Slashdot Mirror
India Mobile Handset Backdoor Memo Probably a Fake
daveschroeder writes "In the wake of previous coverage alleging that Apple, Nokia, RIM, and others have provided Indian government with backdoors into their mobile handsets — which itself spawned a US investigation and questions about handset security — it turns out the memo which ignited the controversy is probably a fake designed to draw attention to the "Lords of Dharmaraja." According to Reuters, "Military and cyber-security experts in India say the hackers may have created the purported military intelligence memo simply to draw attention to their work, or to taint relations between close allies India and the United States." Apple has already denied providing access to the Indian government."
It's not a backdoor if it's "by accident..."
Meanwhile in the US, telecom companies and every other industry is bending over backwards for our police state. I find it rather funny that this accusation gets press but you rarely find mention of people actually wanting to stop warrantless wiretaps. After all, both Microsoft and Skype have quietly complied with allowing eavesdropping by the government. So honestly it wouldn't surprise me one bit that handsets have backdoors given to the US government which are then figured out by other oppressive governments to spy on their citizens.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The Slashdot community already convicted Apple of this and have moved on.
And yes, I realize it's about Nokia as well as RIM, too - but in the original story discussion very few people paid any attention to those players.
#DeleteChrome
Won't happen. Bashers really believe that Apple just sits around, inventing absolutely nothing, selling overpriced shiny baubles. In their view, all technology is the same, and Apple just makes products whose ideas are all entirely obvious, despite the fact that no one did things that way before. They hate Apple for being popular and widely credited for industry trends.
You may be waiting a while as these sorts of things tend to take on a life of their own regardless of the facts presented. The meat of the linked article basically says the docs are questionable but well done. They also throw in a possible link to Anonymous which is a curious twist:
I have to give Apple credit for the Apple II. That was awesome. Hurray for Wozniak.
Is there any other Apple product of which you can say "no one did things that way before"?
This reminds me an X-files episode where you are left not knowing what to believe. Do you believe the convincing evidence or the "official denial" of the convincing evidence. Hmmmmm..... I guess I just won't carry around one of those personal tracking devices until I know the truth.
There really is a sort of sublime irony in a poster blatantly ripping off a blog post which defends the idea that certain companies are ripping off Apple.
http://macjournals.com/blog/2012/01/10/dan-lyons-showing-self-awareness-what-self-awareness/
Unless, of course, bonch really is Matt Deatherage of MacJournals, in which case, congratulations on quoting yourself.
As the submitter of the original story, I'll be relieved if the leaked memo is a fake. It gives me an excuse to put off migrating from Mac OS X to Linux, which was going to be a good deal of work.
But the earlier case of RIM agreeing to provide in-country servers to enable government surveillance in the UAE, India and Saudia Arabia shows the leverage that governments can wield over companies that operate within their territory. Vigilance is warranted.
with union labor.
Find me a computer of any brand that doesn't use Foxconn parts. Take your time :)
Apple phones originally looked like this. Not sure what your point is.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
What these companies have done is grant the same access the CALEA law gives the US Government to other countries. Other countries have taken this authority and used it for espionage. Thus these companies statements that "We didn't build a back door for India" then is correct. They built it for the U.S. Government.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
N800, bitchez!
(Seriously, why does everyone think Android is/was the only competitor to Apple?)
Probably because we already know Apple spies on iOS users?
If you remember, CarrierIQ is baked into iOS. It can't be uninstalled by users, because it's part of the OS. Even with jailbreaking it involves removing kernel modules.
Not to mention that if you actually bothered to read your iCloud TOS, you'll discover that Apple reserves the right to continuously monitor and record your current location. They even get access to your email through iCloud.
Basically, everything that the memo says Apple allowed India to do Apple claims the right to do in their TOS!
So even if the memo is fake, the ability for Apple to spy on iOS users most certainly is NOT.
Pretty sure my Nokia N900 and N9 (consumer version) weren't.
My N950 (developer edition) wasn't either, but that was from a small run, and might be considered a prototype.
A handy hint for finding counter-examples is looking for companies who still maintain their own manufacturing facilities. A lot of the new kids on the block have never had such facilities, they're clearly more likely to be customers of foxconn and their ilk.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
You might want to point out that that was released *after* the iPhone, but you go kid! On your truth crusade!
Right, so why did Android phones not look like that till after the iPhone, if it was so obvious and ubiquitous?
There's no escaping that Android shifted gears to match the iPhone after all that difficult "risk" was gone (since the iPhone took that risk - as was widely being laughed out of the room and predicted to be a giant flop by everyone until it actually started selling [much like the iPad actually]).
It's not necessarily a bad thing - switching to something the consumer wants is exactly how businesses and products thrive. It's just highly disingenuous to try to downplay Apple's role in moving the smartphone market into the mainstream with a different way of doing things. Note that this doesn't mean that they "invented the touch screen phone" or "were the first to make an mp3 player" as many Apple haters attempt to claim is the point of the argument, just that they spotted a niche and released a product that worked very well in that niche.
To those who hate on screen keyboards, I'm sure they're annoyed at that, but for everyone else, Apple changed the way people (as in, the public at large, not just the tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people using smartphones at the time) saw the smartphone.
Those behind Android quickly realised this and followed suit. Those at RIM did not see that, and look where they are now, after trying doggedly to stick to what was working before. Android's move to match what consumers wanted has paid off extremely well for the platform. Those who like Android seem loathe to acknowledge that Apple played a big role in that.
Your sig is especially hilarious, since without Apple, Android would still be on Blackberry-like devices and wouldn't be able to include things like Webkit. We'd all be stuck with DRM-locked music from online stores and people would laugh at you if you suggested a 10" touchscreen tablet as something the consumer would want to buy.
They're not perfect by any means, but they're far from the Machiavellian evil empire that people on slashdot who don;t seem to have anything other than a hate of Apple to define themselves seem to think they are.