App updates has always struck me as the big one.
I can't turn them off, I can't easily validate them, and there's little preventing an update just for my device being shipped.
I can't turn them off, I can't easily validate them, and there's little preventing an update just for my device being shipped.
Once the virus hit the news in Wuhan, and the protests started to dial down the updates got fewer and fewer. And with the closing of the border I haven’t gotten a carrier upgrade in months. As part of the 2 million + crowd I know I’m tracked like a rat. But that’s how cellphones work
Desktop apps are much worse in this regard.
The "welcome" should not be "all your data are belong to us". It should be "Hi, iCloud-Y/N, AutoUpdateOS-Y/N, Backup Message-Y/N, Backup Notes-Y/N, etc.).
I get it that for MANY reasons Apple wants everyone to run the latest OS/Apps versions, but.... did they ASK me?
Exiting their ecosystem is painful. Apple/Google rely on this. There are plenty of discussions on 'how to exit' and alternatives, but this is HN. The average HN-er is not exactly the same as the average smartphone user.
Without reproducible builds from multiple sources, how can we be sure of anything?
If there's a service we have a desperate need for, it's a change in ecosystem priorities that core functionality - OS's, chipsets, etc. - are open source, and updates go out as inspectable patches which get pulled into reproducible build farms and bittorrented out to users.
Start with C compilers and work your way outward from there, but I should be able to cryptographically prove to myself that the firmware update going into my Android phone was independently reproducible from public source code from users in a few different nations.