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Comment by mPReDiToR | Hacker News Reader

To play devil's advocate only:

If Bob paid $COST for a phone and it got exploited because of this, Bob may throw his phone out of the nearest window.

Do you think there are more Bobs than you in the world?

Personally, I find this reliance on the GOOG OS awful, but most of it was overcome with Xposed last time I ran LineageOS. I tried Cydia last time I ran IOS and that was worse.

I've thrown several phones out of the window (metaphorically) and am waiting on my PinePhone being delivered because I believe in their goals.

It sucks that everything in life seems to come down to Coke or Pepsi choices, or Vi/Emacs.

Big corps aren't the answer. They monopolise and stifle, giving twoshit sandwiches for consumers to take a bite of.

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> If Bob paid $COST for a phone and it got exploited because of this, Bob may throw his phone out of the nearest window.

You and I both know, despite many attempts, there is no hardware or software out there that is unexploitable. From the most locked down chromebook to Apple's walled garden, these devices can and are exploited.

The idea that if somehow we take away enough of your freedom we'll make the device safe is basically a bald faced lie. Not once in the history of computing has it worked out. Even my internet connected lightbulbs which literally have only an on and an off exposed are exploitable.

No amount of removing user freedom will make users safer. This isn't a rocket surgery level conclusion, which means companies that continue pressing down this road probably have some other reason for doing so.

Just because nothing is completely secure doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to make things as secure as possible.

The question is the cost of making things "secure as possible".

Should you harden memory? Setup SELinux? Yeah, do those things, those are good meaningful things to do.

Should you prevent users from running apps? Prevent downloads? Restrict third party apps? What about tracking everything the user types in? Tracking every app the user opens and when they open it (eg, Apple)?

What about bypassing user firewalls (Apple again)? That's for "security", right? Forcing your own DNS resolver (Google)?

User hostility is never an acceptable tradeoff for security.

if we give up a huge part of our freedom as the price, i would say lets not.

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