I get asked fairly often by various friends when the subject inevitably turns to computers, “Why Linux?”
So, to put my thoughts on the subject into a concise format, I’ll post them here.
First up is Data Harvesting. These days everything you see, click on, open, or interact with is harvested to create a digital duplicate of you; what you like, who you talk to, where you go, what you do when you get there, how much you spent, and on what, etcetera. And the better this digital duplicate is, the more the various tech companies can successfully outmaneuver you when it comes to everything from selling you stuff to influencing your opinions.
Windows and MacOS are essentially engines for this data harvesting these days, because there is so much money in it. Linux on the other hand is still very much “what happens on your computer stays on your computer”.
Then there’s the “AI” stuff being baked into everything. And while the AI bit itself has it’s issues that I’ll get into in some other post, the fact that it’s just another avenue for the above Data Harvesting is what really bugs me… Things like “CoPilot” send absolutely everything you do on the computer to some server somewhere for processing – that’s how it works.
Hot on the heels of data harvesting is the push for Total Cloud Integration Of Everything… What this does is literally tie the use of physical stuff you own to an account controlled by someone else somewhere else. Let’s take Windows for example; you can’t set up Windows 11 without creating a “Microsoft Account” – well, you can, but it requires command line trickery – and once done your ability to log into your computer is entirely at the whim of Microsoft…
So, if you run afoul of Microsoft’s ToS, which can happen by simply saying something Microsoft determines is “misinformation” – and Microsoft sees everything you say – you lose access to your computer and all of the stuff Microsoft has stored on your behalf. This would include things like logins and passwords in Edge, saved documents in OneDrive, and possibly even your email address if you opted for the default free Outlook account.
Apple is the same, though iCloud goes one step further and can prevent boot-time decryption of the machine’s drive(s) as well as locking the firmware and preventing any OS reload and rendering it into an instant brick.
Now, just imagine for a moment that you suddenly can’t use your computer and all of your login info is now locked, and you need access to your bank… Tough luck. You might not even have the ability to change your password at the bank because you no longer have access to your email – all because you were convicted of wrongthink by the tech giant judge, jury, and executioner.
So, yeah – I run Linux.
Listening to "Wonderland" by Killstar