Linux Phones and Unlocked Bootloaders?
Or are computers gonna just go the smartphone route and you can’t instal another OS?
I mean, Chrombooks are the first example of computers being more locked down. Will compouter manufacturers do the same? Mifrosoft now requires TPM on windows 11, could they make “Secure Boot” mandatory for windows 12? (Thereby preventing a linux install)
Most likely? Unfortunately most people either don’t care about software freedom, don’t know about it, are actually scared of it, or just don’t have the time or know how to switch. Couple that with the fact that Microsoft and Apple are determined to lock it down and the trend seems clear to me.
Ofc I would Love to be wrong, I just don’t have much faith in people knowing or caring about what is in their best interest.
Secure Boot does allow for Linux installation, just not any Linux installation. Some distros support it (like Fedora), some don’t (like Manjaro).
AFIAK, those that are “supported” merely were lucky enough to convince Microsoft to sign their Public Keys, so the machine would accept it. What happens when Microsoft refuse to sign linux distros?
Technically, a developer can contact vendors to include their keys to Secure Boot, but that would require asking all of them and them responding positively. So, in practice, it is commonly Microsoft that controls it since obviously just about any vendor will support their signatures.
PCs and all devices will become more locked down, with a small rebellious minority. Pretty much what we have today, but the divide will become greater.
All consumer devices are designed for the consumer to consume content. Music, Movies, Books, TV Shows, Web Sites, Social Media, Video Games…all of it. Very, very few people at the consumer level use computing power to perform complex calculations or process large datasets.
All of that content is someone else’s creation, and they want to get paid for their creation. Either by you directly purchasing/subscribing to what they’ve created, or via advertisers. Everyone has rent or a mortgage and bills to pay and they want to buy food and buy stuff for their kids.
Any time you sit in front of a screen, whether it’s a TV or a PC or a smartphone and begin to consume content, think about that. Whoever created what you’re looking at wants money, just like you want money.
So when a PC isn’t locked down to make sure you’re somehow paying for the content you consume, that upsets the entire supply chain that is delivering this content to your eyes and ears. They have to make sure they’re somehow getting paid…
Phones and computers are only limited by your ability to understand and use them. That said, the majority of people I know give me shit for my android while simultaneously asking me how I did a thing on my phone like change permission settings, or have YouTube with no ads without paying, or how I was able to send automated text messages at certain times. But it’s cool because their iPhone “just works”…
Yesterday at a meeting a coworker (a manager) said he didn’t have that particular app we were discussing so I sent him a link to download, he got frustrated and said, “it says I don’t have a compatible phone dude wtf?” I asked for his phone and he was trying to download an app from the Google play store… I didn’t realize he had an iPhone until then. I said that’s the android app store, and he was like dude I have an iPhone it should work. He truly did not understand why it wouldn’t work.
Long story short, it’ll be locked down. Because the majority of people have no idea how the magic box in their pocket works at all, as long as it “just works”
The funny thing is that we’re also seeing small computers like raspberry pi and similars being very open and, save for some of the heavy graphics stuff, being perfect as daily drivers for casual people.
Meanwhile, I don’t expect phones to become open at all
Devices of all kinds becoming more and more locked down is a thing that is already happening. Without increasingly strong consumer protections like digital ownership, right to repair, and the like, capitalism necessitates that devices and platforms continue to become more locked down, less accessible, less open, less flexible, and less private. Maybe the EU can rise to the occasion before it’s too late, but don’t expect that to happen anywhere else.
We already saw closed computers - Chromebooks. They’re still around, but they didn’t really catch on.
We are seeing more open phones, over time.
But to answer your question about Microsoft, specifically, oh yes. Hardware produced specifically for Windows is going to get locked down much harder, soon. How else will they continue to ship spyware into people’s homes?
People who want privacy are going to need to choose their PC hardware much more carefully, in the near future.
Idk that Chromebooks count as being super locked down when most of them can run Linux apps.
Idk that Chromebooks count as being super locked down when most of them can run Linux apps.
I mean…sort of? I used some advanced computer knowledge last time I ran anything interesting on a Chromebook. I was manually installing basic missing shell utilities, just to get other stuff to run.
Maybe they have opened ChromeOS up more, since?
But you make a good point. ChromeOs is more intentionally minimalist than intentionally locked down. The OS didn’t actively fight my adding things, there just wasn’t much there to work with.
This will be the result of requiring TPM 2.0 on Windows 11 computers.
I have predicted a few years ago that the “PC”, ie x86 IBM PC compatible computers, will rift into different devices, some running locked Windows, some running other OS like Linux-based ones, BSD, etc that value freedom and openness. The issue is that it is Microsoft who designed and controls Secure Boot. And they will close it more and more. They are even extending it to ARM-based devices.
After 30+ years of Microshaft shenanigans, I just don’t trust them and never will.
I just recently looked into Secure Boot and from my understanding it’s not a Microsoft lock-in. Many Linux distributions are signed with keys that are loaded by default, and advanced users can even add custom signatures to their computer so Secure Boot would accept them. The original fear around Secure Boot was legitimate, but by now we know the worst outcome of it didn’t come to pass.
That said, I did disable it on my new PC because I think the chance of it causing issues is greater than the chance it will actually protect me from bootloader malware, and I’m willing to accept that risk and responsibility.
different devices, some running locked Windows
That unforgettable moment, when you stand before that machine where you should be able to self-manage that value-card for some prepaid money for some special purpose, and that machine shows you nothing but a good old bluescreen, and it is a bluescreen from a 15 year old Windows…
Microsoft is 50 years old.
Yeah, I said 30+ as in 37 or so I’ve been using their products since I got my first PC, a dual fdd Olivetti PC1.
And often acts like a bunch of 3-year-olds.
Mifrosoft now requires TPM on windows 11,
…and it is a preparation step for even mightier lockdown scenarios than smartphones.
For your best, of course /s
could they make “Secure Boot” mandatory for windows 12? (Thereby preventing a linux install)
They have tried it in win11 already.
All technology eventually trends towards the walled garden, either for reasons of greed or of “safety”.
I think with PCs it will be harder to lock them down and not disgruntle consumers too much in the process. I’m also hopeful that over time right to repair will be the standard, so they have to allow for third party repair. So all these restrictions like chipped components and software only from our store will be phased out by incremental legislation. The EU is not perfect but it’s on this path. Even in the US people are thinking antitrust more often now. There is hope, however small.
You can run whatever you like in your Android phones. Jailbreaking iPhones is also possible. All these devices are just computers that can run anything within their hardware specs. Hacking some of these things may be against the Ts and Cs or even illegal. But technically possible. The restrictions are mote political, not technical.
Chromebooks are not the way to the future. They fill a niche in education for cheap hardware in connection with limited capabilities. They are not technical limitations, they are designed to limit users in what damage they can do. AFAIK you could technically wipe a chromebook and put Linux on it. It may violate the Ts and Cs and we’re right back at political. Google would like to develop future customers at an early age. They don’t care about the education so much as about their bottom line.
You can run whatever you like in your Android phones. Jailbreaking iPhones is also possible. All these devices are just computers that can run anything within their hardware specs. Hacking some of these things may be against the Ts and Cs or even illegal. But technically possible. The restrictions are mote political, not technical.
unless it verifies itself and refuses to boot a modified system. the logic for that can be in actual read only memory.
but wait a minute. something like that is already happening with google safetynet! baking apps and more are literally refusing to work on non-google approved systems, including any single rom that is even just a little bit privacy oriented
But that’s not all phones, is it. If you buy your phone directly from Google, you made a mistake. Like buying one from Apple. If Google want to continue to claim Android is open source, they have to allow for devices that forego any of this crap and boot vanilla non-Google-Services Android. And if you’re privacy oriented enough, you will give up on apps that are not.
And given enough time somebody is going to work out how you fool a modified system into booting. The problem is legal. Depending on where you are circumventing any digital locks can mean jail time at worst. We have to address the legal situation at the same time.
If Google want to continue to claim Android is open source,
do they want it? what’s the benefit for them?
they have to allow for devices that forego any of this crap and boot vanilla non-Google-Services Android.
Sorry but that has nothing to do with what restrictions an app imposes on the user. Currently they allow, and bunch of important apps still refuse to work.
And if you’re privacy oriented enough, you will give up on apps that are not.
as I said above, there are apps that you cannot refuse in this world in certain life situations. most of these apps are not about convenience.
And given enough time somebody is going to work out how you fool a modified system into booting.
as in: in half a decade somebody will reverse engineer the bootloader of a single phone model, so that other tech savvy people can have some privacy.
Google has a vested interest in keeping Android open source. Because the moment they turn away from that more antitrust action is going to hit them like a ton of bricks.
What’s an “important app” to you here?
What’s an “important app” to you here?
the app of my bank. it refuses to work if the operating system is not original. they charge you money for each login code and transaction approval code SMS they send, but if I had the app, scanning their QR code would impose no charge.
they also recently ended the support of the new web interface for mobile browsers, to “protect against hackers”. WTH! and this is the biggest bank in the country by far according to statistics. the old site shuts down soon.the new webapp can still be used in a mobile browser if you enable desktop mode. but for how long? and it’ll be fine for me, I would use that anyway because I don’t want to install their app for other reasons. but lots of people don’t want to deal with a website that’s been designed for desktop PCs, on a small touch screen,because it’s hard to use, it’s hard to read, and if your thumbs are big maybe it’s not even possible to use it.
for banking apps this is almost expected nowadays.
then another friend of mine has the worked related apl I said above. it does the same: refuses to let you use it because the opersting system is not the original one, unmodified. and mind you that does not only mean that you can’t root it or can’t replace the ROM, that also means you cannot even uninstall a bunch of apps that do whatever in the background!
I bet there is much more of these, but if I can I avoid installing anything new from the play store at all, so I don’t come across these apps. I live different technological lifestyle than most around me. most of my friends’ phones cannot be liberated or they are not interested in it because of the dangers, and honestly me neither in supporting an installation that may be unstable as is not rarely the case with lineage, so I rarely offer it. but sometimes I do and they like the idea, accepting that things like this may happen, and then it happens with yet another app I did not know about beforehand.
So, as I said, we need to look at the legal situation at the same time. The assholery of the bank is possible due to the assholery of these OS restrictions and the duopoly of mobile OSs. Everybody wants to have a walled garden. Outlaw or at least restrict walled gardens.
One thing politicians like to say is that they want to protect consumers. Forcing consumers into walled, privacy-invading gardens for essential services such as banking should be a change item on their agenda.
So looking at the status quo you’re correct. I’m just hopeful we can change that. I’m also looking at these mobile compute devices in our pockets as universal ones. They can run any instruction set that doesn’t burn their hardware. All of these restrictions - chipped components, unaltered OSs, software only from one place - are man-made/big corp imposed. With a view to a walled garden. That’s where the law needs to intervene so you can bank safely from where you want.
I wonder if not computers will move away from being a physical unit and instead being a cloud service. The smartphone will be the access point for your cloud computer, and you will connect it to peripherals, just like you would a laptop today.
So we would have gone full circle on Mainframes.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-365
Microsoft is doing it
Ah yes, The Expanse future with authorities shutting down your comms and mad scientists testing bio-weapons on humans.
So… Lovely… 🙃
I haven’t seen The Expanse, but I get it from context. I still believe that is how a lot of people will operate in when 5G is wide spread enough in the US (because that is most likely where the money to develop this will come from and hence the first target market. Or perhapas somewhere in Asia.) + 5 years to develop and sell products.
Unless I am completely wrong and some other trend comes along and the tech world takes a whole other course. 🤷
Well it’s already like that when you go on the web right?
More like remote desktop, like your whole computer being cloud based.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_virtualization and https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/cloud-computing-dictionary/what-is-virtual-desktop-infrastructure-vdi.
Back to the old ways… But I doubt it, a running computer is so cheap to produce it doesn’t really make sense.
Why not? It’s not going to be cost effective to discard a usable computer, of course. But hen your phone can be hooked up to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and the phone’s internet can be used to stream the remote computer, why have a computer? Or if your phone could give you the same interface as your current computer?
I will personally most likley always own a “ordinary” computer, but I wonder if a majority of the populace will.
Is there anything, ever, that’s trended towards more open?
Yes. Open standards always win, given time. No one keeps paying for a closed standard, once the open (free!) one is just as good.
Corporations are always trying to create walled gardens, and always eventually fail, (even if they succeed for decades). They must put something extremely compelling into their walled garden to attract customers. Eventually the novelty wears out, or maintaining their garden walls stops being profitable.
Closed standards win all the time; messaging and social feeds being two major examples.
Open standards usually win only when complying with closed standards is more costly than using less developed open standards in the short run and developing the open standards over time.
You’ve picked relatively new things. And I cannot predict the future. You might be right. Those could be lost causes. Experience tells me they are not.
I feel an obligation to point out the past to the younger folks who think “Microsoft and Adobe always win”. I feel this obligation,l because I was one of them.
Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silver light were inevitable. They were further closing down of existing dominant closed solutions. Now both are forgotten, replaced by open standards.
Microsoft now pretends they always intended to play nice. Adobe now pretends they never even tried to build a walled garden around the Internet.
We can perhaps agree at least that closed standards do frequently win, for awhile. No disagreement from me, on that point.
We might also agree that closed standards only fail when corporations get too greedy?
But of course, I’ll share my faith: corporations always, eventually, get too greedy.
Flash and Silverlight follow what I said. They were ubiquitous until the costs, being a bloated platform that couldn’t be ported to smartphones, caused the industry to shift to an open model.
And messaging is a very old use of the Internet. IRC was created in 1988; Discord shouldn’t be a thing based on what you’ve said.
Flash and Silverlight follow what I said. They were ubiquitous until the costs, being a bloated platform that couldn’t be ported to smartphones, caused the industry to shift to an open model.
I feel like we’re trying to find something to disagree about now…?
And messaging is a very old use of the Internet. IRC was created in 1988; Discord shouldn’t be a thing based on what you’ve said.
Discord does substantially more than IRC can do.
It’s wild to me that “people eventually move to the free thing, once it is feature complete” is a controversial take.
Yes, it can take multiple lifetimes. Yes, there’s plenty of examples where the closed thing persists long after an informed public would have switched.
But the shift to an open public standard eventually happens.
Nobody keeps a monopoly forever.
Monopolies based on restrictive agreements and secret code are unnatural, and they require constant upkeep. They eventually succumb.
In some cases, the standard even persists, but as an open one. Microsoft has figured this out, and now strategically open sources things they know they cannot keep alive, otherwise.
Yes. Open standards always win, given time. No one keeps paying for a closed standard, once the open (free!) one is just as good.
Like Gimp? Oh, wait that didn’t take over. Well, at least Libreoffice is the standard office suite today, oh wait, that didn’t take over. Well, Linux is the most used operating system at least. Whoops, except Android counts as that and it’s increasingly locked down.
I mean, I can help you can pick things that haven’t won yet all day. Gimp is free, Adobe works hard making a more compelling expensive product.
Adobe will someday stop innovating. Gimp will not. Gimp’s source code is the more resilient, thanks to it’s license. We (old people) have seen this play out many times.
Unix, BSD, and a dozen variants used to be the compelling options. Today, using Unix variants outside of Linux is vanishingly rare. Closed source browsers are rare today, and even those are built on the open source browser cores. Everyone is trying to enshitify Android, not iOS, because it’s the resilient licensed software.
It takes time. Everyone who can make a dollar fighting it, does so. But open standards win.
Closed source browsers are rare today, and even those are built on the open source browser cores.
Any browser that’s not Chrome is rare today. I’m not sure pointing at Chrome as a well-managed open source project is a good idea. Although one can view the source, Google controls the codebase and development process with an iron hand. Any feature that is a good idea technically, but will hurt Google is a no-go to have merged.
Most people don’t care about locked-down tech. They don’t have the skills necessary to use anything open, and that’s fine. You have to pick what you do with your limited time.
OTOH, many people want to have control over their data. That means having control over other people’s computers. It’s not just the copyright industry demanding money, or Big Tech building walled gardens. You can see a lot of users on Lemmy demanding that kind of control. That means that computing devices of all kinds must become more locked-down and remote-controllable.
So that’s where I see us going.
