I've seen more outrage on HN posts about license changes than those related to this. I mean we are in the midst of one of the biggest rug pull of our lifetime and the response was not even remotely proportional. I wish it was a atleast a fraction of what it was during the SOPA act.
Not even businesses that could be hurt by entrenching Google more in the mobile space are acknowledging the issue.
That makes me think may be all the outrage at the SOPA time was probably "promoted" because it aligned with their commercial interests or may be Google is all too powerful and too deeply entrenched that nobody wants to upset them.
If you are in the EU, send a message to the DMA Team. Be polite, explain how Google is using its oligopoly power to shut out competing app stores and applications that can be installed outside the Play Store. Explain how it affects you.
An app becoming unavailable through remote attestation? New recaptcha? Document every case and send an e-mail to the DMA team.
This started with phishing, poor people being tricked to install apps that then drained their bank accounts. So to resist, maybe focus on that evil? Better international cooperation, better prosecution?
Phishing is just a pretext. Google didn't care about Phishing for the first 20 years of Android. Why do they now? Because it serves as argument to close their platform a little more (which is a trend that has been going on for years).
The attack in question doesn't use apps on the store, or even any attempt to get them on the store. There are also other attacks, but the one that prompted this change uses social engineering to get people to tap the build number seven times, sideload something and get a keylogger that then picked up their banking details and used them. Several governments raised the issue, Google acted. (The actions are to slow down the tap-seven-times process, so it becomes harder for the scammers to keep their victims fooled until the keylogger is installed, and also to tweak the timings, so the scammers can't outrun the app-banning process.)
If you haven't had your bank account drained, the scammers you met were different ones. (And I'm sorry that you've been scammed.)
But it is suspicious they want to defend vs attacks that don't happen while doing absolutely nothing to stop the attacks that do happen. Seems like security isn't a goal here?
(I didn't get scammed, I sometimes am curious on what the scam is so i lead them on a bit)
Are you in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore or Thailand? Those were the four worst-affected countries IIRC. Although I seen to remember Ecuador or Bolivia as well?
(They do something about other scams too. There was another thing they published recently, I didn't pay attention since no side effect of that concerned me, something to do with caller ID.)
I do think it's about Google trying to squeeze profits out of Android, but is there more direct evidence of this? Cause I always have to wonder if it's something else like KYC.
Of course Google generally tries to squeeze profits out of… whatever it does, but eh, by closing something? Google is the company that makes a million in profit from the openness of the web in the time it takes me to write this paragraph, why would that company think that closing something improves its competitive stance?
By imposing Google Play, rather than letting people use Android without any of Google's ecosystem.
About Google squeezing profits out of everything, yes but that's a kinda new thing, mostly starting 2023. They did their first mass layoffs ever, then started cutting costs and milking products more. I'm not saying they were better before or something, it's just that it was growth time before. That was also the same time they started talking about locking down Android, and even WEI.
or how about don't allow government and banks and telcos to use abusive apps to provide essential services?
those people fall for this because for everything poor people do, they need an app that is provided by sleazy vendors and that require tons of permission, and face scan and what not. they were primed so those business could save in operating costs.
that's the problem. won't solve it with slightly less sleazy vendors.
I'm sure there's plenty of Google employees on here, some quite high up.
Push back against these types of decisions internally.
Rally your coworkers against them.
And if you're brave enough, talk to a journalist, or pull a mini-Snowden.
Lord knows the company has secrets.
I bet there's at least one email chain from some exec bragging about how this policy will squash Revanced, ad-blockers, etc.
Opt out of the duopoly by getting a freedom Linux phone like FLX1s from FuriLabs, or the Mecha Comet with cellular modem. Or if you're technical, you can install postmarketOS on a Fairphone 5 or OnePlus 6. Sendero Linux sells refurbished ones with pmOS preloaded.
I don't see how that link supports your assertion, nor really even the supports the general idea that docx isn't open. Their main complaint seems to be that it's a big standard which makes it hard to implement. Honestly it gets to be a bit hard to take these free software groups seriously when they move the goalposts and try to redefine what common words mean. It's an open format by any reasonable definition and no amount of whining by free software advocates and scare quotes changes that.
Well, it doesn't sound like it haha... AFAICT it just wipes it, so I assume you'd get a blank OS when you logged in? Or maybe it wipes it and just doesn't log in.
> could have simply unlocked the device without giving access to anything, and in the meantime, deleted everything. Instead, freezes up in a super obvious way and says it’s loading a different operating system; basically making it obvious that you’re trying to erase all the evidence
A reply said
> I've checked their forums, and I'm not really into their arguments against it.
Now I'm curious... the GrapheneOS guy has strong opinions strongly held so I'm surprised he'd agree to half-implement something.
The issues have been described as login/logout, but I'm not sure that's all that's happening. In today's outage and the last the API stopped and kicked the session out.
I only mention this in case someone from Anthropic perhaps isn't aware that it seems to be a wider issue than login/logout (although I'm sure they are!)
How can a satellite connection be more weather independent than a landline? Not questioning your statement. Just wondering what could be the reason. A segment with a long distance directional antenna?
Exactly what I am suspecting! I called so many times: nothing found all works as expected.
As for the starlink: I noticed that clouds or weather ( rain snow ) does not have a true effect. Must be the frequency is not absorbed by the water in the air or similar effects. Only hard blocking with construction or big canopies of trees is struggling.
The snowflakes are a clever engagement hack. They doubled the amount of comments here. I find it funny for the moment, but I hope this will not become the norm for hn posts.
In the EU we have 116117 which is not (yet?) implemented in all countries. It's part of the "harmonised service of social value" which uses 116 as a prefix and has also other helpline numbers like hotlines for missing children or emotional support.
The author of the blog post also mentioned they tried to avoid paying for an unnecessary visit to the doctor.
I think the issue is somewhere else. As a European, personally I would go to the doctor and while sitting in the waiting room I would ask an LLM out of curiosity.
I agree. What do you suggest? How can we contribute to the resistance?