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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • Farid@startrek.websitetoLinux@lemmy.mlAbsolutely loving Linux btw
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    2 days ago

    Here’s an anecdote. Recently, I got a 14yo (I believe) MSI MS-AC73 AIO (i3-2120, 4GB DDR3, 120GB SSD), mostly to use as a 1080p display, but it had a free PC inside as a bonus. For shits and giggles I started installing different OSes on it. First was XP. finding drivers was a pain but doable, since the machine is old af. But no matter what I did, Intel GPU control panel didn’t want to center 3:4 games properly.

    Since it wasn’t working so well, I decided to go the opposite side of the spectrum and install W11, to see how horrible it would be. After many hours of convincing W11 to install on this machine (which is surprisingly not Copilot+ compliant), I finally got it to boot with a local account, with all devices recognized (including the touch screen). MFW when it runs pretty decently all things considered. I went ahead and removed all the extra crap using CTT Debloater. Played a couple retro PC games, installed FF and watched some YT, which manages to run at 1080p without dropped frames.

    Now, of course, I decided to dualboot Linux, cause duh. Picked the latest Manjaro (KDE), hoping it will handle games better in case I try anything (might be an uneducated choice). Install is much easier, of course, but everything also works out of the box. My disappointment when same FF massively drops frames on YT. Touch controls technically work, but it doesn’t show the touch locations and other minor issues.

    In the end, I mostly use the neutered W11 (too lazy to downgrade to W10), cause it plays videos much better and W95-98 games. But if somebody can tell me how to fix Linux video playback issues, that would be great, as I want to make it my Linux daily driver.




  • Hey, I saw that you added more content to the comment that I responded to, that wasn’t there when I was composing my response. And seeing that content, I think I understand where the confusion is coming from.

    If that screenshot is yours and you think those are the permissions, I don’t think that’s the case. That looks like a screenshot from an app store where it just lists what data the app might be using and not the permission system. It’s just a list of categories of data that may or may not be collected if you use the app, which must be disclosed by the developer. You can’t agree or disagree to those things from the OS side, because that’s all that happens on the developer’s side. In case of FB, you might be able to opt out of those things in their settings, but I wouldn’t bet on it, cause that’s their bread and butter.

    For these things it doesn’t matter if you, for example, gave them direct access to the mic or uploaded the audio file, they will process the audio file and gather as much useful information as they can.

    In fact, if you don’t give it any hardware permissions, they will still be able to gather some information, for instance from the Personal Info category (email address, sexual orientation, and home address, etc.) because you enter that info on registration or they infer it from your usage. The OS can’t do anything about that. As long as you use the app and interact with it you give them information, what you clicked, which posts you liked, what you commented and so on.

    When it comes to OS, you can individually (separately) give permission for mic, camera, location data, file storage, contacts info, etc. Most of the things listed in the “Data collected” panel doesn’t even come from your phone hardware.

    Let me know if I have now understood you correctly.


  • When I said “well almost” I meant the impossible case in the second point. Otherwise, everything is implemented as a I listed. What kind of Android do you use that you haven’t seen these features? This granular permission system has been the standard since Android 11.

    In iOS it’s implemented in a very similar manner, but I don’t use it as often to describe it in as much detail as with Android.

    The OS can create the file and then hand it off to the app.

    That is also implemented, but is a separate API, storage access. You’re free to upload any file you like if the app requests it. You can create the file with any voice recorder of your choosing. Although I can’t imagine a scenario where Facebook would request a voice clip. When it’s requesting the mic it’s usually for live audio, like calls.

    How is a user to know if something was captured when the screen was off?

    It’s true, if you gave the app permission to use mic whenever the app is running, it can in theory quietly use mic in the background. If you start a call and lock the screen, the call will continue in the background. Not sure if there are any safety measures implemented for that. But if the case was of a routine sneaky mic spying, it will become obvious fast, due to battery drain and network usage.

    still don’t have basic controls like restricting network access

    There are some network controls, like restricting background data usage (depending on Android version/implementation). But yes, there’s still no granular network permission system, you have to manually go into setting to turn on restrictions. Thought to fair, there isn’t a consumer OS out there that lets you easily restrict network access to a certain app, even on desktop (correct me if I’m wrong). And I can see why, it would be counterproductive for vast majority of users to manually give network access to each app they install, when the whole point if the device is to have apps that have network access.


  • All of those things are implemented in modern Android. Well, almost.

    • Whenever the app wants to use microphone an OS popup asks you if you want to give the app permission to use the feature. The options are “when using app”, “only this time” (it will give the app one-time-use access to the mic) and “never”. If you click the 1st or 3rd options, you wouldn’t see the popup again and you’ll have to change the permission from settings. If you choose the 2nd option, you can manually choose to give permission each time it’s requested.
    • This is impossible? The OS can either let the app use the mic or not, it can’t tell what the app is doing with the mic. Unless you mean give a one-time permission this time, but not in the future, then we covered that in previous point.
    • Android always shows a green indicator on screen (upper right corner) when any app is using the microphone or camera API. Well, almost always, some system apps might not trigger it. But if you want to see which app is using mic/camera you can tap the indicator.



  • “E Ink” is a company, producing displays with a very specific proprietary technology. I think you mean to say more “e-paper”, which is a generic term for “paper-like” displays. And unfortunately, right now the only real competition is RLCD (reflective LCD), which is arguably not paper-like enough to qualify. Yes, it’s reflective, but other than that, it’s just a higher density Game Boy screen. Which is great and all, but it can’t compete with E Ink in a lot of aspects. It doesn’t have retention, you gotta power the screen, so no signage and stuff. It has LCD-grade bad viewing angles.

    RLCDs are cool for certain uses though. For example, I sometimes choose to play on my AGS-001 over my Analogue Pocket if I’m outside in bright daylight.






  • Can you make someone just not sexually interested in something they find arousing?

    No, I can’t. Doesn’t mean that we (as a society) shouldn’t be working on finding ways to do it or finding alternative solutions. And it’s necessary to acknowledge that what we have now is not good enough.

    those therapies also tended to involve some form of harm

    They probably did. But nobody here is claiming those were good or helping the patients either.


  • Cutting off their testicles and straight up executing them would also reduce the offending rates. Even more effectively than chemical castration, I’m sure. But we wouldn’t be calling that helping the offender, would we? And the comment above was specifically talking about helping them.
    What we have now is more of a best middle ground between the amount of damage caused to the patient and safety guarantees for the society. We obviously prioritize safety for the society, but we should be striving for less damage to the patient, too.