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by leppr 1208 days ago
Sometimes I briefly get out of my bubble and realize that the vast majority of the world population - even the first, highly educated world - still trusts their entire digital lives to a black box controlled by either 1 of 2 US companies.

I mean, the fact that we have a widely available alternative makes the picture slightly less bleak, but still. How many politically-inclined persons rave endlessly about freedom and sovereignty while making no effort on such an important front? The Linux usage numbers are so far from where they should be.
1 comments
onepointsixC 1208 days ago
That implies that using linux doesn't have you still beholden to a black box which is controlled by 2 US companies, when most likely you're still using an X86 Intel or AMD processor. But let's say you're using some ARM chip instead. Now your black box was built by TSMC or Samsung instead. It's black boxes all the way down.
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delta_p_delta_x 1208 days ago
> It's black boxes all the way down

Essentially the entirety of modern humanity is built on black boxes. I'd like to find one person who knows exactly what and where every single component on their motherboard is and why it is there, the precise transistor layout of every chip from the GPU and CPU down to the tiniest microcontrollers, and every single instruction that is running on their computers at any time.

Sure, you can run Linux, but it still is running on a closed-source CPU. For all we know (unlikely as it is), Intel-AMD CPUs could have a backdoor saying 'hey, send the instruction and data cache to the network controller and to this IP address'. These CPUs still have proprietary microcode.

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Pet_Ant 1208 days ago
That is what is really appealing about some of those retro computer kits where you get a ziplock bag full of parts and PCB and need to solder them together. I feel like I'll understand the hardware on a new level. I hope the Commander X16 ends up offering this option.
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leppr 1208 days ago
Valid point which I expected to come up, but the difference is that AFAIK exfiltrating precise data with such a setup would be challenging, while the software stack is so messy that it's orders of magnitude easier to stealthily compromise.
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