[bigstrat2003]

It's not a false equivalence at all. Both situations are taking away someone's control of something that they own, borne from a paternalistic desire to protect that person from themselves. If one is acceptable, the other should be. Conversely if one is unacceptable, the other should be unacceptable as well. Either paternalistic refusal to let people do as they wish is ok, or it isn't.

[NewsaHackO]

Maybe not, but I think that overextending any idea like that in the opposite direction of whatever point you are trying to make at least devolves into a "slippery slope" argument. For instance, is your point that all security on phones that impede freedom of the user (for instance, HTTPS, forced password on initial startup, not allowing apps to access certain parts of the phone without user permissions, verifying boot image signatures) should be removed as well?

[bigstrat2003]

No, that's not my point at all. Measures such as that are a tool which is in the hands of the user. There is a default restriction which is good enough for most cases, but the user has the ability to open things up further if he needs. What Google is proposing takes control out of the user's hands and makes Google the sole arbiter of what is and is not allowed on the device.

[NewsaHackO]

None of the measures I mentioned are changeable by the user, except possibly sideloading an HTTPS certificate. That's the only way any of those measures even work; if it wasn't set as invariants by the OS, they would be bypassable.

>There is a default restriction which is good enough for most cases, but the user has the ability to open things up further if he needs.

But this is what the other guy's point is. You are defining "good enough for most cases" in a way that he is not, then making the argument that what he says is equivalent to not allowing an alcoholic to buy beer. Why can you set what level is an acceptable amount of restriction, but he can't?

[array_key_first]

But it's not a slippery slope, because it's not taking it to the next level. It's the same level, just a different thing.

[h3lp]

The alcoholic knows the bad outcomes, and chooses to ignore them. The hapless Android user does not understand the negative consequences of sideloading. I think this makes for a substantial differerence between those two.

[bigbadfeline]

> The hapless Android user does not understand the negative consequences of sideloading.

Then make sideloading disabled by default but enable it when the users tap 7 times on whatever settings item. At that time, explain those "negative consequences" to them, explain them real good, don't spare anything and if they still hit "Yes, continue to enable sideloading" you do that immediately in order to avoid increasing their haplessness with other made-up excuses.

Simple.

[kode-targz]

I don't see how people are against this. Especially tech-savvy people who browse HN. It really seems to me like everyone here who's on Google's side is just a bot in a botfarm somewhere. they can't possibly be real

[sheiyei]

Protecting from scams isn't protection from the victim themselves. That should be obvious from the fact that very intelligent and technologically literate people too can fall for phishing attacks. Tell me for example, how many people in your life know how a bank would ACTUALLY contact you about a suspected hijacking and what the process should look like? And how about any of the dozens of other cover stories used? Not to mention the situations where the scammers can use literally the same method of first contact as the real thing (eg. spoofed). ...And the fact that for example email clients do their best to help them by obscuring the email address and only showing the display name, because that's obviously a good idea.

[bigstrat2003]

> Protecting from scams isn't protection from the victim themselves.

That is where we differ. It is, ultimately, the victim of a scam who makes the choice of "yes, this person is trustworthy and I will do what they say". The only way to prevent that is to block the user from having the power to make that decision, which is to say protecting them from themselves.

[joshuamorton]

But the proposal here, requiring developers to register their identities, doesn't actually impact consumers at all. They still have the ability to make the decision about whether or not to trust someone.

[kode-targz]

Yes it does, especially when you remember the fact that developers are also consumers. But even if they (we) weren't, it would still impact consumers. I, android user who's completely ignorant when it comes to android development or even mobile in general, would be heavily impacted by this. My custom youtube clients would never be approved by google. My (free) apps for watching anime and reading manga would never get approved by Google. And something that's approved today could stop being approved tomorrow. it's up to Google / Microsoft / Apple to decide after all, they're the ones in control of our devices. If they stop liking my open-source ad-free minesweeper game, then I can't play it anymore. I'll have to download their bloated proprietary version with ads and a subscription to keep playing.

[joshuamorton]

> My custom youtube clients would never be approved by google. My (free) apps for watching anime and reading manga would never get approved by Google.

Google isn't approving apps though. A developer provides identity verification and a set of apps (apk names & keys) they are responsible for. There is no verification process or approval from google. The entire process as outlined in https://developer.android.com/developer-verification is that you prove you own signing keys for an apk name.

[jrm4]

None of these things requires "locking down phones." Every single thing you've mentioned can be done in a smarter way that doesn't involve "individuals aren't allowed to modify the devices they purchase."

[sheiyei]

I'm very against the changes Google are doing, but I'm also against the claim that "people who get scammed are stupid and deserve it".

[NewsaHackO]

You can't make a statement like that and provide no examples. What are some of your ideas for doing that?