It's not an issue of permission, it's an issue of trying to make a computer that's safe for grandma to use. Criminals can and will convince grandma to navigate a byzantine labyrinth of prompts and technical measures in order to drain her bank account. That's the threat model we're dealing with here.
replyIs that really true though? It kinda just feels like a way to force people to have to pay $100 per year, own Apple hardware, etc.
replyHow else are you going to have the ability to revoke malware’s signing keys to get it to stop running on every machine immediately?
replyAt a certain point you have to let adults be adults and make adult mistakes.
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replyI think a time-lock feature to enable “I know what I’m doing mode” for a year, after a 48h delay would be ok.
replyOr something like that
I like Chrome OS's approach where you essentially choose your security level at initial setup, and need to wipe your machine if you wish to change it.
replyBut what if a scammer walks grandma through backing everything up, unlocking the machine, installing a rootkit, and then restoring from backup? /s
reply(Joke is on you. You thought you'd be given access to app data to back it up? That's against the security model.)
No, that would still suck.
replyAny inmutable distro with Flatpak will solve this forever. No need to restrict anything.
replyWe should have never tried to let grandma on computers. Wait until the genAI revolution is complete (2027) and she can entirely use her voice and an AI agent in natural language to do things. This but unironically. Gate keeping is very good and keeps enshittification at bay. We see what happens when Apple tried to let in too many normies and wouldn't let them get darwin awards.
replyAnswer to Skeltoac: Isaiah 57:1
I helped my mother out with a computer, gave her a mac after she called twic a wee about a windows popup. Eventually she became a grandmother, and later in old age, with dementia she stlll using the mac more or less successfully to google and e-mail.
Intentionality, coordination are important for keeping cognitive faculty.
It all sounds so easy, but letting her send e-mail through voice could create confusing situations.
replyWe are all creeping toward old age. Let’s be kind to our future selves.
replyWho's to say the criminals won't use a genAI agent to call grandma and social-engineer her so they can drain her bank account?
replyThey pretty much already are.
replyThis attitude is worse than Apple’s.
replyNo thanks.
replyApple is the personified Enshitification among Microsoft.
reply…you don’t, just like you don’t need the bank’s permission to withdraw funds… but they will still try and stop you pulling out $10,000 so you can buy iTunes gift cards to pay off your taxes.
replyAnd you don't. THIs is not iOS, gatekeeper can be bypassed if you know how.
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