USPS’ website does this, sort of.

If their text service is down it’ll let you know and just skip the 2FA process even though normally they offer an option to get the code via email.

The fact that they do this is bad enough, the fact that this happens so often that I’ve seen this at least a dozen times is even worse.

For one it’s just technicalities for another it’s the distinction between a company going out of their way to block repairs or a company just not caring and mainly focussing on their own repair process.

There are a couple of concerns with biometrics.

The big one is, as you already mentioned, spoofing biometrics.

The FaceID or TouchID sensor essentially saying “I got that face/fingerprint that you have in your Secure Enclave”. Granted it is a sophisticated attack, but nevertheless one you’d want to prevent if only because it’s good practice to maintain a secure chain in which the individual links can trust each other.

For similar reasons the lockdown mode exists, which is mainly useful in limited scenarios (e.g. journalists, dissidents, etc).

On the other hand, if ever there was a potential attacker, it would be a government because they unlimited funds in theory and it isn’t hard to imagine the FBI trying to utilize this in the San Bernardino case if it was available.

A different risk, which would make the above quite a bit easier to accomplish, would be an altered biometrics scanner that, in addition to working the way it’s supposed to work, stores and sends off your biometrics or simply facilitates a replay attack.

Lossless is understood to have a bitrate of at least 1411kbps, or about 1.4Mbps.

Theoretical sustained bandwidth capability of Bluetooth on the 2.4Ghz spectrum is 1Mbps, but in practice it’s a chunk lower in part due to overhead.

Even if we assume if you could just cram a higher bitrate through a smaller bandwidth (spoiler, you can’t), everyone would be up in arms about Apple lying about lossless and class action suits would ensue.

That said, you can’t. This is not like your internet connection where you’ll just be buffering for a minute.

As for what is and isn’t perceptible, I think you’re mixing up your tonal frequencies with your bitrates here.

Honestly the most frustrating part is that there is plenty to criticize Apple on, so there’s no reason to get caught up in fabricated clickbaity nonsense.

But instead of focusing on genuine concerns, people would rather hop on some misinformation train.

All the while, if you espouse opinions that are bit more nuanced than “Apple bad”, then you must be a bootlicker like you said.

It’s as if people are more concerned about missing out on joining the hype and showing off their armchair skills, rather than exercising a modicum of critical thinking.

Obfuscating what you have to do ≠ not providing you with a roadmap on what you have to do.

If they didn’t obfuscate it there would be many tools out there already to let it be done.

This is a non sequitur.

It doesn’t automatically follow that a lack of tools means there is obfuscation. The simple fact that there can be many reasons why tools aren’t widely available alone breaks that logic.

But I’d say the fact that we already know exactly why difficulties arise when replacing parts, definitely proves that there’s no obfuscation.

Which again circles back to the difference between anti-repair and not pro-repair.

Just because Apple doesn’t go out of their way to provide a roadmap and hold your hand and as a result you are having difficulties when you’re trying to do it yourself, doesn’t mean they are actively thwarting you.

Apple doesn’t even think about you and me, their concern is to facilitate their own repair processes.

They literally serial lock almost half of their parts.

They don’t.

Aside from biometrics none of the parts are serial locked.

What you’re thinking about is parts based factory calibrated data loaded into the parts from a central database.

Just because the system ignores the calibration data once the part doesn’t match the one the calibration was intended for, doesn’t mean it’s “locked”, it just means that you’re trying to use calibration data for the wrong part.

Dude has reverse engineered pretty much the entire hardware stack of Macs to be able to provide the global community with Asahi, but because he says something you disagree with he’s supposedly “uninformed”.

Talk about childish…

I’m not sure if you’re serious or trying to be sarcastic.

Bluetooth and WiFi are two different things.

For starters standard Bluetooth operates on 1MHz wide channels, BLE on 2MHz wide channels, whereas WiFi (nowadays) operates on 20 or 40 MHz wide channels.

Modern Bluetooth (on 2.4Ghz) can theoretically do bursts of 2Mbps, but in practice even 1Mbps is hard to hit in a sustained fashion.

2.4Ghz is just a frequency band and is not the same as bandwidth.

You might as well argue that a pickup truck and a formula 1 race car should be able to reach the same top speed in the same time because their wheel distance is the same.

I think […]

Think again

Good for them, but this whole clickbait nonsense about Apple “locking” things is just that, nonsense.

Hector Martin, creator of Asahi Linux said it best so instead of repeating his words I’ll just leave a link to his comments on the matter: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/110803356645502548

You’re right that a lot of Terms of Service documents and similar agreement documents have language that reserves the right to modify those terms.

At the same time just because something is in the terms doesn’t mean it can stand the test of adjudication and terms as well as changes are often challenged in court with success.

Unity is in a particular tricky situation because the clause that governed modifications in their last ToS explicitly gives the user the option to pass on modifications that adversely affects them and stick with the old terms:

Unity may update these Unity Software Additional Terms at any time for any reason and without notice (the “Updated Terms”) and those Updated Terms will apply to the most recent current-year version of the Unity Software, provided that, if the Updated Terms adversely impact your rights, you may elect to continue to use any current-year versions of the Unity Software (e.g., 2018.x and 2018.y and any Long Term Supported (LTS) versions for that current-year release) according to the terms that applied just prior to the Updated Terms (the “Prior Terms”). The Updated Terms will then not apply to your use of those current-year versions unless and until you update to a subsequent year version of the Unity Software (e.g. from 2019.4 to 2020.1). If material modifications are made to these Terms, Unity will endeavor to notify you of the modification. If a modification is required to comply with applicable law, the modification will apply notwithstanding this section. Except as explicitly set forth in this paragraph, your use of any new version or release of the Unity Software will be subject to the Updated Terms applicable to that release or version. You understand that it is your responsibility to maintain complete records establishing your entitlement to Prior Terms.

https://web.archive.org/web/20201111183311/https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/TermsOfService/blob/master/Unity Software Additional Terms.md

You can still do this if you use https://www.shodan.io/

It’ll let you find IoT devices and cameras connected to the internet if you know what to search for and an alarming amount of them are locked behind an admin/admin login.

I advise against nosying around because there’s a near 100% chance that it’s illegal to do so in your jurisdiction.

Oh wow, they really closed it down huh?

Not too long ago you were able to change it.

This dumbing things down to prevent customers from fucking themselves over and using up CS resources is getting ridiculous.

Say you need to change some settings but your modem/router isn’t online then you’re SOOL.

Cox, who uses the same gateway, is even worse. They won’t even allow you to enable legacy mode (802.11b) for IoT devices that cheaped out on WiFi cards, not even on a separate network and their customer service can’t enable it either.

I dread moving into a Cox region where there’s no fiber competitor available.

Instead of cracking jokes he should improve the piss poor optimization.

Can’t even render 50fps consistently on a Strix 3090OC at 1620p (accounting for resolution scale), what a joke.

Edit: Scratch that, it’s even worse, averaging around 40 fps with HUB Quality settings, so not even on Ultra and my 12900K is nowhere near bottlenecking.

What a joke.

Most doxxers don’t technically release the information, rather they’ve acquired it and point others to where they’ve acquired it or simply disseminate it further.

That’s what I’m saying. In most cases the doxxer isn’t the one who originally provided the info, but rather someone who has found the information online via a Google search or something similar.

Only if there’s a risk at incriminating yourself, and if it’s not immediately apparent how you’d run that risk (e.g. you’re a witness that doesn’t have a direct relation to the crime at hand) you’d have to motivate how it could be incriminating.

Isn’t that a little bit of circular reasoning?

If I doxx someone online then it gets indexed by Google, if someone then Google’s the information it stops being doxxing?

I’d assume most doxxing isn’t done by someone who has unique firsthand knowledge (e.g. “Oh I know John, he lives on so and so road”) and instead is done by finding the information online whether via Google or a different public source.

At least in the US, where a ridiculous amount of private information is deemed “public”.

There are plenty of instances that are open, but it depends on your definition of “censored” if they are what you seek.

Completely “uncensored” instances are rare if not non-existent because most instances will at least try to adhere to the laws of their jurisdiction and in addition will have some rules in place to keep things running smoothly and pleasant for everyone.

Most big instances are run from the EU so they’ll often have rules regarding hate speech.

Depending on your definition your only options might either be Japanese instances due to less strict laws around certain content or right wing instances, but both will be almost uniformly blocked on other instances.

It means no porn, how much that overlaps with anything remotely considered NSFW is up to the admin and you’d have to ask them.

The individual cashier won’t care, but the manufacturer might, especially if they’re returned as defective because they then make their way back as RMA.

Shops will also stop stocking the item if it stands out because more people return them.
They want to make a profit after all and if they have to discount items as “open box” then they’re losing out on profit, especially since the margins on some of these are already pretty low for retailers.