Comment by xyzal

4 years ago

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.

84 comments

xyzal

Reply
eecc  4 years ago

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.

  • GeekyBear  4 years ago

    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?

  • gruez  4 years ago

    >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.

    • warkdarrior  4 years ago

      > 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?

      1 reply →

paulcarroty  4 years ago

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

  • yyyk  4 years ago

    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.

    • bayindirh  4 years ago

      > 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?

      21 replies →

gjulianm  4 years ago

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

  • fsflover  4 years ago

    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.

    • gjulianm  4 years ago

      > 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.

      12 replies →

  • marderfarker2  4 years ago

    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.

    • shawnz  4 years ago

      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.

    • biztos  4 years ago

      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.

    • gjulianm  4 years ago

      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.

  • raxxorrax  4 years ago

    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.

Razengan  4 years ago

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

smcl  4 years ago

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