zlacker

The "not currently" in the title is very important foreshadowing.

This is merely another battle in the war on general-purpose computing.

They will build their kingdom piece-by-piece, and under innocuous-sounding adjectives such as "safety" and "security".

Each of these pieces may look innocuous and perhaps even helpful, but don't lose sight of their ultimate goal.

Once all the pieces are in place to achieve total lockdown, there will be no going back.

Articles like this that say "it hasn't happened yet" and try to spin a positive narrative are not showing the big picture. Arguably, Big Tech does not want you to see the big picture.

>>userbi+(OP)
Honestly I can't imagine any group of companies in the tech space being more resourceful than 10,000 neglected teenagers with nothing but a computer and a bad attitude. Especially after the former tells the latter that they can only do "approved" things with their computer.

>>meekmi+Ng
Do you really think they'll be able to break the strong crypto which will ultimately be used to "secure" this?

Maybe they could exploit a buffer overflow or other such bug, but if our opponents are so keen on adopting "secure languages", that path to freedom is going to close too.

When governments were scared that encryption was going to be used against them and wanted to ban it, we should've realised that the same situation could apply to us. I'm not at all arguing in favour of such bans, but the underlying message was just as applicable.

>>userbi+Ik
I think tech companies as a general rule have proven unreliable at understanding, much less implementing, "security" in software or hardware. It's fair to say the landscape is changing but human frailty has not. If I have been reminded of any idiom most often while scrolling through security bulletins, it's "when there is a will, there is a way." We may not have the same class of problem we had before, but I'll still likely be scrolling through security bulletins a decade from now.

Also consider: the fundamental parts of a computer are still analog. Hardware bypasses, 3d-printed micro-circuitry, modified components or distributables, who knows? In my estimation, the cat and mouse game will continue for quite some time.

>>userbi+(OP)
100% this. They call it fear mongering and paranoia for now because it's only something that could happen.

There used to be debates about whether face recognition should be allowed at all. In 2017 an executive order rolled it out at airports, where it's now used by the CBP and some airlines. The TSA is now considering using it. The debates are over, it's happening and there are now articles about how convenient it is to board without a boarding pass. The definition of normal continues to shift slowly towards universal surveillance. Every little increment is enabled by a few years of the previous increment being normalized and a morsel of security or convenience.

>>userbi+(OP)
Exactly - I remember the warnings about how TPMs would eventually get normalized and how Windows would require one to run. Well, we've arrived at that point !

Soon even buying a PC without a TPM will become very hard - if we're not already at that point ? (What are our options these days ?)

>>userbi+(OP)
If you are interested about this topic (what OSes should do today) I can advise this talk: https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi21/presentation/fri-ke...

A bit long but I didn't get bored