Whatever13's comments

Total security does not exist, as the saying goes. These are several counter-measures that emerged in the social sphere of common people, to increase security a few levels and hopefully avoid the worst scenarios at least. I don't think almost anyone has all 4 smartphone categories i listed, but if you ask around, most would recognize the measures you are talking about.

A disaster scenario in practice means you are screwed either way here, tons of physical documents can be lost or destroyed too, but that is a calamity that by definition is exceedingly rare.

Most are worried about common thiefs, a scenario of robbery or assault that can happen anytime anywhere and frequently, repeatedly. The overall threat here is far larger that the rare scenario.

Now, to the complexity. Usually the thief smartphone is some old phone still around, might not even be working, and no one puts anything in there, it is literally a throw-away device. It has no complexity or hassle, and usually is free. The house smartphone, people usually repurpose some old smartphone or buy a cheap android. I still have an iphone 6 for this purpose, and if the app is up to date, it usually is safe enough. People will not be using the phone for anything else, it will not leave the house, so exposition is severely reduced.

Pardon for the delay. I'm surprised , i did not know this was not usual in other places. The biggest bank here is Bank of Brazil (state bank), and it has a lot of local physical sites in all over the country, with multiple units in bigger cities. A client ALWAYS has a main physical unit associated with their account, according to the address, and the person is required to physically go there to do many actions. There is a 2nd floor or rear area where there is a few bureaucrats or even the local manager, and the client has to appoint a meeting with them (usually by entering and waiting in a line at the moment, no internet pre-arranged way) to do stuff like big financial transactions, close or open the account, buy dollars or euros, seek advice about and start to use financial services of the bank like insurances retiremensts, etc. The front area of the 1st floor is where the money machines are located, where people usually get physical cash, pay bills, etc. The person has to use both a fingerprint and a password to authorize the operations, and of course there is cameras both in and out of the bank registering everything, and usually morning to afternoon there is a local security staff of 1 or a few (depending on the unit size). Now with the context, finally to the on location authentication mechanism: The client can download the bank app, and login, but to actually DO anything in the app, the client first has to physically go to her-his main physical unit with the smartphone to be used, and go to a money machine. There, she-he has to login in the machine using both the fingerprint and password, and do the operation of authorizing the smartphone to be associated with the account, confirm by SMS on the smartphone, and voilá. ONLY NOW can the bank app properly be used. That is why i called it 'on location authentication', the client has to go personally with the smartphone itself to a physical unit in order to authenticate the phone , so that the bank app can be used. The fin-tech banks by contrast are 100% freestyle in every way, having no physical units and not demanding any sort of protocol to do equivalent actions, and that is loved by many, but there also the issue of less security, even much less security i dare to say, which was proved by a history of many crimes and frauds happening now that used them as instruments. Many people were victims of fraudsters that created bank accounts in their names exactly in these fin-tech banks, and did shenigans like taking 5 digit loans, buying physical goods, etc.

I'm from Brazil, where as is known many robberies and assaults happen on the street, and ever since the whole process of putting essential life services into smartphones started, many people are adopting a scheme of having 2 smartphones (if not 3 or 4 for other reasons! ) :

1) The House smartphone → it is where you install everything truly vital, like the main bank app (started mainly because of this), 2FA apps like authy google microsoft equivalents, passwords, streaming apps (to do their 2FA), etc. This phone NEVER NEVER leaves the house, except ONCE if the bank app requires on location authentication of the phone for the bank app to function, which is common practice with traditional banks.

2) The Street Smartphone → you essentially create a ''street bank account'', deposit sufficient money for day-to-day transactions for some days or weeks, install the app, and only keep this app installed for any money use (many people also avoid even using the same bank as the main bank app, as the main bank usually is a traditional bank with physical locations to get help - and has tons of personal information stored - and the street bank usually is a fin-tech bank that people do not really trust like old banks, either economically or for security, but it has less personal data anyways). It also has the essencial social media like Whatsapp, instagram, some password manager like bitwarden or the apple-google cloud, and 2FA (the ones who actually use it) is avoided in this device.

3) the thief smartphone → many people like to take some old phone around to give to a thief if the need arises, this way even the street smartphone is saved. Might not work if the thief smartphone is too old or clearly broken though.

4) the work smartphone → the only mostly chill 2nd smartphone on the list, useful to keep private life separate from the professional life, and also is useful to avoid the boss sneaking into the worker's private life and devices. There was a scandal here when a provincial government out of the blue installed a whole app in the smartphones of teachers AND students with no warning or any control whatsoever, and many people got scared that the administrative google service app being used by all (google education or some s*t) pretty much allowed the devices to be remotely controlled and viewed by the employer , be it private or public, so many people assumed any work devices is or can be done the same.

we could have a social system to reduce or even eliminate the human suffering it causes, but i guess the powerful prefer to repeat the 19th century process of steam engines basically eliminating the previous middle class of artisans into poverty. It is also getting hard to preview what is not going to be automated in the middle or beginning of a career...

PS: Not to mention, Gizmodo also cut ORIGINAL spanish language journalism, when at least this part still would add value alongside the translated articles. Maybe they really don't care about the spanish speakers.

Nintendo is a capitalist corporation aiming to maximizing profit, and not anything else. Maximizing profit is the true end of Nintendo, and that may be done by several strategies. Maximizing the consumer well-being (i.e. being ''nice'') generally is what we hope they do, but it is not necessarily the most able to profit = profitable thing to make. Nintendo perhaps actually thinks it is horrible that random people will spoil their IP or threaten their sales:

- Spoil their IP → making mods of their games can spoil Mario, Pokémon etc as the child-friendly characters they are, not to mention water down the novelty of a new game, if for instance there would be a ''new'' 2D Mario or pokémon every 6 months (if they released the tools and did not persecute). Or even being straight better received than the official games, which is already the case with several pokémon fans going after hacked ROMs because they hate the current generation's gameplay etc.

- Threaten Sales (main one)→ If fans and the community extend the life of older hardware and games, then the people will consume less new games and even less switches, and it directly replaces their current cloud retro gaming offerings (it is so barebones that anyone could make a better experience of NES SNES etc by just installing an emulator and downloading ROMS, make that automated and Nintendo-aproved retro gaming is over).

Nintendo therefore has a hostile draconian, anti-fans anti community anti ecological and even anti consumer strategy to maximize sales. The fact that there is still people working on stuff on this environment is only due to the strong love the fandom has. I wish they could dedicate this craft to FOSS games, where their contribution would be respected and celebrated.

Forward compatibility is promising. - The computing systems are kinda standardized now, with consoles and pcs using X64-86 architecture, Xbox using a optimized windows os, and PS4 (almost certainly PS5 too) running BSD. Industry standards would bridge the gap even more, like making open software mandatory (everyone just incorporates their code). More companies investing in FOSS like Vulkan instead of the proprietary ones would be helpfull too. - The proton software on Linux makes a compatibility layer between the game and a newer system, and you can choose an older version.

I think we could eventually just leave the ''XYZ Game of the Year'' v.2.1.4 and never touch it again, and future gamers would at most have to select the proton layer version and vulkan-directx-other game engine version of the game release time, and it could be automatically done in the instalation.

Since i wrote from a more abstract perspective, a systemic perspective, i am looking in the perspective of Reducing the rate of consumption for computing, and i feel the electrical consumption factor is a case of missing the forest because we paid too much attention to the trees. Too many state and NGOs lean into that.

The actual math of concrete examples we can come up will not change the underlying fact that consumerism fueled by corporations will always trump over whatever perceived or real efficiency gains, and i do not agree it ''pays back relatively quickly'': even the favourable example of replacing an Xbox Original for a Steam Deck demanded at least 2000 hours for the electrical consumption to match the incorporated energy, but this still had to incorporate whatever is needed to reprocess the xbox as the new trash it became (recycling and discarting). What will the math look like in the future ? because over time, the tinier processors demand more and more energy and resources to manufacture, over the older ones. How many hours of use will the (presumably) more eletricity efficient PS6 demand to offset the PS5 it will be set to replace ?

It does not matter if the Steam Deck, which is subsidized by Steam like almost all consoles and because of that it is cheaper for the end-consumer, consumes less electricity, it still made you pretty much discard a fully functional and capable computer and buy another one, a computer that will degrade with time and have less lifespan, that could have continued in use with a technically possible upgrade.

I feel a computing culture that sees normal to discard functional computers every 3-5 years because of minutiae like slightly less eletricity consumption or even more facial hair in characters will never really be sustainable. Eletricity consumption is being solved with renewable energy, hidro and nuclear , but the rate of material and natural resources consumption, and pollution, of non renowable stuff, is not being tackled.

''running ond old HW is probably counterproductive if you only value ecology'' I could be wrong, but i think the opposite than you.

You are being reductionist, and only accounting for the factor of direct eletrical consumption during use, and not the total energy and natural resources spent during the equipments lifetime , specially its manufacturing (which i think is the real measure of ecological efficiency we should aim).

The old hardware was already produced, resources were spent and pollution and emissions were made, so it is a duty that we should use it as much as possible until irrepairable breakdown happens, and reduce our consumption of new stuff that would only replace it. Like your example of a new smartphone or new steamdeck replacing the old Xbox Original: it is almost certain that the electrical consumption gains would not compensate, in terms of total energy and resources spent and pollution made, the discarting of the original xbox (in fact, it would generate more waste that would need to be reprocessed, generating even more pollution).

Remember the 3Rs ? The 1st R is REDUCE, not ''replace stuff every 3-5 years to get slightly less eletric consumption''. It is kind of the point of the Permacomputing movement the OP mentioned: perma comes from perma-nent, make computers that last much longer lifespans than the current system. If people could repurpose old PS3s and Xbox for playing indies, and bigger games we demaked to it, people could keep using the stuff and buy less.

A Few texts for inspiration: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stop... https://www.iltascabile.com/scienze/sostenibilita-digitale/