The Importance of Truly Owning Our Devices

[Ben Collver]

Title: The Importance of Truly Owning Our Devices
Author: "Cheapskate"
Date: 2022-06-06
Link: https://cheapskatesguide.org/articles/owning-our-devices.html

A sales receipt showing you paid good money for a computer or smart
phone is not enough to own it when the manufacturer retains the ability
to manipulate it in any way he wishes. Ownership means having the
freedom to do what we want with our devices. That includes putting any
compatible operating systems, applications, or files on them and using
them with any carriers we choose.

Apple iPhones are an example of what can happen when we don't own our
cellphones. In 2013, Apple effectively gave every customer who still
had an old iPhone a choice between using an insecure phone or having it
slowed to a crawl by an upgrade to iOS 7. By the way, when Apple
deliberately slowed its phones with iOS 10.2.1 and 11.2 updates in
2017, it received a fine of 25 million Euros from a french governmental
agency. When the manufacturer of your device decides to throw a
software switch to hobble or even disable it, a sales receipt is of no
real value. Owning, really owning, an iPhone in 2013 or 2017 would have
meant having the power to install a competing operating system with
ongoing security updates. The same is true when a different
manufacturer refuses to provide security updates a year or two after
you purchase your device, rendering it unsafe to use on the Internet so
that you are forced to stop using it.

We often discuss issues surrounding the freedom of individuals to use
their computers and smart phone as they choose with academic-sounding
terms like digital sovereignty, interoperability, or open digital
standards. No wonder most people's eyes glaze over immediately. This is
like discussing the minutia of credit default swaps, the fractional
banking system, or government debt. Unless a person already understands
what they are and the tremendous effects they can have on his life, he
is very unlikely to have the slightest interest. For most, I think, the
desire to understand must stem from a broader perspective that gives an
intuitive grasp of how things can go horribly wrong if we fail to
confront what is occurring right now, largely unnoticed.

For most people, the most important capability that their computer,
tablet, or smart phone provides is access to the Internet. Even with
its many problems, the Internet remains a stunning achievement. It
allows individuals to find enormous quantities of information that have
the potential to touch every area of their lives. Business Insider
points out, "If you're hungry for knowledge, the internet is the
perfect place to satisfy your appetite. A working mom who doesn't have
time to make it into a classroom can now earn her MBA or work toward a
nursing degree while her kids are fast asleep upstairs. Online
universities ... offer students the flexibility to earn degrees
whenever and wherever is convenient for them. More and more traditional
universities are also offering online education as a supplement to
on-campus classes."

Unfortunately, some governments and profit-seeking organizations have
reasons to limit or monitor individuals' free access to information on
the Internet. Acting US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Busby
said, “China is one country that has taken a very restrictive approach
to the internet and is using surveillance technology widely in
violation of international human rights standards.” China has even
spearheaded an effort to change the way the Internet works on a
fundamental level to allow governments to more effectively surveil and
block individuals and general access to topics it does not want its
citizens to be aware of.

But abuse of Internet technology is not limited to totalitarian
regimes. US government officials have openly admitted that they intend
to use the Internet to spy on individuals and the masses. Nearly
everyone is now aware that this has been occurring for years.

The fact that so many of us do not "own" the devices that we have paid
for and use every day makes governments' efforts to block and monitor
our Internet use much easier. When a corporation or government has
control of the software on your device, you cannot do much to protect
yourself.

As I mentioned in a recent article on Microsoft's Pluton, North Koreans
have been forced to turn over total control of their cellphones to
their government. As a result, they cannot run any apps on their phones
that grant them access to information that is not acceptable to their
government. Perhaps in response to North Korean Hackers' success in
removing controls from their phones to obtain access to information
from the outside world, Kim Jong Un, the latest in the Kim dynasty that
now rules North Korea finally admitted two years ago that his
"grandfather was in fact not capable of 'chukjibeop' — the supernatural
ability to 'fold space,' make people appear and disappear, or travel
through time." This is an excellent example of why having real
ownership of our devices is so important.

Many corporations have discovered that information in all
formats--text, podcast, music, and video--is valuable enough to collect
and put behind paywalls or encumber with DRM in order to force
individuals to pay for it. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation
warned, "Even as new technologies are making it easier than ever to
share knowledge, students and citizens face barriers accessing
information they need (and help fund); professors have a harder time
reviewing and teaching the state of the art; and cutting-edge research
is locked up far too long behind paywalls, depriving it of the
visibility it deserves." Every individual should be guaranteed the
basic human right to free access to information about the world around
him. Unfortunately, none of us have this right, thanks to companies and
universities that are motivated primarily by ever-higher payoffs and
governments that have always been terrified of free access to certain
information, because a knowledgeable population cannot be controlled
with propaganda.

Locked-down devices have several disadvantages for consumers. The most
important of these is that they prevent us from modifying their
software. Among other things, this means that we cannot remove spyware,
even when we are fully aware of its presence. Just one example is
Samsung's smart TV's listening to private conversations. Just try
removing software from your TV! Another disadvantage is that locked
down devices are often irrevocably tied to company-owned servers. When
those servers are shut down, so may our devices be. Similarly, more
manufacturers are quietly incorporating software kill switches into
their products to permanently disable them whenever they choose. Those
with locked-down computers and cellphones are potentially subject to
every whim of corporate executives and accountants weighing the effects
of the functionality of their devices on their company's bottom line.

As the decades pass, the perception of the distinction between
user-controlled devices and locked-down devices may be gradually
slipping out of our collective consciousness. Many in younger
generations are growing up never having known the freedom of truly
owning their computers, nor do they have the perspective of those who
grew up without computers. As a result, I believe they may not have the
same perception of computers as the miracle that older people see them
as. I believe younger people often view computers much like screw
drivers--tools to be used for a specific purpose and then put back in
the tool chest and never thought about again until the next time they
need them. As a tool, they simply want a computer to work well and be
as easy to use as possible. They really do not care about the details
of how it works or of whose interests it protects.

In contrast are the experiences of my generation, who were willing to
sacrifice greatly to possess such miraculous devices and the freedom to
run any software they wished on them. One of my high school friends
paid a thousand dollars for a Heathkit computer kit that he assembled
himself. Building his computer took months, and the finished product
displayed results on a single-line, red LED readout like a calculator.
That was the only display it would ever have. A thousand dollars was a
very large sum of money for a high school student back in the late
1970's.

In the early 1980's, a professor at my university began building a
computer from plans for his personal use at home. He made the component
boards himself by etching them with ferric chloride. This was the only
way he could afford to obtain a computer with the capabilities he
wanted. Fortunately for him, in those days computers were advancing so
rapidly that Tandy's Color Computer came on the market before he
finished. The Color Computer had the capabilities he wanted, so he
stopped building his computer and purchased it instead.

These are but two examples of individuals who were so passionate about
computers--even those with such rudimentary capabilities as the ones we
had in those days--that they were willing to go to great lengths to
possess one. By the way, thanks to Tandy's computer, the professor's
youngest daughter who was struggling to read became a capable reader in
only a few months through many hours spent playing text-based adventure
games.

As a result of their experiences, I doubt either my school friend or
the college professor have ever or will ever treat a computer like a
screw driver. I expect they are even more horrified than I am by what
corporate America is now trying to turn computers into, and even more
so by the fact that most people seem to be oblivious to this.

I cannot say what computers were meant to be, because that is up to
their designers. But I can talk about what I think computers should be.
I think they should be more than simple devices for online shopping,
listening to music, or watching Netflix movies. Please do not
misunderstand me. I think those are fine uses. But, computers should be
about so much more.

I have always seen computers primarily as learning tools. As such, I
believe they should have unfettered access to information--any
publicly-available information the user desires. This is why I find so
disturbing the success that giant corporations like Microsoft, Google,
and Apple seem to be having at locking their customers into their
ecosystems and onto their hobbled consumer devices that are looking
less and less like general-purpose computers every year. And, I find
obscene the new profit-generating scheme big tech has concocted
involving luring customers onto their cloud-based computing platforms.

Why on earth do people not object more to this obvious effort to take
us back before the birth of desktop computing to the 1980's when
corporations were in complete control of the mainframes we were forced
to use? By the way, when I searched on Duckduckgo for the phrase
"arguments against cloud computing", I found not a single relevant
article on the first two pages of search results that was anything
other than a derision of arguments against cloud computing. Every
article was from a corporate perspective. Not one raised any of the
issues that I raise here. That is what is known as a straw-man
argument, and it is a well-known rhetorical device for convincing an
audience of the validity of a fallacious argument. This in itself
should be an argument against cloud computing.

The trend of what where once general-purpose computing product lines
becoming increasingly locked down is especially troubling when one
pauses to reflect on the fact that all corporations are effectively
amoral government lackeys. They can be nothing else, because
governments can theoretically shut down and confiscate the assets of
any company they wish at any time they wish for any reason they wish.
This is how governments designed the laws governing corporations to
work. And, it goes all the way back to at least 1890 (and probably much
earlier) when the US Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to
confiscate many of the assets of the Mormon Church (which had been been
a legal corporation since 1851) over the issue of polygamy. The
government wanted to stop the church from practicing polygamy, so it
confiscated many of the church's assents until they capitulated. The
Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling on the grounds that the
government had the authority to confiscate the assets of a corporation,
though it would have been clearly unconstitutional to do the same to a
church. Governments' complete dominance of corporations means that when
you turn your "digital sovereignty" (control of your data), over to big
tech, you are effectively turning it over to your government.

Another reason that consumers who use locked-down devices are at a
disadvantage is that many corporations have already begun to limit what
consumers can do with their computers and smart phones for no other
reason than to boost their profits. They have erected online stores and
limited the software that will run on their devices to normally only
what they sell in these stores. And they have told consumers that this
is for their own "protection". This is despite the fact that these
stores are known to sell software containing malware. Should
corporations ever begin to see alternative networks to the
corporate-controlled Internet (such as, ZeroNet, I2P, IPFS, and Secure
Scuttlebutt) as serious threats to their bottom line, just as they have
with RSS, private email servers, and XMPP-based chat services, one must
assume that they would take measures to prevent consumers from using
them too. Unfortunately, many consumers seem to be falling for
marketing hype and buying devices that are increasingly more
controlled. Their only concern seems to be why a song they bought last
year is no longer in their Apple Music App, why the money they paid for
it has not been refunded, or how to talk to an actual human being about
a refund. I believe buyers' lack of concern is only because they do not
understand what they are receiving when they buy a locked-down device.

Most locked down devices are in effect corporate sales platforms that
protect corporate profits, not the interests of consumers. As such,
many individuals are likely unaware that buying a locked down device
and purchasing content for it comes with a hidden danger. Some unlucky
individuals may be caught sharing DRM'ed content that will tattle on
them. According to Lifewire, "Protected AAC/iTunes Plus [now defunct]
songs have information embedded in them that identifies the user who
bought and shared the song by name. If you share your music and record
companies want to track you down and sue you for copyright
infringement, it's going to be easier." One may want to stop to
consider that when an individual's device is stolen, if the thief
shares the stolen music, the original owner could potentially be
prosecuted. This is just one more way locked-down devices protect the
interests of manufacturers and content suppliers first and the
purchaser of devices last, or never.

I should mention that my understanding is that since the iTunes service
was shut down and the Apple Music streaming service and Apple Music App
have taken its place, customers have had more difficulty purchasing
individual songs from Apple. This may be a result of the lawsuits
against Apple over iTunes music. My knowledge of this is very limited,
because I do not follow Apple products closely. As I have stated in the
past, I have never been an Apple customer.

In contrast to locked-down devices, general-purpose computers support
consumers' interests by taking their orders from their owners, not from
their manufacturers. This means that an owner may do whatever he wants
with his computer. This includes recording any audio or video he wants,
because if all else fails, he can always use the "analog hole". This is
how individuals recorded music and movies before personal computers
came on the scene. Using open-source software, a general purpose
computer can save information in any file format the owner wants, so
that he will always have access to it, no matter what format changes
locked-down devices go through. General-purpose computers can run any
software their owners desire that is compatible with their operating
systems and hardware. If a particular piece of software is incompatible
with an operating system, the operating system can be replaced with a
different one or with multiple operating systems. The ability to run
any software one wants greatly improves the odds of continued access to
any website on the regular Internet or alternative networks like
Gopher, Gemini, and others. And if that selection is not broad enough,
with the necessary knowledge one can write his own code on a computer
he owns to create his own website--just as I am currently doing with my
little social network, Blue Dwarf.

Though I fear this article will have little or no impact on
individuals' views of the true value of general-purpose computers, I
have tried to clearly and simply convey with minimal jargon the
importance of general-purpose computers to each of us and to our
society. Allowing ourselves to be sucked into particular computing
ecosystems, walled gardens, or cloud computing platforms is detrimental
to our freedom, both on line and off. So, the next time you make a
decision to purchase a computing device, I hope this article has had
sufficient impact on you to at least cause you to consider my words and
think about choosing a more general-purpose device.

[Roger Blake]

On 2022-06-12, Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> wrote:
> Why on earth do people not object more to this obvious effort to take
> us back before the birth of desktop computing to the 1980's when
> corporations were in complete control of the mainframes we were forced
> to use?

Over the years I have found that even most people who are otherwise
intelligent are ignorant of these issues and really don't want to know
about them. Their devices are magical boxes and they just don't concern
themselves with the messy details.

Today I had the misfortune of helping a friend out with a Windows 11
laptop he had just purchased that was in its default configuration.
It was absolutely appalling. The thing was quite literally little more
than a terminal on Microsoft's network. (Aside from login being controlled
by the mothership, the stupid thing was even in "S" mode preventing
anything other than Microsoft-approved software to run, and of course
everything saved to Onedrive by default.)

At least with Windows a lot of this obnoxious crap can be turned off but
the typical non-technical end-user knows nothing about that and just goes
with the defaults. (Forget iPhones and Android phones, those are hopeless.)

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[voya...@protonmail.com]

On Sun, 12 Jun 2022 22:56:08 -0000 (UTC), Roger Blake <rogb...@iname.invalid> wrote:

>On 2022-06-12, Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> wrote:
>> Why on earth do people not object more to this obvious effort to take
>> us back before the birth of desktop computing to the 1980's when
>> corporations were in complete control of the mainframes we were forced
>> to use?
>
>Over the years I have found that even most people who are otherwise
>intelligent are ignorant of these issues and really don't want to know
>about them. Their devices are magical boxes and they just don't concern
>themselves with the messy details.
>
>Today I had the misfortune of helping a friend out with a Windows 11
>laptop he had just purchased that was in its default configuration.
>It was absolutely appalling. The thing was quite literally little more
>than a terminal on Microsoft's network. (Aside from login being controlled
>by the mothership, the stupid thing was even in "S" mode preventing
>anything other than Microsoft-approved software to run, and of course
>everything saved to Onedrive by default.)
>
>At least with Windows a lot of this obnoxious crap can be turned off but
>the typical non-technical end-user knows nothing about that and just goes
>with the defaults. (Forget iPhones and Android phones, those are hopeless.)

I've noticed this too...and personally, I blame the lack of real computer teaching and training, along with a lack of
interest.

I was at a car show yesterday with my dad. He was thrilled to see so many of the muscle cars from the 60's and 70's, he
talked to the owners about some of the things he did on his car in his 20's, and really just had a great time reveling
in his time around cars he loved, wanted, and some he previously owned. He was thrilled to see some of the
customizations, and tried to show me some of the functions of those cars which were missed in modern cars today (and
some which have been thankfully depreciated, like the trunk-locked gasoline intake of the original Volkswagen Beetle).

I was glad that he was happy, and I was interested to see what was possible, but I drive an econobox Toyota Corolla. I
get 38MPG most days, and aside from brakes, tires, oil, batteries, and windshields (oddly enough), I haven't put money
into the car. I don't feel a sense of accomplishment if I shave a few seconds off a 0-60 time, I don't feel happiness
with respect to having tricked out my dashboard, and the one thing I would like to do with my car is replace the stereo,
but car companies have basically done away with that idea, so even the one customization I do want to do, and have done
in previous vehicles, I can't. Thus, I chug along with the happiness that comes with knowing I've got 230,000 miles on a
car that hasn't required me to go under the hood. I get from my home to my job, and to my other destinations, reliably
and affordably.

For most people, it's understandable that that's what they want out of their computer. "Computing" isn't inherently fun
for most people, communicating with friends or playing video games or getting news or watching movies are desirable
activities, and always has been. In the 90s and 2000s, you had to tinker a bit to do most of those things, so there was
an inherent payoff for learning some things along the way. Today, most of those things have been solved. Open Netflix,
watch movie. Click 'install' next to app on iPhone, play game. Open Chrome, go to Facebook, communicate with friends.

Now, as the sort of people who still use Usenet in a world where Tiktok and Reddit and Instagram exist, we understand
the value of making sure our data is where it's supposed to be. We can generally figure out when a link is sketchy and
avoid it, we know that not all applications are created equal and do more than install the first Google result. We're
okay with a few extra steps, some light reading, and making a mistake or two along the way.

I would submit that a whole lot of people grew up with a certain fear of failure when it comes to computers, and thus
grew up with a hand to hold. I have no idea how many people have called Microsoft to get tech support for lost files,
but I'm sure it's a massive amount. Do I like the idea of Microsoft holding everyone's data? Not particularly...but I
can at least concede that there is a benefit to most people to have Microsoft accidentally backing up their data.

In terms of S-Mode, I don't like it much either...but ChromeOS is super popular in schools and it does exactly the same
thing - data lives in Google Drive, it has a handful of applications Google has deemed worthy of availability, and
nobody 'worries' about anything because Aunt Google removes all the computing and lets the desired functions be
performed.

I'm really not a fan of Windows 11 (or Windows 10) for these reasons, either...but computing seems to be getting a lot
more polar. iOS showed that a simple OS with a single software source and a 30% take from sales is a viable business
model. Microsoft is emulating that on one end, and emulating the ChromeOS Mainframe-esque experience on the other. Apple
is moving more and more toward the iOS model; the sheer volume of "are you REALLY REALLY sure?!" dialogs to run an
application from anywhere but the Mac App Store seems hypocritical when compared to their 'I'm a Mac / I'm a PC' ads
from 2008 poking fun at Vista for UAC prompts.

If you want to be in control of stuff, you run Linux. Though it's made great strides of late, it's still very much a
"death by a thousand paper cuts" sort of a scenario. My most recent foray involved attempting to set up a Wireguard VPN,
but while Windows had a point-and-grunt installer, then auto-import of a .conf file, Linux Mint required me to compile
NetworkManager from source because the version that supported Wireguard wasn't in the latest, most fully updated
release. My mom wanted to watch a DVD on her Chromebook that I installed GalliumOS on (she needed LibreOffice), and
while I was able to figure out how to get VLC to function properly for this, it was not nearly the same simplicity as
the point-and-grunt PowerDVD install that came with the USB DVD drive she bought. Linux has these sorts of experiences
commonly, and that's after you forsake whatever Windows specific software is still in use.

I can't really blame people for treating their computer the way I treat my car. I can't really blame Microsoft and Apple
and Google for catering to those people the way Toyota and Honda cater to me. And yet, I share your disdain for the fact
that the logical consequence of this reality impacts power users and privacy advocates the most.