they also force you to give a recovery account. i’m thinking microsoft’s hands are tied in this matter, it might be the government forcing a kyc strategy

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xg15 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"KYC" simply for operating your own PC?

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lenerdenator 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Of course. How else are they to know that you posted criticism of the President on the internet?

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DaSHacka 13 hours ago | parent [-]

So far there haven't been any instances of that, from what I'm aware of.

A particular foreign nation, on the other hand...

	▲	lenerdenator 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That's the goal, though. The current batch of elite have come up in a place where they have no real incentive to act in any way except that of their choosing. They're also exceedingly thin-skinned. If they think they can get away with ruining people who criticize them online, they'll do so.

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notavalleyman 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Which government? And what's your evidence

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tupac_speedrap 16 hours ago | parent [-]

It's an open secret that Windows is backdoored for the NSA to be fair and that isn't even including the truly dodgy stuff like Intel Management Engine being a backdoor on a BIOS level with remote access

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DaSHacka 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Do you have a source for literally any of those allegations?

I'm as big of a Windows and ME hater as they come, but I'm not aware of any proven backdoors in either. Especially ME, which has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by the security community by this point. The only 'backdoor' discovered was the undocumented killswitch command that disables it after initialization.

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fsflover 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Especially ME, which has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by the security community by this point.

Links? Activists say the opposite, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Assert...

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fsflover 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not the parent, but have you heard of Snowden leaks? Also this from the old times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

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0x1d7 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Snowden says nothing about backdoor'ed Windows.

And _NSAKEY... There is no evidence that it was ever part of a backdoor. But it is good for a laugh.

	▲	fsflover 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's safe to assume that Windows is backdoored, as it's closed, not audiatable and is a part of PRISM. It's not a proof, but this is how good opsec works. And yes, this is not equivalent to what the parent said, but your reaction should be similar.

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Telemakhos 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple doesn't force you to create an AppleID unless you want to use Music and the App Store. You can still run macOS as a standalone local user. So, it's not government-forced KYC.

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opan 14 hours ago | parent [-]

I believe on my Mac (non-primary machine, FWIW) I ended up signing into an Apple account, and I doubt I did that for no reason. I don't rely on iCloud or spend money on apps. Is it required to get Xcode, which is required for some things from homebrew to work? You did mention the App Store, which maybe applies here. Is the App Store the only way to get Xcode?

	▲	mjevans 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, it's that. Xcode is the only reason I've ever touched an Apple account.