Right, Betamax much? It doesn’t really matter if one technology is objectively “better” on all aspects than another if the strategy to make it popular outpaces the other.
To be clear I wish you were right (even though I don’t find open source models to be free of problems) but I think the conclusion is a wish, not a logical one.
No.
Not because it’s not technically feasible but rather I would psychologically not manage to make money knowing my portfolio, either directly or via EFTs, makes me money by profiteering of BigTech or surveillance capitalism.
Full disclosure : I did have Apple and NVIDIA stocks and I did sell them not because they were not making money (there sure were) but because I felt disgusted by HOW they made money.
PS: KYC and related laws in a lot of countries demand you use your real information and declare your earnings, so again it’s not a technical problem, it’s at least ALSO a legal problem, and arguably a moral one if you believe KYC kind of laws help to curb money laundering.
I think that’s an important distinction here :
versus
So when you say “what’s frustrating is that we can’t really vote with our wallets, and any right-to-repair or consumer-is-in-charge movement is going to be limited by intelligence agencies, corporations like John Deere, Apple, and the entire entertainment industry” I disagree.
We CAN really vote with our wallets precisely by purchasing things like Precursor, MNT, NitroKey, etc while at the same time expecting, sadly, that it won’t become the most popular devices in the market. I believe allowing creators and maintainers of such system, and even distributors like CrowdSupply, to exist even though they are and might always remain niche, is already empowering. So I’d argue both of us already voted with our wallets on this topic and our acquaintances too.
I’d also be cautious about preemptive pessimism. Sure it’s important to be mindful of worrisome examples like the FlipperZero (which AFAICT is only banned for purchase in Brazil due to lack of Anatel’s certification for wireless, I believe it’s possible to legally bring and use a FlipperZero in the country but I’m not a lawyer) or DRM for streaming (which I thought was a huge deal until I disabled DRM support in my browser and basically nothing changed in my browsing habits) precisely to learn from them. Also FWIW I did gather some ideas on the topic at https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SwappingPartsOfTheRestrictionStack so I’d be curious about your opinion on the topic, suggestions welcomed.
TPM. It’s what protects your phone and servers from attackers. Desktop would also benefit from it a lot.
Hard disagree here, TPM is only 1 more protection, it’s not what alone does protect your data. Also desktop vs phone and servers are very different use cases. You can easily get your phone stolen in a public space. Your server if it hosted in a data center you don’t own might get compromised … but your desktop, it means breaking in or inviting in guests you do not trust. The situations are very different. Encrypting disks on a small device holding sensitive data, e.g. banking, that can easily be taken from you in public makes sense for most people. Doing so on a heavy bulky device that sits in your locked house where is quite another thing.
FWIW for RPi https://www.crowdsupply.com/anavi-technology/anavi-tpm-2-0-for-raspberry-pi and more generally to store anything anywhere https://shop.nitrokey.com/shop/nitrokey-storage-2-56
Neat, also got my Precursor there, but then are you saying that projects there are limited and if so how?
A good rule of thumb is : does any of the participant maintain the backend?
If not then you are dependent on at least a 3rd party. If that 3rd party is not entirely open, meaning at least
then basically you should consider that this 3rd party owns your group, there is no expectation of privacy in it, it can be closed in an instant, messages can be modified without you knowing it, etc.
TL;DR: bad.
limited by intelligence agencies, corporations like John Deere, Apple, and the entire entertainment industry
What do you think of commercial platforms like CrowdSupply with e.g. https://www.crowdsupply.com/search?q=tpm where OSHW solutions can be sold to individual and companies?
I bet the downvotes are because it’s not helpful to OP.
What software?
Anyway you can use QEMU https://computernewb.com/wiki/QEMU/Guests/Windows_11 or rent a VPS for the duration of your testing, assuming there is hardware related.
Historical context : it’s a 1yo post.
TPM itself isn’t the problem. TPM itself technically might be a good solution, what the FSF precisely put forward is “out of the user’s control”. They even mention how it’s not about theoretical ideas but how it’s actually used. If Microsoft gets to decide HOW your computers works DESPITE you wanting NOT to behave that way AND it makes Microsoft itself, or its partners, even more entrenched then it’s a serious problem, it means “your” computer is their computer.
What we have all witnessed is that bit by bit OSes like Windows, but also MacOS and Android, are not simply providing stores or tightly controllers channel (with fees for themselves) but ALSO removing entirely, or making it radically harder, to install software the user actually wants to install (not malware).
It’s not about TPM, it’s as usual about who control your computer.
Apple still has the most reliable out of the box experience for hardware.
Out of curiosity, did you try an equivalent, e.g. Framework or Tuxedo or a SteamDeck, or only generic hardware, like a PC, then slapped on it a random distribution?
I don’t want to presume of your experiences and only to highlight that Apple out of the box experience better be flawless precisely because they have very limited hardware to support. In fact I would argue any distribution, even an obscure one, could fare very very well if it only had well known hardware (even if hundreds of them) supported, as opposed to an open and thus endless ecosystem.
Fair enough but I think every single “I managed to leave the wall garden!” is a rally cry for others who are still on the verge of trying. It’s encouraging to see the success of others.
I believe the idea is that you run your own instance if none of the existing one fits your need.
If you do set one up for your own LUG you can, if you want, decide to then open it up for LUGs organizers elsewhere.
Tried the demo a little while ago, ready to use whenever it’s being actually usable.
Yes but encoding isn’t cheap.
It sure is possible to embed invisible information into videos and images, it’s called metadata. Now you might think of other techniques, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography but most if not all are, AFAIK (and I won’t pretend I know the state of the art in the domain) if they are within the data itself (thus become data, not meta-data), e.g. a visible stamp in an image, are made to remain visible. Compression codecs are specifically targeting the visible or audible spectrum. One of the most basic way to “compress” lossy information (as opposed to lossless) is precisely to remove the ends of the spectrum that is not perceived by the average human audience.
So… AFAICT it’s either visible and thus can be spotted (and thus can be removed, even if by adding a black mark over) or not visible but then most likely will be removed by basic compression codecs even without trying to do so.
TL;DR: no and I wouldn’t be until I see this in the wild (not a research paper claimed it’s technically possible).
When you generalize your position about your available time and technical knowledge as the limiting factor for everybody you are not saying it’s impossible for you, you’re saying it’s impossible for anybody and everybody. That’s the problem. It’s like saying “I don’t like this food” versus “It tastes bad!”. For you they are equivalent, for others they are totally different. I’m not saying you, or anybody else, should learn about self-hosting (federated) social platforms then set some up, what I’m rejecting instead is giving up pre-emptively on the behalf of others because it’s giving power back to BigTech.
Your sarcasm and learned helplessness helps BigTech. I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was feasible.
It’s always about AGENCY and power, not performances or preferences.