It astounds me that purists still push this narrative despite all evidence to the country over decades of computing.

It is better for the vast majority of people that they don't have root access to their PC or phone or tablet because they are unequipped to securely manage that AND it has basically zero upside for them. They can't manage updates. They install random programs from the Internet to get smiley faces in Outlook.

This may offend your sensibilities. Sorry. But you're living in a fantasy land if you still hold onto this narrative, particularly without explaining to ordinary people how this will practically benefit them beyond theoretical platitudes about "freedom".

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barnabee a day ago | parent | next [-]

There's a difference between many people preferring not to have control over the device they own and it being illegal to have such control.

Yes, absolutely, most people would be better off not having that control and most of those people are also fine with not having it.

But everyone, for better or worse, has the right to demand that control if they want it.

	▲	jmyeet 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You do have that right. You just can't use banking apps in Vietnam on such devices. This is really no different to the antivaxxer arguments in the peak pandemic era. Some people didn't want vaccines. Fine. Well, not fine. None of it is based on any kind of rational argument but nobody was strapped down and forced to have one. But not having one meant there were certain jobs you couldn't have. Just like for decades unvaccinated children couldn't go to public school. You make a choice and if you don't like the consequences of that choice, that's a you problem.

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VortexLain a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If it's mandated that banking apps must not run in a user-controlled environment for the sake of security, users should have the right to refuse such "protection" by signing a piece of paperwork at the banks office.

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Paracompact a day ago | parent | prev [-]

So, let root access be opt-in rather than opt-out.

	▲	jmyeet 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Have you ever listened to any scammers operate? People are, for lack of a better word, stupid. They're far too trusting. Anything from Nigerian prince scams to buying Walmart gift cards and giving some random person the number to whatever. You might say "ah but this is social engineering" and that's true but so is "Hi, this is Brian from tech Support. We need you to change these settings and to install this app on your phone". Let me put it another way: how do you feel about backdoors into crypto? Just the existence of a backdoor creates an attack vector regardless of whether the designated users misuse use it or not. Just the ability to "opt in" to root access for almost everyone creates way more problems than it solves. And this is the key point: what benefit does it give users? Because nobody can really answer that other than some hand-waving about "freedom".