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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 14th, 2023

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  • That’s true, but macs also do have more security controls, configured more sensibly by default. BitLocker, the system’s full disc encryption feature for example, is still considered a premium product reserved for more expensive editions, whereas macs, android, and iOS have had it standard and default enabled (the latter two with no option to disabled it) in current versions for years. Windows still does not require (or last I checked even offer) things like application sandboxing or runtime hardening by default (this may well have changed in the past couple of years, but I’ve heard nothing of it). While the Universal Windows Platform does have a functional permissions system, that whole platform is (as I understand it) limited to the Microsoft store (which as I understand is ignored by vendors), and the last time I looked at it, it was a mess. There are other such things. Which isn’t to say macs can’t get malware, they can, and they’ll get more malware as time goes on. There are other measures set up on Windows but not macOS, but they don’t appear to be as effective to me, and they seem to be mainly focused on reacting to specific incidents. Security-wise, the two really are not the same.




  • I agree, and these conventions are being followed less over time. Since the 1990s, Windows world, Objective-C, and C++ have been migrating away (to mixed results), and even most embedded projects have been too. The main problem is that the standard library is already like that, and one of C’s biggest selling point is that you can still use source written >40 years ago, and interact with that. So just changing that, at that point just use Go or something. I also want to say, shoutout to GNU for being just so obstinate about changing nothing except for what they make evil about style. Gotta be one of my top 5 ‘why can’t you just be good leaders, GNU?’ moments.



  • A bit over a year ago, I tried writing on Medium, and what I found was no, not really anyway. Medium was putting the soft paywall on all of my posts, without me asking or benefiting from it other than hosting, though I could choose to make them hard paywalled. It was my impression at the time that they would only let you unpaywall your articles on there if you paid them that ransom, instead of every reader (by being a member). You could argue that the authors choose to post there when there are alternatives anyway, so it’s still on the authors (and I do).


  • Some nits: Apple could access many classes of data stored on iCloud by default (including any photos), even now, but you can make almost every class end to end encrypted now if you explicitly chose to. Previously, and by default now, it’s Apple policy and internal controls over the keys your data is encrypted with that protect that data, not the encryption itself (though you can opt in to the encryption itself protecting you from Apple). From what I understand, Apple is only known to actually scan iCloud mailboxes regularly, with the on-device scanning having never been implemented. Outside of nits, considering the delay between the proposed scanning and offering of a wider E2EE program for iCloud, I doubt the two are actually related myself.


  • I don’t know if they stopped, but American kids at least used to be taught both Celsius and Fahrenheit. At least in some parts anyway. I was taught both as a kid, with my school largely banning the use of Fahrenheit by staff on campus even, for instance.