Every device you let in is another attack surface, and no certification process can eliminate it.
Allowing devices to view and respond to messages is inherently lower risk than allowing them to freely communicate with anyone.
Allowing devices to view and respond to messages is inherently lower risk than allowing them to freely communicate with anyone.
It's a tricky situation. Windows Vista tried to improve security and then was criticized for having too many UAC pop-ups, and for breaking legacy drivers.
I don't like Apple's syspolicyd, but it is also an attempt at improving security.
the average person doesn't even understand the basic concept of what the average HN reader considers system administration, and we're wrong anyway eh
The difference with computing is that since it's "new" and sometimes it has bugs, they will blame the hardware/OS any chance they get.
When asked about it, he doesn't have too many files. What do you do in that case? Isn't he a moron both for storing so much porn and at the same time (somehow) believing a tech support person wouldn't find the root of the problem. It was in a "hidden" folder, so not only he is a moron for the first offense, but doubly so for thinking a competent person wouldn't find something so obvious.
So, I reiterate, most people are morons, and technology just reveals their ineptitude in plain sight, it's simple as that.
You are free to believe in your idealized version of the world, but it doesn't match my experience at all.
I actually think your example illustrates this: people use their computers for porn. There's nothing wrong with that. If it's so large that he has no space left, I mean that's a pretty actionable thing to tell him. He's not an idiot for not figuring it out himself. That he "hid" the folder from you–I mean, people hide things from professionals all the time. Nobody volunteers to their doctor that they wipe in the wrong direction and thus have chronic UTIs. It's your job to work around the reasonable things people do that make your work harder and bring them to "oh, that makes sense, thanks" perspective.
You are just of bad faith, pretending to be outraged about what I said even though it only describes the reality of the world. Your newfound religion is so bad that you find offensive something that doesn't even have any moral implication to it and is factual proven by so many statistics that it is not even worth arguing about.
If you what you mean is "not every computer user is a moron" you need to work on reading comprehension because that's not what I said. I stand by my original statement and you are somewhat proving me right.
There's probably something important and complicated in the world you have to interact with regularly that you don't understand very well. Based on this comment, I think it might be people.
Pretending otherwise is nonsensical, since the richest economies in the world depend on it and surely not everyone is at a genius level.
There are some things important and complicated that I don't understand very well but they are not about basic operation of relatively simple things. It's like saying operating a washing machine or using a knife is something special.
And I do understand people very well; in fact, much more than I wish, by necessity. Your average person is frustratingly basic to the point of being extremely annoying on top of boring. I just choose to not pretend and "be nice" anymore, because it just hides reality and doesn't help anyone. The fact that we have some people designing complex computers or sending people to the moon while others are barely able to cook a meal is largely a testament to that.
You might want to get rid of your ideologies if you believe what I said is controversial or wrong. Most people, by statistical definition, are idiots. Technology just reveals that fact very clearly, it's as simple as that.
Phones, for better or worse, contain much more private and personal information about users than their computer I would bet on average.
So I understand the urge to make phones more secure by default and to help users avoid foot guns, even if it means restricting their choices.
You are likely not the average user, and I think it's a bit selfish to demand total freedom, that you can manage safely, when for most users they would be worse off.
In a perfect world we wouldn't need this but we certainly don't have one of those.
There's secure by default, and then there's stuff users can't override even with great effort. Android restricts some dangerous operations by default and makes users jump through a couple hoops to acknowledge the risk. iOS usually forbids them entirely.
The ability to build better things is the reason why you can now sit here, using technologies built on that "shit show" machine, and bloviate how new generations aren't allowed to build new things anymore because a megacorp needs to feed its greed.
In any case we are largely still learning when it comes to security and I don’t really want to make things less secure for the many just to satisfy the few.
The upshot of this is that Apple can unfairly compete in all sorts of verticals just by owning that platform. A lot of companies could make a good Airpod competitor, but without access to the same functions as Apple's they're hamstrung. Watches have this problem even worse.
Say what you want about Microsoft at their zenith, you COULD compete with their browser, in fact, people did. You just can't with iOS. That's more important than some users having poor security. (And really, how are we going to worry about phone security when there's a system as stupid as passwordless social security numbers being the key to your financial life?)
The natural duopoly needs to be regulated such that it doesn't spill over into every tangential market.
I do not in fact see that. PCs work pretty damn well, security-wise, even with clueless users. I'll grant you it isn't as secure as phones, but it's by no means horrible.
I actually disagree with you that things are good, security-wise, today.. They are still pretty bad.
Back then was extremely bad.. Back then, Windows was never designed to be a networked operating system and was just full of security problems like you wouldn't believe.
(But also, this kind of thing is exactly why the analogy doesn't even make sense.)
People should be free to do stupid things, so long as they don't hurt others (the antibiotics example that another poster gave us a much stronger argument)
I suspect Apple can significantly cut down on abuse prevention measures just by making it harder to automatically send iMessage spam.
If any random Bluetooth smartwatch was allowed to send those, there's no telling how that capability could be abused, we all know how IoT vendors are with device security.
Couldn't agree more: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord/SearchResults?query=apple+watc...
You do realize that you're implying that Apple is insecure by design? Because I can easily (locally) root my iPhone and get raw access to iMessage.
Not all corporations make better choices, however, which motivates a regulatory role. Thus is civilisation identified.
Isn't the choice to use an android, then?
It is the responsibility of the systems designer to make sure the system is secure, not the end user.
And if you require instructions on how to secure your system, then you have already failed. A properly designed system is secure with zero knowledge.
Remember, it takes work to learn anything, and the goal of a tool is to reduce work, not to increase it.
Throw away customization. Throw away configuration. Both of those are bad design principles.
Make it work by default.