I am guessing they are relying on the old "make the cost less than that of hiring a lawyer" strategy that patent trolls use.
This is EXACTLY what they are counting on. Suppose I were sued for downloading/distributing Random Movie via this method. They lock my browser (how, I have no clue) and I can't go online.
This is where te cooperation with ISPs as mentioned in TFS comes in play of course. They want them to cut your internet connection until you pay, and I'm guessing the ISPs will be offered a share of the proceeds for there help.
Did you even read TFS? Because you apparently missed this part:
Bates runs a website where he publishes videos of alleged sex workers and their clients. "I am openly referred to as a video vigilante, I don't really shy away from that," says Bates
So he's not just turning over evidence to the police, he's actively publishing it, presumably to name and shame people he thinks are involved in an illegal act of prostitution. He doesn't investigate whether it's actually prostitution, or whether it's just a loving couple. Then he happily agrees to being a vigilante himself.
They didn't snoop his phone when he was alive. That sets an expectation that they won't after death either.
If you wouldn't do it while they're in the room, you shouldn't do it when they're not.
Not sure if your argument actually works in this case, as they're specifically after photos - photos they presumably took together, and may have been looking at together when the kid was still alive. So both parties know/knew about the existence of the photos and there is no privacy issue there.
Quite obviously Apple saw this coming long time ago, and solved it with the "secure enclave" in newer models. However, considering more recent posts on a.o./., even that's not enough for Apple as they're trying to harden that security even more.
Nevertheless, it's working quite well for most day-to-day uses, as this example proves. There is no totally bullet proof security possible, it is all about making it as hard as possible to break.
If only I can access my so-called "preferences" profile to edit the categories I'm actually interested in instead of letting ad companies "guestimate" my interests from websites I'll only visit once in my lifetime
I know of only a few web sites that, imho, get their ads right. And they're all sites that do it in-house.
Why they get it right? They serve ads that are related to the content. A web site that serves as market place for recycling companies, serves ads of those very companies as well. They passed right through AdBlock (for not coming from one of the major networks I guess), and proved interesting as I visited that site with the purpose of getting company contacts in that trade.
Google's ads on the search page are also generally relevant (though they're getting intrusive now and harder to distinguish from organic results). Those are based on what you're looking for there and then, not what you were looking for last week or last month.
So the only ads that I've found useful and relevant to me, are the ones that were served to me without any profiling of myself (except a geolocation on my IP for Google's ads, as many are localised). No massive databases where my browsing has been tracked or anything.
Now all the rest is blocked by AdBlockPlus. Mostly for being annoying. After a reinstall of the computer I not always install it right away, but after a while the ads get so annoying (flashing, floaters) that I install it again. Most of the ads I see in those periods have nothing to do with my interests. Most are generic ads (like the billboards along the roads), that's OK as long as they don't flash or so. Again no need to do any tracking or profiling to serve those.
It is really time for a new ad network that can offer more bang for the buck to advertisers. They serve only "acceptable ads" that can bypass AdBlock; these ads don't contain any scripting (plain JPG) so can not serve malware; less cost per impression for the advertiser and higher payout for the publisher as the network doesn't spend any money on large-scale tracking servers but just uses the content of the publisher's site to target ads.
Population density of the USA (including Alaska!!) is almost twice that of Sweden: 35 vs 21 people per km2. It should be easier (more economical) to cover the USA - especially if you would exclude Alaska which is mostly completely uninhabited anyway - than it is to cover Sweden.Finland is even worse, just 18 people per km2. Yet even there you have nationwide coverage.
The typical subscriber base of a US based carrier is a lot greater than that of a Swedish carrier, compensating for the larger area to cover. After all it's subscribers that bring in the money. The US has more potential subscribers per area, less carriers (less competition) and far higher fees for mobile phones - yet they can not even build out a nationwide coverage??
Maybe it's time for the networks themselves to upgrade and go to a somewhat modern system. It's always hard to realise CDMA is still so much in use there.
So with all your riches and technological know-how you can't even get a mobile network to cover your country cheaply, e.g. by making a tower reach further?
Heck, even sparsely-populated countries like Sweden and Finland have nationwide coverage for decades already and always had better prices.
Most countries in Europe don't have "common law" like the UK their former colonies, including the US. One key difference is the lack of "precedent" (which I presume you're trying to talk about). Other court cases may of course be referenced to, but the judge is not required to follow an other court's decisions. They usually will rule the same, of course, as it's based on the same laws.
So, yes, you may try and try again. But to have any fair chance of success you have to come up with very good arguments.
Newspapers are to make money, they're a commercial business, They make money by selling paper newspapers (some are even not charging for that - e.g. Metro and several other free papers), and by selling advertisements in those newspapers (ranging from general commercial advertising to job ads and obituaries). So it's not too far stretched that this is their core business.
Now to get people to pay for the paper and look at the ads (i.e. to get them to make money) they include news articles as well. To keep people coming back and sell more papers, they have to make sure those news articles are worth reading, and in turn they have to keep a certain minimum level of journalistic integrity and as important make it clear which articles are news, and which are opinions. I for one am happy to read both, opinions can be really interesting, but it's good to know what is what.
Anyway, it's still often fair to complain about journalistic integrity if that becomes an issue, and a good idea for newspapers to listen to those complaints. Without journalistic integrity no readers, without readers no advertisements to sell. It's that simple.
Would you really like to be presented with the question of paying a small amount - say USD 0.02 or equivalent in your local currency - for every other page you try to open? Having to decide whether it's worth paying for that content or not, 20, 30 times a day? Doing so 30 times a day, and saying Yes, adds up to $0.60 a day, or $18.00 a month. That's becoming a serious expense - and one you're asked about maybe 900 times over the course of a month.
In comparison, my mobile phone bill (including unlimited data) is less than USD 13 a month. My broadband Internet is under USD 40 a month.
That is even before going into privacy and security issues. Every such payment has to be authorised by you (e.g. by entering a password - every time you visit a paid-for page). Every such page visit is logged and registered to you (to allow for payments to be made). Someone, somewhere in this world (possibly in a foreign country - likely that foreign country being the USA, which in turn is known for poor privacy protections and government snooping) has a complete overview of your browsing habits. Pages you visited, pages you rejected, pages you paid for to read.
Sorry, but no thanks. I'll stick to having "acceptable ads" on those pages.
Besides the issue of whether this could be legal in any individual country, good luck enforcing it across borders. Or from someone who bought the device second hand, preferably from a third country, and who never had contact with Apple about the sale so can't reasonably be expected to have any kind of contract with Apple.
If he really wanted to make sure that phone could not be accessed, I suppose he'd use a different method. At least I know I would.
Take a hammer, smash it to pieces, and dump in a random public trash bin. Or even down a storm drain. This makes it very unlikely to be found, and if found, nearly impossible to have any data recovered from the parts. No undelete option that can undo that!
Instead, for whatever reason, he didn't care enough about the phone or the information it contained to destroy it.
Those iOS vulnerabilities may not be what the FBI is looking for.
What the FBI wants, is a total bypass of the security of a phone you have in your hands, but don't have the password for.
What a criminal wants, is a way to snoop on a phone after it has been unlocked already by the user. They want is a remote access vulnerability to be able to install keyloggers, that kind of thing. To do so, of course you need the phone unlocked - well, the average user is doing that many times a day, so it's a matter of waiting for the user to have their phone unlocked. Having them open a link in their e-mail will do, as that moment the phone is normally unlocked.
Most criminals will not be too interested in the information on a random locked phone. They don't care about specific phones, they care about them all and just hope to get into some of them to do their business. An unused phone (like that from a dead person) is not usually that interesting for a criminal.
Also notable is that only absolute numbers appear: total number of installations. Not relative numbers. It seems the "one of the fastest uptake ever" is measured in numbers of installations, rather than market share. Also note, it's "one of the fastest", not even "the fastest".
So that means they get not even the fastest uptake while 1) strongly urging, almost forcing people to upgrade; where 2) the upgrade is free of charge, and 3) the total installed base of computers is larger than it has ever been in history.
For the car itself, I would be thinking of an electrical version of the Tata (the sub-USD1,000 car), something like that.
Range: 100 km is enough for most people, realistically. That's a very long distance to commute in a city. Even in my rich city (Hong Kong), an average taxi is doing only about 250 km a day or so (that's some 150 miles). We have motorways, and taxis routinely are used for longer rides as well, not just short hops.
Comfort: it's got a seat, why?
Safety: who cares - this is India. OK sarcastic here, but probably pretty true, lives and safety matter less. No crumple zones. Anyway, speeds tend to be very low in the city (another advantage of electric over ICE).
So with those requirements you can build a car the fraction of the cost of a Volt or a Tesla.
That Prius only reaches that very good efficiency as the engine can run at optimal load and optimal RPM all the time, running the generator, charging the batteries. A regular car or motorbike most of the time is either idling (0% efficiency) or running at sub-optimal loads and RPMs, both quickly lowering overall efficiency.
Many vehicles in India use two-stroke engines and are poorly maintained. A total efficiency as low as 10% for those vehicles may very well be a realistic number.
Solar generation is ideal for decentralised supplies. Get all farmers some solar cells and have them run their pumps off of that - optionally have it connected to the main grid as well.
Not so long ago I got on a 100% electric minibus, one of a few on that route (the rest uses LPG). It was a trial, but it also means the technology is there and considered reliable enough to do real-world trials with it.
These 16-passenger minibuses are not much smaller than the typical truck in India, which is used in the city but also for long-distance transport. It's not that much of a jump. The hardest part is probably going to be electrifying long-distance trucking due to the need of a really long range and fast recharges, both which are not strengths of electric.
First, the pollution is now in the cities - right under most people's noses. Moving it out of the cities will improve the air in the cities, the air most people breath in. So that's a win, even if the total amount of pollution remains the same. It is likely that the total amount of pollution can go down very quickly, when moving from millions of poorly maintained two-stroke engines to much better maintained and managed large power plants. Those power plants have not only a clear economic benefit in burning their fuel efficiently, they also can hire the people that can make this happen.
Secondly, it is easy to clean the exhaust of a power plant. It costs, but it can be done very well as many modern power plants already prove. This way the total amount of pollution can be going down a lot. Add more renewables in the mix (India does have a lot of sunshine) and over time pollution can be reduced more.
Sure there are other issues such as generating capacity and transport capacity, but I'm sure those will get tackled as well, when the need is really there.
There are plenty of other options out there. No reason you must stay in such a hotel. There are many traditional hotels with larger rooms, there's AirBnB...
That's what happens when you start to hire youngsters. They don't know squat about the Real World and Real Computing History. This in compared to us oldies (oh... at 42 now I really start to feel old:))
Slashdot Mirror
there/their proofreading fail :-(
This is EXACTLY what they are counting on. Suppose I were sued for downloading/distributing Random Movie via this method. They lock my browser (how, I have no clue) and I can't go online.
This is where te cooperation with ISPs as mentioned in TFS comes in play of course. They want them to cut your internet connection until you pay, and I'm guessing the ISPs will be offered a share of the proceeds for there help.
Did you even read TFS? Because you apparently missed this part:
Bates runs a website where he publishes videos of alleged sex workers and their clients. "I am openly referred to as a video vigilante, I don't really shy away from that," says Bates
So he's not just turning over evidence to the police, he's actively publishing it, presumably to name and shame people he thinks are involved in an illegal act of prostitution. He doesn't investigate whether it's actually prostitution, or whether it's just a loving couple. Then he happily agrees to being a vigilante himself.
They didn't snoop his phone when he was alive. That sets an expectation that they won't after death either.
If you wouldn't do it while they're in the room, you shouldn't do it when they're not.
Not sure if your argument actually works in this case, as they're specifically after photos - photos they presumably took together, and may have been looking at together when the kid was still alive. So both parties know/knew about the existence of the photos and there is no privacy issue there.
Quite obviously Apple saw this coming long time ago, and solved it with the "secure enclave" in newer models. However, considering more recent posts on a.o. /., even that's not enough for Apple as they're trying to harden that security even more.
Nevertheless, it's working quite well for most day-to-day uses, as this example proves. There is no totally bullet proof security possible, it is all about making it as hard as possible to break.
If only I can access my so-called "preferences" profile to edit the categories I'm actually interested in instead of letting ad companies "guestimate" my interests from websites I'll only visit once in my lifetime
I know of only a few web sites that, imho, get their ads right. And they're all sites that do it in-house.
Why they get it right? They serve ads that are related to the content. A web site that serves as market place for recycling companies, serves ads of those very companies as well. They passed right through AdBlock (for not coming from one of the major networks I guess), and proved interesting as I visited that site with the purpose of getting company contacts in that trade.
Google's ads on the search page are also generally relevant (though they're getting intrusive now and harder to distinguish from organic results). Those are based on what you're looking for there and then, not what you were looking for last week or last month.
So the only ads that I've found useful and relevant to me, are the ones that were served to me without any profiling of myself (except a geolocation on my IP for Google's ads, as many are localised). No massive databases where my browsing has been tracked or anything.
Now all the rest is blocked by AdBlockPlus. Mostly for being annoying. After a reinstall of the computer I not always install it right away, but after a while the ads get so annoying (flashing, floaters) that I install it again. Most of the ads I see in those periods have nothing to do with my interests. Most are generic ads (like the billboards along the roads), that's OK as long as they don't flash or so. Again no need to do any tracking or profiling to serve those.
It is really time for a new ad network that can offer more bang for the buck to advertisers. They serve only "acceptable ads" that can bypass AdBlock; these ads don't contain any scripting (plain JPG) so can not serve malware; less cost per impression for the advertiser and higher payout for the publisher as the network doesn't spend any money on large-scale tracking servers but just uses the content of the publisher's site to target ads.
Considering individual publishers started law suits against AdBlockPlus, there is A LOT of money at stake.
Population density of the USA (including Alaska!!) is almost twice that of Sweden: 35 vs 21 people per km2. It should be easier (more economical) to cover the USA - especially if you would exclude Alaska which is mostly completely uninhabited anyway - than it is to cover Sweden.Finland is even worse, just 18 people per km2. Yet even there you have nationwide coverage.
The typical subscriber base of a US based carrier is a lot greater than that of a Swedish carrier, compensating for the larger area to cover. After all it's subscribers that bring in the money. The US has more potential subscribers per area, less carriers (less competition) and far higher fees for mobile phones - yet they can not even build out a nationwide coverage??
Maybe it's time for the networks themselves to upgrade and go to a somewhat modern system. It's always hard to realise CDMA is still so much in use there.
So with all your riches and technological know-how you can't even get a mobile network to cover your country cheaply, e.g. by making a tower reach further?
Heck, even sparsely-populated countries like Sweden and Finland have nationwide coverage for decades already and always had better prices.
Most countries in Europe don't have "common law" like the UK their former colonies, including the US. One key difference is the lack of "precedent" (which I presume you're trying to talk about). Other court cases may of course be referenced to, but the judge is not required to follow an other court's decisions. They usually will rule the same, of course, as it's based on the same laws.
So, yes, you may try and try again. But to have any fair chance of success you have to come up with very good arguments.
Newspapers are to make money, they're a commercial business, They make money by selling paper newspapers (some are even not charging for that - e.g. Metro and several other free papers), and by selling advertisements in those newspapers (ranging from general commercial advertising to job ads and obituaries). So it's not too far stretched that this is their core business.
Now to get people to pay for the paper and look at the ads (i.e. to get them to make money) they include news articles as well. To keep people coming back and sell more papers, they have to make sure those news articles are worth reading, and in turn they have to keep a certain minimum level of journalistic integrity and as important make it clear which articles are news, and which are opinions. I for one am happy to read both, opinions can be really interesting, but it's good to know what is what.
Anyway, it's still often fair to complain about journalistic integrity if that becomes an issue, and a good idea for newspapers to listen to those complaints. Without journalistic integrity no readers, without readers no advertisements to sell. It's that simple.
Would you really like to be presented with the question of paying a small amount - say USD 0.02 or equivalent in your local currency - for every other page you try to open? Having to decide whether it's worth paying for that content or not, 20, 30 times a day? Doing so 30 times a day, and saying Yes, adds up to $0.60 a day, or $18.00 a month. That's becoming a serious expense - and one you're asked about maybe 900 times over the course of a month.
In comparison, my mobile phone bill (including unlimited data) is less than USD 13 a month. My broadband Internet is under USD 40 a month.
That is even before going into privacy and security issues. Every such payment has to be authorised by you (e.g. by entering a password - every time you visit a paid-for page). Every such page visit is logged and registered to you (to allow for payments to be made). Someone, somewhere in this world (possibly in a foreign country - likely that foreign country being the USA, which in turn is known for poor privacy protections and government snooping) has a complete overview of your browsing habits. Pages you visited, pages you rejected, pages you paid for to read.
Sorry, but no thanks. I'll stick to having "acceptable ads" on those pages.
Besides the issue of whether this could be legal in any individual country, good luck enforcing it across borders. Or from someone who bought the device second hand, preferably from a third country, and who never had contact with Apple about the sale so can't reasonably be expected to have any kind of contract with Apple.
If he really wanted to make sure that phone could not be accessed, I suppose he'd use a different method. At least I know I would.
Take a hammer, smash it to pieces, and dump in a random public trash bin. Or even down a storm drain. This makes it very unlikely to be found, and if found, nearly impossible to have any data recovered from the parts. No undelete option that can undo that!
Instead, for whatever reason, he didn't care enough about the phone or the information it contained to destroy it.
Those iOS vulnerabilities may not be what the FBI is looking for.
What the FBI wants, is a total bypass of the security of a phone you have in your hands, but don't have the password for.
What a criminal wants, is a way to snoop on a phone after it has been unlocked already by the user. They want is a remote access vulnerability to be able to install keyloggers, that kind of thing. To do so, of course you need the phone unlocked - well, the average user is doing that many times a day, so it's a matter of waiting for the user to have their phone unlocked. Having them open a link in their e-mail will do, as that moment the phone is normally unlocked.
Most criminals will not be too interested in the information on a random locked phone. They don't care about specific phones, they care about them all and just hope to get into some of them to do their business. An unused phone (like that from a dead person) is not usually that interesting for a criminal.
That is one thing.
Also notable is that only absolute numbers appear: total number of installations. Not relative numbers. It seems the "one of the fastest uptake ever" is measured in numbers of installations, rather than market share. Also note, it's "one of the fastest", not even "the fastest".
So that means they get not even the fastest uptake while 1) strongly urging, almost forcing people to upgrade; where 2) the upgrade is free of charge, and 3) the total installed base of computers is larger than it has ever been in history.
And they're even proud of that achievement?!
For the car itself, I would be thinking of an electrical version of the Tata (the sub-USD1,000 car), something like that.
Range: 100 km is enough for most people, realistically. That's a very long distance to commute in a city. Even in my rich city (Hong Kong), an average taxi is doing only about 250 km a day or so (that's some 150 miles). We have motorways, and taxis routinely are used for longer rides as well, not just short hops.
Comfort: it's got a seat, why?
Safety: who cares - this is India. OK sarcastic here, but probably pretty true, lives and safety matter less. No crumple zones. Anyway, speeds tend to be very low in the city (another advantage of electric over ICE).
So with those requirements you can build a car the fraction of the cost of a Volt or a Tesla.
That Prius only reaches that very good efficiency as the engine can run at optimal load and optimal RPM all the time, running the generator, charging the batteries. A regular car or motorbike most of the time is either idling (0% efficiency) or running at sub-optimal loads and RPMs, both quickly lowering overall efficiency.
Many vehicles in India use two-stroke engines and are poorly maintained. A total efficiency as low as 10% for those vehicles may very well be a realistic number.
Solar generation is ideal for decentralised supplies. Get all farmers some solar cells and have them run their pumps off of that - optionally have it connected to the main grid as well.
Not so long ago I got on a 100% electric minibus, one of a few on that route (the rest uses LPG). It was a trial, but it also means the technology is there and considered reliable enough to do real-world trials with it.
These 16-passenger minibuses are not much smaller than the typical truck in India, which is used in the city but also for long-distance transport. It's not that much of a jump. The hardest part is probably going to be electrifying long-distance trucking due to the need of a really long range and fast recharges, both which are not strengths of electric.
Still, it's an advantage.
First, the pollution is now in the cities - right under most people's noses. Moving it out of the cities will improve the air in the cities, the air most people breath in. So that's a win, even if the total amount of pollution remains the same. It is likely that the total amount of pollution can go down very quickly, when moving from millions of poorly maintained two-stroke engines to much better maintained and managed large power plants. Those power plants have not only a clear economic benefit in burning their fuel efficiently, they also can hire the people that can make this happen.
Secondly, it is easy to clean the exhaust of a power plant. It costs, but it can be done very well as many modern power plants already prove. This way the total amount of pollution can be going down a lot. Add more renewables in the mix (India does have a lot of sunshine) and over time pollution can be reduced more.
Sure there are other issues such as generating capacity and transport capacity, but I'm sure those will get tackled as well, when the need is really there.
There are plenty of other options out there. No reason you must stay in such a hotel. There are many traditional hotels with larger rooms, there's AirBnB...
That's probably not meant to be in units of "foot".
That's what happens when you start to hire youngsters. They don't know squat about the Real World and Real Computing History. This in compared to us oldies (oh... at 42 now I really start to feel old :))