I agree 100%. Nothing we do is good enough because it’s a game of cat and mouse. They do something, people react. They do something else, they react.

Right now I own a Hisense because it’s 75" and cost me $300. It has a decent enough picture and sound. Works for all of my uses.

It has never seen the internet nor will it. I use my 6 year old shield for apps, mostly of which is my own content.

In case they decide to use any subsidiary or or partner tech company to daisy chain internet (I don’t put it past any of these guys) I have a blacklist on my firewall that catches most stuff trying to go out.

I have done everything I can, but it won’t be enough at some point.

They won’t stop until laws pass that stop them (actually stop them and not slap on the wrist).

Yes, but controls on local WiFi networks does nothing if they use a SIM to bypass it. So both are needed. And then that doesn’t take into account public networks, so controls are needed there. It’s a layered approach.

that plays out like a douglas adams novel

It is a Douglas Adams novel series.

But yes, great show.

Right? Make a product that a majority of people could find useful and not have any backlash at all…but then again, they’ve never been a product company. They’ve always been a personal information broker.

I can’t imagine that a standard android version of the same phone would not also have the relockable boot loader. But I wouldn’t necessarily expect that feature to be on every phone series though.

I had the Nexus 6 and then moved to the V30. Both of those phones were awesome and I still miss them.

Well crap, that’s not a cheap solution but I’m glad you commented because I didn’t know these Autel sensors existed and that you could reprogram them. I mean, this threat is semi hypothetical right now (not like it’s been used in the wild by authorities or anything) but one day it might be. Continual reprogramming would be a valid solution.

Exactly. Today you can enter Jan 1 1800 and it will take it. That’s not the problem.

The real problem is the precedence it sets. An asinine rule gets passed and companies adhere to it, meaning they are enforcers.

Tomorrow when laws require real verification, like ID scan then they’ve already agreed to be the gate keeper for said asinine laws. It’s harder to back out at that point.

It’s all surveillance and it should be stopped.

See…the “problem” with this is that it’s work.

Its not work to say no. Its work for all the stuff leading up to that. You had to think about how you want your files stored, organized, and backed up. You had to think about how you wanted to access it all and from where. Then you had to set all that stuff up to work.

The vast majority of people don’t do this. Partly for not knowing how to but mostly for not wanting to try to figure out a system that works for them.

They just want things to work when they need them and not think about it at any other time. Gee, I wonder what could ever go wrong with that mentality.

And I don’t want to blame the victim here, because the root of this particular story still doesn’t change.

But there is a little bit of self responsibility that needs to be had. If you give big tech all the controls, you are at their mercy to what they do. But to have any semblance of control yourself, you need to take it. Then you have the power to say no.

And I’m not arguing not to.

But I tried to get everybody I know to contact me on signal or simplex. For a year. Only one person switched and they did so to signal. Because it was easier and more people were on it. I myself stopped using simplex because not enough people are using it that I know.

So where the rubber meets the road, if anybody wants to use signal I’m good with that because its good for 99% of all things.

If we (as privacy enthusiasts) want to promote the better apps, they need to be and appear less niche so they’re more acceptable.

I appreciate the comment on the matter. This is good information to know and consider.

People should know that Signal is encrypted and private, but won’t make you a ghost.

That being said, the majority of people are not interested in privacy so getting them to use Signal over WhatsApp or SMS is a 99% win.

And to top that off, those features have a terms contract you need to accept to use. Yet you don’t know what that entails until you spend a lot of money.

Both your point and this also needs to be denormalized. We should be able to have full visibility for purchase decisions and have no push back on returns if we don’t.

Which is why we need to de-normalize this thought process. People should always ask, why does my vacuum need to go online? Or at the very least, can I turn that “feature” off?

I agree that KYC isn’t inherently evil. But the way its been weaponized is.

For instance in the telecommunications space it make total sense for mitigating spam SMS messages and Robocalls. But the carriers all sell your data for profit. They also don’t protect your data properly and are breached all the time. That’s malicious.

So no, I won’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and agree its an oversimplification to simply call KYC evil. But I also don’t blame people when all they see is abuse and never a good and proper implementation that isn’t exploitative.

Most banking works fine. There was a time it had more problems but I don’t even need to use a secondary profile with Google Play Services running any longer.

NFC works, but that is app specific. So no, wallet won’t work because google wallet wants Google services to work. But in the EU some banks have their own contactless payments that work fine. In the US none do to my knowledge. For bus pass etc that would be down to your app and if they require google services or not. There’s always the option for secondary profiles.

To me, I was amazed at his many apps use google services for notifications. So many apps work, but don’t give me notifications unless I open the app… Which I’m okay with because 99% of them I would turn off anyways.

The original idea is exactly for identification (just not secure ones). Think of it like writing your name on the inside of your jacket or have a name tag on your luggage.

This is what I expected for the Xbox one generation.

It’s not a bad idea and I welcome it. It allows flexibility and support for things outside of the Xbox ecosystem so you don’t have a broken console experience.

Of course their track record for Xbox hasn’t been good for a while and their track record for windows right now is abysmal.

So just make it windows 12 and call it a day.

The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The second best time is today.

Correct. In the US there is no entity that is supporting it. Technically any of our banks could create an app that supports it, but they’re lazy and cheap.

Correct. And everyone needs to remember the actual problem, not the symptom. Its like leaving one social media platform for another then when it too goes to crap complaining. Oh how can this happen again!?