We should have the ability to run any code we want on hardware we own

> In this context this would mean having the ability and documentation to build or install alternative operating systems on this hardware

It doesn't work. Everything from banks to Netflix and others are slowly edging out anything where they can't fully verify the chain of control to an entity they can have a legal or contractual relationship with. To be clear, this is fundamental, not incidental. You can't run your own operating system because it's not in Netflix's financial interest for you to do so. Or your banks, or your government. They all benefit from you not having control, so you can't.

This is why it's so important to defend the real principles here not just the technical artefacts of them. Netflix shouldn't be able to insist on a particular type of DRM for me to receive their service. Governments shouldn't be able to prevent me from end to end encrypting things. I should be able to opt into all this if I want more security, but it can't be mandatory. However all of these things are not technical, they are principles and rights that we have to argue for.

My parents are getting old and they aren't tech savvy. The missing piece here is that I want my parents to have a computer they can safely do their banking on, without leaving them vulnerable to scams and viruses and the like. I like that they have iphones. Doing internet banking on their phone is safer than doing it on their desktop computer. Why is that?

The reason is that the desktop PC security model is deeply flawed. In modern desktop operating systems, we protect user A from user B. But any program running on my computer is - for some reason - completely trusted with my data. Any program I run is allowed to silently edit, delete or steal anything I own. Unless you install special software, you can't even tell if any of this is happening. This makes every transitive dependency of every program on your computer a potential attack vector.

I want computers to be hackable. But I don't also want my computer to be able to be hacked so easily. Right now, I have to choose between doing banking on my (maybe - hopefully - safe) computer. Or doing banking on my definitely safe iphone. What a horrible choice.

Personally I think we need to start making computers that provide the best of both worlds. I want much more control over what code can do on my computer. I also want programs to be able to run in a safe, sandboxed way. But I should be the one in charge of that sandbox. Not Google. Definitely not Apple. But there's currently no desktop environment that provides that ability.

I think the argument against locked down computers (like iphones and androids) would be a lot stronger if linux & friends provided a real alternative that was both safe and secure. If big companies are the only ones which provide a safe computing experience, we're asking for trouble.

> think of the elderly

This stuff is not just for the elderly and computer illiterate. It's for you as well. You think they're going to stop?

You're giving up freedom for safety. You will have neither.

> It's for you as well. You think they're going to stop?

No! Which is why I don't want every npm package I install to have unfettered access to my internet connection and to access all my files. If this is being exploited now, I might not even know! How sloppy is that!

> You're giving up freedom for safety.

At the limit, sure, maybe there are tradeoffs between freedom and security. But there's lots of technical solutions that we could build right now that give a lot more safety without losing any freedom at all.

Like sandboxing applications by default. Applications should by default run on my computer with the same permissions as a browser tab. Occasionally applications need more access than that. But that should require explicit privilege escalation rather than being granted to all programs by default. (Why do I need to trust that spotify and davinci resolve won't install keyloggers on my computer? Our computers are so insecure!)

Personally I'd like to see all access to the OS happen through a capability model. This would require changes in the OS and in programming languages. But the upside is it would mean we could fearlessly install software. And if you do it right, even `npm install` could be entirely safe. Here's how we do it: First, all syscalls need to pass unforgable capability tokens. (Eg SeL4). No more "stringy" syscalls. For safe 3rd party dependencies, inside processes we first make an "application capability" that is passed to main(). 3rd party libraries don't get access to any OS objects at all by default. But - if you want to use a 3rd party library to do something (like talk to redis), your program crafts a capability token with access to that specific thing and then passes it to the library as an argument.

Bad:

    // Stringy API. Redis client can do anything.
    redisClient.connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)

Good:

    redisConnCap = systemCap.narrow(TCPConnect, "127.0.0.1", 6379)
    redisClient.connect(redisConnCap)

This way, the redis library can only make outgoing connections on the specified TCP port. Everything else - including the filesystem - is off limits to this library.

This would require some PL level changes too. Like, it wouldn't be secure if libraries can access arbitrary memory within your process. In a language like rust we'd need to limit unsafe code. (And maybe other stuff?). In GC languages like C# and javascript its easier - though we might need to tweak the standard libraries. And ban (or sandbox) native modules like napi and cgo.

> At the limit, sure, maybe there are tradeoffs between freedom and security. But there's lots of technical solutions that we could build right now that give a lot more safety without losing any freedom at all.

Everything you have suggested in this post takes away freedom. There is no solution that doesn't take away freedom / your control. There is always a trade off.

> Like sandboxing applications by default. Applications should by default run on my computer with the same permissions as a browser tab. Occasionally applications need more access than that. But that should require explicit privilege escalation rather than being granted to all programs by default. (Why do I need to trust that spotify and davinci resolve won't install keyloggers on my computer? Our computers are so insecure!)

This already exists on Linux.

I run Discord/Slack in Flatpak. Out of the box the folders and clipboard permissions are restricted. Only the ~/Downloads folder on my PC is accessible to Discord/Slack. You can't drag and drop things into these apps. Which makes sharing content a PITA.

If you don't want to worry about things like keyloggers, you should run an open source OS and use open source programs where you can verify that there are no key loggers. You should also make sure you find out what firmware your keyboard is using (many keyboards themselves have complex micro controllers on them that can be programmed).

> Everything you have suggested in this post takes away freedom. There is no solution that doesn't take away freedom / your control. There is always a trade off.

Huh? In what way does application sandboxing take away my freedom? What can I do today that I can't do with a sandbox-everything-by-default model?

In my mind, it gives me (the user) more freedom because I can run any program I want without fear.

> I run Discord/Slack in Flatpak. Out of the box the folders and clipboard permissions are restricted. Only the ~/Downloads folder on my PC is accessible to Discord/Slack. You can't drag and drop things into these apps. Which makes sharing content a PITA.

Cool! Yeah this is the sort of thing I want to see more of. The drag & drop problem is technically solvable - it just sounds like they haven't solved it yet. (Capabilities would be a great solution for this.. just sayin!)

> Huh? In what way does application sandboxing take away my freedom? What can I do today that I can't do with a sandbox-everything-by-default model?

I've just explained that sand-boxing causes issues with file access, clipboard sharing etc.

Every hoop you add in makes it more difficult for the user to gain back control, even if that is modifying permissions yourself. Most people will just remove permissions out of annoyance.

If you remove control, you remove people's freedom.

> In my mind, it gives me (the user) more freedom because I can run any program I want without fear.

Any security mechanism has a weakness or it will be bypassed by other means. So all this will give you a false sense of security.

The moment you think you are safe. Is when you are most unsafe.

> Cool! Yeah this is the sort of thing I want to see more of. The drag & drop problem is technically solvable - it just sounds like they haven't solved it yet. (Capabilities would be a great solution for this.. just sayin!)

I don't. It is a PITA. Eventually people just turn it off. I did.

The reality is that if you want ultimate security you have to make a trade offs. Pretending you can make some theoretical system where those trade off don't exists just isn't realistic.