Take it one step at a time. I’ve had a fun time just intercepting the Bluetooth communication part for little devices.

Most of the time the protocols are not locked down, and if it’s a popular device chances are someone else already did it for you.

You can get help by decompiling the Android app for the device which should give more info about the content of the Bluetooth messages.

That’s the level I’m at right now. Oscilloscopes and all that look intimidating to me too!

Respectfully disagree. Toggle buttons have an expected behavior that everyone understands.

It should work just like a physical button. I don’t appreciate the “we know better for you so we’ll adjust the behavior accordingly” MITM.

> we know better for you so we’ll adjust the behavior accordingly

9/10 times I've used this setting, what I've actually wanted was to temporarily change the behavior. This just saves me from the need to remember to undo it (which I won't remember in a timely manner).

This isn't "we know better than you" paternalistic control - the default/easy behavior should cater to the actions and situation we do regularly. I'm sure they do, in fact, know that for most of their customers, when they disable wifi it's because that user wants to temporarily disconnect from the current wifi, but will want to use wifi shortly after, but won't necessarily remember to go into settings and re-enable.

It should be symmetrically facile to do both behaviors, assuming there's not an invisible thumb on the scale that wants to procedurally force you to make the choice most in the company's interest. But its not.

It is more effortful, more complex, and requires greater care to actually get Wifi and Bluetooth to the OFF state than ON, or ON+CONNECTED. Respectfully, that is backwards, it should be the easiest thing to turn something off.

Yet, here there is needless nuance added because there is a benefit to the company that the device is either chronically or as much as possible connected to the internet, connected to bluetooth, low battery mode is off, and if they cant have it connected to the internet and bluetooth, well, at least keep the beaconing on and sending out signals and at least meshing so advertisers and stores and their own Find/lost services are still able to benefit.

Thats not even getting into passive Fingerprinting and secondary furtive location tracking. I was surprised to learn that having bluetooth on identifies your device to stores and anyone else who can track bluetooth devices in range. Even when you toggled off bluetooth, you're still being profiled. I wonder if actually going into settings and turning off bluetooth or wifi even totally stops the device from continuing to signal in all ways, it would be unsurprising if thats another UI nicety that doesnt actually mean what it says or implies

How does it benefit Apple for their customers to enable their wifi? They are fairly explicit about NOT tracking everything you do and selling it.

OTOH, it benefits the phone owner to use wifi, as it's lower power use than cellular the majority of the time.

Its extremely easy to turn on, why is it so complicated to turn it off?

> It is more effortful, more complex, and requires greater care to actually get Wifi and Bluetooth to the OFF state than ON, or ON+CONNECTED. Respectfully, that is backwards, it should be the easiest thing to turn something off.

Why?

I get you have some principled opinions or deep belief about tracking or betrayal from corporations or something. That’s nice.

But why should it be easier to do the things that people don’t want to do often instead of the things that people do want to do often?

Good UI makes repeated actions easier than rare actions. That is good UI because it makes the common action easier, conspiracy theory about tracking and fingerprinting be damned.

A bunch of the morons out there who turn off wifi out in public because they read some random NYPost article about it "tracking" you, would then be bitching to Apple and/or their cell carriers about why their performance is so bad at home when it doesn't auto-join wifi overnight.

I would agree with you that it should operate like a dumb toggle if they didn't have the notification saying that it would auto re-enable again.

So do you agree with it pestering you to enable iCloud if you dont want to and the fact that one of the options "allows" you to delay being asked again to accept something you never want is ok since it has the notification that it will try again later as implied by Not Now (but we'll try it again ad finitum later and circle back until you consent to Yes)?

Spare batteries that are designed as internal batteries not to be easily swappable, yes.

Look at DSLR cameras: take out in 1 second, put in in 1 second, physically robust.

We absolutely can have the best of both worlds. We just need to align the smartphone manufacturers to user serviceability and right to repair… even if they go kicking and screaming since they decided their bottom line is most important.

IMHO:

I like the issues faced on Linux more, since I can solve them. I too have a handful of repair scripts.

I feel like an adult to be given access all the internals. I don’t feel that way on Windows (and any other locked down OS).

We should put in the volunteer hours to upstream these fixes to make it nicer for normies :^)

For those with more knowledge, what’s the best direct and group messaging platform for security nowadays? Is it signal?

I don’t use Snapchat but have been meaning to increase personal and family security (security from government in TFA’s case, which is a sad thing to say)

This may be unpopular? But Signal > iMessage > WhatsApp, is my personal ranking. Usually it’s possible to get almost anyone on one of those, and while WhatsApp is far from perfect, it’s better than SMS or another totally unencrypted service.

As a certified Meta hater, I would love a better third option, if anyone knows of one, but WhatsApp has such strong network effects, and it seems like a decent way to moderately* improve the security posture of non-tech-savvy family.

*The thing where they store the encryption key with the backup is terrible, and can make the improvement essentially negligible in cases of govt subpoena or similar, but even so, using WhatsApp would still prevent stuff like this SnapChat story

It is Signal, yes

The best thing you can do is vote with your wallet, and buy a phone that is more open.

You could also try a bowl of mashed potatoes on Donald’s head.

This was one of the very embarrassing things that happened to Donald as a boy, done by Freddy Trump (his late older brother), when everyone had enough of him.

One more thing thats nice with <picture> and <source> and <img> over <img> with srcset is the former can responsively change images, while some browsers (Chromium based IIRC) will assume srcset corresponds to the “same looking” image.

IIRC Chromium based srcset will never “downsize” to a smaller image, whereas <source>’s media is like a real media query.

Use if you want jumpscares at specific sizes lol

Sometimes I wonder if randos peek in and see this terminology and think we’re all nut cases

Following this to its logical conclusion… “Sorry, you didn’t buy a Development Pro Guitar. Please bring it in to your nearest Apple repair shop to get it retuned or restringed”

See? “Development machine” just means the ability to do what you want with your own machine. No third party interference.

Let Timmy Can’t-Tune bring his guitar to someone who can. Let grandma have her new phone be setup by her grandson appropriately so she can’t install malware.

Freedom. Digital rights.