#apple software installation service

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An adversarial iMessage client for Android

Adversarial interoperability is one of the most reliable ways to protect tech users from predatory corporations: that's when a technologist reverse-engineers an existing product to reconfigure or mod it (interoperability) in ways its users like, but which its manufacturer objects to (adversarial):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interop" is a mouthful, so at EFF, we coined the term "competitive compatibility," or comcom, which is a lot easier to say and to spell.

Scratch any tech success and you'll find a comcom story. After all, when a company turns its screws on its users, it's good business to offer an aftermarket mod that loosens them again. HP's $10,000/gallon inkjet ink is like a bat-signal for third-party ink companies. When Mercedes announces that it's going to sell you access to your car's accelerator pedal as a subscription service, that's like an engraved invitation to clever independent mechanics who'll charge you a single fee to permanently unlock that "feature":

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/12/05/carmakers-push-forward-with-plans-to-make-basic-features-subscription-services-despite-widespread-backlash/

Comcom saved giant tech companies like Apple. Microsoft tried to kill the Mac by rolling out a truly cursèd version of MS Office for MacOS. Mac users (5% of the market) who tried to send Word, Excel or Powerpoint files to Windows users (95% of the market) were stymied: their files wouldn't open, or they'd go corrupt. Tech managers like me started throwing the graphic designer's Mac and replacing it with a Windows box with a big graphics card and Windows versions of Adobe's tools.

Comcom saved Apple's bacon. Apple reverse-engineered MS's flagship software suite and made a comcom version, iWork, whose Pages, Numbers and Keynote could flawlessly read and write MS's Word, Excel and Powerpoint files:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

It's tempting to think of iWork as benefiting Apple users, and certainly the people who installed and used it benefited from it. But Windows users also benefited from iWork. The existence of iWork meant that Windows users could seamlessly collaborate on and share files with their Mac colleagues. IWork didn't just add a new feature to the Mac ("read and write files that originated with Windows users") – it also added a feature to Windows: "collaborate with Mac users."

Every pirate wants to be an admiral. Though comcom rescued Apple from a monopolist's sneaky attempt to drive it out of business, Apple – now a three trillion dollar company – has repeatedly attacked comcom when it was applied to Apple's products. When Apple did comcom, that was progress. When someone does comcom to Apple, that's piracy.

Apple has many tools at its disposal that Microsoft lacked in the early 2000s. Radical new interpretations of existing copyright, contract, patent and trademark law allows Apple – and other tech giants – to threaten rivals who engage in comcom with both criminal and civil penalties. That's right, you can go to prison for comcom these days. No wonder Jay Freeman calls this "felony contempt of business model":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/09/lead-me-not-into-temptation/#chamberlain

Take iMessage, Apple's end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) instant messaging tool. Apple customers can use iMessage to send each other private messages that can't be read or altered by third parties – not cops, not crooks, not even Apple. That's important, because when private messaging systems get hacked, bad things happen:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak

But Apple has steadfastly refused to offer an iMessage app for non-Apple systems. If you're an Apple customer holding a sensitive discussion with an Android user, Apple refuses to offer you a tool to maintain your privacy. Those messages are sent "in the clear," over the 38-year-old SMS protocol, which is trivial to spy on and disrupt.

Apple sacrifices its users' security and integrity in the hopes that they will put pressure on their friends to move into Apple's walled garden. As CEO Tim Cook told a reporter: if you want to have secure communications with your mother, buy her an iPhone:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tim-cook-says-buy-mom-210347694.html

Last September, a 16-year old high school student calling himself JJTech published a technical teardown of iMessage, showing how any device could send and receive encrypted messages with iMessage users, even without an Apple ID:

https://jjtech.dev/reverse-engineering/imessage-explained/

JJTech even published code to do this, in an open source library called Pypush:

https://github.com/JJTech0130/pypush

In the weeks since, Beeper has been working to productize JJTech's code, and this week, they announced Beeper Mini, an Android-based iMessage client that is end-to-end encrypted:

https://beeper.notion.site/How-Beeper-Mini-Works-966cb11019f8444f90baa314d2f43a54

Beeper is known for a multiprotocol chat client built on Matrix, allowing you to manage several kinds of chat from a single app. These multiprotocol chats have been around forever. Indeed, iMessage started out as one – when it was called "iChat," it supported Google Talk and Jabber, another multiprotocol tool. Other tools like Pidgin have kept the flame alive for decades, and have millions of devoted users:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/07/tower-babel-how-public-interest-internet-trying-save-messaging-and-banish-big

But iMessage support has remained elusive. Last month, Nothing launched Sunchoice, a disastrous attempt to bring iMessage to Android, which used Macs in a data-center to intercept and forward messages to Android users, breaking E2EE and introducing massive surveillance risks:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/21/23970740/sunbird-imessage-app-shut-down-privacy-nothing-chats-phone-2

Beeper Mini does not have these defects. The system encrypts and decrypts messages on the Android device itself, and directly communicates with Apple's servers. It gathers some telemetry for debugging, and this can be turned off in preferences. It sends a single SMS to Apple's servers during setup, which changes your device's bubble from green to blue, so that Apple users now correctly see your device as a secure endpoint for iMessage communications.

Beeper Mini is now available in Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.beeper.ima&hl=en_US

Now, this is a high-stakes business. Apple has a long history of threatening companies like Beeper over conduct like this. And Google has a long history deferring to those threats – as it did with OG App, a superior third-party Instagram app that it summarily yanked after Meta complained:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

But while iMessage for Android is good for Android users, it's also very good for Apple customers, who can now get the privacy and security guarantees of iMessage for all their contacts, not just the ones who bought the same kind of phone as they did. The stakes for communications breaches have never been higher, and antitrust scrutiny on Big Tech companies has never been so intense.

Apple recently announced that it would add RCS support to iOS devices (RCS is a secure successor to SMS):

https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-rcs-coming-to-iphone/

Early word from developers suggests that this support will have all kinds of boobytraps. That's par for the course with Apple, who love to announce splashy reversals of their worst policies – like their opposition to right to repair – while finding sneaky ways to go on abusing its customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

The ball is in Apple's court, and, to a lesser extent, in Google's. As part of the mobile duopoly, Google has joined with Apple in facilitating the removal of comcom tools from its app store. But Google has also spent millions on an ad campaign shaming Apple for exposing its users to privacy risks when talking to Android users:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/21/23883609/google-rcs-message-apple-iphone-ipager-ad

While we all wait for the other shoe to drop, Android users can get set up on Beeper Mini, and technologists can kick the tires on its code libraries and privacy guarantees.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/07/blue-bubbles-for-all/#never-underestimate-the-determination-of-a-kid-who-is-time-rich-and-cash-poor

[autolenaphilia]

The main reason to use Firefox and Linux and other free and open source software is that otherwise the big tech monopolies will fuck you as the customer over in search of profits. They will seek to control how you use their products and sell your data. When a company dominates the market, things can only get worse for ordinary people.

Like take Google Chrome for example, which together with its chromium reskins dominate the web browser market. Google makes a lot of money from ads, and consequently the company hates adblockers. They already are planning to move to manifest V3, which will nerf adblockers significantly. The manifest V3 compatible chrome version of Ublock Orgin is a "Lite" version for a reason. Ublock's Github page has an entire page explaining why the addon works best in Firefox.

And Google as we speak are trying to block adblockers from working on Youtube, If you want to continue blocking Youtube ads, and since Youtube ads make the site unuseable you ought to want that, it makes the most sense to not use a browser controlled by Google.

And there is no reason to think things won't get worse. There is for example nothing stopping Google from kicking adblockers off their add-on stores completely. They do regard it as basically piracy if the youtube pop-ups tell us anything, so updating the Chrome extensions terms of service to ban adblocking is a natural step. And so many people seem to think Chrome is the only browser that exists, so they are not going to switch to alternatives, or if they do, they will switch to another chrominum-based browser.

And again, they are fucking chromium itself for adblockers with Manifest V3, so only Firefox remains as a viable alternative. It's the only alternative to letting Google control the internet.

And Microsoft is the same thing. I posted before about their plans to move Windows increasingly into the cloud. This already exists for corporate customers, as Windows 365. And a version for ordinary users is probably not far off. It might not be the only version of Windows for awhile, the lack of solid internet access for a good part of the Earth's population will prevent it. But you'll probably see cheap very low-spec chromebookesque laptops running Windows for sale soon, that gets around Windows 11's obscene system requirements by their Windows being a cloud-based version.

And more and more of Windows will require Internet access or validation for DRM reasons if nothing else. Subscription fees instead of a one-time license are also likely. It will just be Windows moving in the direction Microsoft Office has already gone.

There is nothing preventing this, because again on the desktop/laptop market Windows is effectively a monopoly, or a duopoly with Apple. So there is no competition preventing Microsoft from exercising control over Windows users in the vein of Apple.

For example, Microsoft making Windows a walled garden by only permitting programs to be installed from the Microsoft Store probably isn't far off. This already exists for Win10 and 11, it's called S-mode. There seem to be more and more laptops being sold with Windows S-mode as the default.

Now it's not the only option, and you can turn it off with some tinkering, but there is really nothing stopping Microsoft from making it the only way of using Windows. And customers will probably accept it, because again the main competition is Apple where the walled garden has been the default for decades.

Customers have already accepted all sorts of bad things from Microsoft, because again Windows is a near-monopoly, and Apple and Google are even worse. That’s why there has been no major negative reaction to how Windows has increasingly spies on its users.

Another thing is how the system requirements for Windows seem to grow almost exponentially with each edition, making still perfectly useable computers unable to run the new edition. And Windows 11 is the worst yet. Like it's hard to get the numbers of how many computers running Win10 can't upgrade to Win11, but it's probably the majority of them, at least 55% or maybe even 75%. This has the effect of Windows users abandoning still perfectly useable hardware and buying new computers, creating more e-waste.

For Windows users, the alternative Windows gives them is to buy a new computer or get another operating system, and inertia pushes them towards buying another computer to keep using Windows. This is good for Windows and the hardware manufacturers selling computers with Windows 11 pre-installed, they get to profit off people buying Windows 11 keys and new computers, while the end-users have to pay, as does the environment. It’s planned obsolescence.

And it doesn’t have to be like that. Linux distros prove that you can have a modern operating system that has far lower hardware requirements. Even the most resource taxing Linux distros, like for example Ubuntu running the Gnome desktop, have far more modest system requirements than modern Windows. And you can always install lightweight Linux Distros that often have very low system requirements. One I have used is Antix. The ballooning Windows system requirements comes across as pure bloat on Microsoft’s part.

Now neither Linux or Firefox are perfect. Free and open source software don’t have a lot of the polish that comes with the proprietary products of major corporations. And being in competition with technology monopolies does have its drawbacks. The lacking website compatibility with Firefox and game compatibility with Linux are two obvious examples.

Yet Firefox and Linux have the capacity to grow, to become better. Being open source helps. Even if Firefox falls, developers can create a fork of it. If a Linux distro is not to your taste, there is usually another one. Whereas Windows and Chrome will only get worse as they will continue to abuse their monopolistic powers over the tech market.

[amalgamasreal]

On Personal InfoSec

Been awhile since I've had one of these posts but I figure with all that's going on in the world it's time to make another one of these posts and get some stuff out there for people. A lot of the information I'm going to go over you can find here:

So if you'd like to just click the link and ignore the rest of the post that's fine, I strongly recommend checking out the Privacy Guides.

Browsers:

There's a number to go with but for this post going forward I'm going to recommend Firefox. I know that the Privacy Guides lists Brave and Safari as possible options but Brave is Chrome based now and Safari has ties to Apple. Mullvad is also an option but that's for your more experienced users so I'll leave that up to them to work out.

Browser Extensions:

uBlock Origin: content blocker that blocks ads, trackers, and fingerprinting scripts. Notable for being the only ad blocker that still works on Youtube.

Privacy Badger: Content blocker that specifically blocks trackers and fingerprinting scripts. This one will catch things that uBlock doesn't catch but does not work for ads.

Facebook Container: "but I don't have facebook" you might say. Doesn't matter, Meta/Facebook still has trackers out there in EVERYTHING and this containerizes them off away from everything else.

Bitwarden: Password vaulting software, don't trust the password saving features of your browsers, this has multiple layers of security to prevent your passwords from being stolen.

ClearURLs: Allows you to copy and paste URL's without any trackers attached to them.

VPN:

Note: VPN software doesn't make you anonymous, no matter what your favorite youtuber tells you, but it does make it harder for your data to be tracked and it makes it less open for whatever network you're presently connected to.

Mozilla VPN: If you get the annual subscription it's ~$60/year and it comes with an extension that you can install into Firefox.

Proton VPN: Has easily the most amount of countries serviced, can take cash payments, and does offer port forwarding.

Email Provider:

Note: By now you've probably realized that Gmail, Outlook, and basically all of the major "free" e-mail service providers are scraping your e-mail data to use for ad data. There are more secure services that can get you away from that but if you'd like the same storage levels you have on Gmail/Outlook.com you'll need to pay.

Proton Mail: Secure, end-to-end encrypted, and fairly easy to setup and use. Offers a free option up to 1gb

Tuta: Secure, end-to-end encrypted, been around a very long time, and offers a free option up to 1gb.

Email Client:

Thunderbird if you're on Windows or Linux

Apple Mail if you're on macOS

Cloud Storage:

Proton Drive: Encrypted cloud storage from the same people as Proton Mail.

Tresorit: Encrypted cloud storage owned by the national postal service of Switzerland. Received MULTIPLE awards for their security stats.

Peergos: decentralized and open-source, allows for you to set up your own cloud storage, but will require a certain level of expertise.

Microsoft Office Replacements:

LibreOffice: free and open-source, updates regularly, and has the majority of the same functions as base level Microsoft Office.

OnlyOffice: cloud-based, free, and open source.

Chat Clients:

Note: As you've heard SMS and even WhatsApp and some other popular chat clients are basically open season right now. These are a couple of options to replace those.

Signal: Provides IM and calling securely and encrypted, has multiple layers of data hardening to prevent intrusion and exfil of data.

Molly (Android OS only): Alternative client to Signal. Routes communications through the TOR Network.

Briar: Encrypted IM client that connects to other clients through the TOR Network, can also chat via wifi or bluetooth.

Now for the last bit, I know that the majority of people are on Windows or macOS, but if you can get on Linux I would strongly recommend it. pop_OS, Ubuntu, and Mint are super easy distros to use and install. They all have very easy to follow instructions on how to install them on your PC and if you'd like to just test them out all you need is a thumb drive to boot off of to run in demo mode.

If you game through Steam their Proton emulator in compatibility mode works wonders, I'm presently playing a major studio game that released in 2024 with no Linux support on it and once I got my drivers installed it's looked great. There are some learning curves to get around, but the benefit of the Linux community is that there's always people out there willing to help.

I hope some of this information helps you and look out for yourself, it's starting to look scarier than normal out there.

[shieldfoss]

Keyboard shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts in actual use are clearly historically contingent and path dependent - there are no standards, which means there are no ways to avoid conflict - even if you want to!

That is - unless you know every shortcut for the operating system you are compiling for and the operating system doesn't add more shortcuts and no third party programs are installed that were unaware of your presence.

EDIT:

Post got Long, it's under a readmore now so it won't clutter your dash

But please do read it if you have software opinions.

---

Hardware thinks (shortcut) means A

Operating system thinks (shortcut) means B

Background service thinks (shortcut) means C

Browser thinks (shortcut) means D

Open browser tab thinks (shortcut) means E

---

Hot garbage!

In the interest of avoiding conflicting commands it would be great if people could agree on some standards.

I feel like, with [super] and [ctrl] and [alt] and [shift] and [Esc] and [space] and [Fn] - it ought to be possible to do some deconflicting here!

Since the operating system is in control of the keyboard, it can impose those standards unilaterally - it would be chaos during the transition but the future would be much better.

Except no! Inherently impossible!

Because the user will - once again - install third party software and even if we get excellent deconfliction between layers, if you install two different background services that both did their due diligence and ensured that the operating system didn't use ctrl+shift+q+w+g - it is functionally impossible for them to know about each other

Still, I want to sketch something.

NB: I've never used a Mac, maybe Steve Apple solved all of this decades ago for his platform, it seems like the kind of thing he would do. I'm gonna write like he didn't though.

The domain

I'm seeing two ways users interact with software - background/foreground - and two types of software they're interacting with - hosts and clients.

The terms are necessarily underspecified but think along the lines of

Background/Foreground

Is this shortcut supposed to consistently do the same thing every time I use it (for the OS or some background service) or might it do different things depending on which app I currently have focused?

This is muddled by the fact that the background modes have active modes e.g. if you have Nvidia Shadowplay running in the background, listening for input that tells it to turn on or off, you probably also have an Nvidia Shadowplay app that you can actively focus on.

In that case, the software is simply counted twice - it has a persistent background component and a separate component that might or might not be focused.

Host/Client

The difference between Host and Client is essentially whether the developer is responsible for intermediating with third party software. This is obviously recursive[1], I am going to pretend it isn't though.

Hardware

To the extent that your hardware sends messages to your operating system, those can be ignored for the purpose of this diagram. To the extent that your operating system sends messages to your hardware, the hardware can be treated like a persistent background service.

Scenario

You are writing code in an IDE.

Four pieces of software have five different uses for the key "e"

Your OS wants E to mean "Open default Email client."

Your Emoji Picker background service wants E to open the "Pick Emoji" dialog.

Your IDE is currently in focus and wants E to open the Project Explorer pane.

Your IDE has a plugin that format your current tab according to your Editorconfig file.

And finally: You just plain need the letter "e" in your source code.

Today: Any fucking thing might happen depending on how those different apps and plugins have their hotkeys set up.

But let us consider:

[super]+[e] opens the email client.

[super]+[shift]+[e] opens the emoji picker

[ctrl]+[e] opens the Project Explorer pane

[ctrl]+[shift]+[e] formats according the editorconfig

[e] inserts the letter "e" into the source code.

Enforcement between OS, Third party service and active client.

How do you prevent the emoji picker from squatting on [ctrl]+[shift]+[e] and fucking it all up? Especially if it is written by a third party who didn't get the memo?

Easy.

If you press [ctrl]+[shift]+[e] the emoji plugin never sees it. When the emoji picker event loop asks for new events, those WM_KEYDOWN events aren't on the list.

"How?"

From the perspective of the OS, there are three groups of software that may need to know about key events

First party background software (The OS and OS services)

Third party background software (like the Emoji picker)

Active focused client software (First or third party)

When you input a key sequence:

The OS reads through the keys:

If [super] is present, check for [shift]

If [shift] is present in the key sequence, the key events go into the Third Party pool. On receiving them, the Emoji Picker opens the Emoji dialog.

Else only [super] is present in the key sequence: The key events go into the OS private pool, where they are made available only to first party background services. The "default email" hook fires.

Else [super] is not present in the sequence: The key events go into the "focused client" pool, which is made available only to the single, currently active, focused client. They are read by the IDE.

Enforcement within active client

Write it correctly lmao

But it is just recursively the same problem! Please do the same thing!

When the IDE reads the key events out of the OS, it checks for the presence of [ctrl]

If [ctrl] is present, check for [shift].

If [shift] is present in the sequence, the key events go into the plugin pool. Upon receiving them, the formatter activates

Else only [ctrl] is present. The key event goes into the IDE's private pool. The IDE opens the Project Explorer pane.

Else [ctrl] is not present in this key sequence. The key events go into the active editor tab which inserts a single 'e' in the current file.

---

Expanding the shortcut configuration space

"What about [alt]?" Is that button just irrelevant? [Esc]? [Fn]?

Nah, nah. You can do a bunch with all of them. They're fundamentally the same as the shift key here. Maybe the OS reserves for itself the space of all shortcuts like [super]+[letter/number] and [super]+[alt]+[letter/number], and every other shortcut that starts with [super] is available for third party background services. Maybe clients that support plugins (browsers that support sending key events into websites) reserve [ctrl] only and everything else is fair game. However it shakes out.

Really, this is too strict, too. The purpose of the exercise is not to hobble third party background services or third party plugins, it is more to reserve a space to ensure various things don't conflict. Insofar as it can be done without leading to conflicts, you can be much more lax than this.

The two issues that brought this on are both VSCode related, because VSCode has two shortcuts.

Well, it has a lot of shortcuts. But it has two specific shortcuts that I want to talk about: [ctrl]+[b] and [ctrl]+[shift]+[e].

In the Linux keymap (VSCode has three separate keymaps for windows/linux/mac) [ctrl]+[b] opens the side pane, and [ctrl]+[shift]+[e] opens the project explorer window.

Except not for me they don't.

I am writing this text in markdown, and I have a markdown plugin installed. Somewhat reasonably, the markdown plugin feels [ctrl]+[b] should bold the selected text (that is, insert ** on both sides of the text.) And VSCode gives priority to the plugin - when my active editing pane is on a markdown document, I cannot open/close the side pane.

And the fucking IBUS emoji picker is squatting on [ctrl]+[shift]+[e]. Across the whole OS! "Yeah no matter what you're doing, you're probably gonna need emoji so we're taking first claim on incredibly ergonomic real estate for an incredibly niche use case" who the fuck accepted that pull request into my distro?

And, like, is Microsoft going to change the default key bindings for VSCode on Linux because of that insane decision? No of course not.

Are they going to change their idiocy - just to stop inconveniencing Microsoft users? Yeah that is not how I am modeling the situation unfolding I must admit.

That sucks! Shit sucks! And the only good solution is for the OS to say "We are laying absolute claim to (this namespace) for OS and background services and we are giving third parties absolute claim to (that namespace).

Which they're not gonna do but I can waste a day writing about the perfect world I want to live in.

---

[1] "My Mac hosts a VM running Linux hosting a VM running Windows running an open Browser with a tab with an open webapp with a user plugin."

[malexaaa]

Catching Up on Tech News

1. Foursquare's Strategic Shift: Foursquare recently underwent significant restructuring, laying off 105 employees, which accounts for 25% of its workforce. The move aims to enhance operational efficiency and financial stability. This isn't the first time Foursquare has faced layoffs, having experienced similar cuts in 2020 and 2022. The company has transitioned from a consumer-focused app to a provider of enterprise data services, with its future financial outlook remaining uncertain.

2. Google Pay Enhancements: Google Pay is upping its game in the digital payment sphere by introducing new features geared towards enhancing the shopping experience. These include smarter shopping with rewards, flexible payment options through buy now, pay later (BNPL), and improved security verification methods using biometrics or PIN. These updates empower users to make informed decisions, maximize rewards, and enjoy a streamlined and secure payment process across various transactions.

3. Microsoft's AI Innovation: Microsoft's Cocreator feature within Paint is revolutionizing digital art creation by transforming quick sketches into realistic images in real-time. With options like Layers, Cocreator, and Image Creator, users can blend text and sketches seamlessly, adjusting creativity levels and styles. However, this feature currently requires specific hardware capabilities, limiting its accessibility to Copilot+ devices.

4. Apple Addresses Photo Bug: Apple swiftly addressed a bug in iOS 17.5 that caused deleted photos to reappear on iPhones and iPads. The fix was rolled out in iOS 17.5.1, which users can install via Settings > General > Software Update. While the root cause of the issue remains speculative, theories include indexing glitches, photo library corruption, or synchronization issues with iCloud Photos.

[spindrifters]

my macbook is such an insidious case study in late stage capitalism

it's 7 years old and running great, but I've hit a wall. my browsers can no longer support certain site updates (slack, most streaming services, etc.) and in order to update my browser to run those sites, apple requires a newer model than my oh-so-geriatric laptop. so, at last, I'm giving in and getting an upgrade, even though the software and hardware still works just fine.

I'm fully intending on buying a refurbished macbook instead of giving apple my money, but I went through the process on their site all the way to check out in order to figure out exactly what specifications to look for.

with that in mind, apple has two payment options. you can pay upfront ($1399 for a new macbook air with the memory and storage upgrades I'd need), or in installments for 12 months (~$117/month). well, that would be super convenient if you aren't flush with cash, which most of us aren't. except wait. in order to choose the installment plan, you have to apply for and use an apple credit card, which has an average 25% apr.

for a laptop I don't want to be buying in the first place.

[blazehedgehog]

Sir BlazeHedgehog, where is your nickname from?

Oh wow, somebody actually asked for once instead of me having to volunteer it.

This is probably at least the third time I've said this just on this blog alone, but since tumblr search is worthless, we'll take it from the top one more time, but I'll hide it behind a "read more" tag for those who would rather skip it.

And because I'm going to be hiding it behind a tag, I'm going to go all in and tell a story.

The short answer is I made it up.

I am from a time before the internet was everywhere, on everything. In the 5th or 6th grade, our computer lab teacher introduced us to the world wide web using the suite of Apple Macintoshes they had available.

And when I say "Macintosh" I mean the original. Black and white screens, Hypercard, the whole deal from 1984. Keeping in mind it was currently 1995.

About 25-30 of these little guys split in to two rows. In the middle of the classroom sat a lone Macintosh Performa. Good kids got to use the Performa.

The Performa was the only computer that was capable to render what we would begin to know as the modern internet. It had Netscape Navigator installed, which supported the somewhat-new technology of webpages with embedded images.

For the rest of us, we were introduced to the text-based internet. You would bring up a terminal application and have to type out commands to interface with the school's webserver in order to check things like email (using PINE). You browsed the internet using Lynx. There was no mouse, no clicking. You scrolled using the arrow keys and could highlight links with tab.

They taught us other terminal commands, like how to open a direct text chat with another student in the lab, some basic formatting and typing stuff, etc. It was slow, difficult to use, and the internet was a lot smaller back then. We had somewhat strict rules on what we could and could not do on these machines, but since they couldn't do much, it wasn't hard to enforce.

In high school, half of the lab was a mixture of older 5200 Performas and newer 6600 "Pizza Box" Performas, with the other half being more left over monochrome Macintoshes. They also had "the one really nice computer" but this one was a modern (by 1997 standards) Power Mac G3. New tech came newer rules: no installing games, no adult content (even soft stuff, like girls in bikinis), and no chat rooms.

We were teenagers, though. You tell us not to do something, and that immediately makes you want to do it. I remember catching some of the particularly geeky among us logging in and playing online MUDs (the precursor to MMOs), and others trying to get around the Foolproof Software locks to install games or look at porn.

(This is a newer photo of that same computer lab, and I'm unsurprised that, outside of kids being on more modern hardware, absolutely nothing about the setup of that room has changed.)

I wasn't really in my spiral of depression yet, so I used the computers like a good little boy and followed the rules.

Until the last few days of the semester before summer break. That's when everybody -- students, teachers -- collectively stop caring about keeping up proper appearances. I remember having big free periods and spending time in the computer lab. I was usually the only one in there. So, immediately, I began looking up chat rooms.

A few friends and I had gotten into deep trouble a few months earlier, because one wild night during a sleepover we called into a "party line", which was a service where you were hooked into what is now known as a "discord group chat." Except you didn't know who you were getting connected with. They were total strangers. That was part of the thrill. It was new and exciting. We happened to be lucky enough to get a group of girls who were near enough to our age (maybe a little older), and we spent hours talking with them via speakerphone.

The thing was, there was a precedent that doing that cost money. You were calling a 1-800 number, and there were service fees associated with that. Per-minute. So we racked up a bill of something like $70-$100+ that night. That was a big problem.

But internet chat was free. The allure was impossible to ignore. And with it being the last few days of school, who could stop me? At worst I'd be kicked out of the computer lab, but they weren't going to, like, expel me. Being in trouble was a fake idea.

I forget where I ended up the first day, it was some kind of general Yahoo chat or something, but I remember I was too shy to be myself. Being 13 or 14 at the time, I decided to roleplay as Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon. One of the only times I ever did anything like that. I was full-on "I send a rose to all the ladies @}---;----" and everything, it was awful.

On the final day, I started looking up Sonic fansites and ended up somewhere called "Ruby's Sonic Page." This was the homepage of Dawn Best, under the handle Ruby the Echidna. It was there she talked about a game I'd never heard of before -- Sonic Adventure -- and provided a link to the announcement trailer in glorious 160p MPEG-1 video. I was blown away. They were making new Sonic games again?

Provided was a link to discuss the game with other Sonic fans, and it lead to Missy's Sonic Chat, a Beseen Chat Room on a website called Xoom (one of the many Geocities clones). Beseen Chats weren't live chatrooms like we'd think of modern-day Discord, or even AIM or IRC. Beseen was much more comparable to Twitter, or Tumblr, in that it was a website where you could post messages and could refresh the feed to see what other people had posted. It was a bit of a hack, but it worked well enough.

The whole thing was broken down in to different frames (if you're too young to know what those are: imagine multiple separate embedded webpages, sectioned off to specific portions of the screen). So you'd have a frame on the left that was a userlist, where people had set names and even large image avatars for themselves. At the bottom you'd have a text entry field with two buttons at the end: Send and Refresh. And then taking up most of the screen real estate was the feed itself. Something sort of like this, I guess:

And a lot of people in this Beseen chat had made up their own, original characters. This was my first introduction to Sonic OCs. And Missy's chat was a veritable who's who extremely talented fanartists. Ruby, Barachan, T2, J. Axer, Rinacat, etc.

I wanted to fit in, so I felt like I needed to come up with "a character" of my own.

Literally the first name to jump to mind was "Blaze the Hedgehog." I didn't like it. It was too obvious. Surely there had to be other Blaze the Hedgehogs out there, right? And I wasn't even particularly attached to "flame" powers.

So I sat there for a few minutes, trying to think of something better. My mind went blank.

Admitting defeat, "Blaze the Hedgehog" it was.

The chat was rather dead, given it was still technically a school day, and once I went home that afternoon, that was the end of my access to the internet. The best we had at home was some sort of Hyundai thing -- amber monochrome monitor, no graphics rendering, no hard disk, basically just a glorified word processor.

That changed once my mom got her tax return a little while later. She invested in a 233mhz Packard Bell desktop computer with Windows 98 and a subscription to America Online.

When prompted to make my own AOL username, I decided to go with "Blazehgehg." BlazeHedgehog. The character I'd made up at school.There it was. For the first time, for real, it was set in stone. And from 1998 to 2023, I've never changed it. Other "Blaze the Hedgehog"s have come and gone, but I've been the constant.

Later that night, I found my way back to Missy's Sonic Chat, and I grabbed one of Axer's Sonic images, sloppily recoloring it in MSPaint. I printed it out for posterity and kept it in a folder with artwork I'd actually drawn.

Blue and green were my favorite colors. Sonic was blue, so Blaze was green. Instead of shoes, he had boots. He wore a leather vest with a black t-shirt on underneath that covered most of his body. And atop his head, a sprout of hair, colored like a flame.

Blaze's only real role as a "character" was in the first and only fanfiction I ever wrote for him; the story was a blend of Final Fantasy VII and an anime I was in love with at the time named "Green Legend Ran." It's better it was lost to time. Besides, I don't think it was ever finished.

Blaze would go through several revisions over the years. More immediately, The Matrix hit the next year, and Blaze was given a trenchcoat. Also, since I could like, actually draw, I decided to stop painting over other people's artwork and draw Blaze for myself.

Eventually, Blaze Hedgehog the character fell out of favor. I grew up. I never really used him for much more than a forum avatar anyway, and even then, I felt like people were judging me for having a Sonic OC. Especially a green hedgehog. There were a dime-a-dozen green hedgehog Sonic OCs floating around.

Once Sega introduced Blaze the Cat in 2005, that sort of became the final nail in the coffin. But by then, I'd been using "BlazeHedgehog" as an online username for seven years. I'd grown attached to it. I didn't want to change it. So... I didn't.

As I've gotten older and put some distance between myself and that time, I find myself a bit nostalgic for the character of Blaze the Hedgehog. I redesigned him a bit a few years ago to look more like a traditional Sega Sonic character, swapping in a bomber jacket and getting rid of the shirt.

And, of course, there was Sonic Forces. Options were limited there, but a brown leather jacket and the weird black bodysuit got closest. I was most surprised by the hairstyle options. While we don't get the classic yellow-to-red, we do get a green-to-red, which is good enough. And I really like these ring-strap boots.

That's about all there is to say, really. These days it's just a username for me, and I keep it so old friends can find me more easily. I'm pretty terrible at keeping up with some people, and I get the feeling I probably come off cold to others when that's never been my intention. But for those who want to keep tabs on me, they know where to find me.

[mariacallous]

If you had battery-related performance issues on an older iPhone—and you got in on a class-action lawsuit against Apple six years ago—you could soon receive some payback for your trouble.

According to a statement released by the law office involved in the suit against Apple, the tech giant will soon have to pay out up to $500 million to customers affected by its throttling of iPhones that had older batteries. The so-called Batterygate scandal affected people using iPhones in the 6, 6S, and 7 families, as well as the original SE model, and stems from complaints from users that Apple purposely slowed down the devices after they installed software updates. Apple hasn’t admitted any wrongdoing, instead positing that its practice of deliberately slowing down its phones wasn’t a technique to get people to buy a newer device but rather a safety measure to keep the phones from shutting down when the battery got too low.

The checks will be doled out to the roughly 3 million people who filed claims for the lawsuit, which works out to somewhere between $65 and $90 per person. It’s too late to make a claim now—the deadline to join the suit passed in October 2020.

Here’s some more news about the stuff on your phone.

Premium Prime 

Bad streaming music news for anyone who’s somehow not on Spotify or Apple Music: Amazon’s music streaming service is getting more expensive.

The price hike from $9 to $10 was revealed by a FAQ page on Amazon’s Music site, spotted by The Hollywood Reporter. The increase is relatively small and will apply to Amazon Prime members with Unlimited Music plans and family plans. But it’s part of a trend of streaming services putting the squeeze on their customers. The cost of a Spotify Premium subscription went up by a buck last month after 12 years without an increase. Hulu and Disney+ are getting more expensive later this year. Netflix has cracked down on password sharing and introduced a paid ad-supported tier. And don't forget that HBO Max removed gobs of content from its platform. Amazon Music doesn’t seem to be ditching any of its songs quite yet—or banning password sharing—but clearly the Amazonian overlords want to squeeze a little more out of the platform.

Muting TikTok

A recent Reuters poll shows that nearly half of Americans approve of the US banning the social media app TikTok. (Disclosure: Yes, WIRED is on TikTok.)

US lawmakers have been talking about tanking TikTok for years now, citing concerns that the app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance could share Americans’ user data with the Chinese government or that the app could serve as a software backdoor for Chinese spyware. Pundits and members of Congress have posited the TikTok ban as a push to protect privacy, even though the issue is more due to international tensions between the US and China. (Cue the I Think You Should Leave “you sure about that?” clip.)

The process of actually banning the app from US soil would be laborious and controversial. Montana is going to give it a shot in 2024, when its recently passed TikTok ban goes into effect. Enforcing a ban will be nigh impossible, since users could likely circumvent the rules by using a VPN to make it appear that they are in another location or by simply downloading the app while they are traveling to another state.

Stay Cool

It’s getting hotter here on planet Earth. Heat waves intensify, oceans warm, and wildfires worsen. And all the while, humans—and everything else living on the planet—pay the price. Human influence has undeniably altered the weather of the world, and as we hurtle along in a climate emergency, it’s only going to grow hotter and more unstable.

This week on the Gadget Lab podcast, WIRED’s resident doomsday reporter, Matt Simon, joins the show to talk about extreme heat, why it keeps getting warmer, and how we might be able to adapt.

[allaboutmarketing4you]

Marketing Strategies And Marketing Mix Of Adobe

Source: The Brand Hopper

"Adobe’s Marketing Mix (4Ps): A Deeper Dive

Adobe’s success can be attributed to its strategic implementation of the marketing mix, the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Let’s explore each element in detail:

1. Product:

Breadth: From Photoshop and Illustrator for design to Premiere Pro and After Effects for video editing, Adobe covers diverse creative needs. They even offer XD for web design and Spark for social media content creation.

Depth: Each software has various versions. Photoshop Elements caters to beginners, while Photoshop CC caters to professionals. This ensures accessibility and scalability for different user groups.

Innovation: Adobe Research invests heavily in AI, machine learning, and other cutting-edge technologies. This translates into features like Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop and Rotoscoping in After Effects.

Integration: Adobe products work seamlessly together. For example, you can edit a photo in Photoshop and directly export it to Premiere Pro for video editing.

Services: Adobe Creative Cloud offers 20GB of cloud storage, access to Adobe Fonts, and integration with stock photo libraries like Adobe Stock, enhancing the overall creative workflow.

2. Price

Subscription Model: Adobe transitioned from perpetual licenses to subscriptions in 2013. This makes their software more affordable for individuals and small businesses, especially with monthly payment options.

Tiered Pricing: Individual, team, and enterprise subscriptions offer different features and functionalities, catering to diverse needs and budgets.

Free Trials and Freemium Options: Adobe offers free trials for most products, allowing users to experience the software firsthand. Some products also have limited free versions with basic features.

Discounts: Educational institutions, students, and teachers receive significant discounts on Adobe Creative Cloud, expanding access to future generations of creative professionals.

Bundled Offerings: Adobe Creative Cloud offers various bundles combining multiple products at a discounted price. This incentivizes purchases and increases perceived value.

3. Place

Direct Sales: Adobe sells directly through its website and flagship stores, offering personalized recommendations, tutorials, and in-depth product demonstrations.

Partner Channels: Strategic partnerships with leading tech companies like Microsoft and Apple expand reach and distribution channels. This makes Adobe software easily accessible through familiar platforms.

Online Marketplaces: Adobe software is available on Amazon and the Microsoft Store, increasing visibility and accessibility for users who prefer these platforms.

Cloud Delivery: Adobe Creative Cloud is delivered through the cloud, eliminating installation hassles and allowing users to access their files and projects from any device with an internet connection.

Mobile Apps: Adobe offers mobile versions of popular products like Photoshop and Lightroom, catering to the on-the-go creative needs of users and expanding their creative potential beyond desktops.

4. Promotion

Content Marketing: Adobe offers high-quality content across various formats. The Adobe Blog features in-depth tutorials, industry insights, and creative inspiration. They also have dedicated YouTube channels for each product, offering tutorials, tips, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.

Community Engagement: Adobe fosters a strong community through forums like the Adobe Help Center and user groups. They also host events like Adobe MAX, which connects users, showcases new features, and inspires creativity.

Social Media Marketing: Active engagement on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube builds brand awareness and connects with users directly.

Influencer Marketing: Collaborations with renowned creative professionals like photographers and designers amplify brand messaging and reach new audiences. Adobe also has an Adobe Creative Experts program, empowering passionate users to share their knowledge and expertise.

Events and Conferences: Adobe hosts and participates in industry events like Adobe MAX and Adobe Summit. These events showcase innovation, connect with potential customers, and build brand awareness.

Paid Advertising: Adobe uses targeted ads on platforms like Google and social media to reach specific audience segments and drive traffic to their website and free trial offers.

By strategically implementing these elements, Adobe has created a marketing mix that is comprehensive, effective, and adaptable. They have gone beyond simply selling software; they have built a community, fostered creativity, and established themselves as a leader in the industry. This approach not only drives sales but also builds brand loyalty and establishes a strong foundation for future growth. "

#mktmarketing4you#corporatestrategy#marketing#M4Y#lovemarketing#IPAM#ipammarketingschool#ContingencyPlanning#virtual#volunteering#project#Management#Economy#ConsumptionBehavior#BrandManagement#ProductManagement#Logistics#Lifecycle

#Brand#Neuromarketing#McKinseyMatrix#Viralmarketing#Facebook#Marketingmetrics#icebergmodel#EdgarScheinsCultureModel#GuerrillaMarketing#STARMethod#7SFramework#gapanalysis #AIDAModel #SixLeadershipStyles #MintoPyramidPrinciple #StrategyDiamond #InternalRateofReturn #irr #BrandManagement #dripmodel #HoshinPlanning #XMatrix #backtobasics #BalancedScorecard #Product #ProductManagement #Logistics #Branding #freemium #businessmodel #business #4P #3C #BCG #SWOT #TOWS #EisenhowerMatrix #Study #marketingresearch #marketer #marketing manager #Painpoints #Pestel #ValueChain # VRIO #marketingmix

Thanks for following us.

https://thebrandhopper.com/2024/02/06/marketing-strategies-and-marketing-mix-of-adobe/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

When Facebook came for your battery, feudal security failed

When George Hayward was working as a Facebook data-scientist, his bosses ordered him to run a “negative test,” updating Facebook Messenger to deliberately drain users’ batteries, in order to determine how power-hungry various parts of the apps were. Hayward refused, and Facebook fired him, and he sued:

https://nypost.com/2023/01/28/facebook-fires-worker-who-refused-to-do-negative-testing-awsuit/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/05/battery-vampire/#drained

Hayward balked because he knew that among the 1.3 billion people who use Messenger, some would be placed in harm’s way if Facebook deliberately drained their batteries — physically stranded, unable to communicate with loved ones experiencing emergencies, or locked out of their identification, payment method, and all the other functions filled by mobile phones.

As Hayward told Kathianne Boniello at the New York Post, “Any data scientist worth his or her salt will know, ‘Don’t hurt people…’ I refused to do this test. It turns out if you tell your boss, ‘No, that’s illegal,’ it doesn’t go over very well.”

Negative testing is standard practice at Facebook, and Hayward was given a document called “How to run thoughtful negative tests” regarding which he said, “I have never seen a more horrible document in my career.”

We don’t know much else, because Hayward’s employment contract included a non-negotiable binding arbitration waiver, which means that he surrendered his right to seek legal redress from his former employer. Instead, his claim will be heard by an arbitrator — that is, a fake corporate judge who is paid by Facebook to decide if Facebook was wrong. Even if he finds in Hayward’s favor — something that arbitrators do far less frequently than real judges do — the judgment, and all the information that led up to it, will be confidential, meaning we won’t get to find out more:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/12/hot-coffee/#mcgeico

One significant element of this story is that the malicious code was inserted into Facebook’s app. Apps, we’re told, are more secure than real software. Under the “curated computing” model, you forfeit your right to decide what programs run on your devices, and the manufacturer keeps you safe. But in practice, apps are just software, only worse:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/23/peek-a-boo/#attack-helicopter-parenting

Apps are part what Bruce Schneier calls “feudal security.” In this model, we defend ourselves against the bandits who roam the internet by moving into a warlord’s fortress. So long as we do what the warlord tells us to do, his hired mercenaries will keep us safe from the bandits:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

But in practice, the mercenaries aren’t all that good at their jobs. They let all kinds of badware into the fortress, like the “pig butchering” apps that snuck into the two major mobile app stores:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/pig-butchering-scam-apps-sneak-into-apples-app-store-and-google-play/

It’s not merely that the app stores’ masters make mistakes — it’s that when they screw up, we have no recourse. You can’t switch to an app store that pays closer attention, or that lets you install low-level software that monitors and overrides the apps you download.

Indeed, Apple’s Developer Agreement bans apps that violate other services’ terms of service, and they’ve blocked apps like OG App that block Facebook’s surveillance and other enshittification measures, siding with Facebook against Apple device owners who assert the right to control how they interact with the company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

When a company insists that you must be rendered helpless as a condition of protecting you, it sets itself up for ghastly failures. Apple’s decision to prevent every one of its Chinese users from overriding its decisions led inevitably and foreseeably to the Chinese government ordering Apple to spy on those users:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

Apple isn’t shy about thwarting Facebook’s business plans, but Apple uses that power selectively — they blocked Facebook from spying on Iphone users (yay!) and Apple covertly spied on its customers in exactly the same way as Facebook, for exactly the same purpose, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The ultimately, irresolvable problem of Feudal Security is that the warlord’s mercenaries will protect you against anyone — except the warlord who pays them. When Apple or Google or Facebook decides to attack its users, the company’s security experts will bend their efforts to preventing those users from defending themselves, turning the fortress into a prison:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Feudal security leaves us at the mercy of giant corporations — fallible and just as vulnerable to temptation as any of us. Both binding arbitration and feudal security assume that the benevolent dictator will always be benevolent, and never make a mistake. Time and again, these assumptions are proven to be nonsense.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_%2841118890174%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A painting depicting the Roman sacking of Jerusalem. The Roman leader's head has been replaced with Mark Zuckerberg's head. The wall has Apple's 'Think Different' wordmark and an Ios 'low battery' icon.]

Next week (Feb 8-17), I'll be in Australia, touring my book *Chokepoint Capitalism* with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We'll be in Brisbane on Feb 8, and then we're doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next is Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

[edwinkjayesh]

Music Player in 2023... Why Sony?

The convenience of Bluetooth streaming is great but it is constrained by how much data it can pump through its signal. Though portable music players are preferably used with wired headphones for maximal performance, wired cans have seemingly enjoyed a recent renaissance too.

Smartphones are great for convenience but they’re not necessarily great for sound. As they’re multi-taskers, able to perform a range of functions, that also means they are a product that’s a jack of all trades but master of a few. Support for higher quality music has become better in the portable space with what Qualcomm is doing with its Snapdragon Sound platform and Sony’s innovations with LDAC, but in terms of outright quality for music, you won’t find better than a portable player.

Sony’s announcement of a new and not too expensive Walkman is a sign that portable music players still have a function and a purpose, as well as reminding some they still exist. Most would assume that portable music players have (or are) going the way of the Dodo, slowly passing their way out of relevance. However, we’re still seeing specialists such as Astell & Kern launch new players every year, and just recently FiiO announced the M11S. While Apple killed off the iPod, the rest of the portable player market isn’t interested in joining the scrap heap just yet.

The NW-A306 has a battery life of up to 36 hours of continuous playback, a 3.6-inch display, and because it runs on Android, you can install your favorite streaming apps if you must, although that defeats the point of having all your music with you. You'll still need a computer to load your music onto the device, just like with the iPhone's Music app, but that somehow seems less annoying with a walkman than with a phone. It also has audiophile-level playback at up to 96KHz (more than double the sample rate of a CD), although that's probably not a difference you can hear.

But it's not all upside. For a start, you'll have to carry two devices if you still want to carry your phone. And it's possible that you kind of let your music library slip when streaming came along. I bought a used iPod a while back, and when I loaded up all my songs, there was no music from the last half-decade or so because I'd been streaming it all.

The convenience of Bluetooth streaming is great but it is constrained by how much data it can pump through its signal. Though portable music players are preferably used with wired headphones for maximal performance, wired cans have seemingly enjoyed a recent renaissance too.

In a wider sense, of this seems to have converged around a greater want for higher quality music on the go. We have for decades limited ourselves in this area as MP3 streaming and downloads were a step in the wrong direction, one that’s taken a long time to reverse. In people’s minds, the quality of what they’re listening doesn’t matter as much as having access to it. We have access to more music than we can fathom at the moment, the area that we need to beef up is the quality we listen at.

From DACs to headphone amplifiers and higher quality streaming services such as Tidal and Qobuz (we still wait for Spotify Hi-Fi to make its entrance), the issue of ‘quality’ is one of the frontiers that the music and audio industry is pushing towards. All these devices have the potential to make music sound better, so while my smartphone will still be my device of choice given how much it (rightly or wrongly) rules my day-to-day activities, when it comes to listening to music in its highest quality, I’ll be tuning in with my portable player to get the best experience possible.

On My View Point...

You may think that, there’s only a need of an audio enhancing software or a high end headphones. But on all every aspects, from nostalgic design, high end specs possible and even quality - Sony have managed to make it all happen in a capsule. And that’s it. For music lovers, this will be dream gadget for sure and so happy to see this upgrade on this formfactor which was really unexpected. And looking forward to have a glance of one of these in real. And that’s been it - Edwin K Jayesh

[usoffers]

Install and Start Your IPVanish VPN Trial!

IPVanish VPN loose trial for mobile devices:

The IPVanish VPN unfastened trial is extraordinary to subscriptions initiated in a mobile app store. You can locate the IPVanish app within the Apple App shop and the Google Play store.

Once you’ve downloaded IPVanish to your smartphone, release the app to create an account and begin your loose trial. You'll be requested to verify your IPVanish subscription signup via the App store or Play store to authorize your VPN unfastened trial.

The VPN free trial helps you to attempt before you buy :

The IPVanish VPN free trial gives full access to the carrier previous to payment to see if you like it. This period at the start of your subscription allows you to apply the service for multiple days, that is enough time to decide if it’s the first-rate VPN in your setup. Though the trial signup is processed via your cellular app save, it offers get entry to to the whole IPVanish software program suite. So, you could nevertheless try IPVanish to your pc or streaming device in the course of the trial period.

IPVanish VPN is well matched with a extensive range of devices. It is able to be used on windows, Mac, and iOS gadgets, as well as Android telephones, and drugs. You could even connect with the internet the usage of your fireplace television Stick in case you want to help protect your on-line streaming pastime from your ISP.

You may cancel IPVanish at any time for the duration of the loose trial period with out incurring a charge. However, in case you cancel after your unfastened trial length, you'll be charged for the VPN plan you subscribed to.

Here are steps to get IPVanish VPN on a Computer:

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[techfiles456789]

iBypasser Ramdisk Tool V2.7 iCloud Bypass Tool Download

iBypasser Ramdisk Tool V2.7 iCloud Bypass Windows Tool

iBypasser Ramdisk Tool is a powerful application designed to bypass iCloud activation on iOS devices running iOS 11-15 without the need for jailbreaking. It provides various functionalities to disable the passcode, back up files, disable the iCloud account by opening the menu, and retrieve the Apple ID and phone number associated with the device. Additionally, it offers the capability to disable the “Hello” screen using the MEID/GSM signal. Please note that bypassing iCloud activation is not endorsed by Apple and may violate their terms of service.

What is iBypasser Ramdisk Tool V2.7?

The iBypasser Ramdisk Tool V2.7 software program was created especially to get around the iCloud activation lock on the iOS device. Customers may use it to give a speedy fix if they find themselves locked out of their devices and unable to access all of the features on their iPhones, iPads, or iPods.

Features iBypasser Ramdisk tool:

Boot Device for iOS 15. x and earlier

Verify SSH

Restore/Backup Activation

Alter SN

Switch on the Hello Device

Go To Owner Info

iOS 15+ (DFU) Data Erasure

Remove Boot File

Changelog!!!

Update: iBypasser Ramdisk AIO v2.0

Resolving boot problems.

DFU Helper was added.

Driver problems were resolved.

Performance augmentation.

How To Use?

You will initially need to register the device’s ECID.

Your MAC notebook should have iBypasser RAMDISK installed. Next, unzip it.

Start your RAMDISK tool after that. then adhere to the directions below.

Enter DFU mode on the iPhone. When you successfully connect your device to DFU mode, the iBypasser RAMDISK Tool will provide you with further alternatives. Activate, Backup Files, Open SSH, Open Proxy, etc.

To open the proxy, type one and press the Enter key. Start SSH by pressing 2; then press 3 to access the backup files.

You may examine the data you successfully backed up on your device in the backup directory.

Second, flash your device with the 3u Tool or iTunes.

Connect your device to DFU mode once you’ve finished flashing it.

Open the proxy after switching the device to DFU mode Type 1. Press 4 again to turn on your gadget.

Readme:

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit) are all fully compatible with the program.

Create a Backup: If you want to try the tool described above, create a backup of the personal information stored on the Android smartphone or tablet you intend to utilize. Considering that flashing any recovery or firmware has the potential to harm the device.

iBypasser Ramdisk Tool V2.7 iCloud Bypass Tool Download

Click Her

[icloudunlockios]

iCloud Bypass - The Easiest Way to Unlock iPhone 13

iCloud Bypass is an online web tool that bypasses the iCloud activation lock. It is straightforward to use and has a user-friendly interface.Using iCloud Bypass, you can unlock your iPhone and iPad without entering an Apple ID and password. It is also safe to use, and there are no risks involved.

Introduction for iCloud Bypass

iCloud Bypass is a tool that enables you to unlock your device without having to enter the Apple ID or password. The tool is ad-free and works on both Windows and Mac computers.

Choosing the best iCloud Bypass tool depends on several factors, such as compatibility, ease of use, and price. However, the most crucial factor is the software’s ability to bypass the iCloud activation lock.

Another aspect is its customer support. Many iCloud bypass tools come with a trial version allowing you to try the software before buying. Some even offer a money-back guarantee.

Some online unlock services work by hacking into Apple servers and unlocking your device. Others require you to access and install software onto your computer.

iCloud Bypass is one of the best ways to remove iCloud lock from your iOS device without jailbreaking it. The process is easy and fast and can be completed within minutes. You can use it on various instruments and models, including iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

Unlock iPhone 13 using iCloud Bypass.

If you own a locked iPhone 13, you may wonder how to unlock it. There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is to use iCloud Bypass.iCloud Bypass is a tool that can help you remove an iCloud activation lock on an Apple device without the need to enter an iCloud ID and password. It is a straightforward process and can be done in just a few minutes.

However, there are a few things you need to keep in mind before using this tool. First, you need to understand what iCloud Bypass is and how it works.After that, you must access the software and install it on your computer. You also need to connect the locked device to your computer.

Once the application is installed on your computer, you must select your device and click “Bypass iCloud Activation Lock.” This will start the bypassing process. Once it is completed, you can use the device as a standard. Please do not disconnect the device until it restarts, and do not launch iTunes while this is happening.

More about iCloud Bypass

iCloud Bypass is a powerful software that helps you unlock the iCloud lock without a password. It is one of the most reliable iCloud bypass tools available on the market, and it is also virus free to use.

When you buy an Apple device, it comes with an iCloud activation lock to protect your data. This lock prevents unauthorized users from acquiring and using the device.Sometimes, you may come across second-hand iPhones or iPads still locked with the previous owner’s Apple ID. These devices can be challenging to unlock without a valid Apple ID and password.

However, it is possible to get around this security system. To do so, you need to change the iCloud DNS address on your iOS device.This method can be helpful in cases where you are purchasing a second-hand iPhone or iPad and don’t know the previous owner’s Apple ID or password. It also works if you have forgotten your own Apple ID and password.

What is the main reason for using this Tool?

Having an iPhone, iPad, or Mac that is locked due to iCloud activation is frustrating. But there are ways to unlock iCloud and access your Apple device.Using an iCloud Bypass Tool is the most efficient way to do this. It can remove the iCloud lock from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac in just a few minutes.

It is safe, legal, and fully guaranteed. It also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

There are many iCloud bypass tools in the market, and it must be challenging to choose the right one. Here are a few to consider:

CheckM8 is a popular iCloud Bypass tool that allows you to remove the iCloud lock without jailbreaking. It works on a Mac computer and has a risk-free trial version.

Another tool is iSalvor which is available on Windows and Mac. It has a slick user interface and works on most Apple devices. Salvador also has a hassle-free trial to help you test it before purchasing a license.

The legal background of using iCloud Bypass

One of the most exciting aspects of Apple's iCloud is that anyone with an Internet connection can store and sync all their digital media. To prevent unauthorized access, the company has introduced an iCloud id lock that requires a password to be entered on startup. The iCloud id has helped curb the number of iPhones on the streets, but it has also given rise to a new industry - iPhone cloning. iCloud cloning is a lucrative business for enterprising thieves, coders, and hackers who scour the web looking for the latest and greatest. iCloud cloning has its pitfalls, and if you're not careful, your newfound wealth could be a squishy a$$ instead of a sparkling smartphone.

Advantages of using iCloud Bypass

iCloud is Apple's cloud-based service that keeps your data safe on all iOS devices. It can store photos, files, email messages, and much more. It also allows you to synchronize your devices so that the same information is available across them.

Whenever you set up your device after a factory reset or restore, it sends an activation request to Apple's server. This activates your device and enables it to use iCloud features, such as Find My iPhone, iCloud backups, and iTunes purchases.

  You can bypass the activation process by using the iCloud DNS Bypass method, which changes the activation path sent from Apple's server to another DNS server for authentication. This means you can access your device without signing in with your Apple ID and password.

Bypasser is one of the best iCloud Bypass tools and is very easy to use. You can access a malware-free trial version to test it out and buy a license if you are confident it will work for your device. You can even buy a lifetime license to use it on as many devices as you like.

Conclusion on iCloud Bypass

If you own an iPhone or iPad, you know how frustrating it can be when the iCloud activation lock osmosis is in full force. Whether it's your iOS device or a second-hand one you've purchased, the iCloud activation lock is no fun.

The best way to get around it is to use a tool that is available ad-free on the internet and can easily unlock any Apple device. However, choosing the right iCloud unlocking app can be challenging, especially since there are so many options.

Luckily, we have reviewed seven top-rated iCloud Bypass tools and come up with a short list of the most important ones to consider. Before you can start your search, you need to be aware of the features and specifications of each product. That way, you can find the most relevant iCloud Bypass tool. That includes the legality of the software, its unlocking time, customer support, and other valuable features that will make your iCloud unlocking journey a success.

Finally, on iCloud Bypass

iCloud Bypass bypasses an iPhone/iPad’s activation lock using a software application. It is a popular method among iOS users and has helped many people to unlock their Apple devices.

However, the iCloud bypass process may harm your device in some ways. For example, it can allow other people to access your data. In addition, it may affect the performance of your device.

A few tools out there claim to bypass iCloud, but most of them are scams. They are usually designed to separate a desperate user from their money.

Some of them have been reported to cause damage to a device and can be easily hacked by irresponsible users. Therefore, choosing a legit iCloud bypass tool is a good idea.

Many methods can help you bypass iCloud, including iCloud DNS Bypass and CheckM8. iCloud DNS Bypass works by changing the activation path from the Apple server to another DNS server for authentication.

[nickgerlich]

An Apple A Day

I’ve told the story a dozen times. OK, probably more like three or four dozen. But it is worth retelling, if only to set the stage. Besides, if you have never had me for a class before, this story is new to you.

I recall the early 2007 announcement from Apple about a revolutionary new phone. The iPhone would change our lives, they said. It offered a phone, iPod, and camera all in one. Of course, there were a few other features, but the App Store was not yet created. This was primarily a three-trick pony.

And I ballyhooed it roundly. Why did I need to spend that kind of money ($599, if you can believe that!). I already owned a phone, iPod, and camera. So I quickly dismissed the notion as just a flight of Steve Jobs’ fantasy.

A year later I came crawling to the Apple Store begging forgiveness. Silly me. Why carry three devices when one superior one would suffice? Because it was the future, that’s why. The only problem is that the legions of us who bought in relatively early, and everyone since then, including competing phones, have become ringside spectators to a paradigm shift that included us downloading our brains (well, not quite) to these devices, as well as sacrificing personal privacy.

Make that massive amounts of privacy. These things are computers, and unless we turn them off or switch to Airplane Mode, they are keeping an eye on us, and sending information somewhere. We even said it was OK when we checked all those Terms Of Service boxes without reading a word.

Apple as well as Facebook and Google have increasingly come under the magnifying glass of scrutiny. Between the devices themselves and the apps loaded on to them, there’s a treasure trove of data being collected, transmitted, stored, and sometimes sold. Apple in particular has taken heat for the amount of data it collects from users.

While Apple has earned some high praise for trying to be forthcoming and transparent about the data it collects, it has still drawn the ire of some European nations, where privacy is more of an expectation than it is in the US. The problem is that, and Apple admits this, the phone and its applications simply do not work as well if we do not opt-in for data collection. That’s kind of like having to strip down at the doctor’s office for an X-ray.

Perhaps the most concerning aspect, at least to some, is Apple’s ability to personalize advertising. Of course, Facebook and Google do it, too. But when you make the device in the first place, you’ve got a home court advantage, as well as the power to limit what third-party apps can do.

So how does this ad personalization work, and why is Apple interested in advertising anyway? The answer is pretty straightforward. Apple has long been a hardware and software company, but has recently evolved into the entertainment business as well, along with advertising. After all, it commands many hours of eyeball time from users each day, and it would be foolish to miss an opportunity.

Personalization works by examining available demographic data, interests and activities, mobility (meaning where you go), and how you use your phone, meaning apps, websites, and searches. Some information is explicitly provided, while other info is deduced. The result is a very accurate user profile, which they swear will never be associated with your name, nor sold as such. We thus see ads that are placed with laser-like precision, which I rather like. It’s better than seeing ads for things I would never buy.

Still, they know it is you, even if your identity is supposedly shrouded. Some people are rightfully creeped out about that prospect.

I have had this debate before with students (in a civil way, of course). As for me, I do not mind all of Apple’s activities, nor those of other third-party apps. I willfully gave up that privacy when I bought the device (actually, six of them now), as well as installed apps. The device and apps work together to give me a robust user experience. I have said many times that our phones are lifestyle devices first and foremost, and how we use them is up to us. But in the process, we cede information. It’s not a matter of having nothing to hide. This is about having a device that greatly enhances my life

That’s another way of saying that ship sailed long ago. If you were onboard, then you know the arrangement. If you don’t like it, you can always try to jump, but that may not work in your best interests either. YMMV.

Yes, it can be scary how much data is collected, and it is easy to feel that Orwell’s 1984 has become reality. But it is also up to us to decide how we are going to live in that new environment.

Dr “Sell Me Something Good“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Subprime gadgets

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THIS SUNDAY in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

The promise of feudal security: "Surrender control over your digital life so that we, the wise, giant corporation, can ensure that you aren't tricked into catastrophic blunders that expose you to harm":

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

The tech giant is a feudal warlord whose platform is a fortress; move into the fortress and the warlord will defend you against the bandits roaming the lawless land beyond its walls.

That's the promise, here's the failure: What happens when the warlord decides to attack you? If a tech giant decides to do something that harms you, the fortress becomes a prison and the thick walls keep you in.

Apple does this all the time: "click this box and we will use our control over our platform to stop Facebook from spying on you" (Ios as fortress). "No matter what box you click, we will spy on you and because we control which apps you can install, we can stop you from blocking our spying" (Ios as prison):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

But it's not just Apple – any corporation that arrogates to itself the right to override your own choices about your technology will eventually yield to temptation, using that veto to help itself at your expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Once the corporation puts the gun on the mantelpiece in Act One, they're begging their KPI-obsessed managers to take it down and shoot you in the head with it in anticipation of of their annual Act Three performance review:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

One particularly pernicious form of control is "trusted computing" and its handmaiden, "remote attestation." Broadly, this is when a device is designed to gather information about how it is configured and to send verifiable testaments about that configuration to third parties, even if you want to lie to those people:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

New HP printers are designed to continuously monitor how you use them – and data-mine the documents you print for marketing data. You have to hand over a credit-card in order to use them, and HP reserves the right to fine you if your printer is unreachable, which would frustrate their ability to spy on you and charge you rent:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Under normal circumstances, this technological attack would prompt a defense, like an aftermarket mod that prevents your printer's computer from monitoring you. This is "adversarial interoperability," a once-common technological move:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

An adversarial interoperator seeking to protect HP printer users from HP could gin up fake telemetry to send to HP, so they wouldn't be able to tell that you'd seized the means of computation, triggering fines charged to your credit card.

Enter remote attestation: if HP can create a sealed "trusted platform module" or a (less reliable) "secure enclave" that gathers and cryptographically signs information about which software your printer is running, HP can detect when you have modified it. They can force your printer to rat you out – to spill your secrets to your enemy.

Remote attestation is already a reliable feature of mobile platforms, allowing agencies and corporations whose services you use to make sure that you're perfectly defenseless – not blocking ads or tracking, or doing anything else that shifts power from them to you – before they agree to communicate with your device.

What's more, these "trusted computing" systems aren't just technological impediments to your digital wellbeing – they also carry the force of law. Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, these snitch-chips are "an effective means of access control" which means that anyone who helps you bypass them faces a $500,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence for a first offense.

Feudal security builds fortresses out of trusted computing and remote attestation and promises to use them to defend you from marauders. Remote attestation lets them determine whether your device has been compromised by someone seeking to harm you – it gives them a reliable testament about your device's configuration even if your device has been poisoned by bandits:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The fact that you can't override your computer's remote attestations means that you can't be tricked into doing so. That's a part of your computer that belongs to the manufacturer, not you, and it only takes orders from its owner. So long as the benevolent dictator remains benevolent, this is a protective against your own lapses, follies and missteps. But if the corporate warlord turns bandit, this makes you powerless to stop them from devouring you whole.

With that out of the way, let's talk about debt.

Debt is a normal feature of any economy, but today's debt plays a different role from the normal debt that characterized life before wages stagnated and inequality skyrocketed. 40 years ago, neoliberalism – with its assaults on unions and regulations – kicked off a multigenerational process of taking wealth away from working people to make the rich richer.

Have you ever watched a genius pickpocket like Apollo Robbins work? When Robins lifts your wristwatch, he curls his fingers around your wrist, expertly adding pressure to simulate the effect of a watchband, even as he takes away your watch. Then, he gradually releases his grip, so slowly that you don't even notice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/ppqjya/apollo_robbins_a_master_pickpocket_effortlessly/

For the wealthy to successfully impoverish the rest of us, they had to provide something that made us feel like we were still doing OK, even as they stole our wages, our savings, and our futures. So, even as they shipped our jobs overseas in search of weak environmental laws and weaker labor protection, they shared some of the savings with us, letting us buy more with less. But if your wages keep stagnating, it doesn't matter how cheap a big-screen TV gets, because you're tapped out.

So in tandem with cheap goods from overseas sweatshops, we got easy credit: access to debt. As wages fell, debt rose up to fill the gap. For a while, it's felt OK. Your wages might be falling off, the cost of health care and university might be skyrocketing, but everything was getting cheaper, it was so easy to borrow, and your principal asset – your family home – was going up in value, too.

This period was a "bezzle," John Kenneth Galbraith's name for "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." It's the moment after Apollo Robbins has your watch but before you notice it's gone. In that moment, both you and Robbins feel like you have a watch – the world's supply of watch-derived happiness actually goes up for a moment.

There's a natural limit to debt-fueled consumption: as Michael Hudson says, "debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." Once the debtor owes more than they can pay back – or even service – creditors become less willing to advance credit to them. Worse, they start to demand the right to liquidate the debtor's assets. That can trigger some pretty intense political instability, especially when the only substantial asset most debtors own is the roof over their heads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

"Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," but that doesn't stop creditors from trying to get blood from our stones. As more of us became bankrupt, the bankruptcy system was gutted, turned into a punitive measure designed to terrorize people into continuing to pay down their debts long past the point where they can reasonably do so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

Enter "subprime" – loans advanced to people who stand no meaningful chance of every paying them back. We all remember the subprime housing bubble, in which complex and deceptive mortgages were extended to borrowers on the promise that they could either flip or remortgage their house before the subprime mortgages detonated when their "teaser rates" expired and the price of staying in your home doubled or tripled.

Subprime housing loans were extended on the belief that people would meekly render themselves homeless once the music stopped, forfeiting all the money they'd plowed into their homes because the contract said they had to. For a brief minute there, it looked like there would be a rebellion against mass foreclosure, but then Obama and Timothy Geithner decreed that millions of Americans would have to lose their homes to "foam the runways" for the banks:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/

That's one way to run a subprime shop: offer predatory loans to people who can't afford them and then confiscate their assets when they – inevitably – fail to pay their debts off.

But there's another form of subprime, familiar to loan sharks through the ages: lend money at punitive interest rates, such that the borrower can never repay the debt, and then terrorize the borrower into making payments for as long as possible. Do this right and the borrower will pay you several times the value of the loan, and still owe you a bundle. If the borrower ever earns anything, you'll have a claim on it. Think of Americans who borrowed $79,000 to go to university, paid back $190,000 and still owe $236,000:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

This kind of loan-sharking is profitable, but labor-intensive. It requires that the debtor make payments they fundamentally can't afford. The usurer needs to get their straw right down into the very bottom of the borrower's milkshake and suck up every drop. You need to convince the debtor to sell their wedding ring, then dip into their kid's college fund, then steal their father's coin collection, and, then break into cars to steal the stereos. It takes a lot of person-to-person work to keep your sucker sufficiently motivated to do all that.

This is where digital meets subprime. There's $1T worth of subprime car-loans in America. These are pure predation: the lender sells a beater to a mark, offering a low down-payment loan with a low initial interest rate. The borrower makes payments at that rate for a couple of months, but then the rate blows up to more than they can afford.

Trusted computing makes this marginal racket into a serious industry. First, there's the ability of the car to narc you out to the repo man by reporting on its location. Tesla does one better: if you get behind in your payments, your Tesla immobilizes itself and phones home, waits for the repo man to come to the parking lot, then it backs itself out of the spot while honking its horn and flashing its lights:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

That immobilization trick shows how a canny subprime car-lender can combine the two kinds of subprime: they can secure the loan against an asset (the car), but also coerce borrowers into prioritizing repayment over other necessities of life. After your car immobilizes itself, you just might decide to call the dealership and put down your credit card, even if that means not being able to afford groceries or child support or rent.

One thing we can say about digital tools: they're flexible. Any sadistic motivational technique a lender can dream up, a computerized device can execute. The subprime car market relies on a spectrum of coercive tactics: cars that immobilize themselves, sure, but how about cars that turn on their speakers to max and blare a continuous recording telling you that you're a deadbeat and demanding payment?

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/

The more a subprime lender can rely on a gadget to torment you on their behalf, the more loans they can issue. Here, at last, is a form of automation-driven mass unemployment: normally, an economy that has been fully captured by wealthy oligarchs needs squadrons of cruel arm-breakers to convince the plebs to prioritize debt service over survival. The infinitely flexible, tireless digital arm-breakers enabled by trusted computing have deprived all of those skilled torturers of their rightful employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

The world leader in trusted computing isn't cars, though – it's phones. Long before anyone figured out how to make a car take orders from its manufacturer over the objections of its driver, Apple and Google were inventing "curating computing" whose app stores determined which software you could run and how you could run it.

Back in 2021, Indian subprime lenders hit on the strategy of securing their loans by loading borrowers' phones up with digital arm-breaking software:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

The software would gather statistics on your app usage. When you missed a payment, the phone would block you from accessing your most frequently used app. If that didn't motivate you to pay, you'd lose your second-most favorite app, then your third, fourth, etc.

This kind of digital arm-breaking is only possible if your phone is designed to prioritize remote instructions – from the manufacturer and its app makers – over your own. It also only works if the digital arm-breaking company can confirm that you haven't jailbroken your phone, which might allow you to send fake data back saying that your apps have been disabled, while you continue to use those apps. In other words, this kind of digital sadism only works if you've got trusted computing and remote attestation.

Enter "Device Lock Controller," an app that comes pre-installed on some Google Pixel phones. To quote from the app's description: "Device Lock Controller enables device management for credit providers. Your provider can remotely restrict access to your device if you don't make payments":

https://lemmy.world/post/13359866

Google's pitch to Android users is that their "walled garden" is a fortress that keeps people who want to do bad things to you from reaching you. But they're pre-installing software that turns the fortress into a prison that you can't escape if they decide to let someone come after you.

There's a certain kind of economist who looks at these forms of automated, fine-grained punishments and sees nothing but a tool for producing an "efficient market" in debt. For them, the ability to automate arm-breaking results in loans being offered to good, hardworking people who would otherwise be deprived of credit, because lenders will judge that these borrowers can be "incentivized" into continuing payments even to the point of total destitution.

This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It's a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a "natural" state: "how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/29/boobytrap/#device-lock-controller

Image: Oatsy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/