I flagged both of those at the time because it seemed more likely to be user error than anything. Bold claims like that need more evidence before publishing.
One thing that any programmer knows is that until you have a way to reproduce something in a clean environment, a bug report on its own cannot be fully trusted. That doesn't mean you ignore the possibility that the reporter is correct, because sometimes reproduction is very difficult indeed, but you have to allow for the fact that something about the user's environment or workflow unrelated to your own code might be at fault.
We are all susceptible to errors in our methodology or limitations in our understanding of how complex systems interact. We should be humble and careful about jumping to conclusions.
In a now deleted tweet, the person was also ridiculing security researchers who were DMing him for more information, painting them as lazy, as if they hadn't tried to reproduce themselves. But nobody could reproduce the issue.
uh wow. It goes without saying that you should know what the commands do before you run them and should not ask for help and then be hostile when people offer to help.
> We should be humble and careful about jumping to conclusions.
Agreed, but it's also important to look out for confirmation bias. There were users on Twitter and even one HN commenter in the linked threads above who claimed to have reproduced the issue and verified the flaw. The HN commenter later updated their comment to admit their mistake. However, it's interesting to see how once the idea has been seeded, people are primed to accept any suggestion that it might be true.
It's not even at times. It's all the time. Theres many threads where the actual information is sparse but people sound extremely confident about their conclusions. Makes me realise that much of the time people are just making stuff up, there's just nobody to call them out.
Anything Apple gets peoples hackles up. I think it’s because “favourite tech stack” is such a tribal thing, and there’s so many more Windows/Linux/Android users in tech communities
I know someone that doesn’t tell people they work at Apple. They say it’s a death blow to making new friends, always resulting in in the same “well, I don’t like Apple because” or “well I prefer Android because” conversations (or their inverse).
I thought they were exaggerating until they proved it to me, by letting me witness the train wreck, at a social gathering.
People seem to have _really strong opinions_ about Apple. I’m in an IRC group and the people in there are great but then very tribal when anyone mentions Apple.
It’s a little bizarre to me, the litany of things they can talk about. I’m pretty sure I spend just about 0% of my energy thinking about where people get their phones or which mobile operating system they use.
What's worse is that the brands they use have became the extension of their identity, or even their complete identify. I once mentioned online that FaceID has failed for me almost once a day, I got attacked online by fanboys.... very strange behaviour
I doubt it. All of bigtech gets the same deranged treatment: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.
It was a weird moment when I found myself defending fb on hn more often than I criticized them (I think they're atrocious), but the comments on bigtech stories are just that stupid.
I agree that all big tech gets it, and to be honest anything that’s not FOSS gets shit on a ton here.
But I do think Apple get it worse than other companies.
Android posts don’t get as many comments that range from conspiracy to calling users sheep.
Google gets ribbed for their ADHD but rarely criticized anywhere as much if Safari or Chrome both add their web proposals before standardization.
Apple hardware gets trivialized when performance comes up whereas Intel, AMD and NVidia get vaunted.
So I agree every big tech company gets railed on here, but I think Apple gets a disproportionate amount of it.
Before someone says it, That’s not me defending them as a company, it’s me tired of the terrible discourse on every post that mentions them. There’s lots of things that would be interesting to criticize them for and read about, but every thread divulges into the same exact community talking points.
I suppose I haven't noticed that myself. Though I spend less time on hn than I used to, and the consensus on Apple used to be dramatically more positive, so it's possibly that colors my perception
> one thing is for certain; Apple doesn't treat privacy as a human right. If you can live with that, then more power to you.
You're inferring that the commenter deduced this solely from the new (incorrect) info. It seems a lot more plausible that they already hold the view (as I do) that Apple's privacy-friendly image is overblown, and used a separate issue to belabor that pt.
Though I do agree that this incident seemed unlikely w/o further evidence, even given Apple's traditional disdain for the user's control over their own system. And Apple has firmly joined the ranks of bigtech cos that HN threads are absolutely deranged about.
I hope they did sell it. It’s right for there to be consequences for not being a critical thinker.
Not that Debian Linux is bad. But selling a machine and setting up a new one is friction that I don’t mind seeing imposed as a cost of unthinkingly following cognitive bias.
Yeah and to be clear, that's not merely an HN thing, or an internet thing. People - even people who seem very clever - generally have no idea what they're talking about.
It's sort of exhilarating to truly understand just how much of the world is built on absolute bullshit.
However, I think it's more dangerous on sites like HN where it's wrapped up in this illusion of rationalism, intelligence and elitism along with HN reputation for a "higher level of discourse" which makes people more likely to believe.
Turns out HN falls prey to all the same human biases as everywhere else.
A quick way to see it in action is find a thread about something you know deeply and read the comments.
At the risk of falling into the age old Eternal September trap, I do feel like I've become significantly more disillusioned in the last year or so at the quality, or rather the lack thereof, of discourse on HN. It's as tribal as Reddit is, and not consistently higher quality discussion.
What we do have here is dang, though, which is a lot more than Reddit generally has.
Hackernews has a whole lot of smart people, but the dark matter of the Hackernews universe is the much larger number of schlubs who cosplay as smart people online.
It's equally funny to see the collective sigh-of-relief expressed through this post's upvotes. OCSP is real and can hurt you, warrantless iCloud access still goes un-mitigated, but thank God! The QR code IP leak turned out to be a fake. Who knew MacOS was a nice and private operating system all along?
So... I think replication was needed and have a MacBook myself. However, the claim in question was tricky to verify because it was supposedly occuring over the course of days.
I also think it says a lot about collective anxieties over not using an open OS. The scanning wasn't happening but it was plausible and there wasn't really much to do about it other than try to verify it.
I think the episode says less about collective unwarranted paranoia and more about collective vulnerabilities.
I still am scratching my head about the new tweet though. It doesn't say the scanning isn't happening, just that it's not MacOS.
Unfortunately he doesn’t go the full distance and tell us unambiguously whether or not he clicked on said shortcut. Which would say nothing about the already settled macOS question but would say something about Firefox.
I’ve been thinking about this problem a lot. It seems to me you either go full send on the privacy front -> use FLOSS operating systems and self-host Nextcloud, or you want the comforts of modern apps and services -> buy into Apple’s or Google’s ecosystem.
There exists no option where you get to keep your privacy and enjoy modern technology.
Well, because using any popular service or app is right out?
Just looking at my own phone, payments, banking, planning transit rides, ordering cabs, keeping in touch with (online and offline) friends, streaming videos and music, gaming, ordering groceries, ordering takeout, translating documents, getting breaking news, taking (good) photos, and reporting vandalism to the city are all proprietary apps.
I don’t see a straightforward way to replace any of these with FOSS, and getting rid of them all would necessitate some serious concessions in my lifestyle.
> Well, because using any popular service or app is right out?
> Just looking at my own phone, payments, banking, planning transit rides, ordering cabs, keeping in touch with (online and offline) friends, streaming videos and music, gaming, ordering groceries, ordering takeout, translating documents, getting breaking news, taking (good) photos, and reporting vandalism to the city are all proprietary apps.
Most if not all of those are websites that work fine in a perfectly normal browser on whatever operating system I care to use, in my experience.
I know for certain that the services I depend on in at least half of those categories either don’t work in the browser, do work but don’t have full functionality, or are just the desktop version.
Maybe it's different where you live, but for me from of the things you listed, the only one that would absolutely depend on a proprietary OS is keeping in touch with friends - because many use services such as WhatsApp that depend on having a phone with Google Play Services. And games where you usually have no choice.
Of the others, many depend on proprietary services, but pretty much all are accessible via their respective websites and I rarely see missing functionality.
payments - just use your card. You could even stick it in your phone case so you always have it if you have your phone
banking - there are some "app-only" banks where I live, but for every one there are 5 normal ones with websites
planning transit rides - all the ones I've used work in the browser
ordering cabs - around here they all have websites... or even phone numbers. Even Uber works via the website.
streaming videos and music - Spotify, YouTube, Twitch etc all work fine in a browser (in fact, on mobile they work better in a browser as you can block the ads!). If you want to host your own, there is Plex and similar.
gaming - most games won't work, but there are web-based and OSS games; Steam Deck could be an alternative
ordering groceries - around here they all have websites
ordering takeout - as above
translating documents - this one is weaker but there are several services that let you do this via the website
getting breaking news - if you really need to see them ASAP, use a site that has an RSS feed - they still exist! Might not work for local news though
taking (good) photos - plenty of OSS camera apps; using an actual camera could be an alternative
reporting vandalism to the city - must be specific to where you live; here everything is via web forms, and if there is an app it just wraps the website
- some services don’t work (you already mentioned WhatsApp, there’s also others (Discord, FB Messenger) - maybe you can use them in the browser but it’s going to be a subpar experience)
- some have limited functionality (bank: works but you need to carry the physical 2FA device to log in instead of using your fingerprint; groceries: around here, the ones with websites have high order minimums and delivery fees; translating: camera translation (essential when travelling or living abroad) is only on the Google Translate app AFAIK; news: the national public broadcaster here doesn’t have a ‘breaking’ RSS feed, and apparently even the ‘all news’ feed is broken anyways)
- carrying around separate devices (camera etc.) brings us back to the original point: if you want to enjoy the niceties of modern devices, FOSS is going to be a compromise
I'd love Apple to build iCloud hosting via your home mac or a new version of the server they used to sell. That way all data sits on and is processed by a machine you control. Admittedly wishful thinking but I can dream.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33095608 (83 comments)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33096540 (102 comments)