Comment by Zak
10 days ago
When Microsoft proposed such a scheme in the early 2000s under the name "Palladium", even the mainstream press decried it as a nightmare scenario. Google did pretty much the same thing in 2014 with Safetynet and there was barely a whimper. How did we lose our way?
Back with palladium the people that used computers were still mostly knowledgeable like us. These days everyone carries a phone and nobody really understands the impact. In fact many people in the EU are even against the opening of iOS because they feel comfortable in apple's walled garden. Many people consider privacy a lost battle (I often get the argument "why are you railing against this, you have no privacy anymore anyway"). And that's from intelligent people usually.
People often say things like this, but it's not supported by polling (or my own extensive anecdotal evidence) whatsoever. [1] For instance 81% believe the risks outweigh the benefits of corporate data collection, and 66% believe the same of government data collection.
64% would be uncomfortable with companies sharing their personal data with outside groups doing research that "might help them improve society", which is great because it shows people understand that such phrases aren't just about sitting around and singing kumbaya.
[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...
What people say in polling is different from what they will actually do.
IMHO "would be uncomfortable" is not a strong opinion. "Oppose and actively seek to prevent" is a strong opinion. In my experience the majority just have a sense of learned helplessness.
2 replies →
> In fact many people in the EU are even against the opening of iOS
True, but I am not sure it is even that many people.
This whole narrative is strongly driven by Apple themselves, one of their strategies against regulations like the EU Digital Markets Act is to rally its userbase against the EU.
How did we lose our way?
They figured out that much of the population is easily manipulated and controlled by exploiting their desire for "safety and security" --- in stark contrast to that classic Franklin quote (yes, I know the context isn't the same, but the words are otherwise a perfect fit for the situation.) It's only a minority of the population; and I'd suspect a smaller minority in the EU than the US; which is willing to argue against it.
Next time you find yourself arguing for something or doing things a certain way, throw in an "it's better for security" or similar phrase with a plausible-sounding argument why, and see how easily it shuts down the opposition. In my experience, many won't even question it.
On a PC people are used to tinker around, the whole ecosystem is built around that assumption.
The smartphone was a closed ecosystem from the start, tinkering around was an uphill battle fought with custom ROMs that only few users dared to try (if the bootloader wasn't locked down to begin with). Adding more restrictions didn't have much impact on most users.
Palladium was just one issue. Now it's one of dozens.
Even activists can get exhausted
Politics and money.
fatigue.
same idea has been pushed since forever(you can include ACTA and other copyright protectionist movements like that as its originators too) over and over again.
People need to protest all the time and win, legislators can just keep pushing it over and over again.
What's even worse you get really smart people seeing noting wrong with this.. Meanwhile this reeks of same methods that were used in my country under communist regime.