i think they will. or worse yet they can make it without bios at all just device tree and all that garbage that phones do. then make it subsction based,filled with ai,cloud streamed only. no apps outside store. but thats too much orwellian stuff for now,i think what will happen is the locking bios thing for now.
what do you think?
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Mainstream stuff? Yes. But there will always be devices catered towards enthusiasts that will be open.
Open devices will be way costlier too. That’s the price of letting these demagogues get away with such abuses. Should have rubbed it in their faces.
There will always be a couple companies going against the norm and make open devices. Or computers that are fully customizable IE just stick a different hard drive in there or whatever. I don’t think this will ever happen, regardless.
It doesn’t need to happen 100%, they simply need to kick any manufacturer making such open devices out of the affordable range for the masses, after all it’s only the poor that need not have access to knowledge.
Adding to this, it has already started happening on phones in the form of propreitary carrier locked devices being artificially cheaper than normal phones that you don’t even “own”, they are going for the ultra budget range first, then climb up from there, it will take a while to jump to computers but I absolutely see no reason for it to not start happening, after all the majority of users use Windows anyways, it can spread slowly.
Untill they make ram, cpus,and storage unaffordable.
I don’t think it’ll come globally at all - even the most crazy laws I’ve read so far target “only” OS vendors.
If it comes it’ll be regional only as manufacturers will be hell bent on not losing revenue in the rest of the world.
Keep in mind that age verification needs to be done on a local level as there is no universal level of what is an acceptable method.
Only if Microsoft acquires a major CPU chipmaker. There has to be a lot of vertical integration under one company, the way it is with Apple products. Otherwise there are other OS like Linux that comprise enough of the market to ensure there will always be an unlocked BIOS option.
They make their own ARM silicon for datacenters, hypothetically they could just scale that down for consumer devices and there’s your vertical integration.
Conversely if Apple ever wants to enter the datacenter market, they could scale their M-series silicon up to meet that industry’s demands as well.
I want to push back on this part:
Only if Microsoft acquires a major CPU chipmaker.
In the USA, and other parts of the world, a small number of Billionaires are buying up everything. A small number of wealthy people could each own a part of the supply chain and for it on the vast majority.
For extra enforcement, add in a legal or cultural push for reporting or shunning violators through the media companies owned by that same group.
They just need to push for thin clients that rely on cloud computing as the prices for consumer hardware make it not affordable to own your stronger hardware.
I don’t think the CA law requires your OS verify your age, just that it requests the age of your user account during setup and has an API to provide that age range to app stores.
https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1043
I don’t think it’s any more of a privacy violation than passing UserAgents
Nah computing as a service will be for the masses and mainstream user who doesn’t care, and they will have age verification and all the “security” measures included. The custom build and DIY setups won’t change at all. Any Linux / BSD distro can just be hosted in a territory that doesn’t require these “security” measures, then anybody who knows how to use them will be able to continue unaffected.
hosted in a territory that doesn’t require these “security” measures
And then what do we do once everyone does these measures? There will be nowhere to run.
there is around 193 countries in the world. i dont think every single one will make it s legal requirement. I think we should be ok at least for a few decades anyway.
there is around 193 countries in the world
All of which are out of my reach. Lol.
Ah, I have internet that can reach alllll around the world 😁
Windows will probably become a thin client/cloud OS as MS is already making moves in that direction with Windows 365 thin clients that were recently announced, and the fact that Win12 could be subscription-based.
I could easily see MS phasing out local Windows installs altogether in favor of a lower consumer-oriented Windows 365 subscription tier tied to the cheapest thin clients possible at some point.
I think this is what they really want. Perhaps it will come with the introduction of Windows 12, of course all for your “safety”.
But luckily there is still a giant supply of old(er) computers out there that will happily run under Linux / BSD.
there are a couple youtube channels I recently discovered that do just that. take REALLY old computers and parts and try to make them semi-viable for modern computing. and I’m talking stuff that is easily nearly 30+ years old.
BoomerTec and Action Retro. BoomerTec I really like as he’ll just pick up random old PCs and explain all the parts inside and even give a history on them. His vids are like really awesome relaxing sunday morning watches. He even finds FOSS stuff that will still work on really old pcs. because of his channel I even discovered forks of firefox that are still actively developed for 32bit or community builds of Windows XP that are still updated today. For example his recent vid he bought a PC from 1998 off Ebay and got Firefox, Photoshop, and OpenOffice working on it. even games.
Action Retro pretty much does the same thing but with a focus on Linux. He’s done videos of taking like old Compaqs from the 90s and getting linux running on them. Really impressive stuff.
Veronica Explains is also good for this. Her video of taking old chromebooks and getting linux working on them is very detailed and thorough. Extremely easy to follow even for first timers. Also what I like about Veronica Explains is her videos remind me of old TechTV Screen Savers and Call for Help.
Leaving the really ancient machines aside - for most tasks you really don’t need the newest tech. At home i am running a Core2Quad system with 8 GB DDR2 RAM and its absolutely fine under Linux or other free OSes. Webbrowsing even with a ton of tabs open is no problem, many games from the repositories are still running absolutely fine and for office stuff this system would still be overkill. Hell, would i switch out the old Nvidia GPU for something remotely newer even current versions of Blender would just work.
It’ll work like this once this is no longer “in error” https://www.theverge.com/tech/884306/apple-age-verification-uk-users-ios-26-4-beta
In the UK the age verification thing is happening is because our young people are overwhelmingly left-wing and progressive.
Low effort troll, try again.
Dafuck? Are you saying this won’t be the case? I mean, it’s not exactly what OP asked but I think a real life functional example of OS-level age checks that already exists is a valuable contribution to the conversation.
The computers in the store, yes. I expect all computers in the store to be phones and the cell company will verify.
Open Source computers will be more important. Might need to brush up on wire wrapping… (Implication being that chip supplies might become dedicated to only those manufacturers that lock the product down.)
No. Because the information is user provided and unverified, so there’s no reason to lock anything down that could increase security. Once they want attestation, they need a third party service involved, in which case the device being part of the trust-chain doesn’t make sense anymore.
Legit concern & lots of good comments on the device side of things so I’ll just toss in that another perhaps far easier approach for fascist regimes would be to force telcos, ISPs to permit online access only once registered, similar to a hotel guest WiFi. Only of course more rigidly enforced & monitored.
Thus removing the device itself from the equation, and using infrastructure as the chokepoint.
Future generations are largely doomed by the apathy of the “we have nothing to hide” folks of today, or those who buy into the its “for the children” movement.
Horrifying for the generations to come, as it all advances from multiple angles to 1984 reality
Amazing how governments opposed to MAGA/US fascism, ensure the tools for fascism. I will choose “illegal” phone, computer, 3d printer.
Don’t buy computers with locked parts. Buy computers with non locked parts. Problem solved.
It’s not that easy earlier all phones had unlocked or unlockable bootloader but now only few do. Even xiomi once hailed as cheap phone for custom ROMs now has unlockable bootloader
now only few do
That’s the one you buy then if that’s what matters to you.
To be clear I’m not saying it’s “easy” or that the situation is “good”, only that there are choices and if we as consumers can support them, and as voted can support politicians that do make legislation to protect them (or at least not make others mandatory) then we are still going in the right direction, even if most people don’t care.
That’s the one you buy then if that’s what matters to you.
Yeah. But where can I find a phone with Qi, reverse-Qi, and a 3.5mm jack? Other than the old one I have now, that is.
That’s the false premise…if we just buy the one which isn’t enshittified to hell, there’s less and less options for “enthusiasts” and secondly, most users are fucked, because they just need something that works.
The only way to prevent keep the devices open is via regulatory oversight, forcing politicians to see the relevance of open platform / devices and create rules accordingly. And even that is a massive uphill battle…
