I find myself also questioning this often. It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android, Google services and Apple services. Ideally I would like privacy but I think as we go forward keeping privacy would leave you in the same kind of position someone like RMS is in by sticking to his Free Software philosophy so strongly.
I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. When I tell them they don't care. I think the majority of people want some semblance of privacy but they are willing to give up a lot for the efficiency these new products, that require us to give up privacy, provide.
> It leads to me regularly switching between iOS and Android
Is this only because of the app permissions model? AFAIK, other than that, Android per se isn't any less privacy-oriented than iOS. iOS apps also much more commonly retrieve various user data and marginally more often send data around unencrypted.
It's because I find Android works best when using Google's services and as I'm not paying for those (and they are using my info to sell ads) I trust Apple more to protect my data (it's in their interest).
Aren't Google's ad monetization practices fairly transparent? You can see all the data collected in the dashboard, you can see how ads are targeted under the ad settings.
It seems like people are alluding to Google's data usage as some sort of black box where it seems pretty open to me.
Ah OK so you were considering android and Google services together. I assumed they were easily extricable but I've never used android without Google so I suppose that assumption may be incorrect.
That being said, I don't really understand the assumption that Apple would be a good steward of personal data. As someone else alluded to on this thread, it came out _years_ ago that Apple was collecting fine grained location logs and storing them in a fully readable (unencrypted) file on each ios device (and I believe on any computer that the phone was synced to). I can't think of any behavior in Android that's even close to as egregious as that, for me.
What about your ISP? What about your network provide? Do you trust them?
And if it's in Apple's interest to protect your data, it's in Google's interest all the more to protect your data - because they do make money of some of it. Also, they have a very public declaration of what they do with the data, how they are stored and how long. With Apple, I have no fucking idea.
Also, when it comes to security, Apple has no stellar record - their's have been slow and callow approach to security (and security by obscurity).
Weren't they recently caught silently logging GPS coordinates and transmitting them once the phone was connected to a computer? How is it not in there interest to utilize personalized data?
I feel the only reason your secrets may not be in jeopardy with Apple is because they don't know as many... If you really want your secrets to be safe you wouldn't use any closed source code at all and would take security precautions to secure the code you do use. Unfortunately we live in a time when closed-source software is the norm and too many people think having a secure, open, communications infrastructure is too complicated and don't quite understand the reasoning behind it (thankfully that attitude seems to be changing a little), but I hope one day we'll look back on this time and wonder what we were thinking by allowing digital goods to be closed source.
With 3D printers, neural implants, augmented reality, food and organ printers, and the age of automation, what the future holds is a digital realm that's going to be very scary for people who understand it, especially if the infrastructure is completely owned by corporations and un-trustable governments and even a small amount of the source is closed. I mean look around the room and think of all the things that could be augmented or replaced with 3D printed components.. Why have a physical laptop in front of you when you can augment the key board, 25 screens, and everything else? Not only that, but you can do it for nothing if you know how to code it.
We can already print organs and I don't think it will be too long until we can print good tasting food, but what if you execute some code on your food printer that prints a steak with anthrax in it? I think in the next 50 years all this is going to be fairly common place in the developed world and I really hope I have confidence in the system that we have in place at that time.
>Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation.
>When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Public facing code shouldn't be closed source. Sure, if you want to run something on your own and for your self, you don't have to share that with anyone, but when you put something out into the wild that can't be conclusively shown to not be malicious it should be treated like malware.
Edit: and also, what do you think the government should do for the people when it comes to digital rights? Or do you believe corporations know what's best? I for one don't believe in either.
I am sorry if that offended you but I take issue with the idea that adding more restrictions improves freedom. If you want to download possible malware that is your choice.
> I take issue with the idea that adding more restrictions improves freedom.
Yes, but that isn't an idea the OP posted, it's an idea that you posted. A discussion of software license types doesn't automatically lead to either a preference for one kind of license over another, or the idea of governmental involvement. Those were things you made up on your own.
> If you want to download possible malware that is your choice.
Both closed and open-source code are susceptible to malware. The issues of licensing and malware are orthogonal. Closed-source code should in principle prevent malware, but it's quite obvious that it doesn't. Open-source, by being visible and readable, should reveal any vulnerabilities and prevent malware, but that doesn't work either, primarily because the more interesting vulnerabilities aren't obvious to someone reading the code.
He was arguing that closed source software should be disallowed. Who else but the government is going to make such rules? Yes I brought freedom into it. I agree that both open and closed will have malware, so what is the point of banning closed software if not "freedom"?
> He was arguing that closed source software should be disallowed.
He did not make this argument. He argued that closed source has serious drawbacks -- he never suggested that it should be "disallowed". Find the word or an equivalent word -- but you must find it in his posts, not yours.
If I complain about women, am I saying they should be disallowed? Only to someone who invents positions for other people, then proceeds to object to the positions he has invented.
> Who else but the government is going to make such rules?
Is Apple under government mandate to have a closed-source system? Is Red Hat under government mandate to have an open-source system? Neither is true. The government is not involved at all, in any way, period.
> Yes I brought freedom into it.
Yes, you did, after inventing arguments no one made, using claims about society that aren't part of reality.
> ... so what is the point of banning closed software if not "freedom"?
You fabricated this entire argument out of whole cloth. No one advocated "banning closed software", no one brought up government, no one brought up freedom. These are all parts of your private fantasy.
I'm scared by the idea that I could one day have a neural implant with closed source code running on some insecure network all because the people of this time were too dumb to realize how software could affect them.
Perhaps we should have laws that guarantee some form of open-ness but allow closed source code to exist on some sort of semi-to-fully-anonymous fully-encrypted secondary communications network?
> I'm scared by the idea that I could one day have a neural implant with closed source code running on some insecure network all because the people of this time were too dumb to realize how software could affect them.
It's a reasonable concern. People have already been injured and killed by software errors, both open and closed, so this is definitely on the table as a reasonable issue.
> Perhaps we should have laws that guarantee some form of open-ness but allow closed source code to exist on some sort of semi-to-fully-anonymous fully-encrypted secondary communications network?
My view is that we should let people sort this out without government involvement. Right now there are open-source companies and closed-source companies, and people get to vote with their feet. If closed-source causes problems or is more expensive or whatever, people can choose the alternative. Same with open-source.
There are any number of cases where government involvement turned out to be counterproductive, and I think this might be one of them. Remember that government can't just bust in and start issuing orders, they have to be invited by the voters. And sometimes, if things go wrong, they get voted out again.
Freedom of speech -- clearly a government issue. Open-source versus closed-source software -- sorry, how this is a government issue doesn't immediately occur to me.
> Yes, let's have the government mandate what license your code should have! Facepalm.
Hey -- even when people freely choose which license code should have, there are still better and worse choices. There's no essential role for government, and the OP didn't suggest that.
Also, according to my favorite theory of modern society, governments find out what people are going to do anyway, order them to do it, then try to take credit for the result. So (if this theory has any substance) governmental involvement is more illusory than real.
I just notice that Apple often finds themselves in court, suing someone (usually a company) for trying to steal one of their (corporate) secrets. And Google is often in court, defending themselves against someone (or a group) suing them for trying to steal their (personal) secrets.
It might all be more balanced in reality, it's just an impression from online articles.
>I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post.
I think that's actually smart. In reality the privacy setting on Facebook has no real effect on privacy, because companies and the NSA will still get your information. You might as well treat everything you post on Facebook as public.
> I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they are set to public by default... in fact, IIRC they even reset everyone to public when they released that "feature" a couple of years ago.
> When I tell them they don't care. I think the majority of people want some semblance of privacy but they are willing to give up a lot for the efficiency these new products, that require us to give up privacy, provide.
Sure, and smokers are willing to risk a slow painful death to forgo the pain of quitting. Humans are short-term thinkers.
I'm always surprised at the number of friends and family I see who have their Facebook set to public - especially considering what they post. When I tell them they don't care. I think the majority of people want some semblance of privacy but they are willing to give up a lot for the efficiency these new products, that require us to give up privacy, provide.