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Comment by ipsum2 | Hacker News Reader

How do you define a peripheral? An Oculus Quest is basically a repackaged smart phone.

I mean I don't see why this couldn't apply cart-blanche to all computers. I don't need to sign into MS, Mac to use the computers (though I do for my mac because of corp. policy).

It has been getting harder, but fuck, why not use this opportunity to turn this shit around?

> why not use this opportunity to turn this shit around?

Because your proposed legislation would outlaw most IoT devices. This is, in fact, bad.

It's 100% possible to make electronics that do not require a connection to the Internet to function. That is, in fact, good.

> Because your proposed legislation would outlaw most IoT devices.

Only if it were drafted carelessly. Which, yeah, plenty of laws are, but it's not a requirement.

It would just outlaw the easiest way to insure an IoT device is easily controlled and authenticated.

You do need to sign into MS to use Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.

Why though? Why is that requirement there? Okay, it's nice for me to sync everything and have a seamlessly integrated ecosystem. But what if I have one device and just want to use Word on it and that's it?

It's a subscription, so they have to know it is you to know if you've paid your dues or not. MS is a bit sneakier though as they will allow you to open a document and make changes, but if you are not current in your subscription fees, they disable save functions. Been caught out on this a couple of times.

I get that, but that's software on the main device. I guess yes, wording such a law will be a crap and a half.

Not sure why this matters. Can you use an iPhone without entering an iCloud account? Can you use an Android without some G account? I honestly don't know as I've never tried skirting the system on my iDevices, an my only use with Android is in a dev environment, but I know that there were G accounts for these as well.

As it stands you need not sign into iCloud to use macOS or Microsoft Live to use Windows. Not sure what the law would even do.

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