I hear you, and think Apple’s default are useful, but under a set of conditions:
- you spent the time to know what they do, and how they work
- you set yourself at the right level of security
So you still need to be sure that Apple got every single option completely right for your use case in the configuration you chose.
That’s probably a one time task, and once you understand what it does and where it protects you, you can just move the slider. But it can’t be a “no-brainer” just slide the thing.
I’d compare this to buying an insurance: some will have 3 plans and you just choose one level, some have 250 options and you take hours or days going though each of them.
But whichever you choose you’ll still spend a significant amount of time going though all the papers to even understand what the terms are and what you’re actually paying for. You wouldn’t be paying years of insurance to realize at the worst time that the “just sign this” plan was partly incompatible with you health situation.
Appreciate your concern is genuine, but I think most of the people benefit from this lockdown mode are people who are mostly technically illiterate, and at the same time they are also cash strapped, unless they are the journalists from well funded media company.
What these people needed from the tech community is a fool proof failed safe way to turn the security level to the max.
What Apple just did is going in this direction. I am hope Google can do the same.
Just wanted to say thank you for making this point. Far too many people on this site (and in tech in general) fall into this category: https://xkcd.com/2501/
People being targeted by the NSO Group are generally very smart very educated people, but they're journalists, not digital security specialists. They may even know how to beat a tail, but they have no idea about MAC addresses. As someone who has been on both sides of the divide just "flipping a switch" is a massive upgrade to the ability for reporters and activists to keep themselves and their contacts safe.
- you spent the time to know what they do, and how they work
- you set yourself at the right level of security
So you still need to be sure that Apple got every single option completely right for your use case in the configuration you chose.
That’s probably a one time task, and once you understand what it does and where it protects you, you can just move the slider. But it can’t be a “no-brainer” just slide the thing.
I’d compare this to buying an insurance: some will have 3 plans and you just choose one level, some have 250 options and you take hours or days going though each of them.
But whichever you choose you’ll still spend a significant amount of time going though all the papers to even understand what the terms are and what you’re actually paying for. You wouldn’t be paying years of insurance to realize at the worst time that the “just sign this” plan was partly incompatible with you health situation.