Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all doing the same thing with their operating systems. Soon, everything you do on your device will be recorded, analyzed, compiled, and cross-referenced. All of it ready to be used against you in advertisements, commerce, and a court of law.
If you think age checks are bad now, wait until it’s enforceably illegal to even look at pornography on your device. Or, maybe you receive a knock at your door for a missed period, or a some questionable searches while pregnant? Higher ride app pricing for a low phone battery? Now your digital credit score determines your eligibility and cost for a ride. Think your VPN will hide that pirated movie or your location? Who needs to bypass encryption when your entire screen is analyzed by a hardware driven AI classification system in real-time.
Advertisers, authoritarians, media execs, and tech bros are vibrating so hard that they’re starting to glow. This is the real AI revolution into which they have sunk so much money. Do you think they’re just going to accept that they won’t get a return on their investment because you think you have a right to privacy?
How long will we even have access to hardware and software that doesn’t contain baked-in content analysis?
As someone born in the early 2000s, I can only say that there will be a divide of the informed and the uninformed. The true tragedy of my generation, to be honest, will be the people who have the tools and information at their disposal to actually understand the world, but opt instead for the comfort food of AI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon’s services.
I am an electrical engineering student, hopefully about to graduate in the near future, and I can tell you that some of my peers have the same thought process you and I have. We’re willing to do the research, understand the pros and cons of convenience, and adjust our lives in the best ways we can. I switched to the FOSS ecosystem as much as I reasonably could. (Barring LTSC windows 10 for some program compatibility)
The majority don’t care, however. In non-technical fields it’s worse, many following the “I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear” argument. They use ChatGPT on a daily basis, are more than happy to upload photo after photo on Meta’s suite, and complain about Windows 11 without bothering to consider alternatives. Any attempts I’ve had at explaining the reality of their “free” services gets just a weird look and them walking away.
The irony of ironies is that I was born, raised, and educated in Silicon Valley, ground zero, and will likely graduate into working at a company that makes this issue worse. But at least my private life, my friends, and those I’ve helped will have a lifeline.
For as long as the user has access to the hardware, there will always be those who analyze, defeat, or create alternatives to the existing status quo of software. The FOSS movement was created from the collaborative efforts of hobbyists, and through shared interest in the same goal (avoiding the restrictions of existing software), it will further grow and develop.
A closed loop system like North Korea could feasibly be a way to defeat such a system, but the vast majority of the world is too decentralized for that to happen. Used hardware that can be modded is already saturating the markets, as seen by people keeping existing systems rather than mass adoption of new ones.
For those who are not interested in learning and developing understanding and skills to escape the realities of survailence capitalism, we cannot help them. If we can convince others who are willing to adapt, then control can be maintained for the users as a whole (see our decentralized social network, ActivityPub)
The barrier is not hardware. The barrier is not laws. The barrier is ignorance, and only through informing and educating others can a brighter future be paved.
Edit: also, homebrew and custom hardware will always exist, irrespective of mass market trends.
The FOSS movement was created from the collaborative efforts of hobbyists, and through shared interest in the same goal (avoiding the restrictions of existing software), it will further grow and develop.
Agree with this 100%, the problem is that nowadays half of the FOSS isn’t made by hobbyists, but by big corporations, most Google and M$, which invalid great part of the FOSS philosophy. In great part of OpenSource services which request an account, you see an Pop-up, offering to log in with Google or even Facebook.
Currently it’s sadly mandatory to check three times FOSS before using it, FOSS was nice until this datahogs discovered it as cheap source for their products, not more reliable as any proprietary soft from small startups, even less. Not a good sign for an free internet.
As per the license, such products can be forked and inspected regardless - adoption by such corporations is helpful if not necessary to both snowball the initial stages of development into a product palatable to the mass market, alongside bringing as many eyes as possible to fulfill Linus’ Law.
The FOSS licensing system, at it’s core, allows you to pick ANY fork, and the root source cannot be contaminated, only upstream forks can be with corporate enshittification. All the user needs to do is hear word of mouth about a fork that takes away the problems that you mentioned - Ungoogled Chromium, GrapheneOS, Librewolf, etc… are examples of software one can use without “checking the source three times over”, even if they are partially built with labor contributed by proprietary means.
Google, Apple, and Microsoft are all doing the same thing with their operating systems. Soon, everything you do on your device will be recorded, analyzed, compiled, and cross-referenced. All of it ready to be used against you in advertisements, commerce, and a court of law.
If you think age checks are bad now, wait until it’s enforceably illegal to even look at pornography on your device. Or, maybe you receive a knock at your door for a missed period, or a some questionable searches while pregnant? Higher ride app pricing for a low phone battery? Now your digital credit score determines your eligibility and cost for a ride. Think your VPN will hide that pirated movie or your location? Who needs to bypass encryption when your entire screen is analyzed by a hardware driven AI classification system in real-time.
Advertisers, authoritarians, media execs, and tech bros are vibrating so hard that they’re starting to glow. This is the real AI revolution into which they have sunk so much money. Do you think they’re just going to accept that they won’t get a return on their investment because you think you have a right to privacy?
How long will we even have access to hardware and software that doesn’t contain baked-in content analysis?
Man… These regimes whores have always been glowing… The normie was just in denial about his place in this hierarchy 🤡
Reading stuff like this reminds me of why I have been a linux user for over 20 years.
Its why I only use AOSP roms on my phones.
Its why I have never used any USA surveillance companies. No one needs any of that shit!
Its why I get in my car, and visit people I care for, and not send them a message or use facebook to see what they are having for dinner.
I wouldnt even know how to turn a windows machine on. My last windows experience was with windows 95.
Do you still press a button?
I am a retired psychotherapist, 69 years old now, and have seen the devastating loss of our freedoms in my lifetime.
we all need to get back to being human again. We are human beings not human doings.
My display avatar is in fact a photo from a StoneHenge free festival in early 1980’s. A time when we actually used the word freedom and meant it.
I do fear for you younger people and what lies ahead. What will be like in 20-30 years when I am long gone.
As someone born in the early 2000s, I can only say that there will be a divide of the informed and the uninformed. The true tragedy of my generation, to be honest, will be the people who have the tools and information at their disposal to actually understand the world, but opt instead for the comfort food of AI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon’s services.
I am an electrical engineering student, hopefully about to graduate in the near future, and I can tell you that some of my peers have the same thought process you and I have. We’re willing to do the research, understand the pros and cons of convenience, and adjust our lives in the best ways we can. I switched to the FOSS ecosystem as much as I reasonably could. (Barring LTSC windows 10 for some program compatibility)
The majority don’t care, however. In non-technical fields it’s worse, many following the “I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear” argument. They use ChatGPT on a daily basis, are more than happy to upload photo after photo on Meta’s suite, and complain about Windows 11 without bothering to consider alternatives. Any attempts I’ve had at explaining the reality of their “free” services gets just a weird look and them walking away.
The irony of ironies is that I was born, raised, and educated in Silicon Valley, ground zero, and will likely graduate into working at a company that makes this issue worse. But at least my private life, my friends, and those I’ve helped will have a lifeline.
So is your car 15+ years old, such that it doesn’t phone home on you?
And do you know the locations of and avoid all ALPRs (automated license plate readers)?
For as long as the user has access to the hardware, there will always be those who analyze, defeat, or create alternatives to the existing status quo of software. The FOSS movement was created from the collaborative efforts of hobbyists, and through shared interest in the same goal (avoiding the restrictions of existing software), it will further grow and develop.
A closed loop system like North Korea could feasibly be a way to defeat such a system, but the vast majority of the world is too decentralized for that to happen. Used hardware that can be modded is already saturating the markets, as seen by people keeping existing systems rather than mass adoption of new ones.
For those who are not interested in learning and developing understanding and skills to escape the realities of survailence capitalism, we cannot help them. If we can convince others who are willing to adapt, then control can be maintained for the users as a whole (see our decentralized social network, ActivityPub)
The barrier is not hardware. The barrier is not laws. The barrier is ignorance, and only through informing and educating others can a brighter future be paved.
Edit: also, homebrew and custom hardware will always exist, irrespective of mass market trends.
Agree with this 100%, the problem is that nowadays half of the FOSS isn’t made by hobbyists, but by big corporations, most Google and M$, which invalid great part of the FOSS philosophy. In great part of OpenSource services which request an account, you see an Pop-up, offering to log in with Google or even Facebook. Currently it’s sadly mandatory to check three times FOSS before using it, FOSS was nice until this datahogs discovered it as cheap source for their products, not more reliable as any proprietary soft from small startups, even less. Not a good sign for an free internet.
As per the license, such products can be forked and inspected regardless - adoption by such corporations is helpful if not necessary to both snowball the initial stages of development into a product palatable to the mass market, alongside bringing as many eyes as possible to fulfill Linus’ Law.
The FOSS licensing system, at it’s core, allows you to pick ANY fork, and the root source cannot be contaminated, only upstream forks can be with corporate enshittification. All the user needs to do is hear word of mouth about a fork that takes away the problems that you mentioned - Ungoogled Chromium, GrapheneOS, Librewolf, etc… are examples of software one can use without “checking the source three times over”, even if they are partially built with labor contributed by proprietary means.