Free Software Foundation issues statement on new iPhone models from Apple
fsf.org
fsf.org
This is backed by hard data on malicious attacks from the Dept. of Homeland Security and the FBI. 79% occurred on Android, and just 0.7% on iPhone.
I'm also 100% positive this will have no effect on the reasoning of the FSF.
You have got to be kidding.
For an ecosystem where its been the 'norm' to slurp users entire address books[1], NOTHING about Apple's 'curated, controlled' approach protects users.
Please get real.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3563016
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5632934
3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3564830
4. http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/09/27/facebook-ios-6-phone...
Yes, Apple just told us your fingerprint will be stored locally. So? Does that mean Apple si telling the truth, or couldn't leave a backdoor for NSA to get the data? No it doesn't, and we wouldn't know if they did do that. That's the problem with closed software.
It's also a guarantee that Apple knows this, so why bother lying?
That's also the problem with open software people get off of the internet/provider in binary form instead of compiling it themselves.
That is, all software.
I don't have a solution for this problem, I'm just commenting the fact that it is more complex than "compile from source" and that you have to draw a line somewhere unless you assemble your hardware from raw materials and write your own software.
If one is going to reason in black and white, then the only answer is that everything, absolutely everything, is susceptible to being compromised. In such a black and white world, there's no security benefit for open source software, because it is also possible that you could be tricked into running something that compromises your security, as it is also possible to have a design flaw in the architecture of open source code, as it is with closed source code.
It is only when one allows the concept of risk that a coherent security picture can emerge. Leave absolutes to mathematical proofs, and trust and risk assessments to the real world, at least until we can prove code correctness for an entire computer system.
Not stretching the point at all, because this isn't the only case of a security or trust breach, and once that is broken, you have no reason to trust them again.
OP's post made the ridiculous claim that somehow Apple's 'controlled' approach protects users. I provided evidence which proved that false.
Blame Path &c., not Apple, for abusing a feature that was originally provided for the convenience of developers and users together.
> Blame Path &c., not Apple
Oh sure, I won't blame Apple for leaving the door wide open and turning a blind eye for years! Wow.
This is foolish. Every non-trivial piece of software will eventually succumb to a security flaw. This does not mean the software is untrustworthy in toto.
You fix the bug and move on.
You may not have any interest in those restrictions on communication, but you'd have an easier time getting someone to admit their ignorance.
Anyway, for years apps have been collecting user data without interference.
My point still stands. Apple can't protect users on their own platform. Keep those blinders on, I guess.
> NOTHING about Apple's 'curated, controlled' approach [that of having a closed source operating system] protects users
Definitely shifted goal posts.
Unrelated: you've said nothing to support this point anywhere throughout this thread.
That's not true.
Nah, no where did that happen. It's just hard for some people to handle truths and make connections.
The address book was an example of that.
Open source software freedom means the freedom to write software that slurps up whole address books.
And it's the user's responsibility to read the source code to ensure it's not doing that. Because obviously most people are capable to do that and also have the time to do that for every piece of software they install, right?
At the end of the day, I'd rather Apple and the NSA have my data than some random hacker in russia.
I'm running swype (a keyboard) without access to the network (it crashes if it tries to update) and it works just fine for its intended purpose.
And 2.3 is OLD!
oh, and no, google android and operator/major brand abused android sucks and should be left out of this discussion. Buying locked phones (and by locked i mean the boot loader being blocked) is the same as buying an iphone. sadly.
I know what "Free Software" means. Your definition has no connection to what you assert here: "Apple could still have audited free software into its appstore as it does for nonfree software currently."
So, unless you're suggesting that apps be distributed as source code, and compiled locally on your phone, there's no way to determine if the binary the App store distributes is an accurate uncompromised representation of the original source. Furthermore, expecting normal users to examine source code for security holes is an unreasonable burden. The security of iPhone apps is based on how much we trust Apple to maintain that security, and to review the apps. Not in our personal freedom to examine the source code, which we can do already, for many apps.
You confuse developer control/freedom with user control/freedom. They are very different things. A user doesn't have programming skills, and their personal interests are in freedom from malware- freedom from developers that have the ability to do whatever they feel like with the user's data. They have no interest in being able to compile their own apps and run them on their own hardware.
On the other hand, developers are interested in having the freedom of not being in a sandbox. not having to go through an app review/approval process. The freedom from security restrictions. The freedom to slurp address books. The freedom to override any hardware button, use any API, without limit.
Do you not see how developer freedom and user freedom are in conflict?
That's simply not true. If Apple opened its distribution process, and everything was cross compiled (which is already the case) none of what I quoted above would be true. This is nothing for or against free software, it is about correctness.
You would have to mean something else by "open its distribution process"
Or just blindly trust that Apple knows what they're doing and that it has its customer's interests bound to its own commercial interests.
Sheesh, does everyone on HN need everything spelled out for them?
Well, for one, that doesn't happen anymore without specific user approval.
Second, even with that hole, still SOMETHING protects the users more, hence the huge disparity in attacks and malware between the two platforms.
For example, what you described is your adress book data taken by the company whose app you use without your consent. That's bad, but not as bad as your whole data (and device) being taken by malicious software you never even intended on using.
This of course has little to do with curation -- except that curation helps too, in that malicious apps can be blocked. Apple's curated approach is why it literally has 1/100th the malicious attacks of Android. It chokes malware at the distribution point.
I noticed you had no response to that point.
Source: http://www.darkreading.com/privacy/more-than-25-of-android-a...
That is, where users have a choice of a curated package repository maintained by middlemen who have the users' interests at heart. And where packages and the changes to those packages have an audit trail.
The Google Play store is a disaster from the GNU perspective -- zillions of nearly-identical closed-source programs, most of them pretty lousy, no curation by a trusted third party, no access to source anyway (so not so easy to curate even if you wanted to), no ability to fetch an old version or see what has changed, no way to "take over" an abandoned package and bring it up to date or improve it, no way for a distributor to make programs play nicely together, and no way for a distributor to modify programs to make them less privacy-invasive or battery-intensive or whatever users might want.
FSF isn't complciated - don't give your users anything without including the source. And don't restrict the users ability to modify and run said software however they want.
Fedora fails for this reason - it's 100% free software with some firmware blobs kept aside that are, yknow, necessary to make some hardware work.
It's dogmatic to the point of absurdity. A piece of software is free software because of what it is, not because of what its makers suggest/allow you install on it.
And so, if its a binary with a license that prohibits redistribution, modification, ships without source, or is just a series of hex values in a struct, I don't see how its free software?
Though that gets into the mess that is open EE technical documents on firmware, chipsets, mainboards, circuit layouts, etc - pretty much none of which exist, because so few companies offer them, it is nigh impossible to get an open platform.
Which sucks, and is something I'd throw money at to see fixed.
Untenable position. A user should not be forced to jump through hoops to make their hardware work just for what is essentially an ideological reason (and indeed, an average user would rightly reject such software.)
>If your computer can't run without binary blobs, yet you are a free software proponent
If the goal of the FSF is to make people care about the free-ness of their operating system, they could certainly go about it a better way.
The problem with the whole "approval" thing is that the very name of the organization combined with that action is misleading. Example, if I ran a group called the Cool Software Foundation and maintain a list of cool software, and I made it a point to single out your $application as not being approved, that carries the connotation that your app is not cool.
s/cool/free or any other objective adjective.
In other words, the distro itself very much is free software, and the FSF by their dogmatism is being misleading. I'm with BSD on this one.
That's entirely unsurprising.
The more centralized you build a system, the easier it is to completely own.
Also, there's a massive confound in that Android phones come a lot cheaper than iPhones, making them far more accessible for the typical targets of active government surveillance.
Making sure the new locks fit all these old keys we have lying around, basically. Standard government cost saving measure.
In the US, the only one gets fingerprinted are by being arrested or for certain back ground checks( e.g ones for teachers, some bank employees, and security clearances).
In contrast, owning Apple would be a massive win.
But you're free to treat everything I say and do as an attempt to spy on me. How will that change your behavior? Or are you being deliberately obtuse for the sake of disrupting discussion?
Also, you've still not proven to me that you don't work for the NSA.
If you think that isn't a legitimate insight, or if you're so blazing-fast that you'd already made that inference, I suppose you're entitled to think that, but it's very difficult for most humans to re-compute all of their cached thoughts in the light of new information, and the NSA leaks aren't any different.
Throwing the NSA thing at Apple is ridiculous frankly. It seems that the vast majority of tech companies were involved, including the likes of Google and all seemed to be far more embroiled is the sordid affair than Apple. So why are they more likely to be sharing stuff that anyone else? It's all very disingenuous from where I'm standing.
That is a valid counterstatement to the statement "Walled gardens make users more safe."
I can't see how that was obtuse. What part did you not understand?
> Encryption used in Apple's iMessage chat service has stymied attempts by federal drug enforcement agents to eavesdrop on suspects' conversations, an internal government document reveals.
I'm a strong proponent of free software, but I do see your point, that there's safety for non-technical people in a walled garden, as long as you trust the gardener.
I'm wondering if the concept of free-software and a walled garden are really that incompatible. Let's say the garden has a gate, that a user has to go through a clear process in order to allow to install non-recommended software.
This would give a similar level of protection for non-technical people, but will still be free-software, and allow technical users to install whatever they want.
One effect would be that, if the gardeners decide not to recommend some popular software, then many users would be inclined to disable the safety features, thus reducing overall safety, so there will be a penalty if the gardeners are too strict.
They are defiantly compatible. Consider the way Debian (and many others) approach the problem. Almost all software is installed through the package manager, which gets the software from a set of repositories. These repositories can be as much of a walled garden as the repository owners want them to be. The main difference is that, it is possible to add third party repositories, and/or remove first party repositories (or sidestep the package manager entirely).
I truly find your comment disingenuous and suspect as you only mention apparent malware and virii while the tone I infered from the article seemed a little more nuanced.
These seem like nice, trustworthy sources.
Poe's Law strikes again.
Sadly, but understandingly, user will value the niceties of iOS and alike more than the potential damage to their privacy.
NSA aside, I think their fingerprint system is a security improvement. Although there are methods to easily fool fingerprint sensors : [http://dasalte.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren?langu...
No password < 4-digit code < fingerprint < complex password
Perhaps not your "NSA backdoor" variety of security though...
It doesn't matter whether or not you like the FSF, agree with Stallman, prefer Android, think the problem is rogue apps, the NSA, or think it's all irrelevant anyway due to the secret and proprietary nature of mobile firmware, baseband or hardware.
The FSF have made a very astute observation about the implications of having a finger print scanner in a personal device which you can probably not trust with your secrets. Can't we talk about that specifically instead of flogging the same old dead horses?
Do we really want to wait a few years until we discover that the authorities have been downloading fingerprint profiles from phones (like they're already known to do with messages and contacts) to acknowledge the insight here?
If you can't trust the phone vendor, why are you not more paranoid about entering your username/password on the device? What about location data? I really can't fathom why decrying fingerprint technology is the nexus of your argument here.
So, because it's pervasive, it's absolutely fine to allow it to become more pervasive?
Fyi, I'm approaching 30, have travelled widely, and to my knowledge have never had my finger imprints taken. I see no reason to find this acceptable. Not all countries are as fucked as the US in wanting your biometrics.
> is this feature being touted as a impenetrably secure way to unlock your phone?
That's not the issue, it's the fingerprints themselves that the FSF and many of us are concerned with. Sure, you do leave your fingerprints everywhere you go... but I really can't see a team of spooks dusting down the counters in McDonalds or the handrails in the subway to establish a national database. On the other hand, I can totally see the Facebook mobile app using fingerprints for remote authentication and then the authorities gaining access to that data store.
> If you can't trust the phone vendor, why are you not more paranoid about entering your username/password on the device? What about location data?
1) I can use a password that's unique to the device, my account, my app, or the the colour of my underwear. My fingerprints don't change.
2) Location data is less avoidable because it tends to be a by-product of optimal operation of a mobile device. Even excluded GPS, cell towers can be used to triangulate your position well enough to be useful to advertisers, for example, but that same raw data is totally needed for hand-off between cells and managing network coverage.
3) Again, existing concerns don't make new concerns OK.
Malaysia is another country that will scan your fingerprint when you enter the country.
It's an implication that may not be soon realized, or even ever, but to me that's the component of this that's a bit worrying.
I tend to look at tyranny as the problem, not whichever mechanism it is utilizing, but you are making quite the assertion there.
In effect, you're making the same argument that claims it's OK if the government track every car in the country by optical plate recognition, across a vast camera network, because "Hey! you're out in public already!"
The difference in both cases is only a matter of difficulty.
Because if you didn't already know what the FSF thought about <closed source software> you are the cancer killing HN by upcritically upvoting this (along with every NSA comment in every thread not remotely related to the NSA).
"The FSF have made a very astute observation"
No they haven't. They've made the same observation they always make -- closed is bad, proprietary is bad.
It's embarrassing that even high profile people get this so wrong.
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone...
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/apple
http://stallman.org/apple.html
http://www.geek.com/apple/fsf-attends-ipad-launch-with-warni...
Their concept of professionalism is flawed -- actually, a more apt predicate adjective would be "completely nonexistent." Just look at their website. 2003 wants its two-tone website design back.
The FSF often comes across as timecube guy.
Humans are not rational animals, no matter how much we'd like it otherwise. Rather than shouting down the tide, it's wise to invest in a little design/marketing - even if it rankles.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/07/the-decl...
So, naturally he's against Apple which happens to make a lot of money from building software.
"Stallman, et. al are also against anyone making any money from building software"
This is utter non-sense. I think you are confusing "free as in freedom" with "free as in free beer". Stallman openly says free software can be commercially developed and supported. Just that the users should have certain freedoms to use it. The developers can sell copies of their free software if they choose to.
RMS and the FSF disagree strongly with this and see no inherent conflict between the two. Either you didn't know and were honestly ignorant, or you were deliberately trying to confuse the issue.
Apple makes software in order to sell more hardware, that’s why they make so little software for other platforms. Apple either gives its software away or it sells it for way less than similar products by competitors.
Today, Apple announced it will start giving its iLife and iWork apps away for free with all new iOS devices.
Currently, Apple sells its OS X upgrades for $20 and it’s not unthinkable that they will start it giving it away, as they already do with iOS upgrades.
Other examples are Apple’s Pro apps. It would acquire those apps from other companies and then discontinue the versions for other platforms while slashing the prices for OS X.
Not really. Apple is very big into free software, but only free as in beer.
As you note, they build that software (and give it away effectively for free) in order to sell more hardware. The second they make it free as in speech every competitor can pick it up and put it on commodity hardware, destroying a major strength of Apple.
Apple says the info stays on your device. "They're lying." Ok, but is there ANYTHING that could possibly convince someone of this mindset otherwise? I'm guessing the answer is along the lines of, Open source the whole thing. Oh well. Like I said, points scored.
What did the FSF talk about? Proprietary software. What did they have to say about it? They're agin' it. And like the sorts of preachers who love to talk about sin, there's never room for subtlety or tradeoffs.
There's room enough for blog-posts and multi-page articles debating where the author wants to draw their personal line between proprietary and Free; we shouldn't complain about the FSF trying to fit their message into a soundbite for their target audience.
Meanwhile, the benefits of proprietary software are more immediately obvious (the professional content creation market, for instance, is completely unserved on Linux last I checked), while the benefits of free/open source software are much more subtle and more ideological than functional.
The recent NSA shenanigans have (rightly, IMO) elevated the priority of that ideological fight, but it still is what it is.
(Note that I believe the FSF is fighting a good fight, but their organization and leadership appears to be dogmatic and often unrealistic)
And there's no such thing as secure, unless you build your own software, that only talks to your own servers and that only uses your personal telco and your own infrastructure.
By what logic do you come to the conclusion that these things are mutually exclusive?
Firefox "just works." 7zip "just works." There are innumerable things (like ssh) that "just work" so well that you don't even know when you're using them half the time.
The difference is that with free software you can do the things that don't just work. With Apple if you want to do X thing and Apple deigns to provide X thing then you can do it without any futzing around. But if you want to do X thing and Apple deigns to neglect it then you will not be doing X thing whatsoever, regardless of how much you need it.
So for example if you want to install the latest version of Debian on a PowerMac, you boot the install CD and press enter until it's installed. Generally speaking it "just works." And in the event that it doesn't, chances are that you yourself can make it work. By contrast, if you want to install the latest version of OS X on a PowerMac, you can't. Enjoy your paperweight. The end.
That conclusion is not in the post you're replying to.
You're reading too far into posts or something. I never said the statements were unrelated. They're definitely related, just not in the way you thought they were.
Compare to: "Regular users don't look for 'health' food, they want something purple." Nowhere is it concluded that something can't be both healthy and purple.
Bonus link: http://www.fastcompany.com/1739774/how-carrots-became-new-ju...
But your very first line, the line I quoted, directly states that davidedicillo was calling them mutually exclusive. That line is what I was objecting to.
What point are you trying to make, that humans are fallible?
They "just want it to work" is a lazy generalization that comes from lack of effort in finding out what the real concerns, motivations and thoughts are of the people in our communities.
I'm quite sure it was "regular" people behind the class action lawsuit against Apple for allowing misleading or rip-off practices around in-app purchasing in otherwise so-called "free" games targeted at children. Slow clap for the "curated" protective measures from Apple on that one.
In the end, it turns out that "regular" people are not passive drones, wanting nothing more than for something to "just work". Regular people are complex. Try having a conversation with a regular person, you'll soon find they have all sorts of interesting and complex opinions and concerns about the world they live in
I can't imagine a more short-sighted view of product development than to assume that new hardware is a reaction to events which occurred only a few months before the first shipment of that new hardware.
No matter how ineloquent the FSF may be, we need some people out there leading our introspection, driving us to answer questions for ourselves about the potential tradeoffs. We need multiple groups out their stirring people like us to communicate to "regular people in restaurants" and whatnot what the tradeoffs and technical capabilities are.
This goes double for the new Google phone announced in the wake of the NSA scandal. One if it's new features? A single core is listening 24/7 for key phrases. We have to tell people why this is could be hazardous to their well-being.
Android phones aren't anymore transparent. The carrier or phone manufacture can add whatever they like to android.
Even if you flash your own os, you still aren't going to know if any backdoors have been added.
CyanogenMod for example is open source. There might still be bugs, whether intentional or not, and you rely on the same hardware but I'd say that it's a definite improvement.
Correction: most Android phones aren't transparent. But you can get a Google Experience phone (HTC One or Galaxy S4) or a Nexus device (4, 7, 10) and install a 3rd party ROM free of any closed-source software. This is also often possible with other, non-GE/Nexus phones.
Hardware backdoors are a separate issue.
> [...]and install a 3rd party ROM free
> of any closed-source software.
> Hardware backdoors are a separate issue.
Using an open source operating system is a step towards a fully transparent phone, even if it doesn't solve all the problems at once. It opens a market space for a company to release a phone with open-source drivers. Consumers need to force companies step-by-step towards the solutions we want, not just expect them to be delivered in a gift-wrapped package.
Didn't know about F-Droid, that's the kind of marketplace I think that is the best of both worlds, open source but verified by community members.
I don't even think firmware is what's maintaining their "competitive advantage". That firmware needs to be matched with the hardware anyway, and it's really the hardware that offers the competitive advantage. So I think the "competitive advantage" they get from closed firmware is mostly imaginary for most companies. We should push them to "think different".
Better yet, we should demand to open source their firmware if they want our trust, after all of this.
I'd like to think that's something people could value, but I always hear there's no market?
I wonder if it exists at all now?
i think of course only by being open source, maybe its not enough.. dont know how your project is of course.. but its good to have something that distinguish from the other stuff around.. but it can attrack attention from the geek market.. thats what firefox-os are doing after getting late in this crowded party that is the smartphone industry..
But I definitely agree that early adopters will be hackers, developer and tech people.
If I were to have a mantra it would be: "Get everyone who is a Linux developer/user and their moms' to buy this laptop."
My mom is probably my first sale, she already uses Elementary OS(Ubuntu based) and she loves it, she's never going back to Windows.
If Apple open-sourced their code, how long do you think it will take before a dozen cheap chinese knock-offs appear with an almost exact replica of iOS? Thus killing off a huge market share for them. At least at the moment, the user experience of those cheap knock-offs is vastly inferior.
Although a nice sentiment, but too far fetch from reality.
Would be really awesome to see more support for OsmocomBB and similar projects though.
Here are some neat slides from a presentation on OsmocomBB from last year for anyone interested: http://elinux.org/images/9/9a/Getting_the_First_Open_Source_...
Of course, rms himself doesn't even use any cell phone at all, so if you are as concerned as he is, you may be out of luck.
> Though the YC portfolio is typically on the bleeding edge of tech trends, focused on mobile and web apps, Graham doesn't even use a web browser unless he needs to. "I find the web distracting," says Graham. His solution? A custom-coded program that downloads web pages, formats them for offline reading, and sends them to him via email. "I spend a lot of time responding to email, so this fits in with my existing workflow, and I can keep track of it like anything else in my inbox."
If pg is a bad example, pick literally any other well-known hacker.
And yet, every time the FSF or RMS are mentioned, this is thrown up as a sign RMS is "out of touch" or "anti-technology." No, RMS is a hacker, who didn't like the user experience of the web and hacked a solution.
In particular, you are wrong, since you're incapable of separating RMS's political stance on software freedom from his political stance on surveillance. If Paul Graham didn't use a cell phone, would that make Y Combinator any worse?
I read my email in a terminal, and often browse the web from one too. Hell, I also code in terminals! I am sure plenty of people, probably even most people, consider all of those nutty. Am I out of touch?
This might be okay if you're not targeting the general population, but there's a danger of forgetting just how out of touch you are. There's a danger that, like RMS and PG, you may create a website that is visually abominable, and convince yourself that it doesn't hamper the flow of information.
Before you answer, I will make this clear again: RMS does not expect anybody to follow the example of his personal computing habits. Neither do I. When I make recommendations to others, I make those recommendations with what I know of that person and what they will like, not with what I like. I know perfectly well that my preferences are eccentric, but this eccentricity is not the product of any sort of ignorance and I assert it does not induce any sort of ignorance.
(Just to real quick head you off because I sense where you are going with the PG reference: HN is actually one site that works poorly in elinks, due to how it nests comments. It is best used in a modern browser, and for it I use a modern browser)
It's false by definition: you are ignorant of the modern experience of using the web because you have literally opted out of that exact experience.
I am not, and I haven't. I often do use modern browsers, such as with HN (and other sites that require it), as I have already mentioned. My frequent use of elinks does not somehow make me unfamiliar with modern browsers in any way. Elinks does not induce brain damage.
If you want to talk about mail clients, where I use a terminal based client as my primary client, rather than just a frequent client, there might be more substance there. However I certainly do not consider myself unfamiliar with GUI desktop clients (particularly outlook) or web clients (particularly gmail), or GUI phone clients (particularly gmail, again). I know how to use those, just as I am sure many regular outlook users know how to use gmail and how many gmail users know how to use mutt. My personal choice, while an unusual and eccentric choice, does not render me particularly incapable of being aware and familiar with other choices. Furthermore, I consider myself perfectly capable of offering others advice. If my mother asked me what client to use, I would tell her to stick with the gmail web app and phone app. If a coworker asked me what they should use, I would recommend that they continue to use Outlook, unless I knew they were receptive to and interested in using mutt. I really don't see how using mutt could be impeding my ability to make sound mail client recommendations.
Using mutt to compose and read email does not make me out of touch and ignorant of Outlook anymore than using Windows Phone 8 makes somebody out of touch and ignorant of iOS.
Shoot, another example with some actual evidence: I use a Chromebook with Debian on it. I enjoy this setup immensely, but if you search through my comment history you will see that I am very critical of it when talking about it with others. This is because, despite my eccentric setup, I am not out of touch with how most users use their computers, and with what most users expect from their computers. I understand that the setup I enjoy is not for everybody. In fact, rather few people would find it acceptable.
He spends most of his waking time running GNU, the FSF and answering people who have questions about free software. When he's not doing that, he's giving talks or getting a little bit of sleep. He spends a lot of time on a plane.
Other than working through mail in batches, including offline copies of webpages, would you suggest he get this same amount of work done in the time he has?
The much more likely hypothesis is that he simply is not good at design, or he has unconventional tastes in design and doesn't care that some people don't like it (and perhaps even considered it a shit filter...), or that he simply doesn't give a shit at all...
I'm sure there is some kind of way to profile what the VM is doing and send it out remotely, but the real security concern is using the phone itself as a platform. People already have secure computing systems, what they don't have is secure (or insecure depending on perspective) network access.
No, this isn't "news". The FSF position on Apple's products hasn't changed significantly in decades. That said calling attention to that position and discussing it seems worthwhile in context to me.
We could also regard fingerprints as a classic example of Security-By-Obscurity, like SSNs. They work well when used in small, obscure places like Top Secret building locks, but once the obscurity is removed by the fingerprints being compromised through accidental distribution, the technique as a resource is collapsed as a whole for everyone.
I will be glad if Apple makes fingerprint scanning mandatory, as it will at least introduce the concept of securing your device to the 50% of iPhone users that currently do not use a passcode. I'm really surprised Apple have implemented this before Google.
"Apple purchased fingerprint-reader specialist AuthenTec in 2012, and the U.S. government recently approved Apple's patent for its own fingerprint reader technology. The company, like other makers of fingerprint scanners, uses radio frequencies to map a finger's surface." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732386460457906...
There hasn't previously been vetting of software, so novices would download malicious programs from websites unaware. Now Apple performs helpful quality assurance.
What hardware do you think is safe?
That's what I call a serious failure of imagination.
I suppose so, but there's a much powerful mechanism: consumer choice. If a user feels a phone is hostile to them, they will buy one which is not. This replacement phone may be Free Software, or it may be non-Free. Free Software can be user-friendly software, yes, but it can also be user-hostile. Users won't use hostile Free software, but they won't use hostile closed source software, either. That's the free market at work.
The FSF's position here is akin to: "Buy open source toasters, so you can easily modify it if it's a design which spontaneously explodes!" No thanks--I'll just buy a different toaster.
When Bashar Assad gassed his country at night, you didn't see lives being saved by Android-mounted LED's. You saw iPads lighting the night sky.
Just sayin.
And what's so bad about the camera flash on Android phones (or is it unpopular in Syria)? This comment sounds like a bad advertisement, and is completely meaningless.
The matter is under investigation. Stop defaming him without publicly available proof.
http://fakevalley.com/apple-investing-in-black-magic-to-get-...
Android and Apple, both have proprietary code. Both are inappropriate intrusions on users' freedom. Is it so hard to understand?
The solution is simple, though: if you really want to make sure your mobile device isn't spying on you just don't use one. A bit inconvenient, but it's not the end of the world. Unless you're a mobile developer. ;)
The features themselves are somewhat of a hash of the image, and as quantizable elements, they could be further hashed.
we got several problems with this approach.. one is the monopoly of one.. the centralization.. this is bad economically and politically .. since the bad guys the ones who have the apple in their pockets already could own whatever apple has..
the other big implication, something unnaceptable for me.. is the fact they can do whatever they want remotelly from their central with something that you bough with your own money and SHOULD BE YOURS, its your property.. you do whatever you want with it... do you wanna sell a music you bought to somebody else.. can you? can you choose a app with artistic nude , because its your choice??
its not just about now, its about the future.. its about the freedom of the future generations.. i think all of this moves from any company ridiculous.. and by paying for this you are paying for the society failure in stand against something will take our liberties away..
its a pretty phone with a big trap inside of it... corporations are taking a ground they should not trespass and the problem is that others big companies just follow..
dont worry, they are your friends.. they will protect you! while this community in 100% in terms of technology wisdom , its visible the lack of critical thinking of so many people is this thread.. its pretty sad
Amit Singh[1] created a good presentation[2] about OS X’s innards. That was back in 2006, when OS X contained more NeXTSTEP code than it does now. According to him, the OS X kernel contained 25% BSD code at that time.
[1] http://www.kernelthread.com/resume/
[2] http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/misc/osxinternals/osxinternals... (Warning: contains Adobe Flash)
We all here know that iOS is built on BSD, but how many can name a single author of that code? How many know the author of the linux kernel?
So named a single author, as requested. Linus may be known better, but when you are practically synonymous with badly behaved/child like/tantrum throwing behaviour you may want to rethink why you are well known...
Not to mention the major players are doing a fine job of keeping people in a matrix, unaware of the alternatives. But really, most don't care. Perhaps if the public school system started using *nix in their curriculum, but with Microsoft funneling cash (like they did with the University of Waterloo and C#) that's unlikely.
Nut jobs.
A serious failure of imagination.