To quote George Carlin,
"...and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole. So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now."
Business tends not to be so exciting or creative. It's not like this report was from the desk of Lord Ballmer or any such thing. It's just "quick, make up an excuse for bad business so we can get some of that there gubment money."
Bad analogy. Building bombs is indeed illegal. So is possession of drug paraphernalia. Bongs may only be sold for purposes other than smoking marijuana; namely smoking tobacco.
I know of no "Zippy program"...I know of "M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead" wherein Zippy is the patient, not the psychologist, and I know it sounded nothing like your unfunny post.
I'm not going to respond to your prejudice against when I finally bothered to stop being an anonymous coward.
And I fully realize I'm being retarded in bothering to respond...Damnable trollbait.
Real programmers bother to follow links that form the entire point of a grandparent post so they know that "real programmers use ed" has already been covered.
When you say "scary", do you mean scary as in "scary that people are still making the same unfunny Skynet comparison"? Jesus Christ, why don't they make a reference to being "The Weakest Link, Goodbye" while they're at it.
Yeah but no. Billing and GSM subscriber identification has NOTHING to do with the Exclusive chip ID. The chippy thing is something Apple came up with to send you software updates. AT&T identifies you by your IMSI; the same way as every other GSM carrier. It's an entirely separate concept, and uses symmetric encryption to validate, so if you cracked open the phone and changed it to claim you were your Buddy's IMSI, the tower says "prove it" with magic codes that you can't translate because you don't have your buddy's secret key.
Forgive me if that sounds condescending, I don't know your background in telecom & computer security, so I'm trying to simplify the explanation.
As I said, with prepaid accounts, you have a prepaid subscriber ID. It's wired into the fingernail sized doodad hiding behind your battery. That thing is called a SIM card. Every time you make a call, that id shows up. It might not be linked to your name and home address, but it isn't anonymous either, not in the sense that I or TFA invoke the term.
Further, if a carrier was so inclined, it could activate the E911 feature and get your longitude and latitude, although that actually would be something you could spoof with a completely open (as opposed to jailbroken) phone.
That's silly. If you were anonymous to the tower, then you couldn't be charged for your call if prepaid, or authorized for permission to use the service if postpaid. Even with a phonecard you aren't anonymous, since your call is traced to that card ID. If you wanna run some hippy free cellphone service, go right ahead, but companies need to make at least a little money in order to operate. Luckily apple is full of it, as I explain below
From their statement: "each iPhone contains a unique Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID) number that identifies the phone to the cell tower. With access to the BBP via jailbreaking, hackers may be able to change the ECID, which in turn can enable phone calls to be made anonymously (this would be desirable to drug dealers, for example) or charges for the calls to be avoided. If changing the ECID results in multiple phones having the same ECID being connected to a given tower simultaneously, the tower software might react in an unknown manner, including possibly kicking those phones off the network, making their users unable to make phone calls or send/receive data. By hacking the BBP software through a jailbroken phone"
I don't know who came up with this, but it is false on so many levels. The ECID is an Apple proprietary number that is used by Apple's servers to identify the phone and firmware. The tower couldn't care less about it. The tower uses the information on the SIM card that identifies a particular subscriber, and to a lesser extent, the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity). If you alter the SIM information, authentication will fail and you will be unable to make or recieve calls. If you alter the IMEI, you may be able to pretend you're using a different phone, but you'll still be identified as the same subscriber. This is not even the least bit of anonymity. If two subscribers claim to have the same IMEI, it shouldn't really confuse the system much, because it is only used by a module called the EIR (Equipment Identity Register) which is used to blacklist phones. The idea being if you tell the cell phone company that your phone was stolen, they can render it so the phone will never again work on their network, even if the thief puts in a new SIM card. So all the EIR should do is, "Is this equipment alright by me? if yes, go right ahead."
This is true, but the general fear is that the BTSs and BSCs may be coded with assumptions about the good intentions of the connecting User Equipment (UEs). Access to the data stream (which, as mentioned, jailbreaking doesn't grant) would allow directed attacks to target any exploits, not just DoS attacks. Some of these exploits are inherent to the GSM spec, but most would be the result of flawed BSC/BTS design. Obviously, this is not and should not be apple's responsibility, nor should the regular non-evil-cracker user deserve to suffer for it.
As long as you don't connect to AT&T or any other provider in any manner that violates TOS agreements, or FCC regulations. For the latter, it is not Apple's job to enforce this, it's the responsibility of the government, that's why Apple is talking to the government, not to you, the user. The hope is that the government will be wise enough to realize that Apple is full of beans in this argument.
As other comments point out, the lock is in place on the lower level, because the baseband operations are separate from what jailbreaking gives you. The problems are inherent to the GSM spec, and are maintained thanks to backwards compatibility requirements. Anyone with a transmitter of the appropriate frequency and a computer can cause the same havoc to a GSM provider. By Apple's argument, open source phones like openmoko should be outlawed. A cellular network could be set up with measure to enforce that only approved phones and applications may run, and that is the approach of CDMA (Verizon Wireless).
4 srsly. And what's the deal with Samus? Every friggin' time a new game starts, I gotta find that woman's ice beam again. Sheesh, just keep it on you girl!
Wow, I've been out of the loop, but have they made a decent Star Fox since the original? Man that was a great game. I've heard some of the most scathing reviews for some of the sequels.
Slashdot Mirror
To quote George Carlin, "...and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...asshole. So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now."
Business tends not to be so exciting or creative. It's not like this report was from the desk of Lord Ballmer or any such thing. It's just "quick, make up an excuse for bad business so we can get some of that there gubment money."
Damn. Amazon.com has prevented your quote from showing up on my screen.
Damn kids refusing to get off old man's lawn? Felony.
No model rockets? That's a travesty! No, I'm not being sarcastic, that's really lame.
Bad analogy. Building bombs is indeed illegal. So is possession of drug paraphernalia. Bongs may only be sold for purposes other than smoking marijuana; namely smoking tobacco.
Seriously. 4chan was a Garden of Eden before that Anonymous guy showed up.
I know of no "Zippy program"...I know of "M-x psychoanalyze-pinhead" wherein Zippy is the patient, not the psychologist, and I know it sounded nothing like your unfunny post.
I'm not going to respond to your prejudice against when I finally bothered to stop being an anonymous coward.
And I fully realize I'm being retarded in bothering to respond...Damnable trollbait.
Now that you mention it, that's the best description I've ever heard!
Not counting his friendly samurai sword, obviously.
Real programmers bother to follow links that form the entire point of a grandparent post so they know that "real programmers use ed" has already been covered.
Taking the time to write that out was the best usage of your time ever.
When you say "scary", do you mean scary as in "scary that people are still making the same unfunny Skynet comparison"? Jesus Christ, why don't they make a reference to being "The Weakest Link, Goodbye" while they're at it.
and a subscriber ID is...a "person's identity".
Yeah but no. Billing and GSM subscriber identification has NOTHING to do with the Exclusive chip ID. The chippy thing is something Apple came up with to send you software updates. AT&T identifies you by your IMSI; the same way as every other GSM carrier. It's an entirely separate concept, and uses symmetric encryption to validate, so if you cracked open the phone and changed it to claim you were your Buddy's IMSI, the tower says "prove it" with magic codes that you can't translate because you don't have your buddy's secret key.
Forgive me if that sounds condescending, I don't know your background in telecom & computer security, so I'm trying to simplify the explanation.
As I said, with prepaid accounts, you have a prepaid subscriber ID. It's wired into the fingernail sized doodad hiding behind your battery. That thing is called a SIM card. Every time you make a call, that id shows up. It might not be linked to your name and home address, but it isn't anonymous either, not in the sense that I or TFA invoke the term.
Further, if a carrier was so inclined, it could activate the E911 feature and get your longitude and latitude, although that actually would be something you could spoof with a completely open (as opposed to jailbroken) phone.
That's silly. If you were anonymous to the tower, then you couldn't be charged for your call if prepaid, or authorized for permission to use the service if postpaid. Even with a phonecard you aren't anonymous, since your call is traced to that card ID. If you wanna run some hippy free cellphone service, go right ahead, but companies need to make at least a little money in order to operate. Luckily apple is full of it, as I explain below
From their statement: "each iPhone contains a unique Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID) number that identifies the phone to the cell tower. With access to the BBP via jailbreaking, hackers may be able to change the ECID, which in turn can enable phone calls to be made anonymously (this would be desirable to drug dealers, for example) or charges for the calls to be avoided. If changing the ECID results in multiple phones having the same ECID being connected to a given tower simultaneously, the tower software might react in an unknown manner, including possibly kicking those phones off the network, making their users unable to make phone calls or send/receive data. By hacking the BBP software through a jailbroken phone"
I don't know who came up with this, but it is false on so many levels. The ECID is an Apple proprietary number that is used by Apple's servers to identify the phone and firmware. The tower couldn't care less about it. The tower uses the information on the SIM card that identifies a particular subscriber, and to a lesser extent, the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity). If you alter the SIM information, authentication will fail and you will be unable to make or recieve calls. If you alter the IMEI, you may be able to pretend you're using a different phone, but you'll still be identified as the same subscriber. This is not even the least bit of anonymity. If two subscribers claim to have the same IMEI, it shouldn't really confuse the system much, because it is only used by a module called the EIR (Equipment Identity Register) which is used to blacklist phones. The idea being if you tell the cell phone company that your phone was stolen, they can render it so the phone will never again work on their network, even if the thief puts in a new SIM card. So all the EIR should do is, "Is this equipment alright by me? if yes, go right ahead."
This is true, but the general fear is that the BTSs and BSCs may be coded with assumptions about the good intentions of the connecting User Equipment (UEs). Access to the data stream (which, as mentioned, jailbreaking doesn't grant) would allow directed attacks to target any exploits, not just DoS attacks. Some of these exploits are inherent to the GSM spec, but most would be the result of flawed BSC/BTS design. Obviously, this is not and should not be apple's responsibility, nor should the regular non-evil-cracker user deserve to suffer for it.
As long as you don't connect to AT&T or any other provider in any manner that violates TOS agreements, or FCC regulations. For the latter, it is not Apple's job to enforce this, it's the responsibility of the government, that's why Apple is talking to the government, not to you, the user. The hope is that the government will be wise enough to realize that Apple is full of beans in this argument.
As other comments point out, the lock is in place on the lower level, because the baseband operations are separate from what jailbreaking gives you. The problems are inherent to the GSM spec, and are maintained thanks to backwards compatibility requirements. Anyone with a transmitter of the appropriate frequency and a computer can cause the same havoc to a GSM provider. By Apple's argument, open source phones like openmoko should be outlawed. A cellular network could be set up with measure to enforce that only approved phones and applications may run, and that is the approach of CDMA (Verizon Wireless).
How do we know that you aren't the government, cleverly trying to get the masses to switch from their effective aluminum foil to worthless tin foil??
4 srsly. And what's the deal with Samus? Every friggin' time a new game starts, I gotta find that woman's ice beam again. Sheesh, just keep it on you girl!
Quiet you. We like clinging onto our nostalgic childhood heroes!
Wow, I've been out of the loop, but have they made a decent Star Fox since the original? Man that was a great game. I've heard some of the most scathing reviews for some of the sequels.