Comment by schoen
3 months ago
They think they're fighting malware, because that is their main motivation.
They're just not also worrying about other effects like making it easy for governments to ban software, or making it hard for people to write software under a pseudonym.
Paternalistic mechanisms are relatively popular in security engineering right now because users are so often unsophisticated and time-constrained, while attackers are so often sophisticated and well-resourced. Paternalism almost always responds to real risks and threats, so it doesn't feel malicious because it's not rooted in malice.
I'm glad that people are so worried about this change, because I find it really alarming. But it's not like restrictions on people's choices have been that unusual as a response to dangers in modern history. In fact, professions like public health, occupational safety, and tort law often seem to presume that the general public probably shouldn't be allowed to make certain kinds of dangerous choices. They might be ethically wrong about that, but they clearly don't see themselves as bad guys for thinking so.
that's a good point. As a developer, this particular case obviously I understand much better and see the where it leads - the opposite direction of the openess that made PCs and computing so revolutionary in the last few decades.
It's also worrying that in this case it's a private corporation the one calling the shots. Naively, in the other cases you mention it's at least government dictated which means there's some sense of accountability and transparency to the process (not saying that it's perfect of course).