What a stupid argument. Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro, and stop bringing the rest of us down. And it doesn't even hold water as my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

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ben_w 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Maybe grandpas and grandmas should get a different phone then, like a Doro

They did, they got an iPhone.

> my mother has been scammed by legitimate App Store apps that have charged extra-fees just because they could.

Did it empty her bank balance by abusing the private NFC payment APIs that Apple are being ordered to open up?

Did it cryptolock all her files?

Did it activate the camera and mic to spy on her for blackmail?

These are things that we need to worry about with random things we download on desktop these days. It's not 2007 any more, I have an entire spare computer for untrusted software.

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tekkk 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don't want to get into politics but dont you think it's funny when you can purchase assault rifles, made for killing people, yet we are so afraid of having the poor individuals in control of their own phones. Or farming equipment - the list seems to keep growing.

It's just corporate propaganda that all hell would break loose, you could just offer installing baby mode at Apple physical store that can only be removed at said places. Yeah some people would still climb the fence and touch the power lines but look, can we save them all? Should we? In this world of merciless exploitation, wouldnt it be just fair we stopped pretending it never was about anything else but money?

	▲	ben_w 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I don't want to get into politics but dont you think it's funny when you can purchase assault rifles, made for killing people I'm British by birth, living in Berlin. We definitely think Americans are a bit "funny", in the not-at-all-funny sense of the word, about guns. > It's just corporate propaganda that all hell would break loose, you could just offer installing baby mode at Apple physical store that can only be removed at said places. Thing is, with computers, we've had decades of watching malware infect, destroy, corrupt, ransom, and blackmail. It's still happening, even. And we even have a way to get past "baby mode" restrictions: be a developer. But guess what? Developers also face supply chain attacks, because malware is everywhere. I do miss the olden days when I didn't need to care. A mac online in 2009 was worry-free.

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ohdeargodno 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>Did it empty her bank balance by abusing the private NFC payment APIs that Apple are being ordered to open up?

NFC payment APIs have been open on Android for decades and no such thing of the sort has ever happened. You cannot magically conjure up a payment from Apple Pay to <X> without user involvement and confirmation.

>Did it cryptolock all her files?

Apps do not have write access to all your files.

>Did it activate the camera and mic to spy on her for blackmail?

Every mobile device now has a giant notification saying that the device is using the microphone or recording video.

The disingenuous "having an open app store/not being locked in the walled garden is a security risk" is getting tiring, especially when it's basically all lies now. Unless your argument is that Apple is too incompetent to write APIs properly, in which case I wonder why you think that said APIs being private would prevent anything.

	▲	ben_w 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> NFC payment APIs have been open on Android for decades and no such thing of the sort has ever happened. Google is also getting legal action for monopoly abuse of their app store, so what's possible today on Android is not sufficient to say what's safe or not. Despite this, they're also already facing legal action for sharing too much data from Google Wallet. Fail on all directions at the same time. > Apps do not have write access to all your files. > Every mobile device now has a giant notification saying that the device is using the microphone or recording video. And this can't be circumvented ever, even when private APIs are no longer vetted? And none of the voices describing downloads warnings as "scare screens" aren't making the same demand on this? > The disingenuous "having an open app store/not being locked in the walled garden is a security risk" is getting tiring, especially when it's basically all lies now. Unless your argument is that Apple is too incompetent to write APIs properly, in which case I wonder why you think that said APIs being private would prevent anything. The disingenuous "force platforms to be open, there's no security risk" position was tiring decades ago when the iPhone was brand new, especially when it was obviously lies even then. Apple obviously isn't magically competent enough to write APIs properly, they had "goto fail" and all the jailbreaks we've seen in so many versions of iOS were specifically some random doc that users could install that included a way to escalate privileges, and even without that evidence we've also got access to the black market prices for zero-day exploits that for a long time showed they're cheaper than Android, and the obvious reason why this prevents "anything" is that "anything" is a massive subset of "everything".

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labcomputer 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Or maybe the iPhone should be that phone and those who don’t like the closed ecosystem should get something else?

Why would buy a phone that doesn’t work the way you like when alternatives exist?

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matheusmoreira 4 days ago | parent [-]

Because we want the iPhone on our terms.

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jen20 4 days ago | parent [-]

So? I want it on my terms, which are mutually exclusive to yours. Who wins?

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echelon 4 days ago | parent [-]

You can choose not to download anything.

We're asking to rewire the economics and regulatory framework, not change how you personally use your phone.

I don't care how you use your phone. I care how the world works.

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jen20 4 days ago | parent [-]

What you are proposing is the balkanization of software delivery.

I indeed choose not to download software from Facebook and friends, but it’s quite likely others will need to as it will become the only way to get their software. At that point: tracking out the ass.

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echelon 4 days ago | parent [-]

"Balkanization" is the wrong way to view this. This is waking up the regulatory arm of the government that has been asleep at the wheel. And it should have been done over a decade ago.

The better analogy is a forest fire. We're clearing up the overgrowth (ossification, unfair taxation, and unfair control) and creating room for new life to start and flourish.

> I indeed choose not to download software from Facebook and friends, but it’s quite likely others will need to as it will become the only way to get their software. At that point: tracking out the ass.

Don't like a negative externality? Tax and regulate it. It's what Europe does. And it's what we're good at doing in every industry except for the software industry. We need to stretch those muscles and get back into the habit of doing it.

We should pass regulations on giant social media companies as well.

But in a world where we have no software freedoms and where certain software tracks us, having software freedoms is the more important cause and it's where we must start our battle. You don't need to use Facebook, but you need to use a smartphone. New social media apps are started all the time (TikTok, Tea, etc.) but smartphones are trillion dollar moats.

Our smartphones are our gateway to digital life. They need to be liberated from Apple and Google. Mobile computing belongs to all of us.

	▲	jen20 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> "Balkanization" is the wrong way to view this. It's a perfectly valid way to view it. Forest fire might be another valid way to view it, but is different. Both are equally valid, and represent different views of what ideal is. > Tax and regulate it. It's what Europe does. I am European. Nice try though. > We need to stretch those muscles and get back into the habit of doing it. I don't disagree. Start there then. Make it so that tracking me incurs such a heavy penalty payable to me personally that it is not worthwhile. Then go after the distribution mechanisms that allow someone to live a relatively tracking-free life without having to be an uber-nerd to make it reality. > Mobile computing belongs to all of us. There are plenty of platforms. What you are saying is it belongs to the people who want it to be a certain way with particular negative outcomes for many people. I want it to be a different way with negative outcomes that affect me less.