux version of that plugin, which IIRC
| includes a daemon which runs as the root user), which
| attempts to somehow block and/or detect these banking
| trojans.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Playing devil's advocate
|
| What does this even mean? Do you stand behind what you
| say? If so, then just say it without hiding behind the
| devil. And if you don't stand behind what you say, then
| why in the world are you saying it?
| fargle wrote:
| that's a, frankly, stupid argument. the conclusion doesn't
| follow the premise.
|
| then don't root your phone or download an .exe. having the
| ability to do something doesn't mean you are forced to do it.
|
| not safe enough for you? fine! make the current status quo
| comfortable walled-garden-of-illusionary-fake-safety the
| default. for example, there's no reason windows needs to _by
| default_ allow unsigned code to run. hell, even make it
| really annoying to turn off.
|
| but the "safety" and "easy to use" arguments _against_ right-
| to-repair, digital rights, _ownership_ , etc. is simply
| nonsense. there is literally ZERO negative safety or
| usability impact to anyone else's device because i'd like to
| own mine.
|
| it's also an insulting and disingenuous argument to hear
| anyone on this forum make: our careers and entire segment of
| the economy would not exist if it were not for open systems.
| and it's insulting to basically say "bubba/granny is too dumb
| to be trusted" with owning their own device.
| nirui wrote:
| > The average customer wants a device that works
| consistently, every day, that is easy to use
|
| And it can only be archived with a fully locked down
| hardware?
|
| Of course not. The modern OS archives system security through
| permission and isolation, which don't require bootlock etc to
| work. In fact, it worked well too even after the device is
| unlocked & rooted.
|
| > Windows failed to deliver this; the average customer never
| downloads an Exe from a newer publisher without terror
|
| Windows (and Linux for that matter) is not modern OS. They're
| classic OS that offers the entire computer as playground for
| the program running on top of it. That's why Windows can be
| contaminated with a single malice EXE, but not Android or
| iOS.
|
| OSs are not the same, don't try get the water muddy that way.
| oneshtein wrote:
| Android is Linux. :-/
| lukevp wrote:
| Android is built on top of Linux. Android the OS has a
| lot of permissions layers between an app and the bare
| metal.
| xorcist wrote:
| Still, those permissions are standard Linux permissions.
| So the argument that Linux is less secure than Android is
| a little hard to understand. A little more specificity
| might help.
| freedomben wrote:
| They're definitely not "standard Linux permissions." Yes
| Android does use many of those (such as standard user
| IDs, file system permissions, and now SELinux) to
| implement some of its permissions, but it adds a _ton_ of
| permissions on top that are not part of Linux.
| tliltocatl wrote:
| The average customer only exists in marketing people's heads.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Sounds a lot like "We don't need free speech because I have
| nothing to say".
|
| Just because you don't need or want it, doesn't mean it's not
| an important right to protect. Considering the influence of
| computers these days, the right of general purpose computing
| is probably at least as important as the right to free
| speech.
| raxxor wrote:
| If you explain all details about the advantages and
| disadvantages to them, I am sure they would think
| differently.
|
| There are much more "hostile" smartphone apps that exfiltrate
| your data and sell it to the largest bidder than there are
| compromised executables these days. Also there are more
| profitable scams than compromising a PC system outside of
| industrial espionage.
|
| PC in contrast to consoles always were a cost or usage
| factor. The difficulties of operating a PC isn't significant.
| It also heavily increases digital competency of the user for
| computer systems. If you really don't want that, you have
| other options.
| sans_souse wrote:
| You can stop saying this now, those numbers (of ignorant
| users) no longer serves the argument. We did our job in
| informing the majority.
| DoubleGlazing wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with wanting that, but as the author
| said those of us who want to opt-out should have the choice
| to do so.
|
| If I buy an iPhone, I should have the option to completely
| disconnect it from Apple and be able to replace the OS with
| whatever I want. If I do not have the option to do that do I
| REALLY own the device? The answer is no bacause what I have
| is a device that I can only use the way Apple allows. When
| the phone is obsolete and Apple stops updates then all I can
| do is send it off for recycling since Apple won't allow me to
| repurpose it with new software.
|
| You are putting a lot of trust in the manufacturers as well.
| For example, they have the technical capabilities to kill the
| second hand market in their devices if they simply decided to
| refuse to allow a new user to login to a device. Sure, you
| could still sell the hardware, but it wouldn't be much use if
| the manufacturer stopped it from connecting and autorizing. I
| know this is an extreme example and no sane manufacturer
| would implement it, but I think it demonstrates why having to
| option to disconnect is a good thing.
|
| The same applies to all other devices that are locked down,
| things like smart TVs, IP cameras and appliances. Just look
| at how many early smart TVs are now dumb because the
| manufacturer stopped updating the on-board apps. There should
| be no reason why the owner of such devices should be allowed
| to do whatever they want with them to try and bring them back
| to life.
| throwaway7623 wrote:
| > Windows failed to deliver this; the average customer never
| downloads an Exe from a newer publisher without terror. The
| average consumer is literally dozens of times more likely to
| trust a new smartphone app than a new desktop app.
|
| Yet that trust is, for the most part, unfounded. There's a
| _ton_ of malware in app stores - you can assume any app that
| contains ads is sending data about you to some shady server,
| for example. You can 't even trust the most popular apps not
| to be malware [0].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651115
| userbinator wrote:
| Not only profits, but control. Remember the whole CSAM scanning
| debacle from Apple?
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| was that when they said "instead of uploading the images to
| our servers to do the CSAM scan, we'll do a quick once over
| in the privacy of your own phone to see if we can allow-list
| your photo" ?
|
| And then the whole world suddenly went apeshit, so Apple
| basically shrugged, said "fine, we'll do it just like
| everyone else and put your photos in the relatively
| unprotected server domain to do the scan". Sucks to be you.
|
| Understand that at no point was there an option to not do the
| scan on upload, like all cloud providers, Apple scans for
| CSAM on any uploaded photos to stay out of any government
| grey areas.
| feanaro wrote:
| A server is someone else's device. Your phone is your own
| device. So no, doing the scan on your own device and making
| your device your potential adversary is not better than
| doing it on the server. You can always choose not to use
| the server.
| golergka wrote:
| Thanks, but no. I'm never buying a device with easy root access
| for a non technical family member ever again. Freedom is great,
| and I'm using this freedom to buy something with exactly the
| capabilities I need.
| shortrounddev2 wrote:
| Just because the device is capable of root access does not
| mean all users need to be
| drdaeman wrote:
| It doesn't have to be easy enough to let through a person who
| doesn't understand what they're doing (aka blindly click
| through the annoying popups - that'd be bad).
|
| And non-owners shouldn't be able to have access solely based
| on their physical possession - quite the contrary, owner
| should have means to fully use hardware security features for
| their personal benefit, locking their own device as tight as
| they want (within the device's technical capabilities).
| frizlab wrote:
| It's impressive how many people downvote this actually uber
| reasonable opinion...
| eesmith wrote:
| That's because the opinion presents a strawman position.
| From the linked-to page :
|
| > I agree with the premise that consumer devices, such as
| mobile phones, should be as secure as they can by default.
| This can even go so far as shipping new devices with locked
| bootloaders and blocking access to root. ..
|
| > But this shouldn't come at the expense of being able to
| make an informed choice to unlock these privileges to
| install any software you want, even if that means adopting
| a higher level of risk.
|
| One does not require "easy root access" to make that
| informed choice - complicated root access (within reason,
| as pulling out the soldering iron might be a step too far)
| should be enough for tasks like installing a new OS because
| the company no longer supports the hardware.
| raxxor wrote:
| Because it isn't at all reasonable. There is no argument to
| not allow root access. You don't have to use it, perhaps
| most users would be safer with a conventional user account,
| but it is not reasonable to outright deny full system right
| to the owner of a device since there are so many
| disadvantages connected to that.
| DoubleGlazing wrote:
| My thinking is that if I have device that doesn't allow
| me root access, then what I have is more than likely a
| device designed to keep making money for the company that
| made it or wrote the software for it.
| frizlab wrote:
| But you _know_ you don't have root access before buying.
| Why would you buy it if you want root access?
| DoubleGlazing wrote:
| I'm willing to stand corrected, but I can't think of a
| single smartphone on the market from a reputable
| manufacturer that is sold with root access. If I want a
| smartphone I have to accept that the manufacturer will
| have the bootloader locked down, I don't have a choice.
| frizlab wrote:
| I have zero experience in the android world, but a quick
| search tells me that Xiaomi Devices, Google Pixel Phones,
| OnePlus Devices, Redmi Note 4, Samsung Devices and
| MediaTek Devices at least are rootable, with some rules
| with various degrees of freedom for the procedure (in
| particular warranty is voided pretty much all the time
| when device is rooted).
| karteum wrote:
| Google Pixels are the few devices that enable not only to
| unlock the bootloader but also the ability to flash your
| own keys and still have secure boot together with full
| kernel sources availability (which is why Grapheneos only
| support them as far as I know).
|
| As far as I know Mediatek (and vendors that use those
| chips) are usually not good with regards to GPL
| Compliance, which means no Lineageos if kernel sources
| are not available...
| alias_neo wrote:
| So they'll never use a PC or laptop or anything of that ilk
| again?
|
| To use the same logic, they shouldn't be given anything with
| a visible screw, or are you going to tell me they _wouldn't_
| take a screw driver to an appliance because that would be
| silly for someone who doesn't know what they're doing in
| there?
| thinkharderdev wrote:
| If there were a multi-billion dollar industry of scammers
| always trying to trick them into taking the screws out of
| things so they could steal from them, then no I probably
| wouldn't buy them anything with visible screws.
| lapcat wrote:
| This is a strange argument, kind of like, "We can't
| defund the police, because look at all of the crime out
| there!" If there's so much crime occuring already, then
| what in the world are the police doing?
|
| To an extent, crime can't be eliminated. You can't even
| eliminate crime by instituting a strict authoritarian
| regime, because power corrupts, and those in power become
| criminals themselves. That's why turning big tech
| companies into paternalistic device authoritarians
| doesn't work. The big tech companies have become
| massively corrupt, demanding a 30% cut of everything that
| happens on your devices, in return for what? Some low
| paid, low skill reviewer spending a few minutes to
| approve or reject a third party app submission? That's
| not security, it's security theater.
|
| There were phone scams before there were smartphones.
| Before there were mobile phones, when everyone had a
| landline. There's no technical solution for crime and
| scams, much as tech people want there to be. Education
| and viligence have always been the only effective
| resistance. Unfortunately, the big tech companies don't
| want to do education; to the contrary, they want
| consumers to be eternally technically ignorant--despite
| the increasing importance of computers in our lives--
| because that's more profitable. At least with cars, we
| have mandatory driver's education.
| alias_neo wrote:
| Which is probably fine, that's not the same as taking
| away everyone's screwdrivers.
|
| The problem is that a line is being drawn in an arbitrary
| place; if scammers are the worry, don't let them have a
| phone, or internet or email either, in fact just don't
| let them talk to any strangers in person or otherwise,
| but that would be awfully inconvenient for them.
|
| Everyone is willing to make a compromise somewhere so
| long as the compromise isn't something they care about.
| Some readers probably think the suggestion of taking away
| their phone or email is absurd to protect them from
| scammers, and I'd place preventing root-access in the
| same category; not disabling it by default, I'm ok with
| that, but preventing it entirely.
|
| My opinion is that everything should be secure by
| default, but when it's something you own, there should be
| reasonable, measured steps to "unsecure" it, whether
| that's removing a couple of screws, or accepting a
| disclaimer to gain root access to the device you own.
|
| If I don't own it, let's cut the bullshit and tell me I'm
| merely licensing or renting it, and we'll adjust the
| price I'm willing to pay accordingly.
| bell-cot wrote:
| And here is (in effect) a completely legitimate reason for
| manufacturers to wall off root access. They did not want to
| sell _and support_ a full-access, general-purpose computer.
| Nor provide liability coverage for anyone who reprograms
| their toaster and starts a fire.
| xorcist wrote:
| I take it you mean easily unlockable bootloader, not really
| out-of-the-box root access which no phone have.
|
| I have taken the opposite stance on that. Never again will
| they be left with some Samsung bloatware which hardly
| receives any Android updates when phones such as Nexus, Nokia
| and Nothing costs the same and has excellent LineageOS
| support.
|
| Lineage is stable, bloat-free self-updating and requires no
| maintenance from my side.
| godelski wrote:
| It also significantly hampers progress and the utility of tools
| themselves.
|
| This is hacker news after all. What made the computer great was
| programs. What made the smart phone great (smart) is
| applications. It's insane to me that these companies are
| locking down their most valuable assets. The only way this
| works is if you're omniscient and can make all the programs
| users could want yourself. This is impossible considering both
| individuality and entropy (time). Both in the sense that time
| marches on and the fact that you don't have time nor infinite
| resources to accomplish all that. I mean we're talking about
| companies that didn't think to put a flashlight into a phone
| but it was one of the first apps developed. You could point to
| a number of high utility apps, but I'm also sure there's many
| you all use that you're unlikely to find on most people's
| phones.
|
| We can also look at the maker community. Its flourished for
| centuries, millennia even. People are always innovating,
| adapting tools to their unique needs and situations. To some
| degree this is innately human and I'm not embellishing when I
| say that closed gardens and closed systems are dehumanizing. It
| limits us from being us. That person obsessed with cars and
| makes a sleeper Honda civic, that person that turns trash into
| art, that person that finds a new use for every day objects.
| Why would you want to take this away? It even hurts their
| bottom lines! People freely innovate and you get to reap the
| rewards. People explore, hack, and educate themselves, dreaming
| of working on your tech because of the environment you created.
| By locking down you forgo both short term and long term
| rewards.
|
| I also want to add that we should not let any entity claim to
| be environmentally friendly or climate conscious that does not
| create open systems. No matter how much recycling they do.
| Because it is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In that order. You can't
| reuse if your things turn to garbage and reusing certainly
| plays a major role in reducing.
| medhir wrote:
| this!!! sustainability is a huge aspect that seems to be
| getting lost in the broader discussion. locked devices are
| leading to an incredible amount of e-waste and it's entirely
| preventable.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| half of those things have computers in them now
| metalman wrote:
| my fuel injected chain saw, has a data port, but luckily, my
| back woods repair shop showed me the computerless,seasonal
| re-tune procedure that only requires a stop watch, works a
| charm As to other devices....phones, we need a whole re write
| of the privacy and publishing laws, to allow each person to
| regulate themselves. With an ultra basic "standard" set up
| for the masses who do want to be entertained, while having
| buying "oportunites" presented to them. But it has to be
| consentual, and basics like a phone number, email address,
| and personal/comercial web space, a non alienable birth
| right.Ban utopian concepts outright, and get back to bieng
| the quarlsome and somewhat violent species, that we are. I am
| starting to wonder, is the root cause of all of the ancient
| civilisations, lying in there own dust, what we are doing
| now, and the vast echoing silence from the stars, the same.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| You've left out one important player here: it's not just
| about the manufacturers and the masses yearning for
| entertainment, but also about the surveillance industry.
| Phones in particular, but computers in general, are
| increasingly important for surveilling the population in
| novel ways that AI opens up. Giving people root access on
| their tracking equipment would jeopardize its surveillance
| functions, because people might elect to give themselves
| privacy.
| raxxor wrote:
| If protection of the casual user was an argument, there would
| be an easy option to unlock your system, be that phones or
| desktop computers.
|
| But on many systems these options do not exist because the
| vendor likes people dependent on them. This is why devices like
| chromebooks or all mobile phones are more or less e-waste in
| the making. In my opinion it is a waste to use any development
| capacity for these systems apart from consumer devices offering
| the next shitty app that hopefully always stays optional.
|
| We even have dysfunctional laws that require banking apps to
| only run on these shitty systems. In my opinion, these errors
| need a quick correction.
|
| Also, the most cases of scam still work as they did before and
| exfiltrating information, e.g. tracking and "diagnostic data"
| by bad operating systems are an additional security problem.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _If protection of the casual user was an argument, there
| would be an easy option to unlock your system, be that phones
| or desktop computers._
|
| Making it easy to unlock could make it easy(er) for scammers
| to get it unlocked:
|
| > _I received the same type of call a little later in the
| day. They were very adamant they were calling from the Bell
| data centre, on a terrible line and I made them call back
| three more times while I considered their requests. They
| wanted to have me download a program that would have given
| them controI of my laptop._ [...]
|
| * https://forum.bell.ca/t5/Internet/Call-stating-that-an-
| issue...
| dns_snek wrote:
| Easy doesn't mean without any warning, it just means that
| the device is unlockable by design and without OEM's
| approval.
|
| It would be reasonable to:
|
| - factory reset the device before unlocking it to protect
| existing data (like Android phones require)
|
| - display warnings, for example "if someone's asking you to
| do this, it's probably a scam"
|
| - for the owner to be allowed to permanently disable
| unlocking, e.g. the commonly cited example of someone
| setting the device up for their elderly parents
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _for the owner to be allowed to permanently disable
| unlocking, e.g. the commonly cited example of someone
| setting the device up for their elderly parents_
|
| This opens a wormhole that warps us back to one of the
| core issues / battlegrounds in computing: _ownership_ ,
| and specifically, the balance of power and responsibility
| between the owner and the user, when they're not the same
| person.
|
| Unfortunately, the same means and the same arguments
| cited in case of "someone setting the device up for their
| elderly parents" also apply to employers "setting the
| device up" for their employees (where "setting the device
| up" may just mean letting it access the company network),
| vendors "helpfully" "setting the device up" for the
| customers (this is basically the whole history of mobile
| phones - bootloaders now, SIM locks before), etc.
|
| I don't know what the good answer is. I'm personally
| strongly biased towards "end-user should always be the
| owner" perspective, and while I recognize there are
| strong examples where this isn't the case, I can't figure
| out how to cleanly separate "legitimate interest" from
| for-profit or for-power abuse.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Making it easy to unlock could make it easy(er) for
| scammers to get it unlocked
|
| Making laptops that weigh two pounds instead of 40 pounds
| could make it easier for thieves to steal them. Making
| computers less expensive could increase the number of
| spammers who can afford one and make it easier to send
| spam. Making encryption widely available could make it
| easier for bad actors to communicate.
|
| But these things have countervailing benefits, so we do
| them anyway and then address the problems by a different
| means. When someone insists on doing it in the way that
| "incidentally" provides them with a commercial advantage,
| suspect an ulterior motive.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Making it easy to unlock could make it easy(er) for
| scammers to get it unlocked_
|
| Ahh, if only governments would start cracking down on
| scammers.
|
| Alas, scammers are a feature of modern capitalism. You'd
| not be wrong if you thought modern businesses are built on
| scamming people.
| e44858 wrote:
| Unlocking should require a physical modification, like
| soldering a jumper or flipping an internal switch requiring
| disassembly. That would filter out basically all scam
| victims. If a scammer can teach a complete novice how to do
| micro soldering, they've earned their pay.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| The Chromebooks that require removing a single internal
| screw are a fairly civilized example of this approach
| (might be a little harder to execute in a phone).
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| The Prusa Mini required you to snap a part of the pcb off
| to flash custom firmware. I actually like this approach,
| you have to very deliberately break apart of it to signal
| that you know what you are doing.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| > But on many systems these options do not exist because the
| vendor likes people dependent on them.
|
| Dependent is not exactly the right thing here. Lower support
| costs probably is. If a vendor gives out root access. If that
| root access can brick a machine. Then you will get a small
| percentage of very high touch broken things as returns.
| Customers like this are in the 'dangerous enough' but not
| 'good enough to do it correctly' stage of hacking. They will
| then not claim any responsibility for breaking it. As they
| are hoping you just fix it for free.
|
| I had one customer who would randomly change out stored
| procedures on our code. Then yell at our tech support for
| thing not working or being broken. Wasting hundreds of hours
| of time until we realized what he was doing. Locking him out
| is very appealing. Instead we sold him and his management on
| 'we will do the work for you for a fee'. Which was more along
| the lines of 'you do this again we will fire the customer'.
|
| That is but one small thing that can/will happen.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| That only explains why a company wouldn't want to provide
| free software support for software they didn't write. There
| are at least two alternatives to that. First, sell hardware
| the user can replace the software on, or that doesn't even
| come with software, and then don't provide software support
| at all. Second, provide software support and bill by the
| hour, in which case the customer messing up their stuff and
| calling your support is the opposite of a problem.
|
| You can even combine them if you want. Free support for the
| software that comes with it but if you replace the boot
| loader then support calls are billed hourly. There is no
| excuse for not allowing it -- it's leaving money on the
| table.
|
| Unless the reason is that locking the user out of the
| device has the purpose of monopolizing ancillary markets,
| which should be an antitrust violation.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Damage caused by the customer isn't covered by any warranty
| anyway, and realistically, how many people would tinker
| with root access as long as the device worked as intended?
|
| I'd be really surprised if the number was more than 1 in
| 100. And if 1 in 20 brick the device in the process, that's
| 1 in 2000.
|
| According to [1] the average warranty claims rate for
| consumer electronics is 1 in 100. I doubt the difference in
| support load would even register on the scale.
|
| [1] https://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20240711.html
| sumtechguy wrote:
| > Damage caused by the customer isn't covered by any
| warranty anyway
|
| Exactly. We charged the guy for what he did. We gave him
| 'sa' access to the database and he tried to burn us.
|
| I think you may be assuming people act rationally? They
| do not. Most will but you will always get 'that guy'
| especially at scale. People will lie about what they have
| done. Or not even realize what they did goofed things up.
| In my example the guy was asking us to pay them back for
| defective software (millions of dollars). Right up until
| we proved he had broke it on purpose. I later found out
| he did it on purpose (confirmed by former coworkers of
| his 'he likes to mess with vendors'). He was not even
| alone. At least 3 other people tried that trick on us at
| different companies.
|
| Most service requests are 'easy'. Small tweak/reship and
| off you go. But someone who has really broken something
| can be as easy as 'ship them a new one' to weeks of
| trying to figure out why a device has suddenly started
| acting out of spec. That means at least 1-2 people
| working on something for a period of time. That costs
| money.
|
| > I'd be really surprised if the number was more than 1
| in 100.
|
| It is the time you have to put into looking into why did
| you end up with a defect that is not a defect. The margin
| on some of these IoT devices is in the couple of bucks
| range or smaller. You have to dedicate 2 guys for 3
| months to figure out what went sideways can eat the
| entire profit margin of the whole run.
|
| I was just saying I can see _why_ a company would
| withhold the info. I did not say I agree with it.
| Especially for things that are out of warrantee. I think
| companies are using it to basically have no support and
| basically leave what would be a decent customer hanging
| and hoping they can covert to another sale. There is no
| 'one reason' there is a list.
| bee_rider wrote:
| That seem extremely frustrating.
|
| It does seem like there ought to be a reasonable split
| between personal software and business stuff. I mean you
| guys had a big contract, it is some negotiated thing
| between two peers, it could be reasonable to negotiate
| root in some subsystems, not in others. In the end you
| can't really trust anything a system tells you if
| somebody has full root of it. It seems like you guys
| keeping control of the logging would be a reasonable give
| for them, if they expect support. (But why would you guys
| have planned around a downright adversarial customer?
| That guy is weird).
|
| Also, doesn't this seem like... basically some kind of
| fraud? I wonder if your annoying user expected to be able
| to add the savings whatever he got back from the support
| contract to his "value to the company" somehow.
|
| For personal customers who are just buying smartphones,
| we don't really have giant support contracts to screw
| around with.
| miki123211 wrote:
| > There are a ton of products on the market that are vastly
| more dangerous than computers
|
| The thing with chainsaws and motorcycles is that they _look and
| feel_ dangerous, and people have an intuitive understanding of
| how to approach those dangers.
|
| If you ask a random person on the street about safe motorcycle
| riding, they'll probably tell you about respecting speed
| limits, wearing protective gear, only doing it when sober, not
| pulling stunts / showing off etc. I've never been on a
| motorcycle, have 0 interest in them, and I know those things.
|
| Computers don't work that way. People can't distinguish between
| a real banking app and a fake banking app that looks real, an
| update pop-up and a fake "you need to update Adobe Flash
| Player" pop-up on a phishing website etc.
|
| I've done plenty of "helping non-technical people out with
| computers" during my middle / secondary school days. That was
| when people still used Windows a lot, as opposed to doing
| everything on their phones. Most computers I've seen back then
| had some app that hijacked your start page, changed your search
| engine to something strange, would constantly open random
| websites with "dpwnload now free wallpapers and ring tones for
| your mobile now" etc. You didn't even have to fall for a scam
| to get something like that, plenty of reputable software came
| with such "add-ons", because that's how you made money back
| then.
|
| I feel like that era of "total freedom" has somehow been erased
| from our minds, and we're looking at things through rose-tinted
| glasses. I, for one, vastly prefer the world of personalized
| ads and invasive surveillance over one where I constantly have
| to be on alert for my default browser being changed to Google
| Chrome for the hundredth time this year, just because I decided
| to update Skype.
| grishka wrote:
| > You didn't even have to fall for a scam to get something
| like that, plenty of reputable software came with such "add-
| ons", because that's how you made money back then.
|
| That's why you never blindly clicked "next" in installers.
| Everyone got one of those IE toolbars accidentally at some
| point, but it usually only took doing it once to learn the
| lesson.
| lapcat wrote:
| > If you ask a random person on the street about safe
| motorcycle riding, they'll probably tell you about respecting
| speed limits, wearing protective gear, only doing it when
| sober, not pulling stunts / showing off etc. I've never been
| on a motorcycle, have 0 interest in them, and I know those
| things.
|
| How did this matter? People may know these things, but they
| nonetheless ignore speed limits, don't wear helmets, drive
| drunk, pull stunts, etc. And the motorcycle manufacturer
| can't stop them. They have the freedom to harm themselves.
|
| > Computers don't work that way. People can't distinguish
| between a real banking app and a fake banking app that looks
| real
|
| Guess what, people can't distinguish between the real and
| fake apps in the crApp Store either. Let's stop pretending
| that it's safe, when we've seen over and over that it's not.
|
| > That was when people still used Windows a lot, as opposed
| to doing everything on their phones.
|
| People still use Windows a lot. Smartphones have not
| _replaced_ desktop computers but rather _added_ to desktop
| computers. Almost every desktop computer owner _also_ has a
| smartphone I believe that desktop computer sales are as high
| now as ever; I know that 's true for Apple Macs,
| specifically.
|
| > I feel like that era of "total freedom" has somehow been
| erased from our minds, and we're looking at things through
| rose-tinted glasses.
|
| It hasn't been erased. The desktop never left. It's been
| surpassed in volume by smartphones, of course, but let's not
| pretend that desktops were somehow made obsolete and removed
| from the Earth. The people who have enough money buy
| smartphones and desktops. Many even have a smartphone, a
| desktop/laptop, and a tablet. The choice is not about
| security, it's about money and form factor. When I leave
| home, I put a phone in my pocket. When I'm on the couch, I
| use a laptop. When I'm reading an ebook, I use a tablet.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Actually, chainsaws, table saws, cars, motorcycles, and even
| guns all have safety mechanisms installed by the manufacturers
| and tampering with them voids the warranty.
| lapcat wrote:
| Nobody is arguing that computers shouldn't have safety
| mechanisms. But the manufacturers of those devices don't have
| remote control over what I do with them. There's no
| equivalent of a "curated App Store" (and one that requires a
| 30% cut to the manufacturer, which is the real point behind
| it).
|
| The equivalent would be if you could only use specific brands
| of replacement chains, blades, tires, or bullets that are
| approved by the manufacturer, for which the manufacturer gets
| a cut of the sales of those replacements.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Tampering with safety mechanisms on your car voids the
| warranty on the safety mechanism, not on your whole car.
| Otherwise using third party mechanics would be impossible.
| invalidlogin wrote:
| A chainsaw does not introduce an opportunity for thousands of
| remote criminals to steal money from your bank account.
| logicchains wrote:
| But like a gun or a knife it may give local criminals an
| opportunity to threaten (or worse) you into giving them money
| from your wallet.
| kees99 wrote:
| You are 100% spot-on with the "local" thing here.
|
| People living in "bad neighborhoods" have to spend more
| energy and money on locks, fences, security cameras, self-
| policing as to not go out alone after dark, etc.
|
| Problem is, Internet (and international phone system, to a
| lesser degree) makes everything so much closer, that
| scammers from half-way around the globe are "local" for all
| intents as purposes. Thus, online, every neighborhood is a
| "bad neighborhood".
| lapcat wrote:
| > Thus, online, every neighborhood is a "bad
| neighborhood".
|
| This is like the exaggerated crime coverage on the local
| news.
|
| I've lived in the so-called "bad internet neighborhood"
| for 30 years, and I'm fine. It's not so bad.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Just like in a bad neighborhood, there's safety in
| numbers and keeping a low profile.
| Retr0id wrote:
| It does introduce an opportunity to lose a limb, though. I
| think I'd rather have my bank account hacked.
| lapcat wrote:
| > It does introduce an opportunity to lose a limb, though.
| I think I'd rather have my bank account hacked.
|
| Exactly!
| m463 wrote:
| Why don't they let you firewall your phone?
| jmull wrote:
| > There are a ton of products on the market that are vastly
| more dangerous than computers
|
| An irrelevant "whaddabout" argument.
|
| It doesn't change that we need security and privacy for our
| information handling devices, as well as personal control. The
| real conversation is about how to best balance these.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It doesn't change that we need security and privacy for our
| information handling devices, as well as personal control.
|
| I can do online banking on my PC as root user if I so choose,
| but I cannot do online banking on my phone because my bank's
| app employs a rooting detector SDK that as of now even
| Magisk+a host of (questionable) modules can't bypass.
| lapcat wrote:
| > It doesn't change that we need security and privacy for our
| information handling devices, as well as personal control.
| The real conversation is about how to best balance these.
|
| An irrelevant false dichotomy argument. There's no inherent
| conflict between security/privacy and personal control. I
| would argue that a device which has to phone home to the
| vendor to get approval for everything results in both less
| privacy and less personal control.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > The real conversation is about how to best balance these.
|
| How do you even formulate these values so that they're in
| conflict in the first place?
| jmull wrote:
| I guess people are unaware of the various malicious
| rootkits that have cropped up?
|
| If you're serious about this stuff binary thinking is a
| mistake. It's not a question of whether rooting is possible
| or impossible. It's a question of under what circumstances
| it can be done, and under whose control.
|
| Also, "conflict" is the wrong word here. It's a question of
| competing concerns not conflicting ones.
|
| We probably want root access to be under the end-user's
| control, but in such a way that minimizes the ability of
| malicious parties to exploit it.
|
| e.g., one way would be to allow anyone to easily install
| any root they want, but to disallow software from, say, the
| Apple app store from running on such "rooted" devices.
| While that gives end-users control and would mostly prevent
| malicious actors from getting things they want, it's
| probably not what most user's would want. They probably
| want to run all their regular software along side the root
| software.
|
| Another way would be to allowing people to easily install
| software as root, and allow software from popular app
| stores to run on it. That gives users max control, but is
| pretty easy for malicious actors to exploit too. People
| aren't going to be too happy with this when some coupon
| clipping app starts emptying people's bank accounts.
|
| These are just examples to give the idea of the range of
| possibilities. The real answer needs to be a lot more
| nuanced than this. The point is, pretending there aren't
| issues doesn't get us anywhere. You might as well have no
| opinion on this.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| I just don't have this paternalistic instinct to try and
| protect people from rootkits. Even if I did, this is
| certainly the wrong way to do so--you _need_ to hold
| companies accountable for the flaws in their software
| (for which we have basically no legislation at the
| moment) or they have no incentive to make the regulations
| meaningfully protective. Otherwise you just end up with
| shipping hardware that 's still insecure, but checks the
| right regulatory checkboxes, and still restricts people
| from using the hardware they bought, and still no way to
| remediate when something inevitably does slip past the
| regulatory controls.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Bringing up whataboutism is even less relevant. Comparisons
| aren't suddenly bad because of an overused buzzword
| regnull wrote:
| Before we put all the blame on vendors, I submit to you, ladies
| and gentlemen, this: the public finds this tradeoff (privacy
| for entertainment) completely acceptable. With all the outrage,
| privacy-centric solutions are out there and relatively easy to
| find, how come they don't get more traction? Including among
| the HN crowd?
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| "The least bad option in a market oriented against users and
| designed to maximize profit" is not the same as "completely
| acceptable."
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| I believe GP is referring to things like privacy-centric
| de-Googled Android phones, which definitely are an option.
| I would not classify those as "least bad" or even bad.
|
| GP is correct about Apple products; even among the HN crowd
| they are likely the most popular devices. I think this is
| because most readers aren't trying to die on the hill of
| openness. They're more concerned with software and
| ubiquity, two areas where Apple is doing very well.
|
| You do get many here enthusiastic about open access to your
| own hardware, but I think we're talking about a Venn
| diagram; we're not all the same. (I'm an Android user.)
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| Actually, I was disagreeing with the GP specifically
| about Apple products. I'm an Apple user, but very much
| because they're the "least bad" option. De-Googled
| Android phones still have awful audio latency (I'm a
| musician who makes a music app on the side), very limited
| messaging and notification features, and integrate poorly
| with desktop OSes. For how I use my devices, open or no,
| Android simply isn't a viable option.
|
| The thing about all this is, Apple's products being well-
| integrated and well-designed doesn't require them to be
| locked down the way they are. The EU move to force them
| to use USB-C/Thunderbolt over Lightning is a perfect
| example of this. It unilaterally improved things for
| users, and iPhone 14 vs. 15 sales reflected that pretty
| clearly.
|
| So I'd _especially_ describe Apple as the "least bad"
| rather than "completely acceptable." They're specifically
| what I had in mind saying that.
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > Apple's products being well-integrated and well-
| designed doesn't require them to be locked down the way
| they are.
|
| That's definitely true, and it's what has made me favor
| Google over Apple for decades now. Google's deal has been
| free software for the price of your user data, but I've
| accepted that deal because Google has never practiced
| _predatory lock-in_. Apple makes claims to value your
| privacy (I wouldn 't know) while making predatory lock-in
| fundamental to everything they do. Denying access to your
| own device is part of this.
|
| The irony is that I loathe the data economy. I think it
| has gone far beyond what Google ever envisioned (for
| years it seemed they had yet to discover a way to make
| money at all). The privacy aspect matters, but I also
| hate the way it makes companies and their products
| behave; the way it feels like every click results in an
| attempt to directly advertise to you. And it's all clumsy
| and broken. How often are ads even correctly targeted? I
| feel about conglomerated user data the way I feel about
| meme coins: it's all built on speculation, hopes, and
| dreams, and has less to do with people actually buying
| your product. I can't wait for the bubble to burst and/or
| for a global ban on the sale and purchase of user data.
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| I think we're very much in agreement on most of these
| things, and our "platform loyalty" led us to perceive
| different options as the "least bad" - that's totally
| okay, though! I was an Android user from 2009-2020
| because I agreed with you, up until I started working on
| my own music software, which pushed things the other way
| for me.
|
| For your last sentence, though... user data and its
| utilities are arguably not a "bubble." And as we've seen
| with AI training, use of data being illegal doesn't
| really stop companies from doing it. I think we'll have
| better _actual_ results from governments forcing Apple to
| let us run our own software on the hardware we buy, as
| opposed to governments trying to prevent Google, Meta,
| et. al. from abusing customer data.
|
| A lot of this has to do with the fact that the former is
| about regulating our rights with hardware, while the
| latter is about software. Hardware is just easier for
| governments to regulate. When you try to regulate
| software, companies will do things like the deliberately-
| annoying cookie popups we got after GDPR/CCPA, because
| it's cheap to produce lots of bullshit to experiment with
| ways around those regulations.
| ragnese wrote:
| Exactly. Even the people who complain about these things
| immediately get defensive when you call them out on their
| uses: "Well, _I_ can 't switch because what about my banking
| app?" or "Well, games don't count as software to me." or "It
| won't make any difference to the big tech companies if I'm
| the only one who switches, so why bother?"
| lapcat wrote:
| > privacy-centric solutions are out there and relatively easy
| to find
|
| Really? Please name them. Over the past 10 or 15 years, I've
| never seen anything other than the iPhone/Android or
| Mac/Windows duopoly for sale in any retail store. I've never
| seen any advertising for other than those duopolies. The HN
| crowd may be aware of obscure options, but for the vast
| majority of consumers, they don't exist. And since we as
| developers make money catering to the vast majority of
| consumers, we're kind of stuck with the duopoly too, at least
| as far as our work is concerned.
| regnull wrote:
| Here you go: https://us.starlabs.systems/
|
| Now, how many of you guys have this? Or anything like this?
| I bet 95% of the HN crowd happily uses iOS/Android daily.
| lapcat wrote:
| I've never even heard of that before, and I'm terminally
| online.
|
| Anyway, desktop computers aren't really the main problem
| here. For example, Apple Macs offer vastly more personal
| freedom than Apple iPhones. If iPhones behaved like Macs
| in that respect, then we might not be having this debate.
| To the extent that Macs have been increasingly locked
| down over the past 15 years, it's mostly just copying the
| iPhone, porting the "features" over from one platform to
| the other.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| This is the first time I heard about it. Has anyone
| looked into their claims? Would love to buy an affordable
| Linux pad or a mini PC.
| regnull wrote:
| FWIW, I have no idea if this is any good. My point is, I
| found this after maybe 3 minutes searching. If we were to
| spend 30 minutes, we would definitely find something
| reasonable.
| regnull wrote:
| And as for "why are not selling this in every retail
| store?", the answer is the same - because if they were, no
| one would buy them. I found the situation curious, while
| everyone complains about it, only very few people are
| trying to do anything about it. Perhaps the breaking point
| was not reached yet, and something big has to happen to
| change people's perspective.
| lapcat wrote:
| > And as for "why are not selling this in every retail
| store?", the answer is the same - because if they were,
| no one would buy them.
|
| That's purely hypothetical. How could any prove or
| disprove the assertion?
|
| The general point, though, is that consumer awareness is
| essential for sales. People won't buy things that they
| don't know about. As an indie developer myself, I'm
| painfully aware of this. It doesn't matter how great
| one's product is if nobody knows about it. Advertising is
| very expensive, so it requires vast capital outlays in
| order to get your products into the minds of consumers
| and onto the shelves of stores. The big established
| brands have a massive advantage, making it difficult for
| competitors to break into the market. Apple itself
| leveraged its existing brand, with Mac and iPod, in order
| to promote iPhone. And Apple's primary competitor is
| Google, who also was already an established brand via
| search and Chrome.
|
| Remember that back in the day, Microsoft almost destroyed
| the entire desktop OS market. They almost killed Apple
| too. Only the Department of Justice put some kind of
| break on it, and Microsoft let Apple live in order to
| provide antitrust cover. If MS had for example simply
| withdrawn its apps from Mac--Office, Internet Explorer
| (remember that Internet Explorer was originally the
| default web browser on Mac OS X before Safari!)--Apple
| likely would have died.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| It's not just about familiarity. People _are_ willing to
| try new things. The actual problems are network effects
| and vendor lock-in.
|
| The hardest part about switching from Facebook isn't
| installing some other app or anything like that, it's
| getting everyone else you know to switch from Facebook.
|
| The hardest part about switching from Windows isn't
| installing Linux, it's getting e.g. game developers to
| target Linux before it has significant consumer market
| share.
|
| That isn't to say that doing these thing is _impossible_
| , but it certainly isn't _trivial_ , so anyone wondering
| why it hasn't happened already can't seriously think the
| only explanation is that nobody cares. It's like saying
| nobody cares about high healthcare costs -- of course
| they care, the question is what do we have to do to fix
| it?
| immibis wrote:
| I'm glad that Fairphones are available in stores right
| next to Xiaomis, but they cost three times the price for
| half the specifications. It may plausibly be cheaper to
| buy a Xiaomi phone _and then personally sue Xiaomi to get
| it unlocked_ than to buy a Fairphone.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| This isn't about privacy. Not directly anyway. This is about
| your right to have control of your own property.
|
| You make a fair point though; the case does need to be made
| as to why this is a market failure and not just consumer
| choice working as expected. Why _do_ consumers tolerate
| manufacturers retaining ultimate control of consumer's
| property after the sale? It certainly doesn't seem to be that
| important to them. Maybe greater awareness of the issue would
| help somewhat?
| klabb3 wrote:
| > This isn't about privacy. Not directly anyway.
|
| Agree fully. Don't know why you're being downvoted. I
| accept the risk or tradeoff of Apple or MS spying on me.
| It's not that, but the right to repair, to tinker, to hack.
| Those things have brought us so much interesting wonderful
| things. My entire generation (millennial) has superior tech
| literacy to both those that came before and after (no shade
| to the older gen - some of you are better than us, but with
| millennials it's so much more widespread than eg gen X).
| Many younger gens never use "real" computers (only tablet &
| phone). The gilded age was an anomaly, and is over.
|
| > the case does need to be made as to why this is a market
| failure and not just consumer choice working as expected
|
| I swear this consumer choice navel gazing will be the death
| of innovation. The US is obsessed with this narrative, that
| the magic market hand will self-correct, without any
| justification or scrutiny. Yes, consumer choice is
| _necessary_ , but not _sufficient_. Just look at the
| developments in tech over the last decade+. I don't have
| the solution but anyone who's not entirely lost in dogma
| should be able to see the failures.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Market failures do happen, so I'm not claiming consumer
| choice is the perfect solution in every case. But
| consumers aren't stupid either; if this _were_ a
| mainstream concern the market _would_ self-correct. But
| it hasn't self-corrected on this issue, because most
| consumers don't really care that much. So I think you
| have to carefully consider why that is before you start
| thinking you know what they want better than than they do
| and eliminating certain choices by government decree.
|
| There are costs to any regulation, and lots of possible
| unintended consequences. So even though I'm personally a
| strong advocate for user control and software freedom,
| I'm wary of acting without strong justification and
| careful consideration of the underlying reasons behind
| the status quo.
|
| > I accept the risk or tradeoff of Apple or MS spying on
| me.
|
| For what it's worth, I do think this issue has indirect
| effects on privacy. If you have ultimate control of the
| software on your device, you can use that control in ways
| that help protect your privacy. Otherwise you're limited
| to whatever protections the manufacturer decides to grant
| you.
|
| There are lots of similar positive possible downstream
| effects of software freedom, which is why I think this is
| an issue worth serious consideration despite my
| misgivings.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > if this _were_ a mainstream concern the market _would_
| self-correct.
|
| The underlying premise here is that the alternative is
| _available_ for consumers to choose, i.e. that you can
| buy something which is otherwise equivalent to an iPhone
| but supports third party app stores or installing a third
| party OS. But that isn 't the case.
|
| What you get instead is e.g. Fairphone, which has the
| specs of a $200 phone but costs $800 and if you actually
| have root your bank app might break etc. And still many
| people buy it. So all you can conclude from this is that
| the price the mass market places on freedom is less than
| $600 plus some non-trivial usability issues, not that
| they value it at zero and don't care about it at all.
|
| On top of this, it's a threshold issue. If the median
| phone was rooted, people would develop apps that need
| root. When the percentage is some low single digit if not
| a fraction of a percent, they don't, and then taking the
| trade offs of a phone that _can_ be rooted isn 't buying
| you what it should because you need a critical mass in
| order to achieve the expected benefits, but you need the
| benefits in order to achieve the critical mass. This is
| the sort of situation where a mandate can get you over
| the hump.
|
| > There are costs to any regulation, and lots of possible
| unintended consequences.
|
| A good way to handle this is through anti-trust, because
| then you can do things like exempt any company with less
| than e.g. 5% market share. That means not Apple or Google
| or Samsung, but if there is any major problem with the
| rule then the market can work around it by having 20+
| independent companies each provide whatever it is that
| people actually want. Meanwhile that level of competition
| might very well solve the original problem on its own,
| because now a couple of them start selling unlocked
| devices _without any countervailing trade offs_ and that
| 's enough to make the others do it.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _Why _do_ consumers tolerate manufacturers retaining
| ultimate control of consumer 's property after the sale?_
|
| Just my opinion from many conversations with normies about
| this: It's because most of them don't know (the marketing
| material from these companies certainly doesn't advertise
| it), and the ones who do know don't care because they
| wouldn't be able to (technical knowledge) or want to
| root/unlock and utilize the capabilities.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > the ones who do know don't care because they wouldn't
| be able to (technical knowledge) or want to root/unlock
| and utilize the capabilities
|
| This is a good point. Some of that is perhaps self-
| perpetuating: Why root if there's nothing you can do with
| root? And why develop stuff you can do with root if
| there's nobody who can use it? If there weren't so much
| active suppression of software freedom by manufacturers
| maybe the situation would change and the benefits of
| consumers having full control of their devices would be
| more apparent.
| lapcat wrote:
| And ironically, it was the jailbreakers who demonstrated
| to Apple why the company needed to add third-party apps
| to its platform that originally didn't allow them.
| freedomben wrote:
| I have no data to back this up. So what follows is purely my
| personal opinion.
|
| I think the reason people don't care, is because they don't
| know. The average person either doesn't know or barely knows
| That anything deeper than what they see in the user interface
| is happening on their system.
|
| We humans are very much an out of sight out of mind type of
| creature. If we can't see it, it's hard for us to imagine
| that it exists.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| People know, Facebook and Google getting crap for all their
| tracking is evidence enough.
|
| The reason people don't care is because digital
| freedom/privacy is largely irrelevant to most people's
| lives. You can't convince someone to care about something
| that doesn't affect their life, they're too busy for that.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| There is nothing inherent to the benefits that these
| companies tout that require them to lock us out of our own
| devices.
|
| What you are describing is not a _tradeoff_ but a
| _magnificent bribe_. They bribe us with measly benefits in
| order to accept the deal that is incredibly favourable for
| them.
|
| See: https://reallifemag.com/the-magnificent-bribe/
| jshen wrote:
| Only computers let bad people drain bank accounts at scale.
| lapcat wrote:
| Please cite the statistics on the volume of bank account
| draining before you claim that it happens "at scale".
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| I mean, the nigerian prince scam is almost a meme these
| days...
| lapcat wrote:
| A meme is not a statistic. Exactly how many people have
| fallen for the scam, out of all computer users.
|
| And how exactly does device vendor lockdown _stop_ this
| particular scam?
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| > Exactly how many people have fallen for the scam, out
| of all computer users
|
| Who the fuck knows ? And how is that even remotely a
| useful question to ask - it's not answerable, those who
| commit the scam are the only people with the figures, and
| there's no "register of fuckers who scam other people"
| where they have to tell you how well they do.
|
| > how exactly does device vendor lockdown stop this
| particular scam
|
| Premise 1: All (for a suitable definition of "all")
| computer users are clueless when it comes to internet
| security
|
| Premise 2: You are not trying to help any _given_
| individual 's security, because some of them violate
| premise #1. You are trying to raise the bar for the
| clueless hurting themselves.
|
| Premise 3: It is not about "personal freedom". It is
| about preventing the clueless (by no fault of their own,
| this shit is complicated) becoming drones and mules for
| attacks on others. It is an attempt to increase the
| greater good at the expense of placing restrictions on
| what any individual can do on their own phone. Those
| restrictions can be mitigated mainly by coughing up
| $100/year, which is a sufficient bar to prevent bad guys
| from doing it en-masse, but not so high as to prevent the
| people who want to do stuff from doing it.
|
| Stopping people doing stupid stuff because they don't
| know any better is the goal, and that inevitably gets
| more and more restrictive as time progresses, because an
| arms race is instituted between the truly evil arseholes
| who prey on the clueless, and the manufacturers who don't
| want their produces seen as vehicles leading the clueless
| to the slaughter.
|
| Personally I don't give a crap. The iPhone is fine for me
| as-is, I can install my own software on my own phone, and
| sure it costs $100/year. That's not a big deal IMHO, in
| terms of outgoings it barely registers above the noise
| floor. YMMV.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Who the fuck knows ? And how is that even remotely a
| useful question to ask - it's not answerable, those who
| commit the scam are the only people with the figures, and
| there's no "register of fuckers who scam other people"
| where they have to tell you how well they do.
|
| Um, why do crime statistics have to come from the
| perpetrators rather than from the victims? The victims
| report the crimes, duh.
|
| Anyway, you spent a lot of words avoiding my question,
| which is how exactly does vendor lockdown stop the
| Nigerian prince scam? You're arguing that vendor lockdown
| is supposed to protect consumers, but you can't seem to
| explain how or how often.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| > Um, why do crime statistics have to come from the
| perpetrators rather than from the victims? The victims
| report the crimes, duh.
|
| You asked for (quoting) "Exactly how many people have
| fallen for the scam, out of all computer users". Not
| every crime is reported, duh.
|
| > Anyway, you spent a lot of words avoiding my question
|
| Nope. I _can 't_ answer the question because it's non-
| answerable. If you believe that _nobody_ has ever fallen
| for phishing, Nigerian-prince, etc. etc. scams, well, I
| don 't know what colour the sky is on your world, but
| it's not the same as on mine...
|
| If you further believe that allowing everyone root access
| to devices that are also linked directly to their bank
| accounts, social security numbers, driving licenses, etc.
| etc. Then again, sky colour becomes an issue.
|
| You seem technically savvy. I do not believe you are
| typical of the average phone user. I think the
| restrictions in place are a necessary tragedy of the
| commons, to prevent the destruction of trust in the
| system as a whole.
|
| As I said, YMMV, and I'm not saying I particularly like
| the situation, just that I think it's necessary, and
| opening up everything to everyone is a foolish,
| idealistic, and hopelessly naive idea.
| lapcat wrote:
| > You asked for (quoting) "Exactly how many people have
| fallen for the scam, out of all computer users". Not
| every crime is reported, duh.
|
| Not every crime is reported, but it's indisputable that a
| lot of crimes are reported. So give me a statistic, any
| reported statistic.
|
| > If you believe that nobody has ever fallen for
| phishing, Nigerian-prince, etc. etc. scams, well, I don't
| know what colour the sky is on your world, but it's not
| the same as on mine...
|
| How do you know this, except from reports by victims?
| That's what I'm asking for.
|
| And once again, you haven't explained the mechanism by
| which vendor lockdown prevents this scam. However many or
| few victims there are of the scam, precisely zero of them
| are helped by vendor lockdown. I'm not going to stop
| asking how to explain how vendor lockdown is event
| relevant here.
|
| > If you further believe that allowing everyone root
| access to devices that are also linked directly to their
| bank accounts, social security numbers, driving licenses,
| etc. etc.
|
| This is hand waving, and it's not clear how root access
| by the owner of the device somehow exposes userland data
| to criminals. Moreover, all of this data is on desktop
| computers, and it's mostly fine.
| dTal wrote:
| Interesting example. How does denying root to the user
| mitigate this attack?
| eviks wrote:
| > think it's bizarre that we treat computers as the most
| dangerous products in the world
|
| We do not? You don't even need a license to buy /operate a
| computer unlike with some other examples on your list
| lapcat wrote:
| By "we" I meant online commenters debating the issue of tech
| company device lockdown.
|
| I didn't mean "the law". To the contrary, the submitted
| article author was proposing that we pass laws giving greater
| individual consumer rights over their devices. But the big
| tech companies have been viciously fighting against consumer
| rights, such as the right to repair.
| eviks wrote:
| This is also strange as the commenters don't propose the
| measures that would correspond to viewing computers as more
| dangerous than guns (lockdown aren't that), but unlike with
| the law, I don't have a good simple illustration of that.
| lapcat wrote:
| > lockdown aren't that
|
| Vendor lockdown is that. Defenders of vendor lockdown
| argue that computer users need to be protected
| paternalistically from themselves.
|
| For some reason we accept that for computers, but nobody
| would accept refrigerators and ovens that only allow you
| to eat healthy foods, nobody would accept homebuilders
| controlling the doors of your house and having to approve
| anyone who comes in, etc. Why do computers get this
| special treatment of vendor lockdown, but not any other
| product?
| eviks wrote:
| Wow, ok, if you think this is on par with the lockdowns
| that the commenters support for guns (which I've
| previously proxied as ~ existing restrictions), then I'm
| not sure what to say
|
| > Why do computers get this special treatment of vendor
| lockdown, but not any other product?
|
| Of course they don't, plenty of other products are
| treated much more seriously by "us" (supporting lockdowns
| that limit your own use without supervision), some of
| them you've already listed
| lapcat wrote:
| You appear to be conflating two different things: legal
| mandates and vendor lockdown.
|
| There are legal mandates regarding the sale and use of
| certain products. For example, you have to be a minimum
| age to buy cigarettes and alcohol, stores in some
| localities can only sell alcohol during certain hours,
| bars have to close at a certain time, you can't drive
| drunk, you must wear a seatbelt, you can't exceed the
| speed limit, etc.
|
| But there are no vendor lockdowns in this regard. A
| cigarette will allow anyone to smoke it, a container of
| alcohol will allow anyone to drink it, you car still
| works if you're drunk and don't put on your seatbelt,
| etc. If your car made you take a breathalyzer test
| whenever you wanted to drive, or it didn't allow you to
| exceed the speed limit, that would be vendor lockdown.
|
| I discussed the issue in another comment: "The equivalent
| would be if you could only use specific brands of
| replacement chains, blades, tires, or bullets that are
| approved by the manufacturer, for which the manufacturer
| gets a cut of the sales of those replacements."
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42684134
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Yes, consumers do sometimes harm themselves by using these
| products. That's the price of freedom.
|
| "Freedom" is also a terrible argument for this. What does it
| even mean? Freedom from what? Freedom to do what? It's such a
| meaningless word you're going to lose half your audience just
| by bringing it up.
| diggan wrote:
| "Freedom - the condition of being free; the power to act or
| speak or think without externally imposed restraints"
|
| When the context is "digital devices", it becomes pretty
| clear what it means. You should be free to use it however you
| want, without externally imposed restraints.
|
| Locking down the device so much so users cannot run
| applications they've written themselves without the approval
| of the company who made it, isn't "freedom" as the required
| approval from the company breaks the "without externally
| imposed restraints" part.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > "Freedom - the condition of being free; the power to act
| or speak or think without externally imposed restraints"
|
| Yea, this is a nice thought if you don't live in society.
| However, it falls apart pretty rapidly once you realize
| "your freedom to stops at my freedom from". So it's a non-
| starter.
| diggan wrote:
| > Yea, this is a nice thought if you don't live in
| society
|
| Well, democracies are societies, and you have much
| freedom in (most of) those. Not sure where you live, but
| if possible, you can always try to vacation in one to
| experience it yourself :)
|
| > "your freedom to stops at my freedom from"
|
| I don't understand what this means, nor how it relates to
| having root access on your digital devices. Could you
| possibly explain this again? I want to understand.
| amelius wrote:
| Probably means something like: if you eat this donut then
| I cannot eat it, ergo your freedom and my freedom are at
| odds.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "The reason that computers are locked down by the vendors is
| not that computers are somehow more dangerous than other things
| we buy "
|
| It makes sense to allow the _buyer_ to responsibly lock out
| others. This is common in other products that could be
| dangerous. But allowing the _seller_ to lock out others, e.g.,
| competitors or the buyer, is a recipe for malfeasance, at the
| buyer's expense. Interestingly, with computers and pre-
| installed software, there is no option to lock out the sellers
| such as Apple or the companies that partner with sellers and
| pre-install software on the computers, such as Microsoft,
| Google, etc.
|
| "It's all about protecting their profits, not protecting us."
|
| It is interesting that the "protections" are not optional. It
| assumed _every_ buyer wants the protections from others _and
| also from themselves_ enabled by default, and also for
| protections from so-called "tech" companies to be _disabled_ by
| default. A remarkable coincidence.
|
| Perhaps if buyers were given the option to login as single user
| and change the default protections some (not all) might disable
| phoning home to Silicon Valley or Redmond. They might block
| unwanted access to their computers by so-called "tech"
| companies who sell them out as ad targets. The so-called "tech"
| companies and their customers (advertisers) from other peoples'
| computers might be locked out.
|
| Indeed letting buyers lock out whomever they choose might
| diminish the profits of so-called "tech" companies.
|
| In the past HN commenters often sidestepped the question of
| these "protections" as self-serving and argued that so-called
| "tech" companies serve the "majority" of computer users and in
| fact these "protections" are what computer users want even
| though these users were never asked or given the choice to opt-
| out. If that were true then allowing a "minority" of users to
| control the protections themselves, i.e., operate as root,
| would only affect a minority of profits.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| > I think it's bizarre that we treat computers as the most
| dangerous products in the world that for some reason demand
| paternalism, when none of these other products are locked down
| by the vendor.
|
| That's because there are _people_ behind every product, and the
| _people_ behind computers tend to be the paternalistic, nanny-
| state type. Just read through the histrionics in any HN thread
| about leaf blowers, they want every landscaper locked up and
| their tools of the trade taken away. Someone once suggested
| they should be forced to use rakes. Imagine if some landscaper
| insisted what laptop you should use.
|
| As you wouldn't expect to find many in-the-Army buzz-cut guys
| roaming the Google campus as you would at a gun company, you
| wouldn't expect some blue-haired face-pierced sales engineer
| selling you table saws.
|
| It's a cultural thing, nothing more.
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| Locking them down also makes supporting them *FAR* simpler.
| amelius wrote:
| Computers can be dangerous, but the solution is not to let the
| vendor control security. It is to allow third parties to
| provide security products.
| stavros wrote:
| Every time this issue comes up, an army of people who've never
| unlocked a phone comes out of the woodwork to talk about their
| theoretical fears of malware and piracy and rain falling from the
| sky if you dare to own your device.
|
| If you've never unlocked a phone, please educate yourself on how
| the process works before opining. It's really not as terrifying
| as you imagine.
| dmichulke wrote:
| On the contrary, unlocking the bootloader might also be not as
| possible as you imagine.
|
| Happened twice to me:
|
| Once the URL for getting the key did not exist anymore.
|
| The other time it was disallowed after some time by the
| company.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Contrarian take: you bought the device, that you knew already did
| not provide that, from a company who has priced in not having to
| support rooted devices, and who had priced in your future revenue
| from extras. The company can't complain if you find a way to root
| it (and they don't), but they're under no obligation to add in
| this extra feature you're asking for. If you want a mostly-open
| handheld device, they're for sale, you should buy one of those.
| jmb99 wrote:
| I agree. The gist of the main arguments I see in this thread
| are that average people should be trusted to choose whether or
| not they will unlock their device. Yet, a group of (presumably)
| some of the most technically savvy people on the internet can't
| figure out how to buy open products? If you don't want a
| locked-down computer, don't buy a Mac. Clearly, many, many
| people do, so why should they have that taken away from them
| because of someone else's ideals?
| user_7832 wrote:
| It is possible for something to still be very good despite
| restrictions (e.g. m series MacBooks). It's also reasonable
| to "complain" if the device you purchased isn't truly in
| "your" control (eg forced OTA updates).
|
| Also a minor nit: > Yet, a group of (presumably) some of the
| most technically savvy people on the internet can't figure
| out how to buy open products?
|
| This isn't necessarily fair. When I bought my iPad (my first
| apple device) I could try it at an Apple store where there's
| only so much you can realise. How are the speakers? Is the
| screen bright? How quickly does YouTube/websites open?
|
| What I did not realise until much later was that even
| something as "basic" as downloading a couple of MP3 and
| playing them is bizarrely hard on iOS. Or that alarms have no
| option to gently rise, and are designed to give you a heart
| attack. Or that you can't even set your own song/music as an
| alarm (unless you've paid apple money for their music
| services, very conveniently).
|
| Would I have still bought an iPad if I knew all these? Maybe.
| But maybe I'd have gotten a basic model. Or maybe I'd just
| use an android tablet - the details are irrelevant here. But
| there's a _lot_ of things about an OS that are obscure.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > If you don't want a locked-down computer, don't buy a Mac
|
| I'd be bothered to respect your opinion if there were
| competitors whose build quality were better than dogshit.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong but the base AOSP android rom allows
| bootloader unlocking by default. OEMs need to go out of their
| way to restrict it.
|
| Also, most manufacturers consider the warranty void of the
| bootloader has been unlocked. There's definitely no service
| (costs) for them on that front, and I'd be amazed if even 0.1%
| of all customers unlocked the bootloader (for it to be big
| enough to notice for any company).
| rollcat wrote:
| > you bought the device, that you knew already did not provide
| that, from a company who has priced in not having to support
| rooted devices, and who had priced in your future revenue from
| extras.
|
| This argument falls apart when 99% of the desirable devices do
| not have this option. It's not even about compromising on
| optional-but-important features, like having access to your
| bank - the "1%" devices usually do not even have a secure
| hardware element that handles full-disk encryption, leaving
| your most-personal data (that you carry with you everywhere you
| go, thus exposing it to additional risk) vulnerable.
|
| > If you want a mostly-open handheld device, they're for sale,
| you should buy one of those.
|
| Yeah, almost none of those are actually compelling. There's the
| Pixel series and GrapheneOS, but these devices are huuuge (they
| simply don't fit in my single hand!), and I don't want to give
| even more money to Google :S
|
| In an ideal world, you should be able to simply root any of
| your devices on demand, in exchange for wiping the storage
| clean, losing your warranty, and any expectation of
| protection/privacy/extra features. Then it's up to you (and/or
| a third-party OS provider) to take care of that yourself.
|
| The problem with that route is that only a tiny fraction of
| users are actually interested in that, there's value to lose in
| accidental rooting (users get angry about lost features), and
| there's no value to gain.
|
| This is where regulation could come in.
| jerjerjer wrote:
| Fully agreed. I was thinking of something similar, only I was
| calling it "Right to execute", similarly to the "Right to
| repair". I'm buying a general computing device. It's ridiculous
| I'm artificially limited in using it for the main purpose of
| making shareholders rich.
|
| Ideally I'd add a mandatory toolchain to that. At least a C
| compiler which should be able to target a device I own.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| I just call it "Software Freedom", like GNU has since the 80s:
|
| > the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it
| instead of it controlling you
|
| I don't necessarily endorse all of Stallman's philosophy on
| software. But I think in this point at least he was very
| prescient.
| solatic wrote:
| The way to balance security and freedom is with a hardware
| switch. By default, keep secure boot etc. But if someone opens
| the case, takes out the battery, and moves a little switch on the
| board? Start with a fresh, unprotected context. Because it's a
| hardware switch, it can't be remotely hacked. An adversary who
| gets the hardware anyway can get control (are we going to pretend
| otherwise?). So just do the right thing and make it easier for
| people to take over their own hardware.
| cube2222 wrote:
| > are we going to pretend otherwise?
|
| aren't we in fact pretending otherwise?
|
| Right now I believe that stolen iPhones are effectively bricks
| (barring state-level actors with unpatched zero-days)?
| dinozarw wrote:
| The amount of hand-waving in this comments section is truly
| outstanding. Then again, it shouldn't really surprise me
| considering how many HN users work for the very companies that
| profit from vendor lockdown. "You will own nothing and you will
| be happy!"
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > I believe consumers, as a right, should be able to install
| software of their choosing to any computing device that is owned
| outright.
|
| I agree with this, as well as most (or all) of the other stuff
| mentioned in that article.
|
| However, sometimes it might be reasonable to have a switch inside
| that you must unscrew it (using a commonly available screwdriver,
| rather than an obscure one) to switch it (and then later be able
| to switch it back), in order to enable some functions (e.g. to be
| able to upgrade EEPROM, or to bypass a secure boot loader). If
| the user puts glitter on it, then this allows the user to detect
| tampering, while remaining secure and allowing full control.
| nicman23 wrote:
| No. This does not happen with anything else except phones. If
| you brick a laptop it is a 30 dollar fix on any local shop. The
| same cannot be said with any locked down device.
| whs wrote:
| I remember how I flashed my Nintendo DS.
|
| In the back of the device there's a sticker over a screwhole.
| You'll need to poke a screwdriver in there, but inside is not a
| screw. It's an electrical contact to make the ROM read-write
| which your screwdriver needs to bridge, and stay bridged while
| the firmware is flashing (It is harmless if the contact is loss
| in the process, but I don't know if it would be safe to abort
| at that point) Pretty hard to convince someone to do that
| process, yet doable by anyone with a flathead screwdriver.
|
| I guess nowadays it become Samsung's e-fuse where if you flash
| it blow an e-fuse and the status of the fuse is now detectable
| with software. Then apps can refuse to service people just
| because the custom firmware fuse was blown.
| dusted wrote:
| > I believe consumers, as a right, should be able to install
| software of their choosing to any computing device that is owned
| outright.
|
| While I agree, I think even legislation will not fix this,
| because what is a computing device, and who decides what is and
| what is not ? I'm sure apple will argue that nothing they sell
| should be considered computing devices. While the hacker will
| consider anything they can trick into arbitrary code to be one
| (is your fridge a computing device?)
|
| If we go the legal route, I think the only way is to give the
| right to flash firmware of _ANYTHING_ that has programmable bits,
| and that's probably not going to fly either because lots of
| legislation already dictates users should be prohibited and
| prevented.
| reshlo wrote:
| > I'm sure apple will argue that nothing they sell should be
| considered computing devices.
|
| "What's a computer?"
| perlgeek wrote:
| > While I agree, I think even legislation will not fix this,
| because what is a computing device, and who decides what is and
| what is not ?
|
| If there is legislation, it will contain a definition of what
| is a computing device and what isn't. It will be imperfect, and
| the edge cases will be contested in courts. Courts deal with
| blurry boundaries all the time.
|
| That's how it always is with legal matters, and doesn't mean we
| have to demand that anything with a firmware must be flashable.
| dusted wrote:
| What I mean is that I think this is the fastest way to end
| the era of widely-available general-purpose-computing devices
| that we are currently in (and that is currently ending, but
| at a glacial speed).
|
| It's not that hard to imagine a version of the world where
| computers as we know them do not exist, but are mere
| appliances (like tablets and smartphones), and if companies
| feel threatened that they might be forced to open up their
| computing devices, they will be quick to make them not fall
| under the definition.
|
| Instead of a smartphone, you will get a "Can telephone and
| access facebook and instasnap" device with whatever technical
| cripplement is needed to make it not a computing device and
| be exempt from the law. And as the general public and justice
| system is pretty ignorant with regard to technology, it's
| going to be pretty resource intensive to convince a judge why
| every gadget around that suddenly identifies as "not a
| computing device" is in fact on anyway.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| That's easily solved.
|
| Just scope the law to any device that can run code, and
| have the criteria for control be "the user must never have
| less control over code execution as the manufacturer does
| after the sale".
|
| So, for example, if someone buys a phone from Apple they
| will get full control of the entire device (SEP/TEE
| included) because Apple has the ability to exercise post-
| sale code execution control to that level (they hold the
| private keys required).
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Does that apply to those biometric readers issued to me
| by the government? If not, why not? Can I have a root on
| my car to disable ISA? Why not, if not? Do you see the
| problem?
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| I don't really see the problem. I find it perfectly
| acceptable for people to be able to change every single
| thing about their cars. If it's an illegal mod you can
| let the law deal with it.
| blueflow wrote:
| German here - I do believe this legislation already exists -
| the owner of a thing has full rights of disposal and no other
| entity is allowed to interfere (except for the state itself).
| And this is part of the common property rights. afaik the
| property rights in the US are even stronger.
|
| But i wonder, why these rights do not seem to be enforced on
| computing devices. Either everyone is failing to assert their
| property rights or i am in the wrong here. Probably the latter.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| > I think the only way is to give the right to flash firmware
| of _ANYTHING_ that has programmable bits
|
| This seems reasonable to me. What's wrong with it?
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| We should thank all the major copyright holders for that. They
| are the reason many devices have been crippled. Because for them,
| the real enemy is the user, - that is you, my dear friend. They
| assume you to be a criminal by default, you know, like some crazy
| feminists assume all men are rapists just because they have a
| penis. Chop your penis off to prove you are not a rapist! Use
| your device without root access to prove you are not a filthy
| pirate who is "stealing" money from poor copyright holders who
| can barely afford women, yaughts and coke they are used to.
| jopsen wrote:
| > I believe consumers, as a right, should be able to install
| software of their choosing to any computing device that is owned
| outright.
|
| That's easy to say, but hard to legislate, and impossible to
| enforce.
|
| There is so much firmware around, small binary blobs burned into
| micro controllers that can't even be updated. Or that isn't
| intended to be updated.
|
| There are probably even dimmable LED bulbs without IoT features
| that still have a microcontroller.
|
| Because a tiny microcontroller is the cheapest way to add logic
| to anything.
|
| I'm not sure it isn't a good idea. Just not sure we grasp the
| ramifications.
| raxxor wrote:
| I think a definition would exclude uC, dsps asics, fpga, etc.
| While most of those have the ability to program themselves, not
| all programs support such features.
|
| And for external programming you need programming devices who
| would also need physical interfaces where no standard connector
| exists.
|
| But a definition for general purpose computing devices wouldn't
| be harder than to craft legislation that requires my banking
| app to run on a certified shitty app environment.
| palata wrote:
| > and impossible to enforce.
|
| You don't have to enforce it for every single manufacturer and
| every single product. If you enforce it for Apple, Samsung and
| a couple other big Android brands, you'll get most smartphones.
|
| Now whether it is a good idea or not, I don't know. But if you
| wanted to enforce it, I think it wouldn't be too hard. Banks
| get a ton of regulations and have to apply them all the time.
| Surely Apple or Samsung could do that, too.
| anfilt wrote:
| I have talked about this before. The issue goes further in my
| opinion and starts to effect property rights themselves. In
| particular locked down hardware starts to effect the owners right
| of exclusion. The right of exclusion loosely is the right include
| or exclude something from/usesing some property. When the
| hardware is locked down the owner can know longer solely make
| those decisions. Instead in the instance of like an iDevice Apple
| makes those choices instead of the owner by only allowed code
| they have signed or signatures they allow.
|
| An other post I have posted regarding this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39349288
| grishka wrote:
| The problem is larger than that, it's the IT industry's obsession
| with denying users the ability to evaluate their own risks and
| take their own responsibility. You do that all the time every day
| in most other areas of life, but somehow interacting with
| technology is different. The manufacturer always knows better.
| Don't want to have a time component to your biometric
| authentication because you know your risks? Too bad. Google and
| Apple know better. Password is required to unlock Touch ID.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I doubt any Apple engineer is very against the idea that an
| iPad user roots it. It's more like the legal and financial
| mindset. Legal doesn't want trouble and can shoot anyone who it
| doesn't like with law bullets, Finance just want MAW $$$.
| ptman wrote:
| "no user serviceable parts inside"
| dmurray wrote:
| The argument that an iPad runs substantially the same OS and
| hardware as a MacBook weakens the authors case instead of
| strengthening it.
|
| You _can_ buy from Apple a computer that 's locked down (an
| iPad), or a computer that's not locked down by the author's
| definition (a MacBook). It's a matter of consumer choice, not the
| company insisting on control of your devices.
|
| The non-locked-down machines come in a different form factor than
| the locked-down ones - they usually have a physical keyboard and
| a larger form factor to accommodate that. This is partly for
| historical reasons, but very largely also for consumer choice -
| and also it makes sense that on the more flexible machine users
| are more likely to need a keyboard. This is all fine, you can't
| expect every company to sell their products with every
| combination of features.
|
| I find more convincing the arguments about e-waste, but they need
| to be framed like that: sometimes we should mandate consumers get
| something they don't particularly want, for the greater good.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| The reason why this will never happen is simply due to things
| like DRM.
|
| We right now have ENCRYPTED signal going from our computer to our
| displays, not just computers, but phones too SIMPLY to prevent
| people from dumping raw data.
|
| All of that extra processing done just so you're allowed to for
| ex: watch netflix with a resolution higher than 720p. Then
| comically there's Chinese capture cards that you plug your GPU
| into, use mirroring mode and completely bypass it.
|
| DRM is just one example, there's many more motivations such as
| preventing paid apps / pay for currency games from having these
| things given for free. This is the primary reason why iOS devices
| make significantly more money than android as it's near
| impossible to pirate / hack / crack for an average user.
| maniacwhat wrote:
| Perhaps it imposes some restrictions, like using TPMs, but I
| don't think it excludes what the author is suggesting, which is
| the ability to run as root.
|
| Case in point: every popular desktop PC let's you run as root,
| and also watch DRM content. They aren't totally mutually
| exclusive.
| margana wrote:
| You can't play 4K Netflix on Linux, period. Because of DRM.
| Before you say "this is just a Netflix issue" - you can't
| play 4K Prime Video on Linux either. Nor 4K Disney+. And many
| other services. Piracy is the only way to watch most 4K
| streaming content on Linux. You may have the most capable and
| up-to-date hardware on the market, you still can't.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, that realization is what killed my attempt at
| replacing my Nvidia Shield TV with my home-built SteamOS
| box. I got everything "working" in the most technical
| sense, but I was limited to 720p on Hulu, and that ended up
| driving us crazy. I know that the box is _capable_ of
| streaming 4K video just fine, because I was able to stream
| my 4K Blu-ray rips from my Jellyfin server just fine, so
| this limitation is purely artificial.
|
| I did do some experimentation with VMs and emulation and
| whatnot, but I never got anything that worked consistently
| enough to use full-time, so I bit the bullet and plugged my
| Nvidia Shield TV back in.
| beefnugs wrote:
| There is nothing stopping anyone from selling an HSM (hardware
| security module) that can decode their protected video without
| fisting the control into the computer itself
| cakealert wrote:
| I suspect DRM will eventually be self defeating. For example, I
| prefer to torrent content just so that I can get stuff to play
| using my media player of choice (and the instant seeks) without
| any hassle. Most normal people probably aren't even aware this
| is an option.
|
| But with cryptocurrencies normalizing it's only a matter of
| time before a paid piracy service emerges that is both cheaper,
| simpler and better than Netflix or any other streamer. Some
| arguably already have.
|
| DRM was being broken for years without even a monetary
| incentive, with one it won't stand a chance.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think in the not too far future, every electronics device
| will be locked down. Laptops and desktops can be locked down
| too. The technology is already there. They can also throw in AI
| for recommendations i.e. lock down users' mind too. Think what
| this is going to do to the next generation if they start using
| electronic products from 6.
|
| For example, if anyone is interested, check out the computers
| Chinese governments are using right now. They are basically
| large mobile phones running some sort of Linux, but the whole
| thing is locked down. Fortunately things are OK on the
| commercial side but again it's more and more difficult to root
| or unlock a device.
|
| And now the Western states are following suite, except it's the
| corporations that are leading the charge.
|
| If they achieve this, and wipe out all commercial electronics
| distributors such as Mouse, then we need another underground
| railway movement to teach people to scavenge and build
| computers in that Dark Age.
|
| I'm not joking. This could be real. It's already shaping.
| rednafi wrote:
| Computers have sharp edges, and people often throw hissy fits
| when things break. Manufacturers infantalize consumers to dodge
| lawsuits. Then companies like Apple take it too far by building
| walled gardens where devices don't have proper file systems,
| locking you out of your own files.
| therealmarv wrote:
| Banking, some government and crypto apps on Android think: no
|
| They sometimes actively search for root evidence.
| fiso64 wrote:
| I'm actually confused about why banks are so aggressive in
| denying users the ability to use their apps while rooted.
| Unlike Google and Apple I can't think of any financial
| incentives for this, and the security argument is quite
| obviously nonsense, as I don't think there has been a single
| person in history who managed to fall for a scam that made them
| follow the complicated procedure of rooting a smartphone.
| Nevertheless there is a clear continuous effort in developing
| new root detection methods to keep me from using their apps.
| adolph wrote:
| > to fall for a scam that made them follow the complicated
| procedure of rooting
|
| If you are unable to imagine how a 3rd party might root a
| device without the principal being aware of it, then maybe it
| is a shortcoming of your risk survey, not theirs.
| pimterry wrote:
| Rooting an Android device generally requires completely
| wiping it and reinstalling the OS. It's quite impractical
| to do secretly!
|
| I think in any scenario where the principal can do that
| without you noticing (which means things like reinstalling
| & logging you back into all your apps, logging the device
| into your google account successfully, restoring all your
| device settings, re-adding your fingerprint or device pin
| to unlock the device, etc) then it's game over regardless.
| If they can do that, they could get into your bank app
| anyway, or they could easily just replace your phone with
| another one entirely, and now you're just logging into your
| bank on a stranger's phone.
|
| Barring a _very_ major Android zero-day (which probably
| would evade attestation anyway) unexpected rooting of your
| device is really not a plausible attack scenario.
| whs wrote:
| I believe the root detection is a form of security-by-
| obscurity. Bank applications are required to be obfuscated,
| so you can't simply statically decompile them. The other way
| to do that is to run the app and set runtime breakpoints,
| which you can't do on production firmware.
|
| Once the application is decompiled the attacker then can
| proceed to pentest the bank backend, or find any frontend-
| only security measures to bypass. One attack I heard in local
| news is not even a hack at all - they simply make script that
| use the mobile application API to automatically move money
| between sock puppet bank accounts. Once a victim get scammed,
| the money move around quickly. For privacy banks do not
| provide information about unrelated cross-bank transfers so
| even cops can't easily trace the multiple hops. That specific
| bank got in the news for that "weak security"
| pmdr wrote:
| What's even worse is that some won't even let you take a damn
| screenshot. "Disabled by your administrator." If that doesn't
| scream the fact that my device is in fact owned by someone
| else, I don't know what is.
| therealmarv wrote:
| With root + LSPosed + this LSPosed module
|
| https://github.com/LSPosed/DisableFlagSecure
|
| it works in every app again on YOUR phone. I also have root
| and all my banking apps work _currently_ ... but it 's a cat-
| and-mouse game.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| It helps to keep a burner phone just for those. We don't use
| them everyday anyway.
| andrewla wrote:
| I'm not entirely aligned with this article, though I think the
| principle is correct.
|
| I do think that it should never be illegal to tamper with a
| device that you own in any way that you find acceptable.
|
| But I do not feel that manufacturers have any obligation to make
| this easy or possible.
|
| It should be completely legal to hack your devices and to
| distribute tools and instructions for hacking devices without
| limitation.
| i5heu wrote:
| But the question here is if it should be illegal for
| manufacturers to make the modify a product.
|
| The difference is between a locked down boot loader and one
| that is just a standard boot loader.
| andrewla wrote:
| Right -- and that I don't agree with. My concern is laws that
| make it illegal to modify products you own or to offer advice
| or tools to people who wish to modify products they own.
| Similarly, arrangements like leases and limited licenses that
| convey some aspects of "ownership" but not complete ownership
| should also be severely restricted.
|
| In general if there are no legal recourses to go after people
| who modify their devices, then it makes it more appealing for
| manufacturers to allow a supported opt-out method because
| that reduces the incentives to compromise their products with
| out-of-band methods.
|
| So I'd prefer to take an indirect route of empowering
| customers rather than requiring manufacturers to do
| additional work to free up their products.
| adolph wrote:
| What the author calls "double standard" could be reframed as
| "consumer choice." A vendor sells different devices. Some have
| provisions to make changes to the bootloader and some don't.
|
| The phrase "have provisions to make changes" is on purpose. It
| has not yet been proven to me that a change to an iPad's
| bootloader function is impossible. It certainly isn't as easy as
| that of Mac, but the skill/effort required is a gradient.
|
| This is similar to "soldered" storage. This was commonly thought
| of as impossible until it was demonstrated that a Mac will
| happily accept updated storage changed out with a hot air rework
| device. This method is certainly higher skill/effort/risk than
| remembering when to terminate 50pin SCSI, but shows that when a
| hacker has a will, there is a way.
|
| Is it ironic that as computing devices become easier to use, they
| also require higher skill to fix and modify? No, more likely
| there is an iron rule that when a device's external complexity is
| contained, the inner workings of that thing become more complex.
| Complexity did not decrease but was hidden.
|
| Does a grandfather clock and a tourbillon wristwatch encapsulate
| the same/similar general principles of timekeeping? Sure. If one
| has the skill to update parts of the grandfather clock, are those
| same skills sufficient for the wristwatch? Probably not. Should
| wristwatches be banned because people who update grandfather
| clocks do not have the skills to modify them? Surely not, that
| would be absurd.
|
| Likewise, demanding root in a form you find acceptable is absurd.
| If you can't take root one a device you possess, it's a skill
| issue for you to address not the vendor.
| adolph wrote:
| > Devices that are locked become e-waste once a manufacturer
| stops supporting them. This keeps happening like clockwork:
|
| > Spotify's Car Thing
|
| Contrary to the author's claim, Car Thing is a great example of
| what can happen with abandoned hardware. The device did not
| become e-waste when the manufacturer stopped supporting it. There
| is a lively community of people modifying and updating software
| and doing really interesting things. I lack one only because I
| missed the $15 price nadir and they are relatively high priced in
| the secondary market.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=Spotify+Car+Thing
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/carthinghax/
| alkonaut wrote:
| From a consumer rights and environmental standpoint I agree. But
| it's important that only the actual _owner_ of the device can do
| this, and not just the person in possession of the device. You
| don 't want to make stolen devices be anything but paperweights.
| But so long as I (the owner) select the passphrase for unlocking
| it I don't see a problem.
| looneysquash wrote:
| Yes, I agree.
|
| And I'd go even further, and limit the ability of devices to not
| be "owned outright", since that sound like a loophole. I do not
| want a EULA interfere with these rights.
| bkummel wrote:
| Hear, hear!
| stainablesteel wrote:
| this would be great for cars too, i don't want a vehicle selling
| my data, or even collecting it in the first place
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I'm always amazed at the number of folks who are really, really
| mad that there exist products and services not intended for them.
|
| If you are a very technical person, and you want to have root on
| every device you own, then iOS is not for you. That's ok. Android
| exists!
|
| But iOS as an appliance-level, walled-garden environment is
| absolutely perfect FOR MOST USERS. And that's fine.
|
| Nursing a grudge because Apple makes products that include
| choices that YOU PERSONALLY don't like is incredibly weird and
| entitled. Just buy something else! There are options!
| elzbardico wrote:
| This ship has sailed a long time ago.
|
| Thanks the MPAA and RIAA.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| If I buy my grandma a device that is locked down in a way that
| NOBODY (including her, under the patient guidance of a scammer on
| the phone) can root, that is my choice. If you want a device that
| can be unlocked, the world is full of android tablets. Go wild.
| Some of us want an un-rootable device!
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The main exception to this, I believe, would be for critical
| systems where compromising operation through software
| modification presents too high a risk. Examples I'm thinking of
| include: > certain medical devices, such as
| implants and insulin pumps > subsets of electronic
| control units for cars
|
| These are precisely the opposite of what should be exceptions. If
| you have a pacemaker implanted in your body, you need the right
| to replace whatever software is running on it _before_ the
| manufacturer goes out of business and takes the signing keys with
| them.
|
| There exists no thing where the owner of the device should not
| have the right to replace the software it runs, and the more
| safety-critical the device the more important the right.
| mattxxx wrote:
| Personally, I think everything should be hackable, however...
|
| Limiting the ability to _easily_ modify what's running on a
| system is more about public cyber-health than the individual's
| freedom. Viruses + malware much more easily infect systems when
| they are running outside of a sandbox.
| curvaturearth wrote:
| At the very least there should be the right to unlock and use a
| device after it loses support. A whole ecosystem of software
| could exist (and does in some cases) to help support or repurpose
| old devices. If the hardware is still good for something, let it
| be used! I'm still using my MacBook Pro 2013 and it is fine. I
| worry I will not be able to do this with Apple's newer laptops.
| In addition, I want to be able to use my Sonos hardware after
| Sonos inevitably discontinues support. More realistically I'll
| eventually have to stop using my Sonos speaker, and realizing
| this I will never buy another Sonos product.
| medhir wrote:
| OP here. Really glad to see others engaging with this topic, I
| wrote up this post because I felt like there wasn't anything out
| there that was advocating for unlocked hardware as part of the
| discussion on "right to repair".
|
| As someone that works in security, I fully understand the need
| for sane defaults that protect the average user. I even advocate
| in the article that we should keep these defaults in place for
| the most part.
|
| What I tend to not understand is the argument that there should
| be _no option_ for more enterprising users to access their
| hardware at the lowest levels because we need to protect the
| average consumer. It may be a footgun for some, but that 's sort
| of the point. I expect to be able to modify something I own,
| whether it's to my detriment or not.
|
| My argument isn't that root access should be the default, but at
| the very least it should be an option. I just don't think it's
| right that we've normalized corporations blocking the ability to
| load / inspect software, which often is marketed as a safety or
| privacy thing, but is arguably more a business decision meant to
| protect profit margins.
| tonymet wrote:
| A libertarian and consumer friendly right-to-repair (RTR) /
| right-to-own (RTO) governance model could be something like
| Orthodox Union or UL but for consumer devices
|
| The Right-to-Repair union RTR-U could be a simple authority with
| access to the keys to unlock the device if the vendor breaches
| certain commitments. Various levels of commitment could be
| offered similar to copy-left. The basic / lowest level would be
| "can unlock if the company dies". Higher commitments could be
|
| will unlock if ...
|
| company starts telemetry
|
| company changes licensing
|
| company stops providing timely firmware updates.
|
| This way consumers are guaranteed a certain quality of service
| and access on their devices. Then vendors get a stamp of approval
| (like OU or UL) with the level of certification like RTR-open,
| RTR-private , RTR-long-terms-support etc.
|
| This governance operates within private enterprise while
| consumers are offered the option to buy into vendors who commit
| to right-to-repair and right-to-own.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Because they just want to extract more $$ from the consumers.
|
| I'm OK to void any guarantee if I can root it easily, TBH.
| notorandit wrote:
| Yes, please! Unfortunately, your smartphone doesn't (really)
| belong to you. It's a shared property between the hardware maker,
| the low level software producer (Qualcomm or Apple), the os owner
| (Google or Apple) and maybe finally you.
|
| Undocumented hardware plus closed source drivers for almost
| everything make all this possible.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-13 23:01 UTC)