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Comment by jmull | Hacker News Reader

There’s a rather strong counter to this is:

I, and the vast majority of computer users, don’t want to manage every nitty-gritty detail of the security and privacy of my computer. I have better things to do. In fact, doing it fully competently is more than a full time job.

So farming this out to a third-party is a necessity, for me and many, many others.

Of course, it’s not perfect. How much can I trust the third party? How well can they prevent, fix, or remediate bugs, breaches, and other threats? How much do they even want to?

It’s not perfect, that’s for sure. We see bugs. We see potential tracking opportunities. We see difficult to work-around limitation...

But no one is offering a better solution. Not for me, that is, nor the vast majority of computer users.

If your response to this is “Look at the sheeple defending Apple!” you aren’t getting it.

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Oh c'mon, that is the oldest argument in the tool-box of Apple/MS "sheeple", as you put it. Most Linux distros don't require you to "manage every nitty-gritty detail" of anything. In fact, some of them make it easier for you to choose your privacy settings once and only during installation.

> I have better things to do.

Oh, mr. I'm-so-important, if ignoring your privacy and the rights to use your own machine is low on your priority list, you gotta respect those people who see it as something important, as well as their demand for something better. If you are fine with Apple/MS, great, use it. But don't try to take away the rights of others to look for something that better addresses their needs, and, especially, their right to try to tell others that it could work for them too.

A prison with golden walls is definitely safer and more convenient than freedom in the wilderness. The day the jail guards decide they don’t like you for some reason, you may start rethinking your lifestyle.

I’m 100% apple hardware atm, my first mac was the macintosh plus with 128kb ram, and i’m an iOS professional developer. Let me tell you that moving away from apple is not going to be easy for me, but with the recent trend in government behaviors (always in the name of Good and Security) i feel that i have no choice.

While I disagree that this is a strong counter, it does explain how this has happened.

People are lazy. They want their computer to show them pictures on Facebook, funny videos online and run some numbers for them. People don't want to care about stuff like privacy, because thinking gets in the way of fun and ease.

Malware has already bypassed Apple's signature mechanism and has been vetted to run by Apple as a result. The security and trust argument only works if Apple's security mechanisms work.

The vetting Apple is doing here is a solution looking for a problem. People have been installing third party applications forever, the ability to do so is a feature, not a bug. Instead of fixing the lacking antivirus software built into macOS, Apple is branding third party code as dangerous and untrustworthy.

I don't know anybody who cares about the problem this is solving, because it's a theoretical problem only tech literate people care about; the same tech literate people are also the people who run into this stuff the most. The reason that no one is offering a better solution is that there isn't a real problem that this solution is solving.

> lazy

It's not laziness. I want Apple to take responsibility for privacy and security mechanisms in the OS. I want them to be the experts on this. That's part of what I'm paying them for.

> The security and trust argument only works if Apple's security mechanisms work.

If a security mechanism isn't 100% effective that doesn't mean it doesn't have substantial value. Black and white thinking isn't a useful way to evaluate security (or privacy) mechanisms.

> Apple is branding third party code as dangerous and untrustworthy

I think the design of the code signing warning is good: If someone is unsophisticated enough to be frightened by that warning, they probably should be.

What I want is a council of wizards I can pay a monthly fee to and in return they will vet all the software updates I get on my computer. I want Bruce Schnier to be on that counsel, and ideally get all the major committers on major projects to review each others work. Do it transparently. I'd pay $100/mo for this service, maybe even more, since it is insurance on critical infrastructure. Could be a nice chunk of change for some deserving folk, too.

I own a company which manufactures and sells showerheads. Since the "vast majority" of people are prone to a fall while taking a shower, and since it is difficult to come up with a fool-proof solution against slipping and falling (who wants to get into the nitty-gritty of that?), my company also mandatorily installs a camera alongside, so that we can monitor for accidents.

Of course, it's not perfect. Some customers have raised concerns about their privacy, but this is for the greater good. My company is very ethical in its practices, and really values each customer's privacy (pinky promise). This is the best solution for everyone.

The footage of you and your loved ones showering is completely safe with us, although you can choose not to be recorded while showering by not purchasing our products.

Oh by the way, our showerheads are sleeker and more convenient than anything else in the market.

We get it. We want you to accept a "worse" experience and contribute to making it competitive. We don't "deserve" Apple, we chose it long ago (edit: many of us, because of problems with MS that Apple is now emulating) and it has changed to take advantage.

Computers are tools to do work.

Evangelists do nothing but attach a higher value to computers in an effort to convince others that they are not doing "work" and that their way is the right way.

You would be hard pressed to find a better tool to do your work than a Mac/iPad/iPhone in 2020.

> Computers are tools to do work.

They stopped being mere tools for work a long, long time ago. Computers are - apart from nowadays being ubiquitous in many everyday objects - sold as consumer appliances for end users to watch TV and store their personal photos, texts, correspondence and conversations.

And even if people stop doing that, computers are also used to do banking and contact government agencies, in many places so much so that they're _needed_ to do this, creating a massive lock-in for most people to accomplish everyday tasks.

I wonder how many people there'd be who'd really have to "do work" on computers if the above wasn't the case.

Haha, hard pressed to find something better than an apple product in 2020? C'mon, go to any computer/phone store and you'll have plenty of options, for a cheaper price and with better privacy.

> Computers are tools to do work.

What a despondent and dystopian attitude shift from "bicycles for the mind." If this is the modern attitude of Apple users, no wonder the products have also gone to shit.

>don’t want to manage every nitty-gritty detail of the security and privacy of my computer.

Good Linux distros have sane defaults managed by volunteers for you, so on OSes that respect your freedom you still don't have to do this.

I remember that third-party being anti-virus softwares. Then given enough time they basically became malware themselves, and we got rid of them for the most part.

Now that third-party is the computer vendor itself. Will we be able to get rid of them when they all start going down that path ?

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