Hacker News Reader

Comment by xyzal | Hacker News Reader

The fact that even the 'smart' people from HN can't wait for their new M1 laptop to arrive convinced me that humans are a lost cause.

View on HN

So, it’s not that other platforms are any better!

Are you sure intel, AMD, Arm or windows TPM aren’t snitching on you? Do we need to make our own silicon from ingot?

There’s no technological solution to this problem, only social and legislative.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor

Is this the real reason why there is the Windows 11 x64 silicon cut-off?

Have people already forgotten that Microsoft implemented the tech to routinely scan your cloud storage a decade ago?

>The system that scans cloud drives for illegal images was created by Microsoft and Dartmouth College and donated to NCMEC. The organization creates signatures of the worst known images of child pornography, approximately 16,000 files at present. These file signatures are given to service providers who then try to match them to user files in order to prevent further distribution of the images themselves, a Microsoft spokesperson told NBC News. (Microsoft implemented image-matching technology in its own services, such as Bing and SkyDrive.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/your-cloud-drive-really-pr...

Didn't the Windows 10 TOS extend that scanning to local storage as well?

I'm OK with software generating signatures from cloud drive images to eliminate child porn pictures and catch pedophiles.

You should read the rest of the linked Twitter thread, because the issue is that if the hash algorithm has a collision vulnerability, any image could be manipulated to show up as "child porn" to the scanner.

Microsoft created and hosts the PhotoDNA service which all providers use, and PhotoDNA has false positives. All reports are supposed to be manually reviewed before being sent to Cyber Tip.

But, are they? The Swiss federal police weren't too happy about the reports they received from the Cyber Tip.

Have you ever had the impression that special interests are much more interested in copyright violations than child pornography? Or that it might extend to memes that sabotages carefully crafted propaganda? I do have that impression a lot.

I don't step in the lowest parts of the internet hell, but I am also not very picky about it. I have never encountered child pornography in 10 years of almost pathological internet usage.

Scanning for DRM violations was one of the use cases mentioned in the article linked above.

I didn't know what CSAM stood for so I first though this would be the reaction to the security issues iPhones faced. Oh, silly me.

Additionally, by calculating hashes of media on peoples devices, you can quickly determine networks. A private image you shared with your friends? Unique hash and everyone that has it is probably in your network. That is aside from the issue that they would also just read your contacts.

>windows TPM aren’t snitching on you?

The TPM FUD has really gone out of hand.

1. there's no such thing as "windows TPMs", whatever that means.

2. TPMs basically has zero access to the rest of the system. It's connected via a LPC bus, so there's no fancy DMA attacks to pull off. Over that bus the system firmware sends various hashes of the system state (eg. hash of your bootloader), but that's about it.

> 2. TPMs basically has zero access to the rest of the system. It's connected via a LPC bus, so there's no fancy DMA attacks to pull off. Over that bus the system firmware sends various hashes of the system state (eg. hash of your bootloader), but that's about it.

That's the specification. Have you actually monitored the bus using probes? Did you check that the TPM is only connected to LPC?

>Have you actually monitored the bus using probes

Isn't this the definition of FUD?

>Did you check that the TPM is only connected to LPC?

Dunno, you tell me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TPM_Asus.jpg

Not too lost 'cause you can run Linux on M1.

Until the manufacturer decides otherwise.

Like every other system since UEFI came out a decade ago. Do you use a Librem phone/laptop yourself?

Most other manufacturers aren't in the business of pushing their own OS.

Fwiw, Apple's incentive seems to be hardware from the outside more than Software, imo. They tend to sell the hardware by the software for a lot of people, but given that they're so concerned with keeping their software on their hardware i suspect they don't have much reason to push their software over your software.

What would concern me is if we see a big revenue stream from their software. Then i'd question them not wanting Linux on their machines.

But imo you already gave them what they want when you buy an M1. I don't see a reason why they care beyond that.

Are you kidding? After getting a taste of the revenue-potential of software in the App Store, it is inevitable that Apple wants more of it.

In fact, I predict that Apple will at one point start selling software as a subscription, like SaaS. Other OSes don't fit in that model.

I'm not. Because for years Apple didn't want it's OS anywhere but on it's hardware.

The day apple wants it's OS anywhere it can get it, because it brings in money independent of just it's hardware is the day i actually believe Apple cares about the software revenue.

Right now Apple's software is hardware locked. Google by comparison cares much more about the software side than Apple, imo.

> I predict that Apple will at one point start selling software as a subscription

That’s not a difficult prediction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Arcade:

“Apple Arcade is a video game subscription service offered by Apple Inc. It is available through a dedicated tab of the App Store on devices running iOS 13, tvOS 13, iPadOS 13, and macOS Catalina or later. The service launched on September 19, 2019 after being announced in March 2019”

They also have “hardware as a service”. https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program:

“The easiest way to upgrade to the latest iPhone. Get a new iPhone every year AppleCare+ coverage included Works with your carrier Starting from $35.33/month”

This is a 2017 article[1] about how Tim Cook pushed Apple to get more revenue from software services. Recent articles this year add to say that Apple has been successful in this area. So perhaps the image of Apple being mainly a hardware company is outdated.

[1] https://www.applemust.com/apples-50b-services-target-just-is...

Even more reason to avoid them i guess, if there hardware is as closed ecosystem and useless to those outside it. At least before they shipped good hardware for multiple contexts, but perhaps those days are gone.

Then once the manufacturer makes that decision, switch. Honestly this comment is just nonsense.. Apple has always allowed other OSes on Mac. When that changes, buy a new computer.

The iPhone came out 14 years ago, and still doesn't allow switching OS. What more do you need?

The iPhone and the Mac are different platforms, developed at different times, for different purposes and different markets with different design philosophies. I don’t see a logical connection between the iPhone being bootlocked and the Mac necessarily following suite.

The selling point of Macs is the Apple ecosystem and UX. If you avoid Apple, what's the point of M1? Linux on equivalent AMDs is cheaper and more compatible.

> If you avoid Apple, what's the point of M1?

   - (Potentially) programmable top notch security chip with no overhead encryption
   - Fanless (Air), cool running, fast processor with very low power consumption
   - All metal body
   - Top notch HiDPI screen with color accuracy.
   - Top notch sensors
   - Excellent, illuminated keyboard
   - Big trackpad with pressure sensitivity and taptic engine
   - Excellent battery life
   - Excellent battery endurance
   - Very high sound quality, good speakers, good mics.
   - High quality webcam
   - Light for its class
   - WiFi with plenty of antennas, MIMO support and all modern standards, incl. forward facing ones.

Need more?

- No jank at all. The most comfortable-to-use laptop I’ve ever had, desktop latency wise.

- The ability to use nix-darwin for configuration management. It may be incomplete, but there’s no Windows equivalent.

- Higher single thread performance than any other device.

Nearly all the HW items have equivalent or superiour replacements, and a fair amount are dependent on the Apple ecosystem. Without Apple's ecosystem it's a good system but overpriced, and that's before you run into Linux compatibility problems.

For example, take the monitor - there are monitors with higher refresh rates or more resolution (Retina does 'only' 6K). Also, Mac OS colour processing has no good equivalent elsewhere, so you won't see as much benefit from Apple's monitor without Mac OS.

M1 is nearly a year old now, and the replacement (M1X, M2?) is rumored to be released in a couple of months. So far no other SoC has been able to come close to even the current-gen M1 in terms of performance + efficiency, with a remarkable x86 emulation on top.

On the software side, Apple has the unique position to force every developer who cares about their user base to rebuild their stuff for a completely different CPU architecture.

M1-based products are anything but overpriced. The Air’s price is comparable to modern flagship smartphones.

The context of the thread is the idea of "avoiding Apple ecosystem while still buying M1" (See paulcarroty's post and my reply). If you install Linux, you don't get their Rosetta x86 emulation or any advantage from 'forcing developers', etc. etc.

I was more focused on the "equivalent or superiour replacement" part.

At this point in history, you can't avoid Apple's ecosystem if you want to use their ARM-based laptops/desktops unless it's a hobby of yours. And it's sad, because this is the best hardware I've ever owned.

My comment was for laptops primarily. On the desktop side, I'd not buy an Apple branded system unless I need macOS specifically, but on the portable space, their systems are superior to most of the offerings.

They're not EliteBook/Thinkpad tough, but they're more than enough unless you're going to handle it rough.

I can calibrate a screen regardless of the OS I use with the help of a good calibration device, and having a good panel is a good start for that. On desktop, there are possibly better panels for pure color accuracy, I won't argue that.

OTOH, on the portable space, their hardware formula is pretty robust.

I did think more about desktops, but I think same applies to laptops. I think that if you tilt the field by not allowing Mac OS (that's the context of the thread) the top PC laptops are better, since you lose many Apple advantages given by integration.

Worse, it would take some time for me to even trust Linux on M1 laptops to not fail exactly when I need it - that's the nature of reverse engineering. Since they don't have the specs, the only real test is lots of people running it for some time and reliability is more important to me than specs.

As for monitors, Apple's colour advantage is more than good calibration - the entire ecosystem can handle 10bit HDR. That's something AFAIK you won't get elsewhere.

Don't higher density displays take more power? Can we actually start making laptop displays that cap out at 1080 or 1440p?

For me (and many out there) DPI is more important than slightly higher battery consumption which becomes less of an issue with other components such as SoC mitigate that with more optimized power usage.

Retina Display when it first arrived was literally THE reason I started switching to Apple ecosystem as it was exponentially better to look at that screen, and I'd even pay more for a 4K display on a MacBook if they brought it.

There's no doubt that Apple makes good hardware. But you can find decent hardware elsewhere, even at lower cost and with better configurability.

Everyone betting on the same horse is usually a bad strategy.

By the way, here's what Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux) thinks about using the M1:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-would-like-to-u...

If we are talking about ARM64 devices specifically, the prices of the new M1 products are actually very competitive.

I’m not sure this is true? The $1000 version has absolutely ridiculous performance for it’s price class. To the point it’s nearly as good as my desktop system.

My desktop system is a 24-core Zen 2. The M1 shouldn't be faster, and I'm certain the difference is almost purely a matter of software, but in reality the M1 certainly feels a lot faster.

Yes, the desktop has higher throughput. Of course it does. But that doesn't mean I don't feel a fraction of a second's lag whenever I do basically anything, and on the M1 that just... doesn't exist.

On the other hand, my i7 16 inch MacBook Pro consists of purely lag. Half of the time it’ll be the ‘kernel process’ so I don’t even have a clue what’s causing it.

FWIW in a benchmark of a lua parser my friend is writing my M1 beat my 5950X Ryzen by a factor of 2x. According to him the L1/L2 cache makes the difference.

So it's not just a matter of feel.

> But you can find decent hardware elsewhere, even at lower cost and with better configurability.

The problem is, you pay the same price for a Thinkpad/Elitebook and you get ridiculous gotchas like missing wireless antennas (at most you can find 2x2, if you're lucky). Or the configuration you like doesn't come to your country, or the vendor doesn't allow custom configuration for your country unless you buy 10+, etc.

OTOH, I pay the premium, I get what I configured, with top notch small specs (antennas, wireless chips, etc.). You can't find a spare 40mm SSD for your Elitebook after three years, but Apple will service your device happily.

If you get the said SSD from the vendor, its quadruple the price, so it's Apple's price territory again.

At that price range, there's no advantage in hardware prices between Apple, HP, Lenovo and Dell. They're equally cheap/expensive. So, IMHO, you pay less on the long run for an Apple laptop, which you can use for 7-8 years without problems.

Maybe so. Anyway, talking about Apple's hardware specs completely misses the point that started this entire subthread.

- No dumb LEDs keeping you awake.

Of course this would anger the PC crowd.

Is the M1 keyboard significantly better than MBP (with the touchbar)? because that keyboard was crap. To be absolutely fair, good keyboards are hard to come by these days, and that's also why i'm using a logitech from 2006 via ps2 adapter.

> Is the M1 keyboard significantly better than MBP (with the touchbar)?

Yes. It's slightly deeper, much more resistant to dust and one can write with very low effort, but with crisp feedback. It allows me to write at least 10% faster with no effort. I similarly use an old Microsoft Sculpt Comfort at office and Logitech G710+ at home.

Good keyboard is something hard to find.

Wouldn't the M1's power efficiency be applicable on Linux as well?

In theory, sure. It’ll need a lot more work than simply getting Linux working, and we’re not even there yet.

This is a moot point unless you always verify and check all hardware and software that you use, including communications devices.

I don’t think that’s his point. The point is Apple made a laptop that did away technologies that allow PC ecosystem/choices we see today. The M1 MacBook feels like an iPhone, but sized as a laptop.

AFAIK, the M1 is an ARM laptop and the Linux kernel already supports it. I also assume that it won't be too long until we see Bootcamp for M1 Macs. So I don't think that M1 or Intel changes anything in that regard.

I recently bought an M1 (my first and only Apple product so far). Anecdotally, I only bought it knowing that it can execute arbitrary code without restrictions, unlike iOS. If they decide to change that then you can be sure I won't be purchasing any future models.

Importantly, it runs iOS games, which has otherwise been a weak point in the macos ecosystem.

I bought the M1 Air and yes, it feels like an iPhone, but sized as a retro-ish laptop and able to run a dev stack which Apple still won't let me do on my plenty powerful enough iPad.

You don't need to verify everything yourself. You can verify any small part and rely on the community to verify the rest. Or pay someone to verify. However, for all that you need verifiability, which Apple lacks.

> You can verify any small part and rely on the community to verify the rest. Or pay someone to verify.

The only difference in this is who you trust. Be it Apple, the community or someone you pay, you're still trusting that someone else's interests align with yours and they did things correctly.

In other words, this is not a technical problem. It's a problem that needs to be solved through regulation, because 99% of the people can't verify by themselves that their devices are actually private and secure.

> The only difference in this is who you trust.

Not really. There is a huge difference between trusting a single for-profit entity (who provides backdoor to iCloud in China) or huge number of independent people (each would like to get famous/rich for finding bugs).

Yes, because the "huge number of independent people" have never missed any serious bugs or backdoor, and they also verify every piece of equipment you use.

Nothing is ever perfectly secure. It's a question of whom you should trust for a lesser damage.

Yes - and for most people trusting Apple is still a better option, because the ‘community’ option is literally just wishful thinking at this point.

Linux kernel AFAIK has less security issues than Apple. Qubes even less. Not sure what the reason for your insult is.

No insult. You actually don’t know that the Linux kernel has less security issues than Apple’s kernel.

But the kernel is only a tiny fraction of the system. There simply is no Linux system that even attempts to solve the problems Apple solves. There could be, but there isn’t - this is what we mean by the term ‘wishful thinking’.

> You actually don’t know that the Linux kernel has less security issues than Apple’s kernel.

You are speaking as if you know the opposite. Any links?

Apple spends a hell of a lot more time and money verifying that my iPhone is secure than say… the developers of any number of the mobile Linux ports.

Plus the hardware is nice and actually works.

I agree with what you say in principle but here I am using an iPhone to type this while it’s been nearly 2 years since I ordered my Librem 5.

Making decent mobile devices that are more secure than an iPhone is not an easy thing.

I wondered whether this was sarcasm at first. Yes, making iCloud backups encrypted is not an easy thing I guess.

My comment was directed at the people who would say “don’t use apple” as if Android or any number of FOSS phone alternatives with 5 people maintaining them are more secure than IOS.

> Apple spends a hell of a lot more time and money verifying that my iPhone is secure than say… the developers of any number of the mobile Linux ports.

Secure against entities they don't like. But intentionally insecure against entities they do like.

That just shifts who controls the monopoly on verification. Not trusting anyone isn't a reasonable goal. Open verifiability allows you to choose which entities to put trust in and how much trust you can afford to eliminate by doing things yourself.

Not at all. Here we have a manufacturer that thinks he would be allowed to scan the contents of your machine. If you scan a machine, you can read everything on the machine.

FYI: M1 Macs can run Linux.

Do you?

What do you recommend instead?

Current generation of desktop/laptop processors are plenty powerful. I’m unconvinced they cannot fulfil today’s computing needs.

As an M1 owner, M1 just does it better for mobile computing purposes. There is no denying this.

You know, there was a time when people stopped buying cheap shirts made in English factories that employed kids. They were good shirts, too.

Is it worth it, though? Is being "better for mobile computing purposes" worth all of this, and whatever else will come next - which we know is just a matter of time, because no one cares enough to stop buying from them?

The fact that you think people waiting for Intel and Windows 11 are any better off makes me think the same.

"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can't trust people" - Super Hans :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com