they also force you to give a recovery account. i’m thinking microsoft’s hands are tied in this matter, it might be the government forcing a kyc strategy
The current batch of elite have come up in a place where they have no real incentive to act in any way except that of their choosing. They're also exceedingly thin-skinned. If they think they can get away with ruining people who criticize them online, they'll do so.
It's an open secret that Windows is backdoored for the NSA to be fair and that isn't even including the truly dodgy stuff like Intel Management Engine being a backdoor on a BIOS level with remote access
Do you have a source for literally any of those allegations?
I'm as big of a Windows and ME hater as they come, but I'm not aware of any proven backdoors in either. Especially ME, which has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by the security community by this point. The only 'backdoor' discovered was the undocumented killswitch command that disables it after initialization.
It's safe to assume that Windows is backdoored, as it's closed, not audiatable and is a part of PRISM. It's not a proof, but this is how good opsec works.
And yes, this is not equivalent to what the parent said, but your reaction should be similar.
I would put my money on that these leaks have full source code. Also, currently, Windows even AFAIK sends keystrokes to the US, where NSA has full access to any company whenever they need by the law, with no oversight. No backdoors are required.
> Also, currently, Windows even AFAIK sends keystrokes to the US,
This is exactly the kind of FUD I'm pushing back against. You just casually mention this like it's some established fact. Do you have any proof of this?
Surely it would be extremely easy to verify, given that anyone can set up a Windows 10/11 VM with mitmproxy and see every outgoing connection. I myself have quite a number of those VMs for various application-related RE projects, and let me tell you, I've never noticed every single one of my outgoing keystrokes present in the logs.
Apple doesn't force you to create an AppleID unless you want to use Music and the App Store. You can still run macOS as a standalone local user. So, it's not government-forced KYC.
I believe on my Mac (non-primary machine, FWIW) I ended up signing into an Apple account, and I doubt I did that for no reason. I don't rely on iCloud or spend money on apps. Is it required to get Xcode, which is required for some things from homebrew to work? You did mention the App Store, which maybe applies here. Is the App Store the only way to get Xcode?
paid HOV lanes in the bay area are a so enraging. they created a problem by restricting the number of lanes and increasing traffic and offered a monetary solution at the same time by having you pay for the “fast” lane
I disagree. While it's true that early cryptocurrencies were based on well established cryptography, a lot of the modern (post 2017-ish) cryptocurrency tech involves cutting-edge cryptography. Especially with respect to post-quantum setups, zero-knowlege proofs, and new devices like adaptor signatures.
One reason for this is that cryptocurrencies are highly bandwidth-limited. Cryptography developed for other applications (such as voting systems, etc.) needs to be specialized to meet the size and computational restraints inherent to cryptocurrency design. Efficiency is everything.
I came here to post the same, a self aware artisan wouldn't spend extra time making it look older than it is. that makes me question every other design choice as well, was it thought through at all or was it just simply repeating what was learned...
What a violin is supposed to look like and how that affects price is interesting. As a violinist with a particular interest in old music I think it's sad how little diversity there is in violins. There's really only a couple of models that all luthiers build and those models all look similar to the untrained eye. In medieval, renaissance and baroque periods there was a lot more variability.
Aside from some experimental luthiers everyone builds the same style of violin because there's an assumption that if you're deviating from that form (e.g. cornerless violins such as the Chanot model, or baroque style piecrust violins) you must be sacrificing sound quality. And if you decorate your violin, it must be that it didn't sound good enough and you need to make it look good instead to sell it (strangely, as you mentioned, artificially making the violin look older is exempt... probably because it makes them fit in with the uniformity of classical violin)
The best sounding violins I've had were all a bit ... crooked. The simple reason is that being slightly asymmetric really hurts the value of a violin, even if the sound is fine. As a hobby musician I don't really care and am not ashamed of having a violin that looks a little "off" when close up. If you're not playing professionally this, or buying from upcoming luthiers who still have to make a name for themselves are good ways to find good-value buys.
