Ask HN: Will you switch to FOSS following Trump's reelection?
I’m German and deeply integrated into the Apple ecosystem, using a MacBook and iPhone with all my files and data synced to iCloud. With Trump’s reelection as U.S. president, I worry the country might drift toward a surveillance dictatorship, one that even Apple’s advancements in encryption and privacy couldn’t counter.
So my question is: Is it time to cut ties with U.S. tech companies and finally switch to alternatives like Linux, Nextcloud, and others?
Hi, German here as well - there are plenty of political news for us to sit through these days...
I personally don't feel compelled to move away from my Apple devices as of yet, but this'll certainly influence my future purchasing decisions.
Why? - With politicians like Trump you'll always have to draw the line between campaign talk and real politics - When actions start or the relationship between the EU and US starts to deteriorate it makes more sense to jump ship.
From a bureaucratic standpoint I hope that the EU takes this as a wake up call to finally deregulate - to allow more innovation and trade with other parts of the world if it comes down to it.
I think given Project 2025 there is no choice for Europeans to divest from the US entirely. I hope that European leaders have the courage to do what is necessary and finally withdraw the EU from the United States.
Literally millions of Americans cared nothing for Beyoncé's endorsement. Literally millions. They did not even care about Eminem and Taylor Swift's endorsements, and they are both white and cishet. We in Europe have to look elsewhere now. Maybe to China or Iran as they at the very least supported a black woman for president.
It's so difficult to see where hope will come from.
I'm honestly curious: you think people didn't vote for Harris because she was a black woman? What would you estimate the split is between people for whom that is their legitimate reason, and people who just found her to be a bad candidate?
Also curious: you use celebrity endorsements as a goalpost for what should make people care enough to vote. Why? Given the wacky things they often get up to I'd almost see their endorsement as a negative.
It somehow feels like the serious tone of first and last paragraphs is masking the sarcasm in the middle.
We should listen to BIPOC and female voices. It's our responsibility for what we did to them.
Right-wing groups like the Republicans in the U.S. or the AfD in Germany promise concrete solutions to the problems and fears of the majority of voters. Even if people know they’re being lied to, the slim chance these groups might fix some issues often feels more appealing than the vague promises of their opponents. It’s also clear that endorsements from random wealthy individuals don’t sway voters.
I hope this election is the final wake-up call the EU needs to truly advance its own technological portfolio. A good start would be to significantly increase funding for FOSS projects, as the alternative, investing in closed startups, hasn’t proven effective over the past decades.
Most of the "funding" that Germany does usually goes to companies that can "play" the bureaucratic process instead of the ones that would actually deliver anything of value - so it probably won't be an effective strategy to accelerate FOSS.
A good starting point would be to require all government software to be OSS in the EU - similar to what Switzerland started a couple months ago.
No, we have to look to Iran or China, Europe cannot stand on its own. The future is multipolar. We have to invest in Iran and China, Europe has "invested" in itself enough on the backs of black and brown people.
I don't understand why you think a celebrity endorsement would matter-- at all. One endorsement that mattered was Dick Cheney, the man behind the US's illegal and immoral torture campaigns, and who shared responsibility for the US killing of over a million innocent civilians in the US illegal war of aggression against Iraq. Harris welcomed the endorsement and talked up her war hawk credentials.
She promised to give even more money to the military (it is a zero sum game-- a contributing factor to why Americans can't have nice things that Europeans enjoy, like medical care). She promised to continue to enable genocide of the indigenous Palestinian population by the Israeli settler state. She is reprehensible.
Her center-right to right party attacked left parties, like the Greens (our Green party is anti-war and pro human rights, unlike the European Greens, and is not affiliated with the European Greens). The so-called Democratic party sued to have the Greens removed from the ballot in several states. The Democratic party should be called the anti-democracy party.
So, many people on the actual left couldn't hold their noses and vote for her due to POLICIES of her and her party. In states where good candidates like Dr. Jill Stein, or Dr. Cornell West were on the ballot, they may have voted for these, or they may have withheld their votes entirely. This includes a sizable number of young people disgusted by the current administration's complicity in genocide, and the extreme suppression of protest whether they identify as on the left, or not.
People where specific policy was not a deciding factor in their votes, may have voted against the Democrats because they, rightly or wrongly, blame the insane increases in costs of living on the party that was in charge when rent/house prices/loan interest rates, food, and energy prices went through the roof.
Also, the endorsements of several establishment Republicans for Harris cemented her as the candidate of the establishment. And, the majority of folks in the lower income tiers don't have anything good to say about the establishment that keeps making their lives harder. Trump won decisively in under $100K/yr. earning males. A significant number of people want to see the whole damn corrupt system burn.
It is concerning that the far-right controls all federal branches of government. Hopefully there will be in-fighting, so they do not do too much damage. But, realistically, with the ever rightward movement of the Democrats, eventually, we would have reached the same point.
On-topic: there are multiple examples of US companies (and a US owned Swiss one too), installing back-doors in equipment, encryption, etc. I don't think the political party controlling the executive branch matters a bit for this.
What is it with these questions? People need to get a grip. Your already in a surveillance dictatorship
Too true. This is all of modern society.
I would argue that Apple had an easier time defending its system against government surveillance under the Biden administration than it might under the next one, depending on how far Trump’s team extends their vision of control.
Utter nonsense. What are you basing this on?
If you’re concerned about these issues, please consider donating to a civil liberties or legal defense fund.
FWIW there's E2EE for iCloud data. Not sure how robust that is. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
I already have this activated, but the issue is that you still essentially have to trust Apple that their encryption is as robust as advertised and that there’s no secret backdoor the next government could misuse.
America is not turning into a dictatorship. Cause Americans are not Germans.
The problem with dictatorships is that you often don’t realize you’re in one until it’s too late.
If you think Apple will obey Trump orders to spy on its users, but that they wouldn't obey Biden/Harris orders to do the same; I think you have an unrealistic view.
the corporate stance is irrelevant: all it takes is one low level schmuck with access and enough police record to be subject to "pressure".
I do think Apple would comply with either administration, but Trump might change the laws enough to make it harder for Apple to protect its system integrity.
It all boils down to your threat model, your use cases and whether you truly feel like your privacy would’ve been less at risk had the Trump lost the election and whether the idea of the U.S. becoming a surveillance dictatorship was any less feasible between in the fifteen years before Trump first took office.
Great blog by the way. I don’t care for the subject matter per se, but the fact that it reads like it is written in a way that is indifferent to public perception despite being public is a good trait for a blog I reckon. It reads like a human wrote it and as a human you owe me nothing as far as a blog is considered, because I don’t know you I just know that you’re a human, that I can tell.
The problem is that I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes at American tech companies or how secure their systems truly are from their own state agencies. Can I safely upload furry porn and torrented anime to my (by Apple encrypted) iCloud Drive without worrying that it might be used against me in the future? How much does the Trump administration seek to tighten control over people compared to the Biden administration? At what point is it wiser to sacrifice convenience, time, and appealing design for (presumably) safer but more labor-intensive software?
Also, thank you for complimenting my blog. I love hearing (or in this case reading) comments like that because it’s exactly what I aim for: writing as a human for other humans who might find something of interest in my thoughts on both important and (mostly) less important things.