Samsung, Motorola and Huawei have had this for years. Samsung DeX is probably the most popular desktop environment of its type, and has been available for 9 years. Plenty of people use it (like myself), but it's too niche of a use case for the masses.
The 2011 Motorola Atrix came with a proprietary dock to connect to. Modern desktop environments can use the USB-C 3.2 DP ports on the phone to provide video out. Lapdock shells are widely available online.
The thing is, Samsung DEX works great but I've never met anyone who has heard of it even among people who have owned nothing but Samsung phones forever. Samsung just sucks at advertising the feature. They should sell a bundle of phone + portable USB-C screen + Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and the thing would sell pretty well I would imagine. But right now no one even knows this exists.
The product is perfectly fine as it is. The way I see it, if it's being advertised, it's being monetized behind the scenes. That changes incentives and usually makes the product experience worse. All it has to be is a window manager that supports standard desktop KB shortcuts (CTRL-C, ALT+Tab, etc.)
DeX is not a fork. It is a UI layer on the phone that activates when you connect to a USB-C display. There is no difference between doing something on your phone and on DeX.
I wonder what you consider serious work then, because as a developer I think Visual Studio is the most "serious" developer environment there is, and I'd take it over any linux or Mac based setup.
Think about it like this: Would you manage a fortune in crypto on Windows? I wouldn't, because I just wouldn't even trust my environment at first. And for Visual Studio, I would solely run it in a firewalled VM.
MS employees have access to a lot of your work/data/fingerprints which makes it insecure by default. There is also serious privacy concerns, basic one would be that telemetry sends all HWID of devices by default, so if you share a USB stick with a friend, you two are automatically correlated in MS database, not really my cup of tea.
Not a big fan of an OS asking for an ID indirectly (via mandatory phone number) as well, mandatory MS account at install time (except if you tamper with the ISO, yeah sure)
>Think about it like this: Would you manage a fortune in crypto on Windows? I wouldn't
Most banks on the planet manage trillions on Windows, so I'm not sure what you're trying to prove by dying on this hill. Just because you wouldn't do something doesn't make you knowledgeable or right about that.
>MS employees have access to a lot of your work/data/fingerprints.
I wonder how all those companies, banks and governments manage to keep MS workers out of their work data.
Any MS workers here that can answer what are you guys doing with all that customer data you look at all day instead of coding?
I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think) will just openly post about it...
Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows? Do you want governments, military and such to be on Windows, really? It's not a popularity contest, we know that most corpos do terrible choice about IT stuff (at least back then and now they are doomed).
It breach basic every security principles, we should be relying on cryptography and not human trust? Would you let your ISP inject a CA in your OS and just rely on the trust of their employees to not look at your traffic? you're building your security model on the assumption that a private corporation's employees won't abuse access they structurally have, you rely on faith which imo is plain wrong. But even, the privacy factor has not been addressed, you are alright with MS correlating your entire life, many wouldn't accept that.
>>I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think) will just openly post about it.
Can you explain what mechanism is there for Microsoft workers to steal data off my Windows PC that doesn't upload anything to OneDrive? Like I'm genuienly curious - how do they do it?
It depends what you consider data, to me for example, all the devices I use in my home, who comes in my home and such are considered private (as it should, but we might disagree on this), but realize that the moment someone steps-in your home, then the typical correlation of SSIDs, BT devices (to simplify it) is sent as telemtry to MS servers (this is official, I'm not just speculating).
And about pure "data" as in filenames file content and such, then obviously typical Windows Defender, Smartscreen and such that would send file hashes, sometimes content, filenames, mod time and such, making Microsoft directly aware of your filesystem content.
Right, so there is no way for Microsoft employees to actually steal any data on my PC unless something gets flagged by Microsoft defender and sent to MS for analysis and even then it's not actual full content of the file[0]. Thanks for confirming.
Why do you say no way when I just literally pointed you out that they do get data and store them (we don't know the modalities, it's obscure). You took a big shortcut here, you don't consider all your life patterns being data? When your mom visit you at home and MS is aware via your own computer, for you this isn't data? Literally all devices AROUND you are sent and those are directly correlated with real-life identities.
Also, I said "and such" because MS have many mechanisms, for example, they are directly aware of what you download because of SmartScreen, this is data, isn't it?
One more thing, when you type something to search in the Start menu, this is also sent to Microsoft, so for example if you have the habit of searching `XXXFilename`, then this Filename is stored on their servers, this is data. You can disable that by registry sure, but let's be real, users don't disable it.
But keep in mind here we are talking about what's referenced in documentation, while there is so many things that are obscure about it.
Windows 10 collects unprecedented data, including:
Location data
Text, voice, and touch input
Web pages visited
App usage (which programs, how long) (beware of CLI flags, they are leaked to MS:))
Unique device IDs *(that can't be changed, which mean when you go to your friend, plug YOUR mouse to his Windows computer, then MS knows you 2 are besties)*
Also, VSCode by default give away all filepaths you open and more (you can check that yourself), which gives direct data about all projects you work on.
Another example, when you dev, you know that you might have a tendency to install tools, or even install your own output binaries right (let say you build an Electron app), then MS is aware of this, all programs installed are sent, this is data. So, does the MS employees filtering those data can see if you are actively using a Monero wallet? Yes they can. Are you a Tor user? They know immediately (regardless of VPN usage) and so on. This is real data.
Most people enable much more features from MS which then gives away so much more data, the list I gave is only if you disable most of it.
And lastly, about Visual Studio particularly:
What's Collected:
- Extension list Every extension you have installed
- Project types What kind of projects you create (web, mobile, desktop, etc.)
- Feature usage Which VS features you use and how often
- Build data Build times, success/failure rates, errors
- Debugger usage Breakpoints hit, debug sessions, time spent debugging
- Search queries What you search for in VS (help, docs, IntelliSense)
- Crash/hang data When VS freezes or crashes, what you were doing
- Performance data Memory usage, responsiveness, load times
- Environment info OS version, hardware specs, screen resolution
So like I said earlier, thank you for confirming that MS employees have no way of stealing data off my computer outside of information sent either as part of diagnostic info or hashed samples sent to anti virus services. There is no one at Microsoft who can just say "copy gambiting's entire documents folder and send it to us" (afaik). So no, MS employees can't just steal the data off my computer. If you want to be technically anal about this yes, what I type into my start menu is "data" too, sure, you are 100% correct. I don't consider that to be Microsoft employees stealing data off my PC. And that's not even me trying to excuse it - I'm just saying it's not what you initially presented it as.
Going back to your original comment about not using Windows for "serious" work - none of the above stands in the way of serious work, especially given that every above behaviour is disabled by enterprise policy. I will agree with you that personal installations are different, but then we need to agree on the definition of serious work again.
Thanks for debating in good faith, I give you that sure, file content might not be by default (except in multiple scenarios) sent to MS.
For serious work, my philosophy is really regarding the attack surface, I'm mostly working in cybersec/privacy for the last decade and any data that leaves the machine is always a concern, a theoretical one and a practical one, especially if it's obfuscated. Anything that requires human trust to me is a concern (see for example lately the vulnerabilities steaming from npm dependencies, all about human). Privacy is important to me, I don't want anyone to know what I do with my devices (that includes my phones, which has no SIM inside to reduce correlation factor), this is by principle. I have 2 "realms" of work, one where I do accept (example with prompts to commercial LLM providers such as OpenAI...) that privacy and security is compromised, and the other realm where it's non-negotiable.
But I get your point and without being too extreme about it, I can agree that some of my takes are far fetch although they are valid, can I ask why you actually prefer to develop on Windows vs Linux (or MacOS), is it because of habits?
>I doubt workers stealing data (which is more frequent than you might think)
Can you post a source for this? I'm sure every newspaper on the planet would love to publish headlines reading "MS workers are stealing your data", but that would require some actual proof, not made up FUD.
>Do you really believe it's normal that banks are on Windows?
It doesn't matter what I believe, what matters are the facts and reality on the street which is what I'm arguing. You are free to believe whatever you want, that doesn't make you right.
I'm not dying on a hill. From a security standpoint, every "trust" step is a security assumption that you cannot verify (especially on a Samsung phone), I'm just not willing to bet my threat model on the "goodwill" of a corporation whose business model is built on data aggregation, there is no proofs needed (MS has had a ton of breaches the last decade btw), but you do you.
Let me ask you something and make an hypothetical and you must reply in good faith, this is because we don't agree on fundamental points on security:
If you were a wanted criminal that still needs to work online somehow to make money, would you feel safe using Windows?
I think we can agree that privacy and security are heavily intertwined. If your honest answer is no,then that alone tells you something about the OS trust model. And if your answer is "yes", then i'd genuinely like to hear why, because I can't think of a single compelling reason.
You first have to answer my challenges to your original statements, on how banks can use Windows without losing money to hackers, and how MS employees access your data, as per your claims.
I first want to see sources hat back up your claims. Otherwise how can we know you're arguing in good faith and not stringing us along with more FUD and tinfoil conspiracies.
For the same reason the shoe industry spends billions sponsoring athletes and sports teams to hawk their gear. It's to build layer upon layer of abstractions to move the conversation away from how the sausage is made, and towards something that could justify their own bloated salaries, like promoting "sporting excellence" or "tech innovation".
I don't think I've updated my Logseq since 2022. As far as that is concerned, it's Markdown files that I can sync with an open-source tool like Syncthing-Fork.
I've found that the core issue is that they don't accept or love themselves. If you can't accept yourself in spite of your imperfections, it becomes nearly impossible to love/care about someone else for reasons beyond the superficial; how they look, where they sit on the social ladder, etc.
So you end up with a whole bunch of people focused on chasing status to feel worthy of having a partner who already has that status.
Seeing Zuck's "swag" makeover, down to the gold chain and Justin Timberlake curly coiff, I'd say the analogy should be Russ Hanneman's 100-foot Coachella hologram.
Do as we say, not as we do. They are unimpressed with the French far right's economic plans because they are not sufficiently subservient to the American far right's economic interests.
Americans can effectively nationalize TikTok through crony capitalism, but the French must not dare think about charging a 6% digital tax that might cost FAANG CEOs a yacht or two.
Hasn't everybody already figured out how to do this with a Mute Word list? The topics and names that trend on Twitter are not exactly a mystery. Every post of that nature follows a predictable pattern of key phrases/terms plus stupid emojis in order to "go viral", and can be filtered out easily.
I have spent a long time maintaining mute word lists but it's never more than about 80% effective because obviously there's a lot more to content than mere keywords. Tons of false positives (trump as a verb) and negatives ("he's blocking the strait!!")
That doesn't work, regular people who aren't the audience for ragebait don't realize that quoting ragebait tweets with a sardonic reply is a positive signal for the algorithm to circulate that tweet even further. Mute is the only way to go.
I'm not saying I disagree with their politics, I just don't want to read it. But the same would apply even if I did disagree - you're just promoting further division.
"Promoting further division" sounds like a reasonable thing to strive to prevent, but I think the paradox of tolerance applies here.
For example, DHH was a brilliant programmer who created Rails. I say was, because now he is a self-admitted white nationalist. I no longer care about his technical work or opinions, because if he has ventured so off-course so as to convince himself that white nationalism is worth supporting, I must necessarily question his judgment on technical matters as well. To tolerate his white nationalism and continue to promote and condone his work would be helping to further the spread of white nationalism, which I find abhorrent and unacceptable in any form.
Trying to prevent further division is completely reasonable when you're talking about opinions like "we should have lower taxes" or "we should spend more money on schools." It is not reasonable when your political opponent literally wants to do genocide.
The trouble is, where do you draw those hard lines? I have many friends for whom pretty much any discussion of trans issues is tantamount to discussing whether genocide is ok. There is one set of acceptable viewpoints and anything else is "transphobic".
I'm not sure what you mean by "discussion of trans issues" in this context. Most of the trans people I know are happy to discuss the issues and hardships they face as long as you aren't throwing slurs their way, so your phrasing is a bit confusing.
As I said in my first post, wanting to exterminate people of a certain ethnic group is certainly over the line for me. Similarly, openly expressing support for the fascist paramilitary force who are murdering people in the streets of my country is also over the line. These don't seem too troublesome for me.
One of the perks of being at the top of the food chain is that you get to define what things mean. Just like the meaning of AGI has been redefined by the masters of the universe to resemble whatever the current state of AI is, so too will concepts like UBI if it ever approaches a state where it could one day impact their wallets.
Where proven anti-poverty initiatives have been kicked to the curb (legislation-wise) in favor of horseshit like "effective altruism", so too will UBI be one day bastardized into a system that requires people to live in company towns (with sub-residential tenant protections of course), be paid in company scrip, and be spent at company food stores - a final solution for the EBT/SNAP food assistance system.
The 2011 Motorola Atrix came with a proprietary dock to connect to. Modern desktop environments can use the USB-C 3.2 DP ports on the phone to provide video out. Lapdock shells are widely available online.
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