Not really. If things keep going the way they are you'll have locked down tablets and smartphones displacing standard computers. Of course, the majors in this industry are more than happy, as that lets them more effectively control consumers, from whom they can extract more profits.
Look at the hardware that's out there and you'll see what's going on:
- Every Android phone besides the Dev Phones and Nexus One must be rooted via an exploit before the user controls it - Apple locks everything down, again forcing you to jailbreak - Motorola locks things down above and beyond the norm to ensure you can't escape their services and carrier bloated crap - Microsoft wants to ape Apple's lockdown - Otellini made the none-too-subtle suggestion that computers should refuse to run ANY software not signed by a 3rd party - Books are moving towards e-readers bought via DRM-encrusted devices like the Kindle, which we've seen Amazon abuse already
There are a handful of vendors who actually respect their customers, but they're few and far between.
I get this bad feeling that Stallman's little dystopic story just might come true, minus the FBI involvement (initially, at least.)
[blockquote]Maybe the NTFS/BSD model (good core design, long intervals with only minor changes) would be wise in Linux filesystem development.[/blockquote] You mean like the extremely long lived EXT* series of filesystems?
Eventually the things you want to add lead you to rethink the core design instead of hacking on things on the outside more and more. But that process takes a long time and requires a lot of work to accomplish. Which is why BTRFS is a break from EXT* and IIRC it supports most (if not all) of the features you mentioned.
Because then Apple can't keep malware off the iPhone
You, I, and everyone at Slashdot know that this is pure bullshit. Look at how many applications with undocumented functionality zip right by Apple's review process, only to be pulled retroactively once it is revealed.
The $99 fee is no deterrent to malware, especially not if it's subtle enough. Forcing people to pay $99 to put software on their phone just ensures that hobbyists are kept out, and everyone is forced to go through their store.
I will say that MS has one-upped Apple in the anti-free(as in beer)-software with app submission fees on top of signup fees. Nothing quite like abusing your developer base.
Saying that life arose purely from random chemical reactions is like holding that the egg came first. (Ref: The Chicken May Have Come Before the Egg ). But materialists have just as much of an agenda as the creationists, which is why we're subjected to this crap about life emerging from a chemical soup. (Stephen Hawking is a materialist tool. Ref: Hawking Picks Physics Over God For Big Bang)
Well then what came first, the electromagnetic field or the electrochemical reaction? I'll wager on the chemical reaction and, if the fact that electromagnets cease operating when you turn off the power holds true, I'll be right.
And what's this nonsense about biochemists and physicists having an "agenda" like creationists. Creationists have an agenda that centers around pushing their unscientific beliefs on everyone via force of law, I don't see how anything that is arguably scientific in origin could be in any way equated with that.
Or would you have us believe is some woo-woo science hocus pocus?
it will be nice to not have choice limited to a locked-down "appliance".
Unless you can hold a button on bootup or install a package trivially that grants you access, you're still dealing with a "locked down appliance." Just because you -can- root it doesn't mean that they want you to.
the smart phone was made for the internet and manufacturers seem to be locking them down. completely opposite of the PC
Except you're being put in the position of an unprivileged user even if you buy the device outright, and the carrier/handset vendor is retaining the position of "system admin" and treating you like a potential hostile.
I wouldn't mind if, like the Nexus One or N900, you could assume root via a few non-trivial but non-PITA steps, but they seem determined to force you to exploit your own property just to retain ownership.
I don't think it makes it more insecure so much as harder to close the holes. Handset vendors and carriers, for a long time, have worked with devices that generally could not be exploited in such a fashion, and probably don't have any means of getting such fixes out to their users within an acceptable time frame.
I really hate this mindset... do you really think that people are powerless?
Certainly not, but at this point they're apathetic and ignorant. Never mind that the GP was suggesting we basically hand the reins of power over to corporations which are way more powerful than any one individual.
If more consumers were well informed they'd buy smarter
I suppose if you're interested in terrorizing people in your own country it works, but military applications pretty much require that the user control the skies. Otherwise they'll just get shot down in short order.
And numbers only count if you can crank them out, something I suspect Iran might have a hard time with.
It seems to me the corporations have been doing a darn good job with it for awhile now.
They -seemed- to be doing a good job, despite stonewalling and slowly rolling out service that is generally two steps behind most of the rest of the world even in the highest density regions of the states.
And now that they only see money these days, manipulating and destroying the openness that the internet offered for the sake of their other business interests (which are in direct conflict) only serves them. They'd happily follow a Cable/Satellite tiered access system if not for the utter shit they'd catch.
Personally, much like phone systems all internet services should be marked as Tier II common carriers and forced to ignore the content of their customers communications.
The applications maybe, but there's no reason the toolkits can't. Microsoft's problem has everything to do with their UI being impossibly poor (that and Windows CE was always -bad- and was always aimed at mobile devices.)
They released the source, but last I checked they tended to do all future development behind closed doors until they dropped it to the world, which is wildly different from every other open source project out there. And Google just stopped selling the Nexus One.
or if Android didn't use such unpopular, old fashioned technologies as Java, C++, Linux, XML etc etc.
It uses a Java that is not compatible with the Java used on standard desktops. It also uses a version of libc that isn't compatible with what's used on most Linux desktops. And if you want any GUI access, you have to use Java and work through JNI.
It appears to be something Nokia is doing
Nokia and Intel via the Linux Foundation. MeeGo is independent in the same way the Linux kernel is.
Who's going to want some shitty proprietary OS now?
So a Linux OS that uses a completely open source stack that derives from existing open source technologies, and is vendor independent, is now proprietary? I think either Google's pulled a fast one or people have completely lost track of what proprietary means.
Intel are no fools - they're porting Android to x86.
They are, because their goal is to sell chips. They're also putting a huge amount of effort into MeeGo.
Yeah, how dare we prefer an OS on our mobile devices that shares technologies and toolkits with our desktop instead of a unique, incompatible Java implementation from a single source.
Don't go suggesting MeeGo to the Android fanboys here. Apparently having a huge dependency on Google for future development is a good thing, and existing technologies should be avoided.
Linux never sucked for mainstream. Nothing about Linux makes it unsuitable for mainstream use except user interface design.
Android has already given us a year of the Linux phone, and we barely even realized it.
Does it really matter if everything that most people consider part of "Linux" is missing? I know most people don't care, but certainly the fact that Android phones run the Linux kernel is completely irrelevant, and deliberately so.
Note: I bought a Nokia N900, specifically because it was not Android (well that and it had a slew of awesome features that fit my needs perfectly.)
SSDs already leverage extreme parallelism via 15+ different channels, indeed they have to due to how slow most NAND chips (especially MLC) are. Eventually you're forced to the PCIe bus, especially as you approach 18-25 channels (FusionIO) and the SATA bus becomes a bottleneck.
What I wonder is what can be focused on to make SSDs be able to store more.
Newer solid state memory technologies. If you can get something more durable and faster than NAND at the lithographies we're headed towards, you'll be able to expand capacity without having to jam tons of extra chips in for bad block swapouts and having to pack killer levels of ECC.
They may have rooted the device, but due to the cryptographic signature on the bootloader, kernel, and eFuse watching the ROM, you won't be sticking Android 2.3/3.0 on your Droid X (or Milestone) until Motorola decides you worthy.
If this lockdown was going to be fully hacked, it would have happened to the Milestone by now.
Fundamentally altering the ARM core logic at the level required to add CLR support (similar to the Java implementations) requires a license on a level that ARM does not give out. Only a handful of companies, Apple being one of them, hold the necessary license to do so (mostly the founding companies.)
In past days this would be properly seen as a hardware quirk to be worked around.
A quirk is one thing, a landmine where one misstep craters the thing intentionally is something else entirely.
Like a buggy SCSI controller which trashes your disks when you hit it with an obscure command sequence.
Such an error could be recovered, since presumably it doesn't render the disks inoperable.
You figure out what you need to do to avoid the undesirable behavior.
There's no way of knowing if avoiding this is possible. Certainly, it is designed not to be.
THE WHOLE POINT OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING is to have fun and push the hardware into areas it was not meant to go.
Which -is- fun, when the device isn't designed to self destruct when you try and do so. Fighting against what are essentially self destruct mechanisms that have no good reason for being there is simply pushing to get back where you used to be, not forging new territory.
My God, the hacker spirit is well and truly dead.
Which is exactly what misfeatures like eFuse are designed to accomplish.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really. If things keep going the way they are you'll have locked down tablets and smartphones displacing standard computers. Of course, the majors in this industry are more than happy, as that lets them more effectively control consumers, from whom they can extract more profits.
Look at the hardware that's out there and you'll see what's going on:
- Every Android phone besides the Dev Phones and Nexus One must be rooted via an exploit before the user controls it
- Apple locks everything down, again forcing you to jailbreak
- Motorola locks things down above and beyond the norm to ensure you can't escape their services and carrier bloated crap
- Microsoft wants to ape Apple's lockdown
- Otellini made the none-too-subtle suggestion that computers should refuse to run ANY software not signed by a 3rd party
- Books are moving towards e-readers bought via DRM-encrusted devices like the Kindle, which we've seen Amazon abuse already
There are a handful of vendors who actually respect their customers, but they're few and far between.
I get this bad feeling that Stallman's little dystopic story just might come true, minus the FBI involvement (initially, at least.)
[blockquote]Maybe the NTFS/BSD model (good core design, long intervals with only minor changes) would be wise in Linux filesystem development.[/blockquote]
You mean like the extremely long lived EXT* series of filesystems?
Eventually the things you want to add lead you to rethink the core design instead of hacking on things on the outside more and more. But that process takes a long time and requires a lot of work to accomplish. Which is why BTRFS is a break from EXT* and IIRC it supports most (if not all) of the features you mentioned.
You, I, and everyone at Slashdot know that this is pure bullshit. Look at how many applications with undocumented functionality zip right by Apple's review process, only to be pulled retroactively once it is revealed.
The $99 fee is no deterrent to malware, especially not if it's subtle enough. Forcing people to pay $99 to put software on their phone just ensures that hobbyists are kept out, and everyone is forced to go through their store.
I will say that MS has one-upped Apple in the anti-free(as in beer)-software with app submission fees on top of signup fees. Nothing quite like abusing your developer base.
Well then what came first, the electromagnetic field or the electrochemical reaction? I'll wager on the chemical reaction and, if the fact that electromagnets cease operating when you turn off the power holds true, I'll be right.
And what's this nonsense about biochemists and physicists having an "agenda" like creationists. Creationists have an agenda that centers around pushing their unscientific beliefs on everyone via force of law, I don't see how anything that is arguably scientific in origin could be in any way equated with that.
Or would you have us believe is some woo-woo science hocus pocus?
Unless you can hold a button on bootup or install a package trivially that grants you access, you're still dealing with a "locked down appliance." Just because you -can- root it doesn't mean that they want you to.
Except you're being put in the position of an unprivileged user even if you buy the device outright, and the carrier/handset vendor is retaining the position of "system admin" and treating you like a potential hostile.
I wouldn't mind if, like the Nexus One or N900, you could assume root via a few non-trivial but non-PITA steps, but they seem determined to force you to exploit your own property just to retain ownership.
I don't think it makes it more insecure so much as harder to close the holes. Handset vendors and carriers, for a long time, have worked with devices that generally could not be exploited in such a fashion, and probably don't have any means of getting such fixes out to their users within an acceptable time frame.
Certainly not, but at this point they're apathetic and ignorant. Never mind that the GP was suggesting we basically hand the reins of power over to corporations which are way more powerful than any one individual.
Read my above statement.
Because there are so, so many to choose from.
All Power to the Glorious Corporation!
Really, do you think that dropping all government regulation of industry is a good thing?
I suppose if you're interested in terrorizing people in your own country it works, but military applications pretty much require that the user control the skies. Otherwise they'll just get shot down in short order.
And numbers only count if you can crank them out, something I suspect Iran might have a hard time with.
They -seemed- to be doing a good job, despite stonewalling and slowly rolling out service that is generally two steps behind most of the rest of the world even in the highest density regions of the states.
And now that they only see money these days, manipulating and destroying the openness that the internet offered for the sake of their other business interests (which are in direct conflict) only serves them. They'd happily follow a Cable/Satellite tiered access system if not for the utter shit they'd catch.
Personally, much like phone systems all internet services should be marked as Tier II common carriers and forced to ignore the content of their customers communications.
The applications maybe, but there's no reason the toolkits can't. Microsoft's problem has everything to do with their UI being impossibly poor (that and Windows CE was always -bad- and was always aimed at mobile devices.)
They released the source, but last I checked they tended to do all future development behind closed doors until they dropped it to the world, which is wildly different from every other open source project out there. And Google just stopped selling the Nexus One.
It uses a Java that is not compatible with the Java used on standard desktops. It also uses a version of libc that isn't compatible with what's used on most Linux desktops. And if you want any GUI access, you have to use Java and work through JNI.
Nokia and Intel via the Linux Foundation. MeeGo is independent in the same way the Linux kernel is.
So a Linux OS that uses a completely open source stack that derives from existing open source technologies, and is vendor independent, is now proprietary? I think either Google's pulled a fast one or people have completely lost track of what proprietary means.
They are, because their goal is to sell chips. They're also putting a huge amount of effort into MeeGo.
Yeah, how dare we prefer an OS on our mobile devices that shares technologies and toolkits with our desktop instead of a unique, incompatible Java implementation from a single source.
Don't go suggesting MeeGo to the Android fanboys here. Apparently having a huge dependency on Google for future development is a good thing, and existing technologies should be avoided.
Linux never sucked for mainstream. Nothing about Linux makes it unsuitable for mainstream use except user interface design.
Does it really matter if everything that most people consider part of "Linux" is missing? I know most people don't care, but certainly the fact that Android phones run the Linux kernel is completely irrelevant, and deliberately so.
Note: I bought a Nokia N900, specifically because it was not Android (well that and it had a slew of awesome features that fit my needs perfectly.)
They're called "future cultists." It's the easiest way to generate more followers and customers get a great deal on new hardware.
SSDs already leverage extreme parallelism via 15+ different channels, indeed they have to due to how slow most NAND chips (especially MLC) are. Eventually you're forced to the PCIe bus, especially as you approach 18-25 channels (FusionIO) and the SATA bus becomes a bottleneck.
Newer solid state memory technologies. If you can get something more durable and faster than NAND at the lithographies we're headed towards, you'll be able to expand capacity without having to jam tons of extra chips in for bad block swapouts and having to pack killer levels of ECC.
So it would have been a $300 PC, with a full 1/3rd of the cost going to the OS alone.
They may have rooted the device, but due to the cryptographic signature on the bootloader, kernel, and eFuse watching the ROM, you won't be sticking Android 2.3/3.0 on your Droid X (or Milestone) until Motorola decides you worthy.
If this lockdown was going to be fully hacked, it would have happened to the Milestone by now.
The company from Japan they're using is for the graphics chip. As far as most people can see, they're still using ARM for the CPU.
Doesn't make any sense not to considering how well understood the architecture is for them.
Fundamentally altering the ARM core logic at the level required to add CLR support (similar to the Java implementations) requires a license on a level that ARM does not give out. Only a handful of companies, Apple being one of them, hold the necessary license to do so (mostly the founding companies.)
Hey look everyone, someone is defending abusive corporate behavior!
A quirk is one thing, a landmine where one misstep craters the thing intentionally is something else entirely.
Such an error could be recovered, since presumably it doesn't render the disks inoperable.
There's no way of knowing if avoiding this is possible. Certainly, it is designed not to be.
Which -is- fun, when the device isn't designed to self destruct when you try and do so. Fighting against what are essentially self destruct mechanisms that have no good reason for being there is simply pushing to get back where you used to be, not forging new territory.
Which is exactly what misfeatures like eFuse are designed to accomplish.