It's not an issue of permission, it's an issue of trying to make a computer that's safe for grandma to use. Criminals can and will convince grandma to navigate a byzantine labyrinth of prompts and technical measures in order to drain her bank account. That's the threat model we're dealing with here.
People also forget that it makes it safe for people who aren't grandmas. The reason why you think it's just grandmas is because, for you to get a virus or your computer hacked now, it requires so many user gaffes for something like that to happen. In addition, it almost always involves typing in or telling someone your password when you shouldn’t. In the early 2000s, I still remember there was some ad affiliate for the cyanide and happiness webcomic website that, if you let it's ad load, instantly infected your computer with adware just from visiting the site. That’s unheard of now because of increasingly protective/restrictive policies set by technology companies. It’s one of those situations where if a system is working correctly, you won’t even know it’s working at all.
I helped my mother out with a computer, gave her a mac after she called twic a wee about a windows popup. Eventually she became a grandmother, and later in old age, with dementia she stlll using the mac more or less successfully to google and e-mail.
Intentionality, coordination are important for keeping cognitive faculty.
It all sounds so easy, but letting her send e-mail through voice could create confusing situations.
…you don’t, just like you don’t need the bank’s permission to withdraw funds… but they will still try and stop you pulling out $10,000 so you can buy iTunes gift cards to pay off your taxes.
It's not an issue of permission, it's an issue of trying to make a computer that's safe for grandma to use. Criminals can and will convince grandma to navigate a byzantine labyrinth of prompts and technical measures in order to drain her bank account. That's the threat model we're dealing with here.
At a certain point you have to let adults be adults and make adult mistakes.
Tried that. Didn’t go great.
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>make a computer that's safe for grandma to use
People also forget that it makes it safe for people who aren't grandmas. The reason why you think it's just grandmas is because, for you to get a virus or your computer hacked now, it requires so many user gaffes for something like that to happen. In addition, it almost always involves typing in or telling someone your password when you shouldn’t. In the early 2000s, I still remember there was some ad affiliate for the cyanide and happiness webcomic website that, if you let it's ad load, instantly infected your computer with adware just from visiting the site. That’s unheard of now because of increasingly protective/restrictive policies set by technology companies. It’s one of those situations where if a system is working correctly, you won’t even know it’s working at all.
Is that really true though? It kinda just feels like a way to force people to have to pay $100 per year, own Apple hardware, etc.
How else are you going to have the ability to revoke malware’s signing keys to get it to stop running on every machine immediately?
I think a time-lock feature to enable “I know what I’m doing mode” for a year, after a 48h delay would be ok.
Or something like that
I like Chrome OS's approach where you essentially choose your security level at initial setup, and need to wipe your machine if you wish to change it.
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No, that would still suck.
Any inmutable distro with Flatpak will solve this forever. No need to restrict anything.
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I helped my mother out with a computer, gave her a mac after she called twic a wee about a windows popup. Eventually she became a grandmother, and later in old age, with dementia she stlll using the mac more or less successfully to google and e-mail. Intentionality, coordination are important for keeping cognitive faculty. It all sounds so easy, but letting her send e-mail through voice could create confusing situations.
We are all creeping toward old age. Let’s be kind to our future selves.
Who's to say the criminals won't use a genAI agent to call grandma and social-engineer her so they can drain her bank account?
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This attitude is worse than Apple’s.
No thanks.
Apple is the personified Enshitification among Microsoft.
…you don’t, just like you don’t need the bank’s permission to withdraw funds… but they will still try and stop you pulling out $10,000 so you can buy iTunes gift cards to pay off your taxes.
And you don't. THIs is not iOS, gatekeeper can be bypassed if you know how.