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Android has a lot of hardening and sandboxing that desktop Linux doesn't (and won't for UX reasons).

Yes, it demonstrates that it's possible to harden well - at least for some cases. It appears depending on the environment hardened kernel / runtime environments are pretty much possible to have safeguards working today already.

> desktop Linux doesn't (and won't for UX reasons)

Can you elaborate?


A very comprehensive SELinux deployment for one.

SELinux will stop any process in android from loading kernel modules, that’s not allowed. The android permission model as a whole is ultimately backed by SELinux.


Locking down a desktop OS to modern standards really requires what Apple did with macOS, which requires a degree of central coordination that's beyond the Linux community. It mandates huge changes in almost every area of the OS stack, and all apps have to be sandboxed by default out of the box.

Developers don't like mandatory sandboxing. It has to be forced on them. So you can see the difficulty of doing it in the open source community, which has for decades now had the worst security of any desktop OS platform (even Windows is better).


To solve the issue from the source, you need to enforce security through means like mandatory access control. The problem is that existing desktop and server systems are too mature for that to be practical, you'll have to rework almost everything and users will certainly reject it violently due to the breakages.

Apple have shown it can be done with macOS. Not only is every app sandboxed in a usefully robust way (even ones distributed outside the app store) but this has been done in a way smooth enough that users didn't revolt.

Not sure what specifically they're referring to, but Android (and iOS) add a lot of sandboxing to ensure that each application can only access its own files, can't access hardware willy-nilly (bluetooth, scanning wifi, etc), can only link against certain libraries, etc.

Imagine if Linux only let you run stuff from Flatpak, and if stuff didn't work in Flatpak then too bad for you. Most Linux users would hate it and it would be a mess a lot of the time, so, for user experience (UX) reasons, they don't do it. Android can get away with it because that's been the app paradigm for decades now.



Banks are private companies. The Federal Reserve is partially private.

Yeah, this is going to turn into another malware vector, isn't it?

Discord has a feature where you can log into your account on your PC by scanning a code on your phone.

So does Binance.


Those are good things though? They’re about logging in, on purpose.

Not about attesting to Google that you have a proper smartphone as a proxy for your humanity, like this thing.


To prove you're not a bot, scan this QR code with Discord.

But none of those options are requirements to access the service.

They're requirements to access my website though! To prove you're not a bot, scan this QR code - with Discord.

So does Signal.

But Signal is secure(TM)!

Royalties for inference are unrealistic in a way that even royalties for training aren't.

The LLaMA models were released openly. Copies exist everywhere in the world. You aren't going to be able to charge someone for running `llama.cpp`; a court order ceases to have practical relevance at that point.


Inference might be unreasonable for a royalty agreement, but, in assessing damages, it is certainly relevant.

"I made enough copies for everyone" isn't a valid defense for copyright infringement.


These models can provide citations so I don't see why they can't tick a royalty owed. I'm sure many here could help build this pipeline.

First, LLMs do not reliably cite works. They are not looking things up in a database and repeating them. I think this false idea occurs a lot in people who don't understand what LLMs are or how they work.

Second, royalties are not required to cite a source.

Can you imagine how disastrous it would be to everything from news reporting to scientific publishing if that was the case?


Yeah well then I want my robot running this crap locally in its brain so I can get it to farm my two acres and haul water for me and I'll unplug from the rest of this nonsense going forward lol.

... LLMs cannot reliably provide citations. If you ask for citations, and the model did not use a web search tool, then whatever "citations" you receive are unreliable. Please do not trust these models to be honest. Just because they can discuss a topic doesn't mean they "know" where the knowledge came from in the same way that you don't need to have studied physics to catch a ball.

I don't know why people are up in arms about this.

No one is mad about the port of Notepad++ to macOS. No one is mad that someone said "I ported Notepad++ to macOS." The problem is the branding and delivery conveys the impression that the macOS port is official, which is deceptive even if deception isn't the goal.


I'm not following your comment. You say you don't know why people are up in arms about it, but then you go on to note that the author of the port is being deceptive.

I believe they meant "why people are so up in arms about the developer being so strict about enforcing their trademark," not "why are people upset that the port author is being deceptive."

Ahh, that reframe makes a lot more sense

The people were up in arms against the Notepad++ author doing something about the deception.

Which was why they felt they had to write this post. Read the article.


People are upset about the deceptive misuse of the trademark. Rightfully so, it’s deceptive and misleading, legal issues aside.

The difference is intent. It will deceive people whether or not the author's intent is deception.

Doesn't make them any more rational

Realistically domestic US politicians have no reason to care about EU regulations

This is a thinly veiled extortion racket and any competent system would fine them into bankruptcy.

We need a more efficient way to eliminate bullshit patents or bullshit patent infringement claims than "violate them then spend millions on lawyers to fight them in court".

Sure, and at the same time we need a more efficient way to ensure big companies can’t just take what they want and bury anyone who complains.

It’s not an easy problem.


Stop big companies from ever forming. They are not a natural force that cannot be reckoned with. We allow them to exist. Revoke the charters of any business over 500 employees.

I can see a number of ways to work around that limitation, without even lobbying and bribing. And I'm not even a lawyer or an accountant.

Eventually all the money and power will converge in a few sub 500, or sub 50, companies and nothing will change.


Right now we have neither so working on one can't make the other worse.

Does that happen in places like Europe, where software patents aren't a thing?

Eliminate software patents.

The disgusting part is that they are proud of how complicated and exploitable this patent situation is, acting as if they were the key experts in developing codecs when they are just experts in gating access to them. Like, their entire business model is based on negating the value of the inventions.

HN refocuses around every hype cycle. At one point it was JavaScript frameworks, and then cryptocurrency, and then even NFTs for a bit.

It's just redundant. The author surely knows but typed "fake honeypot" like how everyone else types "ATM machine."

It's a honeypot for pedants

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