On Saturday, November 3, 2018, 5:21:51 p.m. EDT, Kevin Kofler <kevin.kofler@chello.at> wrote:
Leslie S Satenstein wrote:
> voice activation
> IOT functionality
> containers
> flatpacks
> modules
All these are just fancy buzzwords. When you think it through, all these
concepts actually make the system worse.
Voice activation means your computer records everything that you say, and
with the current implementations, sends everything after a keyword (which
can be said accidentally, it has happened in practice) to a central server
for processing. So your computer is effectively spying on you.
IOT functionality typically means proprietary devices that contain software
that cannot be upgraded (either it physically cannot, or it theoretically
can, but no upgrades are provided and signature locks prevent third parties
from providing them) and are thus a security nightmare. They can be abused
both as botnet members and to attack other devices in your local network.
Containers, flatpaks and modules all ruin the concept of an integrated
distribution where everything is packaged and all libraries are shared.
Instead, we get incompatible library versions and library bundling, leading
to wasted space and again to a security nightmare.
So please stop believing that hype buzzwords will magically improve
GNU/Linux.
Kevin Kofler
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