Slashdot Mirror

If Apple genuinely gave even the slightest fuck about improving working conditions in China they'd take some of that $100billion cash pile and produce their own or buy out a manufacturing plant and show how it should be done.

The fact is that despite with their massive cash pile and their gigantic profit margins they're still going for the lowest bidder highlights how much of a fuck they give about workers rights compared to turning the biggest profit imaginable.

In fact, part the reason Apple has such high profit margins is precisely because it doesn't give a fuck about the environment or workers rights, and because they go out their way to avoid paying taxes and have simply not bothered to pay for patents on legitimately patented things. Your attempts to try and justify to yourself that you're somehow being ethical by buying Apple are laughably desperate.

And it's all apparently okay anyway because we're told that's what companies do, they just have to turn the biggest profit for their shareholder and if that means making up a bit of documentation about how they do care to try and turn away accusations of worker abuse then so be it, but that's simply about balancing the cost of said PR against the profit increase in using such a low bidder.

Again, if they really genuinely cared, they wouldn't keep using the lowest bidder that has to carry out such abuses to turn a profit at the price it bidded for the contract with Apple at. If they keep using these factories rather than cut their margins to actually deal with the root cause of the problem then they don't care, no matter how many reports they churn out, it's that simple. Stop trying to pretend otherwise, you're just deluding yourself and as much as you think otherwise you're no better than anyone else by buying Apple - in fact, even your original premise is true, most other companies have also done the same bare minimum Apple has, you've obviously just not realised this because you are as usual so far up Apple's ass you can't see anything else. See here for example:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19475556

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/about-us/sustainability/health-safety-and-labor-conditions/labor-conditions

They're all doing the same bare minimum - audits every once in a while where the employees are treated normally for a day then back to sweatshop conditions when the auditors have fucked off, Apple is no better and no worse than any of the others and the fact people like you like to pretend it is is precisely why Apple gets singled out - because if you want to be known for being better you actually have to be and Apple has the money to do so, simply pretending and continuing to sit on a cash pile that could resolve the problem tomorrow doesn't exactly cut it.

They have following platform based on it:

http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/portfolio/solutions/ubiquity-multiscreen-tv-platform

But I would believe it targets the same marked like MS based one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_TV

The war on market is hard.

It's not misleading; it's the headline's purpose to get straight to the author's point, and the point is that the unintended consequence of our domestic policies has been to enable authoritarian regimes to enforce policies of their own.

To further refine your point: At the core of this lies the implication that, because of such policies, there is very little to separate us from authoritarian regimes. It's a quantum distance, to be sure, in the sense that although it's very small it would require something fundamental to change. But the distance between where we are today and a digital version of the Alien and Sedition Acts is short enough to make many people uncomfortable.

One point that irks me, though, is the contention that we're only now seeing this link. That, frankly, is bullshit.

The head of GCHQ (Britain's SigInt agency) under Tony Blair wrote an entire book on the topic last year. I myself wrote a series of three columns on the topic, all of them dealing with the diminishing gap between authoritarian policies and those of more democratic nations. Forgive me while I quote at some length...

Nokia-Siemens, defending its role in the creation of a centralised mobile telecommunications network, stated recently that:

In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran. Lawful Intercept is specified in standards defined by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).

Yes, decentralised communications come at a cost. They make surveillance efforts of all kinds more difficult. The two competing questions we need to ask ourselves are:

1. How far are we willing to compromise ourselves in the pursuit of state security?
2. How much are we willing to compromise state surveillance capability in order to protect our own freedom to communicate?

These are knotty issues with complex and often subtle ramifications on society. They demand a level of public engagement on the principle - and more importantly, the practice - of free speech that we haven't seen since the Red Scare of the 1950s.

Technology feels like magic to most of us. We don't - and don't want to - to know how our communications come about. We just want them to happen.

But in order for them to happen, we must inform - and arm - ourselves with the knowledge, understanding, law and policies that make it possible. Facile observations like Manjoo's do little if anything to support such an effort.

The Revolution will indeed be digitised, but only if we want it enough.

And the company themselves debunked this rumor. http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm

That's a rebuttal, not a refutation.

Nokia-Siemens are basically stating (correctly) 'we didn't do anything there that we aren't required to do elsewhere.' That's all well and good, but it doesn't address the fundamental question: Is what they did in Iran (and do elsewhere) the Right Thing?

The whole question about how - and when, and who - to intercept in the context of the Internet is particularly troubling. Here's an excerpt from a longer piece I wrote about the situation:

Nokia-Siemens, defending its role in the creation of a centralised mobile telecommuncations network, stated recently that:

In most countries around the world, including all EU member states and the U.S., telecommunications networks are legally required to have the capability for Lawful Intercept and this is also the case in Iran. Lawful Intercept is specified in standards defined by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).

Yes, decentralised communications come at a cost. They make surveillance efforts of all kinds more difficult. The two competing questions we need to ask ourselves are:

1. How far are we willing to compromise ourselves in the pursuit of state security?
2. How much are we willing to compromise state surveillance capability in order to protect our own freedom to communicate?

These are knotty issues with complex and often subtle ramifications on society. They demand a level of public engagement on the principle - and more importantly, the practice - of free speech that we havenâ(TM)t seen since the Red Scare of the 1950s.

And the company themselves debunked this rumor. http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm

How dare they sell equipment to implement legally required (and specified by ETSI and 3GPP standards) capabilies for the mobile networks: http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm

That is bullshit (forgive linking to a press release, but Nokia Siemens Networks doesn't even make equipment as described).

It looks like Nokia Siemens sold exactly the things which the USA forced them to include in their system and nothing more. Most of the legal interception requirements have been driven by the US in the first place.

It's the same equipment they sell to the US, UK and others, and they're in compliance with UN and EU regulations. Why is it suddenly evil and deserving of punishment when another government decides to use it?

There is no deep packet inspection and it is a total beat up. All telecom network equipment supports the ability to wiretap calls, and that is all the NSN network equipment can do as well.

http://blogs.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/news/2009/06/22/provision-of-lawful-intercept-capability-in-iran/

"Recent media reports have speculated about Nokia Siemens Networks' role in providing monitoring capability to Iran. Nokia Siemens Networks has provided Lawful Intercept capability solely for the monitoring of local voice calls in Iran. Nokia Siemens Networks has not provided any deep packet inspection, web censorship or Internet filtering capability to Iran." http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/global/Press/Press+releases/news-archive/Provision+of+Lawful+Intercept+capability+in+Iran.htm