Something like this would inevitably be abused and result in wave of malware so massive that it would render the internet too hostile for all but the most careful, knowledgable and paranoid users.
It's a position I came to rather regretfully and sadly.
> limit[ing] access to general-purpose computing without doing so across the board for everyone
I imagine the vast majority of people on this site run (or at least have used) Linux, *BSD, etc. on a daily basis. No average person is going to set up Arch on their main PC, but lots of us do. Your average person enjoys their locked-down Samsungs and iPhones, while we enjoy unlocked problem-ridden (but personally solvable) Linux environments.
Would it be better if every person who could buy an iPhone was sufficiently technically competent to not install malware on their easily-rootable phone? Yes. But that’s not the world we live in. Maybe I’m succumbing to the “First They Came...” mindset, but until I can’t run Linux on a PC I’ve built with components of my choosing, I don’t really care if my phone is a semi-closed semi-black box. I used to enjoy jailbreaking iOS devices, but eventually decided I’m happy with my phone just being a phone. If I want to tinker, I’ve got a rack full of servers and 3 different workstations I have the freedom to break whenever I want. It’s nice to have a phone that can just do phone things 100% of the time - I haven’t had an iOS system crash (or any bug preventing use) in about 5 years, which was the last time I had a jailbroken phone.
There's a line from Blazing Saddles that comes to mind...
It would no longer be your computer.
Pretty sad state of affairs, huh?
- A computer that is compromised by malware
- A computer that doesn’t permit the user to install malware, and as a consequence, possibly alternative operating systems
Your phrasing implies that “it would no longer be our computer” is equivalent to “one that’s not ours from the start.” As far as I know, Microsoft and Apple aren’t going to ransomware your computer/phone to make a few bucks. You just can’t root an iPhone. Equating the two is arguing in bad faith, at best.
Let me know when that's ever invented. It's certainly not iPhone. The crApp Store is full of scams and ripoffs, costing consumers millions if not billions of dollars.
It's also worth noting how much goodware that users are not permitted to install, due to vendor lockdown and arbitrary restrictions, often motivated purely by the desire to squealch competition. Security, or in this case security theater, always has tradeoffs. Unfortunately, consumers often don't even know what they're missing, because the vendor restricts what they're allowed to see, but we developers know what kind of software that we can't make on locked down platforms.
Vendor lockdown is a tool for authoritarian regimes that enables censorship. For example, these regimes force the vendors to remove VPN apps from their "curated" stores, and since sideloading is forbidden, there are no alternatives for the poor users under these regimes.
Ah, the good old "think of the grandma". HN's version of "think of the children". And just like the conservative pearl clutchers, I don't think there's much sincerity in those thoughts. You are more afraid of the possibility that there would be less users to squeeze through adtech and crapware sold on appstores. Most HNers make a living from making the world an even worse place.
There's a lot of devs here very happy to have a captive audience of people too ignorant to know better, either exposing their eyeballs to constant onslaught of ads on "free" apps, or paying for really basic functionality.
I will never forget that show HN post that talked about selling a clone of Handbrake, a program that exists just to set a few flags on FFMPEG, and making a living out of it, because the Apple audience has been brainwashed to take out their wallet for the dumbest of things.
Ah, there it is:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39987579
The average HNer.
The average value add of people constantly bemoaning the idea that there could be regulations to stop them from enslaving new generations to tech is lower than that of scammers.
If the user is doing banking on fake-chrome then admin is pointless; https://xkcd.com/1200/
> then you'd never be able trust anything on that computer ever again. Even re-installing the OS wouldn't fix it.
Why not? If the hardware is under user control, they just reimage the firmware, reimage the OS, and then it's clean. (Or, in practice, perhaps they hire the local computer shop to do so, but I don't think that changes anything.)
There are already myriad unlockable devices.
What a bizarre fantasy you have constructed.
Given that, then anything very useful would be rendered non-functional, resulting in the device probably being useless.
Freedom cuts both ways here; if you want absolute freedom to do whatever you want with your device, why should software vendors not have absolute freedom to choose what platforms their software is permitted to run on?
Obviously none of this applies to FOSS.
Today banks don't want to be liable for user error that lead to scams. They adhere to such policies out of fear, but they don't help as the most prominent victims of scams are still the same people, open system or not.
For starters, because they're wrong, and they're wrong in a way that makes their users less secure. Allowing the use of Windows or Android with open CVEs while blocking completely up-to-date Linux or aftermarket Android ROMs clearly shows that this nonsense is contrary to security.
> If you don’t like it, either pick a different bank or deal with not having access to their software.
And that's the next biggest reason: Customers don't have the same amount of power that the companies have, so it's perfectly reasonable to tilt things in the customer's favor.
You cannot personally tell whether it is trustworthy or not.