
Toward a Technological Cage for the Masses - sT370ma2
https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/techno-cage.html
======
Funes-
I want to stop for a second and appreciate how much I like websites like the
one on the OP: no javascript; no ads; non-commercial, honest content; light,
straightforward design. All in all, just a no-strings-attached personal site.
That's what the Web should be all about.

I miss the late 90s' and early 00s' world wide web. Any search would direct
you to a bunch of personal sites just like this one; now, you'd be lucky to
find something similar among the typical pile of irrelevant commercial sites
bordering on being straight scams that any search engine throws at you.

~~~
growlist
Can't agree more.

------
captainbland
> After all, who needs anything but four cold, bare walls, a toilet, and a bed
> to sleep on. You will be happy here, where "we" will decide what you need
> and what you don't. "We" will feed, clothe, and house you. "We" will provide
> you with everything "we" feel that you need

It's kind of a bad joke, this idea that these encroachments on the freedom on
the internet are going hand-in-hand with 'free stuff from the government'
because in most cases in the anglosphere it seems like, with the notable
exception of furlough schemes brought in for the pandemic, we're generally
seeing the opposite trend: social protections being torn up and we're told to
be happy about this.

Our avenues for complaining about it are slowly being captured primarily by
large, ultimately unsympathetic corporations who would rather we as
individuals be as insecure as possible so as to be maximally dependent on them
and their peers for a wage.

------
walterbell
The approach suggested in the article is to use market forces, i.e. boycott
products which move us closer to unwanted futures. This is challenging when
the majority of products are headed in one direction, driven by market demand
that companies can influence by advertising.

Another approach is to use regulatory power in democratic societies, e.g. to
enact legislation for right to repair ([https://www.ifixit.com/Right-to-
Repair/Intro](https://www.ifixit.com/Right-to-Repair/Intro)), or specific DMCA
exemptions for owners to modify device firmware
([https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/sep/16/dmca-
exemptions-2...](https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/sep/16/dmca-
exemptions-2020/)). These are necessary but insufficient steps to restore
choice in functionality _and_ freedom, which are sometimes placed in false
opposition via vague threat models.

In practice, what has worked has been competition from smaller vendors. In a
world of more complexity, we need more than GPD Pockets and kickstarters to
lead the way with pioneering examples that can be copied by bigger companies.
Without the creative force of a Steve Jobs, Apple depends on the broader
market to experiment. Several iPad Pro features can be credited to MS Surface,
including concessions (still poorly implemented) on a local file system. If we
end up with a few monopolies, will innovation slow without competitors
teaching consumers about alternatives?

There needs to be a commercial arena where engineers in smaller companies have
economic incentives to develop prototypes that increase freedom without
compromising security, which "appliances" can then copy. FPGAs and RISC-V have
some promise for open hardware, but progress is slowed by closed software
toolchains. There are no quick fixes, but pockets of general-purpose hardware
success can be encouraged by legislation, engineering talent voting with their
feet, and yes, commercial support by customers.

~~~
cassepipe
_In practice, what has worked has been competition from smaller vendors._

I feel like I have to mention here System76 and the work they are doing on
firmware and the development of an attractive Linux environment.

[https://system76.com/](https://system76.com/)

I am not affiliated in any way.

~~~
trenchgun
Also Pine64!

------
dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp
I'll be the contrarian: Has the author ever heard of Linux?

I'm being glib, and share many of the author's frustrations with the state of
things, but really the trends covered in the article have been happening for
well over a decade. In that time Raspberry pi's have hit the market and the
microcontroller market has never been better for hobbyists and professionals.
Likewise with scientific computing frameworks like R and Python. The author
even managed to get a personal website up for all of us to read. The options
for personal computing are wide, wide open, even if some markets or products
remain closed and proprietary and tough to hack.

Also,

> I suppose one can argue that if we all have nothing but dumb terminals
> running software from a ROM (which cannot be written to), then no malware
> can get onto our computers. But, do we want to go back to the dumb terminal
> days of the 1980's? Is this the "modern" operating system that we want?

For certain stuff like online banking, yes.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
If only the desktop (read: personal) computing experience on Linux wasn't so
awful[0]. I realize that's a subjective statement, but come on, I've been
hearing "Year of the Linux Desktop" rhetoric for 20 years now and it's still a
platform[1] so utterly unorganized and chaotic that even a whole lot of people
like me, who believe strongly in personal computing and value the ideas of
openness, don't want to use it[2].

[0] I can, and have, gone on at length about why I think this and I won't
repeat it here.

[1] One of the big problems of course being that Linux Desktop isn't a
platform so much as a loose umbrella label describing a bunch of kludges.

[2] I've been using Linux Desktops for 2 decades and until recently I ran
Linux on 4 out of 5 of the personal computing devices in my possession. I have
written Linux software, contributed to FOSS projects, put together my own
distro, and was even president of a LUG for a while. I have tried to give
Linux Desktop a chance and it and its community have driven me away time and
time again.

~~~
rpdillon
I suspect it's a function of your use cases. I've used Linux on the desktop
since the late 90s, and I still use it every day. My employer makes me use
MacOS for work, and it's a constant source of frustration for me, but Linux is
consistently wonderful.

Vague criticism is useless though. My frustration with MacOS is mostly that
stuff is either broken or unintuitive. I use Emacs, and after upgrading to
Catalina, Emacs could no longer open files on my Downloads folder, even after
manually assigning it permissions to read the entire disk. This turns out to
be because Emacs has a Ruby script it gets launched through that has distinct
permissions from the executable itself, so I have to hand-tune the launch
scripts to make reading from disk work correctly.

There's lots of stuff like this. Mouse avoidance mode on Emacs is broken when
it is set to 'banish, completely breaking the ability to drag the Emacs window
around the desktop. Took me a few weeks to track down.

I want to tile a window to the side, so I have to click and hold on the full
screen button, then select a side, at which point MacOS goes into some weird
full screen mode and forces me to select some other window for the other sid,
which I didn't want. I just wanted to tile a window on one side. If this
feature were launched in Linux, I fear the derision would never end. Pop!_OS
did it better.

For some reason, MacOS can't remember that I type Dvorak. After I log in, it
remembers, but on the log in screen, I have to manually select Dvorak every
time so I can type my password. If I've already selected my account, there's
no reason it can't do that for me. Linux does, except Elementary OS, which is
broken in dozens of other ways as well.

If I touch the play/pause button on my headphones by accident, my entire
desktop gets buried beneath iTunes (I guess Apple Music now). I had to remove
execute permission to avoid this, but updates seem to revert the behavior from
time to time.

And this is just me trying to run Slack, Emacs and a browser. I'm not even
doing anything fancy. So when I hear that Linux isn't ready for the desktop,
it just doesn't resonate with me. I've used it for decades as my daily driver,
and I plan to continue.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Good for you, but the statistics on desktop OS usage are pretty clear that
you're in the minority.

~~~
caeril
Statistics on desktop OS usage reflect OEM preloading, marketing, and momentum
of familiarity, not anything inherent to the operating systems or
environments.

Anecdotally with friends and family, Fedora has been "normie"-friendly since
2007 or so, with the only notable exceptions being one gamer and one Excel
power user.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> Statistics on desktop OS usage reflect OEM preloading, marketing, and
> momentum of familiarity, not anything inherent to the operating systems or
> environments.

Yeah, Linux Desktop evangelists have been saying that forever and yet, as I
mentioned, even a lot of people like me who both are capable of and have
reasons to desire a different OS find Linux Desktop too broken to deal with.

The community chooses the narrative that protects their ego.

> Anecdotally with friends and family, Fedora has been "normie"-friendly since
> 2007 or so

Anecdotally I know a lot of people who do some kind of work with their
computers and are programmers and general nerds who hate Linux Desktops
because they are so broken.

------
zeveb
The problem is that people want cages. They want cages, especially, for their
foes (real or perceived): every time you hear someone say, 'there ought to be
a law' what he is really saying is, 'I want armed men to use the threat of
deadly violence to herd people who do what I don't like or don't do what I
like into cages.'

Less obviously, many (perhaps most) people want cages for _themselves_. They
don't trust themselves to make adult decisions, or simply don't want to be
responsible for their choices. There is security to three hots & a cot, just
as there is security to the iOS App Store. What's missing is not security but
liberty.

And folks don't just want cages for their foes and themselves; they want not
to be confronted with it. Just note the downvotes any post about the lack of
freedom on iOS will get.

~~~
eternalban
You are articulating _the_ insight that has been intuitively grasped by
leaders, revolutionaries, and despots alike, throughout history.

If you look at it from a systems point of view, the mass of humanity provides
the 'inert balast' that allows for continuity and long-term activities. The
system design bug here is that, the acquiescence of the masses is obtained via
pschological phenomena common to the human being. The implication of that is
that there is a _system level disconect_ between "how am I actually doing" vs
"how do I think I am doing". The system of collective human management
operates at the partially fictional level of "perception" vs factual
"reality". It is this psychological content, formed via psychological
manipulations (such as religion, ideology, propaganda), that informs the
'views' and 'decisions' of the masses.

We don't have a systemic approach to providing decentralized "information as
utility" services for our societies. There are no technical issues. ("Business
model" is not a technical problem.) A centralized approach allows for
maintenance of power for existing entities (individuals, families,
organizations, corporations). The forces behind centralization are _powerful_
and _entrenched_ , and the opposing vision is held by relatively marginal
entities. Obviously entrenched power will fight tooth and nail to maintain
power. What "people want" is neither here nor there; they'll use whatever toy
they are given, because that is what "people" have been doing since day 1.

------
fl0wRiny
This article is kind of comical, but I get his point. Even though I think it's
not really taking into account the whole picture. Consider as a fact that the
internet is broken, in regards to free speech. How many bot/fake accounts are
created that spam toxic messages and influence culture? People with the most
followers or likes getting to the top of the algorithms list so they exploit
the algorithm. Most of the people are abusing the idea of "free speech" as
anonymous trolls or maybe not even human at all or from the same country. It's
a serious problem. I don't think people would say half the things they do on
the internet if it were connected to their identity. Something isn't right
here...

~~~
Kim_Bruning
The irony is that it is the weak who actually benefit most from anonymity.

------
teraku
What I find really concerning is that all of this is man-made.

So we have management who wants to maximize profits. I don't really blame
them, it's a lot of money involved and a shark tank environment. (I mean I do
blame them, but I can see their reasoning). But then we have engineers who
just do as they told in making all this possible, having the craziest ideas,
like:

> The Asus EEE PC 900 that I bought had a 4 GB SSD held in place by a screw
> that was soldered in place. This prevented the SSD from being upgraded.

In the end humanity is its biggest adversary

~~~
ntsplnkv2
> But then we have engineers who just do as they told in making all this
> possible, having the craziest ideas, like:

These engineers are paid A LOT of money.

~~~
srtjstjsj
The person who designed the hard drive lock didn't get rich off it. Some VP
did.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
That person makes a living, though.

Life isn't just about "getting rich" and being wolf of wall street. Engineers
aren't billionaires or VPs but they're making a real good living most places
in the US.

~~~
teraku
That's true. But if you think about it: if you have the skillset to design a
laptop, your possibilities for jobs are much grander than making laptop's less
upgrade-able

------
ubermonkey
The main gripe here is, I think, that many people trade away privacy and
flexibility without even understanding what they're doing.

Most people who read HN don't do that, even if they choose platforms that tilt
towards those sorts of services and software.

For instance, I'm pretty firmly in the Apple ecosystem, but I _could_ migrate
to something else pretty easily IF I wanted to (I don't). I'm not locked in
here. My data is stored locally (though I use Dropbox to make it available
across multiple devices and platforms). I use proprietary formats very very
sparingly. I feel pretty comfortable the "cage door" can't close on me without
me changing these choices pretty drastically.

I'm sure there are Android/Windows people here who do the same thing. Sure,
Windows does some invasive things, but if you're careful, you can avoid most
of it, and preserve your ability to switch to something else without much
difficulty. No cage door there, either.

The trick is to avoid getting SO enmeshed with a vendor that you cannot easily
leave. This is one reason why companies like AT&T want you to bundle cell
service and home Internet and cable and telephone, because it makes it harder
to "fire" them when they screw up.

This "trick" is pretty easy, again, for the sort of person who reads this
site. It's a lot harder for your uncle Larry who just wants to read ESPN and
balance his checkbook and cares not one whit about the privacy implications of
Google docs or whatever.

~~~
fanatic2pope
Have you ever actually TRIED leaving Apple's ecosystem? Like doing regular
backups _and restores_ of your data, you're confidence level should be equal
to your ability to actually follow through.

~~~
ubermonkey
I feel like this isn't really a question you're asking so much as an attempt
to suggest that it isn't easy or possible.

It _totally_ is, and I _know_ it is, because I maintain a parallel working
environment on a Dell XPS 15 for a bunch of complicated reasons. All my data
is there, too.

I hate that environment, so I don't work there _often_ , but I could if I had
to (such as a couple years ago, when my battery failed in my previous Macbook
and had to go in for repair -- it was trivial to do my job from the (previous)
Dell for a few days).

This is possible because I do the things I outlined above. I use exclusively
x-platform tools, like Office, when I use something with an obscure file
format. My notes and management tools are exclusively in Orgmode in emacs.
Etc.

Also: *your, not you're.

~~~
fanatic2pope
My point is, that unless youv'e actually done the sw'itch then you dont know
you ca'n do i't. Sounds like yo'uve done it, so congrat's.

------
dusted
This is somewhat why I collect computers, because one day, you can't buy a
general purpose machine anymore.. I just hope when that happens, mine will be
top of the line and solid enough to last.

Though, is this not tinfoil hat territory? Won't the fact that _some_ people
_want_ general purpose computer, mean that they will always exist? Even if the
established manufacturers decide to stop production, won't someone else start
a production ?

------
dsign
There are users at all levels; some are really fine with the spreadsheet in
Google Drive, and really it leaves them with time to take a stroll in the park
and talk to friends and relatives. Some users want to put together their own
computers and their own operating systems, and they will do too. No point in
complaining for what the "masses" don't want to do.

~~~
ragnese
> Some users want to put together their own computers and their own operating
> systems, and they will do too.

We'll see how feasible/affordable that is in 10 years. I'm afraid that
consumer hardware is only going to get more and more locked down in the name
of "security".

------
op03
Things got back and forth between open and closed - freedom and convenience.
There is no end state.

Once upon a time everyone thought IBM was invincible and then Intel and then
Microsoft. Then what happened?

To understand the cycle read - The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of
Information Empires by Tim Wu (of Net Neutrality fame).

------
Kim_Bruning
This is the future that RMS has been fighting against this whole time. I think
he's always been a bit of a Cassandra.

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

------
unraveller
>they wanted consumers to hate netbooks, so that they would go back to paying
for higher-priced laptops.

Manufacturer induced non-flagship fatigue is real. We're never getting a
reasonable forever laptop, it must always be lacking in obvious areas that
costs very little to correct. You only get that if you over pay for everything
at the top of the line -- where dissatisfaction is not allowed.

Best we can do is buy direct from upstart companies with at most one or two
thunderclap flagship offerings every tech cycle. Amazon scale advantage only
entrenches the endless consumer bait and suffering by trusted brands.

------
gotem
I’m not too concerned

Sent from my iPhone

------
ghoward
Unfortunately, I think this author is far more correct than not. Also
unfortunately, we can't just create computer companies that do better; there
are too many perverse incentives.

~~~
rimliu
I don't think author is correct. One more piece from someone who cannot
imagine people being interesting in other things than computers. I don't see
car enthusiasts lamenting (maybe they do, I just don't see them) that Joe
Average has no idea how to tune a carburetor or change the brake fluid.

Once again some talk about the imagined war on "general purpose computing".
You know who is interested in general purpose computing? People doing it. For
others computer is just a tool helpful to write an email, retouch some photos,
or compose some music. Do we see public WiFi where we have zero access to
configuration, as the "war on general purpose networking"? Or do we not care
as long as it works (snooping aside).

~~~
ghoward
The phrase "snooping aside" invalidates your whole argument. It's not like
using a car will harm Joe Average on average, but because of the snooping
carried on by general-purpose computers, using a computer _does_ hurt Joe
Average on average.

~~~
rimliu
If you think it invalidates my whole argument, then you did not understand my
argument at all.

It is extremely sad that HN folks have zero empathy.

~~~
ghoward
I think you didn't understand me. I do understand that Joe Average wants to
use general-purpose computing to accomplish things. My point is that Joe
Average does not understand the hidden costs of using computers that are
spying on him, costs that might make him want to find some other way of
accomplishing his tasks.

------
jlehman
The problem of the technological cage posed by reliance on cloud services is
one of the reasons Urbit is being developed. It's a _personal_ server that
operates on a P2P network. You own your own data, and your messages are
encrypted. It feels like a cloud service, except you own it completely.

The project has been in the works for over a decade. It works, has an active
community, and is making rapid strides in functionality and stability. I'd
know, because I use it every day. Here's a good primer on what Urbit is
looking to create: [https://urbit.org/blog/urbit-is-for-
communities/](https://urbit.org/blog/urbit-is-for-communities/)

Many seem to like to whine about Urbit and claim that it's creating a kind of
digital feudalism. Perhaps they think that what we currently have isn't that.
I have no interest in engaging with those old and tired arguments, which is
why I originally ignored them and looked into it myself. If you also like to
think for yourself, let me know and I'll bring you onto the network.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Urbit looks like some strange combination of rent seeking, land grab, and
absurdist comedy. I keep waiting for the whole thing to come out as having
been a joke.

~~~
square_usual
What do you mean? Why do you think it's "rent seeking, land grab, and
absurdist comedy"?

~~~
ghoward
Urbit's system creates an elite: the galaxy owners. They will, of course, use
their positions to seek rent and grab "land" (control over territory, where
territory is just planets and the like).

~~~
selfhoster11
Somebody's got to own the resources, because they come from the physical
world. That will be either power users who know enough about ownership,
community groups, or commercial groups. Unless you have a fully distributed
system with no centralised nodes, that's what you get.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Urbit doesn't seem to tie the ownership to physical scarcity of computing
resources, though. They just invented some "land" to seek rents from, or sell
to those who would seek rents. I'm all for spending money to bring physical
computing resources to the system, including reselling access to those
resources to others for profit, but the whole "stars / planets" false scarcity
model ruins Urbit for me.

------
vitiral
Check out civboot.org

Even if there's not some kind of secret agenda, the increasing complexity will
make it so most people can't use a computer anyway in the horizon. I want to
do something about it.

------
ike77
I want to add a personal anecdote to this very interesting article.

Basically as soon as I fully understood that all my voice communications were
stored by the NSA, by my ISP (and can be accessed by my countries government
without me knowing), and by various other institutions and secret services, I
decided to record all my phone calls.

The rationale being that I could not prevent most of the world to listen to
me, but at least in the event they would use what I said against me, I had a
piece of the evidence and would be able to defend myself.

On a more practical level, everytime I call a big company they have a
prerecorded message telling me that the conversation "could" be recorded (they
definitely record all of them). And those company (ISPs, insurances,
government...) will very often promise thing on the telephone and then not
follow through as they know that it is very hard for most people to precisely
recall the content of the phone call, even less to prove it.

So, it did put me in a weird spot legally as my country's laws specify that
the consent must be explicitly requested to the receiver of the call to be
allowed to record. The thing is that it is not illegal to record phone calls
without an agreement. But such a recording cannot be shared or released and
would not be receivable as an evidence in a court of law.

I was perfectly happy with this situation, as already being able to precisely
recall what was said during a call would alleviate a lot of concerns.

Android recently removed (in v.10) the possibility to record phone calls
(except to a few of their close friends apps, FB, MS...)

They unilaterally decided to interpret my countries laws as an interdiction to
record phone calls. On top of that, they made no official announcements about
that, not even a trace in a changelog here or there.

The worst in all that is that obviously, most people didn't understand that it
was Google's decisions. So now if you go to a call recorder's app page you
will see a mass of people claiming that the app is a scam
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appstar.ca...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appstar.callrecorderpro&hl=en)
. They even managed to totally shift the blame on their partners.

Now, the only option I'm left with if I want to be able to record calls again,
seems to be to root my phone. Which obviously from a privacy focused
perspective seems unacceptable (giving root access to all userland
applications!)

So precisely as the article describe, I lost what I consider is a very
important feature, I have no say or recourse in that and the issue is not big
/ mainstream enough to gather any attention.

~~~
ragnese
Rooting your phone does not give root access to all of your apps. Is this why
people keep acting like rooting is a security risk?

I'm very tired of this message. Google has root to your phone and you don't.
You think that puts you in a _better_ position? (Not "you", the person I'm
replying to- the rhetorical "you")

~~~
ike77
It's true that I might not fully grasp what happens if I root my phone and
it's part of the problem.

It seems that the process of rooting my phone already requires me to download
an APK's (KingoRoot?) from sketchy websites. And then what this APK's does is
not clear either... Reading a bit, it seems that that this software could be
considered as malware...

So the process is not really transparent and is kind of scary.

Maybe if you have a different perspective or some resources pointing to open
source alternatives?

~~~
ragnese
To be fair, the process _is_ scary.

Depending on your phone, rooting often involves exploiting security flaws
because the manufacturers don't want you to have root (reason #1 that makes me
_want_ it all the more).

I have an old Pixel 2, which allows you to unlock the bootloader, so I didn't
have to break into my own device, which is nice.

I don't know anything about KingoRoot. I use Magisk
([https://magisk.me/](https://magisk.me/)) which is FLOSS.

When you have root on your phone, an app has to _ask_ for root access. You may
deny, grant temporarily (15 minute default IIRC), or grant forever. Very few
app should require root. But it's important to me to be able to run whatever I
want on my own computer.

