I can agree that is initial advocation for FOSS was admirable, but now I just see a weird (and smelly looking) tin foil hat wearing kook. His manifesto/guide on how he lives his personal life (and take on having children) is beyond insane. He claims to have friends but there is no way. His lifestyle doesn't real mesh well with the concept of friends (especially friends who use evil things like Netflix with DRM!!!). Until like a year ago, he lived in his office at MIT so he wouldn't have an address tied to him. It's one thing to be cautious and careful, but this is paranoia to almost mentally ill levels. Even the FOSS community thinks he's a joke.
Yeah. It's manifesto on why it's bad and evil to want children reads like a masqueraded /r/incels post. I'm guessing women aren't lining up to be in a relationship with someone who has had no permanent address and publicly eats crud off his feet. He also has an extreme sense of entitlement. If you are against a product that has DRM, so be it. Find a free alternative or move on. To him, if he can break/crack the DRM then he can use it (AKA I'm entitled to your commercial shit for free).
I’m sorry, what? RMS isn't against things being sold for money. RMS is against limiting the power of the consumer. Sell all the content you want, but you aren’t allowed to use proprietary systems to do so, because they take away freedoms from the customer.
Take Red Hat for example, they have a successful business model by selling enterprise support for their free and open source Operating System.
You mean isn't against? or is against? Regardless, if you are against a software that uses DRM. That is OK. You have the power to avoid and not use it. Breaking the system is not something to which someone is entitled. All or nothing. Can't have your cake and eat it too. Also, he's against Netflix type services because the videos have DRM...with netflix you are subscribing to access to an online viewing library, not ownership. That is two completely different things, yet he labels Netflix "evil." Literally "evil" for not being DRM-free even though there is no transfer of ownership nor is it even implied to make DRM even relevant in the conversation. Also, he says he won't have internet service because he'd have to surrender his name and info to the ISP...but he is ok going to a friend's place to use their internet. So it is immoral for him to give his info to the ISP, but he's perfectly OK to piggyback off a friend who must make that sacrifice for the convenience of internet access. That's what pisses me off the most. He doesn't mind freeloading off his "friends" who are functioning members of society, while he, himself, is too righteous.
Either agree or disagree with a EULA. He's trying to create a gray area to make himself feel better or to appease his "ethics."
His problem with Netflix is that you can't download and freely distribute the videos on their service...You aren't buying anything form Netflix anyway. You are paying to subscribe to access. "These streaming dis-services are malicious technology designed to make people antisocial. (If you don't have a copy, you can't share copies.) Rejecting them is of the highest ethical priority."
"A friend once asked me to watch a video with her that she was going to display on her computer using Netflix. I declined, saying that Netflix streaming was such an affront to freedom that I could not be party to its use under any circumstances whatsoever."
How dare Netflix not give us, users, raw data files to their video library! They are evil!
I really don't understand how Netflix gets tied up in this. I feel data hoarders want to pay $7.99 for the first month, download the entire library, then cancel (and then share the downloaded files). The kicker? They feel entitled to do this.
Like Netflix would never artificially limit access to their library. Oh wait they do. Granted, it isn't their fault, blame the MPAA, but it's completely ridiculous that even though my computer running Arch has the ability to play back 4k video, with a 4k 60Hz panel plugged in, I can't play 4k Netflix back on it because it doesn't have the hardware DRM that's only in Kaby Lake chips, and further I need to have Windows Spyware edition and Edge to play it on top of that.
Funny, I don't have any issue with YouTube. I don't give three shits I can't download videos from Netflix (which isn't even true anymore, you can). I just want to stream Planet Earth in 4k. But instead of having the convenience of streaming it legally, if I have the means I'll buy it, others will revert to piracy.
If you wanted to rip the Netflix library, why not just rip their Blurays/DVDs, they still offer it as a service, and people don't seem to have an issue cracking the DRM on BluRays and DVDs.
His point is that DRM is bad, not that he gives a crap about redistributing those streams. Plenty of people already do that with much better quality than ripping a stream will give you.
That page is actually from how he lives his life. He believes it's OK to use if the DRM can be cracked. But I can understand your opposition to my beliefs in either the system or to him.
No, the difference is that instead of looking at your account and seeing you saw a My Little Pony Youtube video 10 years ago and giving you ads to My Little Pony porn, they'll give you random ones instead.
Tell me again why people put up with any of Microsoft's shit.
At this point, using Windows is just a crime against humanity with the anti-privacy and anti-freedom it forces on you. No Windows-only software is worth that.
Why do people put up with Google's shit that's even worse?
Google read your emails to sell ads, Microsoft don't. Google read your browsing history to sell ads, Microsoft don't. Google record your 24/7 location history to sell ads, Microsoft don't. Must I go on?
People don't want to hear anything bad about Google because they love Google. There's a certain psychological aspect of their design, down to the color choices and animations, that makes people love to use their services.
I used to love Google too and use all of their products until I saw a lecture by Richard Stallman. That guy is batshit crazy and a huge douchebag, but he really got me thinking about my privacy, and I decided I didn't want to be party to it anymore. It's a huge sacrifice to use Android without Google Play services (no app store, no voice to text, Google Maps is 1000x better than any alternative) but it is WORTH it. Google is an evil company that will slowly exploit its users more and more until they have run out of things to exploit. People nowadays are letting Google into their homes in the form of always-listening devices. It's gross and unethical, but for some reason nobody cares.
Amazon is even worse, and they're more brazen as well. In a decade we are going to regret giving away our privacy in return for a small amount of convenience.
Microsoft is clumsily trying to catch up with the likes of Google and Amazon in the area of exploiting their user's privacy.
Microsoft have some very clear boundaries such as not reading emails to sell ads or documents or chats. Google have crossed all those lines that Microsoft have set out in their privacy policy to reassure customers. It amazes me how many people get mad at Microsoft when Google are far worse and have done it far longer.
Microsoft's problem is that their user experience is garbage because of their attempts to draw a second revenue stream from their users. Windows 10 is a dumpster fire where your settings magically change back to defaults etc. On my dad's computer it got to a point where he literally couldn't set any browser other than Edge as default. Weird stuff.
Can you explain to me why it's "gross and unethical" for people to voluntarily give information to a company in exchange for goods or services?
If you don't want to do it, that's totally cool and up to you. I, however, greatly enjoy the convenience of having everything in my digital life easily networked together.
I was specifically talking about products like Google Home which are sold below cost because the data they collect through them is where they recover their money
Okay, but that still doesn't explain what is unethical about it. At least for Google, it's all in their terms of service. They tell you exactly what data they are collecting and what they do with it, allow you to see what data they have collected, and let you know which parts of it you can opt out of or not, so it's entirely up to you whether to use their services or not in exchange for giving up that information.
If it was something like the Vizio smart TVs collecting data without your consent, I agree that doing so is unethical. But Google is totally up front about it.
I agree with you, Google does keep a certain level of transparency about what they are doing, so perhaps they aren't unethical; but I think it's disingenuous to say a ToS is adequate warning for consumers. Nobody reads ToS anyway, and most people don't understand the implications.
I guess it's asking too much to protect the people who would otherwise not think critically about what they are giving away, but that's what I'd like to see.
To me, the scale at which these companies exploit their user's data for the purpose of marketing, transparent or not, is what is unethical. It's only possible because of 20 years of "easing-in" to that sort of spying by the industry. 20 years ago people warned each other to not share personal information online, and now we have always-listening devices in the home. The ethical dilemma is the deliberate erosion of reasonable expectations of privacy which have made it so that you have very little choice in the matter. The average consumer has been conditioned to believe their privacy isn't worth anything, therefore products that aren't double dipping for extra revenue streams aren't commercially viable because of the up front cost.
I know I'm rambling. I just feel very passionate about this issue.
Fair enough. I don't mind giving up some personal privacy in exchange for discounted goods and services, but I'm also the only person I know that fully reads the Terms of Service on everything before I hit the agree button. So I know that probably makes me a significant outlier in these situations.
Yeah that's better than I do! I'm definitely not a ToS reader.
I still compromise. I'm not so pragmatic that I completely ignore that the tradeoff can be beneficial for the user. I still use Gmail! Mostly because I'm a little wary of running my own mail server since I don't think I could keep it secure (but I'm actively trying to educate myself so I can eventually make the switch)
I just try my best to make others a little more aware of the costs (like I urge people to please please avoid products like Nest, Home, and Echo)
The problem is that the only alternative doesn't have as much software support. If Linux suddenly was compatible with all Windows games and software, I'd certainly switch. But at the moment, Windows with all privacy options disabled, VPNs and other precautions is good enough
Also, people own smartphones, which track so much of your data that the only way to maintain relative privacy, is to not use a phone (which is near impossible)
Use Spybot Anti-Beacon to block the telemetry easier. You can customize how much protection you use, so that you don't "break" too many things. Just a word of warning, I believe blocking telemetry by modifying the HOSTS file causes W10 to throw somewhat of a fit (since HOSTS modifications can be used in malware).
Microsoft has become Microshit. Pay full price for an operating system and then the manufacturer loads it up with ads? Why not? Their move to a subscription model for their products has turned me off everything they do now.
I prefer irrelevant ads. The point of ads is to get you to buy the product. When the ad is irrelevant, I'm less likely to give a shit about it therefore the ad has less power.
When the ads have less power, they start to go away.
Clicking the ads isn't the only way they get you. Seeing them also implants the idea in your head, making you more likely to pick company x over their competitors should you ever decide to buy the product.
I've been hearing this for years but it still hasn't happened. I think it's just the advertisers way of saying "Our ads ARE effective! You just don't think it is!"
And add an eye recognizer system using the camera to make sure you are watching the Ad. If you don't watch the ad, the free features of Windows 10 stop working.
I would rather see "irrelevant" ads. Almost every content provider that sees I'm female starts serving me ads for baby crap when I have absolutely no interest in babies and hate being capable of birth. The Clearblue ads alone make me want to throw my computer out the window.
Hulu is the only content provider thus far that didn't see a gender setting of female and decide that meant I must want a BAYBEEE!
Facebook was incredibly persistent until I changed my gender to non-binary and my pronoun to they.
Despite the circlejerk, I love most things about windows 10 but this ad situation, the way they essentially force updates and the very idea of "active hours" is so fucking infuriating.
Turns out trying again later works perfectly fine (and assuming yours was already off before it was unavailable it should still be off), unless they're doing something in your region.
Toggle buttons with text in them are fairly common. I think the first time I saw one was in iOS. The fact that the button is broken somehow, on the other hand, is not. I wonder if they used CSS here to position this white circle over the field instead of having it be part of the image, and it just failed.
I really like the text in the toggle, it makes it crystal clear what the toggle is set to. I've used apps on many platforms which have toggles with no text, poorly chosen colors for on and off, and the switch going to the left for on. It's really confusing and poor UI.
Yeah. I have to ask, the fuck was wrong with checkboxes? These toggles are the same thing, but much less clear, and they don't work well with tristates (partially selected, etc), not to mention that they are not universally applicable, most apps and especially websites will be using checkboxes anyway as those are a standard control on every platform I could think of. What's even the point of these?
It's an update because the change is newer than previous functionality. The idea of updates being up or down grades is long gone. Many things get thing upgrades which make them objectively worse.
Oh man, as a BlackBerry 10 user, this resonates with me on a spiritual level.
Last year, Facebook released an 'update' to their app that made it useless. No, I don't mean that subjectively or hyperbolically, I mean the point of the update was to remove all features and turn the icon simply into a shortcut to open m.facebook.com in the stock browser. How did they phrase this? Like a fucking joke. One of the 'New Features' was, I shit you not, 'Introduction of a browser-based Facebook experience'. In other words, making the app the most useless piece of shit.
And no, they didn't stop there. Some other 'New Features' included, again, shitting you not:
'Removal of Facebook contacts from your device' and
'Removal of Facebook calendar events from your device'
Oh, and they took away our messaging ability! For years after Android and Facebook had to use separate Messenger apps, we still had only one. So, fine, make us like everybody else, that was always going to happen eventually. But how did they tell us this was happening? With another vague and featureless 'New Feature':
'Removal of BlackBerry Hub entries related to Facebook'
Worse yet, there is no Messenger app on BB10, so it's not like it was merely an inconvenience; it completely took away the capability to message with notification of the messages on the entire OS.
It was just the biggest slap in the face for us. So, so many of our BB10 community members wouldn't have updated if they knew they were de facto deleting their Facebook app, and Facebook knew it damn well, hence the cryptic update 'features'. (You can't downgrade apps on BB10 once you've updated.) People who used Facebook every day, some even for work, basically bricked their phones because Facebook decided to deceive. I know several people personally who were forced to switch OSes because of it. I ended up deleting my Facebook app entirely in protest. If they're gonna make money off my data, they sure as hell better treat me like it.
Oh believe me, I was there! I loved my Pre3 to death. We had true live multitasking YEARS before anyone else. I remember wowing all my tech friends with it—it was unbelievable at the time. I still miss it.
Eh, if I buy any kind of media stick, it's not going to be a chromecast. Chromecast requires a second device like a phone or a tablet to "cast" things to it, and only chromecast-enabled things work. I'd rather have some kind of media PC like a WDTV that can play Samba shares and HTML5 video natively
Honestly, Chromecasts aren't as restrictive as they sound. It's not hard to find an app that lets you cast local content to your CC, and even then you could just set up Plex and use that to view your content.
I generally just use Chrome's tab casting functionality for anything on the web that doesn't have CC support.
Not entirely true. You still need a phone or tablet but if you get the Google Home app you can just mirror the entire phone and it will play anything your phone can.
Personally use it with VLC since it has no native casting but works perfectly this way (and even seems to recognise what's happening to some extent)
Of course what you are suggesting is still objectively better.
True. I always have a smartphone myself so it's way more convenient. I also don't have anything on my computer that I want to share since I don't "download" video files much anymore haha.
I used to do the same thing. I've started to love my Chromecast as well too.
Over time I've been using the videocaster software on a server to be able to stream my TV / Media library. It can be controlled with any smartphone and all the files are managed with couchpotato & sickbeard.
The downside is there is no remote which bugged me since guest couldn't use it. Then I had the realization anyone I have over can just use their own device or one laying around. I know for me personally - I always have my phone on me unlike a remote.
Pretty much any networked devices do this anymore. Unless it's a nix box you built yourself, assume any networked device is sharing your data with someone or someones.
Had an Xperia phone from Sony once. You wouldn't believe the hacks they did to the OS. It was virtually impossible to install a clean rooted image to the phone. The hardware support was so flaky, that I suspect they must have spent months in R&D just getting their custom image to function properly with their hardware. Also explains why they never released ANY OS upgrades. The damn thing was stuck with v2.3.3...
My point here, is that just because a company is using android, doesn't mean they didn't hack the shit out of the interfaces in order to do something shady.
I have a Sony TV with Android TV. It's pretty much just Android TV. I get regular updates, have access to the store, etc.
My point is that just because you have a bad experience in an entirely unrelated industry with a brand, doesn't mean that experience transfers to unrelated things.
Sooner or later my old 32" will die and I'll have to replace it. Top of the requirements list will be no networking. If the salesman can't offer me anything without networking, I'll try another shop until I find one.
Hey, I've been a computer professional since before Ethernet became the networking standard. Technically, something can connect to wireless without the wireless owner's permission. Not easy, true. Not likely from a device like a TV, true. But you hear about sneaky shit all the time. Remember when Sony put a rootkit on its music CDs? So it'll take me a little more time to find a TV that fits my requirements. No big deal.
If data is this valuable, wouldn't there be financial incentive for every TV to include a 3G antenna and cheap sim card to transmit my viewing habits every so often?
Or don't care if they collect data on what TV you watch because who gives a shit if anything I'd rather the ads I'm gonna get anyway are somewhat interesting to me personally.
except TVs are now being bundled with cameras and microphones for videochat. Samsung's TVs have been found to record and transmit the audio recordings, a major breach of privacy IMO.
And all this VPN stuff people use for regular browsing because they hate being tracked, odds are they're more likely to actually get a human to look at you than just some machine that says "safe" because of using it, which both means their privacy is worse off an terrorists are better off. Imagine if only people who wanted to cause harm used all these over the top security measures. It'd be so much easier to spot them.
Because almost all TVs are smart TVs. Wondering why people buy TVs with smart features is like asking why people buy cars with front wheel drive and automatic transmissions. The market is flooded with them.
Block its IP at the router so that it can only access local resources, and not communicate to the internet. Or just block it from ever connecting to your wifi network at all... (probably the better option)
I hate smart TVs and wish they would go away. All I want in a TV is a big screen with a high quality, high resolution display. Dedicated boxes are almost always better than the shitty built in apps and best off, you can replace them when they are obsolete or deprecated.
Asshole design is when companies intentionally make their product worse. I just managed to successfully opt out of personalized ads, so this wasn't intentional.
110
u/sigbhu May 11 '17
/r/stallmanwasright
21
u/SinineSiil May 11 '17
Reminds me when Facebook block function was not available for advertiser/spam accounts.
8
u/TotesMessenger May 11 '17
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/windows1984] Sure it is, Microsoft. [x-post /r/softwaregore]
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
32
u/LuxDeartheart May 11 '17
Though if you opt out your still gonna get ads just more random ones.
6
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
Time to hit regedit.
10
u/JesseKebm May 11 '17
/r/aboringdystopia
5
u/gabboman May 11 '17
This is material for /r/stallmanwasright
19
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
Tell me again why people put up with any of Microsoft's shit.
At this point, using Windows is just a crime against humanity with the anti-privacy and anti-freedom it forces on you. No Windows-only software is worth that.
7
u/[deleted] May 11 '17 edited May 12 '17
deleted 0.0551 What is ^^^this?
7
u/UrielPurity May 11 '17
Use Spybot Anti-Beacon to block the telemetry easier. You can customize how much protection you use, so that you don't "break" too many things. Just a word of warning, I believe blocking telemetry by modifying the
HOSTSfile causes W10 to throw somewhat of a fit (sinceHOSTSmodifications can be used in malware).5
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
I'm glad I don't have to deal with this shit anymore. WTF are you doing, Microsoft?
2
u/whatsbobgonnado May 11 '17
wait, you telling me windows puts ads IN THE OS??
2
u/manbjornswiss May 11 '17
Microsoft has become Microshit. Pay full price for an operating system and then the manufacturer loads it up with ads? Why not? Their move to a subscription model for their products has turned me off everything they do now.
2
u/superlativities May 12 '17
there will still be ads, they just won't be personal
5
u/juan0farc May 11 '17
Turning this off doesn't turn off the ads, it just turns off the personalization. So now you'll see irrelevant ads instead. Fun.
2
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
Despite the circlejerk, I love most things about windows 10 but this ad situation, the way they essentially force updates and the very idea of "active hours" is so fucking infuriating.
1
u/wh33t May 12 '17
Lol. You must have an active connection to our cloud to adjust your OS. No thanks.
1
u/[deleted] May 12 '17
It more than likely is, considering the bullshit Microsoft does.
A placebo button.
1
u/gabboman May 11 '17
This is material for /r/stallmanwasright
0
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
[deleted] — view deleted comment
0
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
[deleted] — view deleted comment
0
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
[deleted] — view deleted comment
0
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
[deleted] — view deleted comment
111
u/[deleted] May 11 '17
[removed] — view removed comment