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Comment by mlazos | Hacker News Reader

This author appears to think that you need to understand the intricate details of a search algorithm, distributed computing, and machine learning before you understand what their general use is? I don’t need to understand how a car engine works before I can understand how to drive or how cars have changed society. The only argument this article proves is that google and Facebook have lowered the bar on journalism so far that this is considered publishable.

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I would add that you don't need to understand the implementation details to understand privacy of citizens, tracking of users, and accountability. It doesn't take years of programming experience to understand that the big data companies wield incredible power and are also vulnerable to security breaches. (Maybe you shouldn't collect data that you can't protect.)

Totally agreed. What drivel. I couldn't even finish reading the article.

We have senators grilling tech CEOs that don't understand the difference between an iPhone and an Android device. This is unacceptable to say the least.

To play devil's advocate: What is the difference between an Android phone and an iPhone phone, and if there is, what does it matter to a customer? Both can make phone calls, both can display web pages, both can run apps. There's one fairly irrelevant difference because it's an historical accident so it will probably be eliminated soon: one platform owner already controls the platform completely, and the other not yet.

For a normal customer with no tech skills? Android is the one which comes in a full range from “cheap” to “premium” while Apple only comes in “premium”.

You also get to choose which app store you get, Apple or Google, but I’m not sure if normal people know what one of those is.

The new iPhone SE is definitely a mid-market play, blurring it further.

> To play devil's advocate: What is the difference between an Android phone and an iPhone phone, and if there is, what does it matter to a customer?

One is a device that works for the customer, the other is a device that works for advertising companies.

> What is the difference between an Android phone and an iPhone phone

What is the difference between a cheap Android and a premium Android device relative to difference between iPhone and premium Android?

Google’s CEO had to remind Congress that Google doesn’t make iPhones.

Seriously?

How can our reps make sound decision regarding tech when they don't even understand this simple distinction?

The difference is that proposed regulation against Apple affects iPhones and not Androids.

You may as well ask what the difference is between Huawei and Cisco in terms of functionality - and certainly there's no difference to a customer - but that difference matters a lot to the US government.

Your car engine doesn’t store information about everywhere you go and what your interests are.

Your car engine probably doesn’t experience data leaks, social engineering, or 0 day bugs.

The argument is Google and Facebook don’t 100% know their data usage and risks and I’d agree that’s true.

Complex software systems are impossible to 100% guarantee expected behavior. This is why bug bounties and the security industry exists.

The safest way to protect information is to not store it, the second safest is strong encryption.

The metaphor seems apt to me, if anything, we should have and do have a much greater interest in regulation of automotive products, which themselves are absurdly complex. How is a regulator to know about various emissions, chances of explosion/fire, engine longevity and warranties? Engines can kill you with fuel leaks, poor materials engineering, or unknown manufacturing bugs. I'd argue that your car engine is much more likely to harm you in a significant way. Car engines had, and continue to have, albeit at a much lower rate,issues related to these things, and we came up with various bodies to help manage it. The people writing the legislation need to better surround themselves with people to advise them on the topics related to Google and Facebook, that is their job as a representative of their constituents; instead they come to the meeting barely prepared and ask a series of poorly worded and unimaginative questions, showing they didn't ask their aides to do even basic research on their behalf, while Google and Facebook bring Harvard lawyers to their corner.

In reality if Congress wants an expert they need to have a team of engineers at the company performing audits and code reviews.

No different than a company that does due diligence before an acquisition.

For sure, the FDA employs pharmaceutical engineers to regulate the companies. The FAA employs pilots and aviation engineers. Do we have a corollary for software? Sort of, in specific domains, but not really.

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