it refers to the hypocrite nature of Apple, a hardware company positioned as the single largest platform for distributing digital media, who locks down its devices so that only they may sell content for those devices, while promoting the image that they are empowering users with superior software and literally changing the world.
I'm guessing you mean hypocritical rather than hypocrite, but I'm not sure because I can't see a conflict between those two statements...
the single largest platform for distributing digital media, who locks down its devices so that only they may sell content for those devices.
- Well, not quite, you can load media from just about anywhere onto 'those devices' (assuming you mean ipods). They also have their own source (iTMS) that *does* only work with iPods, but hey - that's the same as all their competitors, and why shouldn't they offer that additional service ?
while promoting the image that they are empowering users with superior software and literally changing the world.
- The software that every Mac comes with does indeed genuinely add value to the average person's computing experience. The whole "changing the world" thing is more about letting people who *aren't* technical (and here I usually envisage my sister) getting more out of their computers, by employing good design, and paying attention to details that others overlook.
To give the traditional anecdotal "evidence", my sister flew into florida, found an open WiFi network at the airport, and video-conferenced me (using iChat) here in CA, all with the standard s/w that comes with the machine. Her boyfriend bought her a PC notebook for her birthday last year (in October). When I mentioned (close to Xmas) that that was a shame, because I had been going to buy her a Macbook, she said "oh, no, please get me the Macbook. One of my friends has one, and it's so much easier to use than mine". One Macbook (and somewhat annoyed boyfriend:-) later, and she's video-conferencing me...
We've even done a 3-way chat (her in Germany, my parents in the UK, and me in CA), which was pretty cool... so I dunno about changing the world in general - that's a nice goal. It certainly changed *her* world, and for the better.
So, even if both of your premises were true (the first isn't, as explained above), I can't see why Apple should be "hypocrite"; the two statements simply don't have any bearing on each other.
When it's due to memory corruption and when you can overwrite certain registers, it DOES mean that arbitrary code execution is possible. It may be pretty damn difficult to get just the right values in there, but this is one case where you can be 99.999% certain that it really is exploitable.
If you don't believe me, please give a non-contrived example where you can do something like overwrite the EIP with an arbitrary value and still not be able to execute arbitrary code:P
I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago - if he can do it, he ought to do it. Until he does it, I don't believe he can do it.
So, here's your example: the exact "exploit" he's claiming to be able to perform.
Lastly, the "extraordinary" in "extraordinary evidence" is a purely subjective matter
No, it's not. Which is why I used "in the technical sense" in the original comment. "Extraordinary" means "out-of-the-ordinary" - the claim is not run-of-the-mill, it's the first remote exploit of an Apple laptop. The proof should also be bulletproof (actually, right now I'd settle for just proof, not incontrovertible evidence!) At the moment, all we have is a load of hot air and bluster.
1) he finds a bug, but he can't quite manage to exploit it. He can crash the machine (and that's a bad thing) but it doesn't *necessarily* mean he can exploit it.
2) There's a big conference coming up, and he knows he'll get the headlines if he announces anything bad about Apple. That's just the way of the world. Dammit, he *still* can't find the exploit.
3) The deadline arrives, he can't exploit the machine, but he goes ahead and gives the demo (faking the evidence with a different machine), confident that he'll get there eventually.
4) He hides behind "legal issues" (even now, he won't reveal emails) to prevent himself from being exposed as the liar he appears to be.
This series of events is just about the worst thing a researcher can do. It's like an athlete taking steroids - there will be no forgiveness, no olive-branch will be offered; his reputation is irredeemably tarnished, because he lied for personal gain. We *need* to be able to trust people publishing exploits, and if this means his career is in ruins, I say "Hurrah!" The less people like this around in the business, the better.
I just want to also point out that I don't recall any lawyers being involved at any time in this dispute - neither party claimed lawyers were involved (he said Apple "leaned on" his employers, whatever that means, but lawyers were never mentioned.)
Apple claim he released insufficient technical details to them to help them in their investigation, so they had to go to the trouble of doing a full internal audit of a large source tree (and all the time, he's spreading disinformation and tarnishing their name). They find and fix some bugs, and now he's in an even worse position - his crash "exploit" won't work.
So, now, he releases the "details" - he's given up trying to exploit the original OS, and brushes that small point aside in the "details". He tries to save as much face as possible instead of admitting he was just plain wrong - he's basically covering his ass. Does anyone else think "details" ought to actually show the information he claimed to have (like being able to take control of a Mac in 60 seconds) ?
He failed, on both of these, as far as the world can tell.
(*) "Extraordinary" here means in the technical sense - the first exploit of any kind requires unequivocal proof. I don't care if it's OSX, Windows XP, or Linux - show the data. Prove the case. Don't wave your hands around and babble.
These are some of the greatest questions ever asked - Are we alone ? Is there anyone/anything like us in the rest of the universe ? Would it be possible to communicate with an entirely alien species ?
Quite apart from the Wow! signal (so I guess they found something after all), there's a world of difference between the Seti@home distributed computer program, and the SETI institute - a collection of individuals who have SETI-capable telescopes . The SETI institute is not at all connected with SETI@home, and it is they who are 'seti', or at least they have the greatest claim, having been 'SETI' for years previously...
It's not actually hard to make a radio telescope - get a big dish, an LNA (low-noise amplifier for the signal), a microwave receiver, and a PC (windows or linux). Oh, and lots of space for that dish:-) Total cost is ~$2000 if you buy everything. Ebay is your friend regarding getting stuff cheap, though:-) It cost me significantly less than that... So, get searchin!
Making an unlocked phone doesn't mean being forced to limit yourself to the documented features of GSM. You can implement whatever the hell you want, and let the carriers decide what they're going to implement.
The general way of making a deal with another partner is "you do this for me, and I'll do that for you". Apple got a percentage of the monthly profits, complete say over the look-and-feel of the phone, goodies like the 'visual voicemail' you deride, the most-widespread cellular operator, and for that, they had to tie the phone to the network and give 5 years exclusivity for that model.
I also think you're missing the point of the visual voicemail - you can't just implement it on the *phone*... you need carrier-support to do this, or you'd have to download every message and store locally - yuk.
And the idea of "configuring a hack" isn't something that sits well with Apple DNA - the phone will "just work". That's pretty much one of the selling points for the vast majority of people who don't know how to apply a "hack" to a phone, and don't want to know, for that matter.
In any event, from your comments, it looks as though an iPhone isn't for you. So don't buy one - I just don't get why you're so upset over it. You're obviously not the target market... I do wonder if every time an advert comes on TV for something you don't want, you go on such an invective-fuelled rant though. Must be fun around your house!
If you accept what Steve was saying was true, about how the risk/reward simply wasn't worth it for Apple, it's clear that both parties were simply explaining their respective positions without giving ground. There is no need for your "saw through it" bias.
What Norway was saying is "it is illegal for you to do business in the way you are" Jobs replies "this is the only way that makes sense for us" Norway replies "it's still illegal, you're going to have to fix it or withdraw" [expectation: Jobs replies "Ok then, we'll stop doing business in Norway"]... and Jobs gets to blame it on the various label companies - it was a pre-emptive strike at managing the fallout when Apple stop selling iTunes in Norway. He added a sufficient number of things to make the "story of the day" not be this, of course. Now it's firmly in the subconscious that DRM is not Apple's fault, I expect the next salvo to be "and we made it as easy on the customer as the labels would let us" - that is, if the labels have the stomach for the upcoming fight.
Jobs' vision is of making consumers products (and computers, for that matter) that people lust after, while making money of course. He's not interested in getting in their way - a few years ago, I think the iTunes DRM effectively helped Apple, but now I genuinely think the market is theirs to lose, and they have a track-record of making very *very* attractive and successful products in the music market.
I don't think he cares about DRM any more, in fact I think he'd swap the DRM for the risk of running iTunes as it is right now (with the sword of Damocles over his head if FairPlay is ever seriously broken). And I think he'll be more than happy to give up the tiny percentage of iTunes sales that Norway represents in order to remove that risk - "goodbye Norway, thanks for playing, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out"
The data I had for hostip.info was 1-pixel-per-kilometre. This new data is twice that resolution, and if I combine this new data with the soon-to-be-open-source 3d engine in Flash, I think it'd be really cool. Geolocate yourself or anyone else by their IP, then zoom around that location in 3d:-)
Sounds like a fun thing to put together - maybe this weekend for the 2D stuff, and as soon as the 3D engine is open-source, I'll include that:-)
As always with this sort of thing, it's getting hold of the data that's the hard part - kudos to those giving it away free to research, education, and me:-)
The symlink is now screwed. An alias set up to point at/tmp/already.exists would work just fine and peachy when the file was renamed (or moved elsewhere on the disk) as above.
In the event of a massive cyberattack against the country that was perceived as originating from a foreign source, the United States would consider launching a counterattack or bombing the source of the cyberattack, Hall said. But he noted the preferred route would be warning the source to shut down the attack before a military response
There's a lot wrong with this. Off the top of my head...
Any sustained attack on network infrastructure, on the scale that they're talking about, is almost certainly going to be a distributed attack. Botnets have no patriotic allegiance, their locality is a function of machine vulnerability (eg: N. Korea's dependence on Active-X), not politics.
If I'm crafting an attack, I don't have to even tell the truth about my IP address, TCP allows the sender to specify a (fake) IP address. Obviously I won't get any replies, but I don't care if I'm simply out to cause damage
Geolocation of IP addresses is pretty much a black art as well - there's far too much variability by IP address to try and localise to the precision needed for bombing the source. My hostip.infowebsite only attempted to locate to the/24 netblock, and even then only managed ~50% accuracy.
Not to mention that it's a pretty big precedent to set... At least they're talking about talking, before bombing; the problem is that if you make a threat to bomb someone, you have to be prepared to carry it out. Countries can't afford to be seen to be bluffing when it comes to things like this, the impact on future negotiations is too high.
At least, as far as I'm aware it is. They may have added stuff to the SMB protocol to make it "CIFS", but I thought it was purely a marketing exercise, designed to allow MS to licence it to others.
It wouldn't surprise me to find that Apple had paid a licence fee to MS...
Yes, I know, software patents are the spawn of Satan, no-one (not even me, actually:-) likes them. The point is, though, that software patents are currently completely legal, and any owner of such is going to exploit that. Why would anyone expect anything different ?
I'm nowhere near a fanboy for Microsoft (quite the opposite, if you read my posting history), but in this case, I can't see they've done anything *wrong*. You can argue that software patents are bad - yes, agreed. You can argue that these particular patents are flawed, perhaps they are. You can argue that it's just not moral to profit from the work of others, and yes I agree with that too.
But, sadly, what they're doing appears to be legal, so perhaps the ire ought to be directed at what makes it legal, rather than shooting the messenger (dammit:-).
The last java applet I wrote geolocated you on the globe (by your IP address), and did an 'enemy-of-the-state' style zoom-in to your city. In retrospect, I wish I'd written it in flash - it's just annoying to see a grey box for a few seconds while the applet VM initialises itself. At least in Flash, you can put a "loading..." animation up quickly.
If you want to know more about the geolocation thang - details at my blog [no adverts:-]
Apple had to sign over the right for the record-labels to pull their entire catalogue from the iTunes store, if a breach happens and Apple don't fix it in a timely manner.
Jobs doesn't care about DRM, but (because he's sane) he doesn't want to lose the iTunes store either - here's his nightmare scenario:
Apple licence fairplay to all who'll pay the fee
Some no-mark MP3-player company pays the fee, gains the licence, but screws up and somehow the encryption codes are made public - a bit like the first crack of DVD's was because some no-mark company screwed up their encryption key
Apple release a fix
No-mark company doesn't release the fix for *their* client-base, maybe there's no firmware update...
Apple lose all their iTunes songs from the "big 4".
Now Apple can try and pin liability on No-mark company, but at the end of the day, the iTunes store contract is between Apple and [insert record label], and if fairplay is compromised, [record-label] are fully entitled to pull their catalogue...
I'm not suggesting this is official Apple policy, but just because something has been cracked more times than any other doesn't actually imply much. If Apple deliberately set the bar low, then they fulfill their obligation and allow the counter-culture to flourish as much as the "official" party line. Hmmm, who would that benefit ?
I know some very smart engineers at Microsoft, and I know some very smart engineers at Apple. Devising a hard-to-break DRM system wouldn't be beyond any of them, and iTunes really doesn't go to too much effort. I'll let you draw your own conclusions:-)
Sadly, from the article, it looks as though this will not set a precedent that will discourage the RIAA from doing this sort of thing - the judge indicated that the fact the RIAA kept her on as a co-defendent (after they went after her daughter instead) was important in the decision to award costs to Debbie. The strong-arm tactics backfired badly for this particular case - good for her, but not something to discourage the RIAA in general, they'll just have to be a bit less aggressive to defendants.
However...
The bit that caught my eye, though, was the quote
Judge Lee could find no case "holding the mere owner of an Internet account contributorily or vicariously liable for the infringing activities of third persons."
Me like. If that can be said to be a precedent, it means anyone with an unsecured WiFi network has a strong argument for not being held liable for anything done on that network - it's open, after all. Anyone could drive by, park, download [insert bad stuff here], and drive off. Unless the prosecution has video surveillance of your house/apartment, it'll be very hard to *prove* who did what.
It seems the best protection may be none at all. How very Zen.
1) "You don't have to install FF to find out, just read the linked article (I know, I know, I'm obviously new)."
I did read the article, I picked up on:
Google Inc. (GOOG ) is finally about to take a big leap onto Microsoft's turf. Since last August, the search leader has offered a test version of an online office productivity software suite, called Google Apps for Your Domain,...
... and sort of expected "office productivity suite" to include word-processing and spreadsheets, since they do *have* those. But you're right in as much as they don't do these *yet*... farther on in the paragraph there is:
Soon, it's expected to add word-processing and spreadsheet services to the suite, which includes an online calendar, chat service, and Web page builder
2) "Install Firefox. It works with more websites than Safari"
I just don't like Firefox - I've never had a great experience with it, and I have no need of google apps, so I'm happy as I am, thanks.
I thought the apps included the 'docs and spreadsheets' module ? It'd be a bit weird to omit them... of course it doesn't run on Safari just yet, and I can't be bothered to install Firefox just to find out...
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing you mean hypocritical rather than hypocrite, but I'm not sure because I can't see a conflict between those two statements...
the single largest platform for distributing digital media, who locks down its devices so that only they may sell content for those devices.
- Well, not quite, you can load media from just about anywhere onto 'those devices' (assuming you mean ipods). They also have their own source (iTMS) that *does* only work with iPods, but hey - that's the same as all their competitors, and why shouldn't they offer that additional service ?
while promoting the image that they are empowering users with superior software and literally changing the world.
- The software that every Mac comes with does indeed genuinely add value to the average person's computing experience. The whole "changing the world" thing is more about letting people who *aren't* technical (and here I usually envisage my sister) getting more out of their computers, by employing good design, and paying attention to details that others overlook.
To give the traditional anecdotal "evidence", my sister flew into florida, found an open WiFi network at the airport, and video-conferenced me (using iChat) here in CA, all with the standard s/w that comes with the machine. Her boyfriend bought her a PC notebook for her birthday last year (in October). When I mentioned (close to Xmas) that that was a shame, because I had been going to buy her a Macbook, she said "oh, no, please get me the Macbook. One of my friends has one, and it's so much easier to use than mine". One Macbook (and somewhat annoyed boyfriend
We've even done a 3-way chat (her in Germany, my parents in the UK, and me in CA), which was pretty cool... so I dunno about changing the world in general - that's a nice goal. It certainly changed *her* world, and for the better.
So, even if both of your premises were true (the first isn't, as explained above), I can't see why Apple should be "hypocrite"; the two statements simply don't have any bearing on each other.
Simon.
I'm assuming he means darwinports (now renamed to be macports
... and it does the bsd "ports" thing, downloads the source, patches it, compiles it, and installs it. Very useful.
The thing where you do:
sudo port install gimp
Simon
I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago - if he can do it, he ought to do it. Until he does it, I don't believe he can do it.
So, here's your example: the exact "exploit" he's claiming to be able to perform.
No, it's not. Which is why I used "in the technical sense" in the original comment. "Extraordinary" means "out-of-the-ordinary" - the claim is not run-of-the-mill, it's the first remote exploit of an Apple laptop. The proof should also be bulletproof (actually, right now I'd settle for just proof, not incontrovertible evidence!) At the moment, all we have is a load of hot air and bluster.
Simon.
So, let me get this straight
1) he finds a bug, but he can't quite manage to exploit it. He can crash the machine (and that's a bad thing) but it doesn't *necessarily* mean he can exploit it.
2) There's a big conference coming up, and he knows he'll get the headlines if he announces anything bad about Apple. That's just the way of the world. Dammit, he *still* can't find the exploit.
3) The deadline arrives, he can't exploit the machine, but he goes ahead and gives the demo (faking the evidence with a different machine), confident that he'll get there eventually.
4) He hides behind "legal issues" (even now, he won't reveal emails) to prevent himself from being exposed as the liar he appears to be.
This series of events is just about the worst thing a researcher can do. It's like an athlete taking steroids - there will be no forgiveness, no olive-branch will be offered; his reputation is irredeemably tarnished, because he lied for personal gain. We *need* to be able to trust people publishing exploits, and if this means his career is in ruins, I say "Hurrah!" The less people like this around in the business, the better.
I just want to also point out that I don't recall any lawyers being involved at any time in this dispute - neither party claimed lawyers were involved (he said Apple "leaned on" his employers, whatever that means, but lawyers were never mentioned.)
Apple claim he released insufficient technical details to them to help them in their investigation, so they had to go to the trouble of doing a full internal audit of a large source tree (and all the time, he's spreading disinformation and tarnishing their name). They find and fix some bugs, and now he's in an even worse position - his crash "exploit" won't work.
So, now, he releases the "details" - he's given up trying to exploit the original OS, and brushes that small point aside in the "details". He tries to save as much face as possible instead of admitting he was just plain wrong - he's basically covering his ass. Does anyone else think "details" ought to actually show the information he claimed to have (like being able to take control of a Mac in 60 seconds) ?
In science, there are two fundamental maxims
1) Don't falsify the data.
2) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (*)
He failed, on both of these, as far as the world can tell.
(*) "Extraordinary" here means in the technical sense - the first exploit of any kind requires unequivocal proof. I don't care if it's OSX, Windows XP, or Linux - show the data. Prove the case. Don't wave your hands around and babble.
Simon.
These are some of the greatest questions ever asked - Are we alone ? Is there anyone/anything like us in the rest of the universe ? Would it be possible to communicate with an entirely alien species ?
:-) Total cost is ~$2000 if you buy everything. Ebay is your friend regarding getting stuff cheap, though :-) It cost me significantly less than that... So, get searchin!
Quite apart from the Wow! signal (so I guess they found something after all), there's a world of difference between the Seti@home distributed computer program, and the SETI institute - a collection of individuals who have SETI-capable telescopes . The SETI institute is not at all connected with SETI@home, and it is they who are 'seti', or at least they have the greatest claim, having been 'SETI' for years previously...
It's not actually hard to make a radio telescope - get a big dish, an LNA (low-noise amplifier for the signal), a microwave receiver, and a PC (windows or linux). Oh, and lots of space for that dish
Simon.
Making an unlocked phone doesn't mean being forced to limit yourself to the documented features of GSM. You can implement whatever the hell you want, and let the carriers decide what they're going to implement.
The general way of making a deal with another partner is "you do this for me, and I'll do that for you". Apple got a percentage of the monthly profits, complete say over the look-and-feel of the phone, goodies like the 'visual voicemail' you deride, the most-widespread cellular operator, and for that, they had to tie the phone to the network and give 5 years exclusivity for that model.
I also think you're missing the point of the visual voicemail - you can't just implement it on the *phone*... you need carrier-support to do this, or you'd have to download every message and store locally - yuk.
And the idea of "configuring a hack" isn't something that sits well with Apple DNA - the phone will "just work". That's pretty much one of the selling points for the vast majority of people who don't know how to apply a "hack" to a phone, and don't want to know, for that matter.
In any event, from your comments, it looks as though an iPhone isn't for you. So don't buy one - I just don't get why you're so upset over it. You're obviously not the target market... I do wonder if every time an advert comes on TV for something you don't want, you go on such an invective-fuelled rant though. Must be fun around your house!
Simon.
If you accept what Steve was saying was true, about how the risk/reward simply wasn't worth it for Apple, it's clear that both parties were simply explaining their respective positions without giving ground. There is no need for your "saw through it" bias.
... and Jobs gets to blame it on the various label companies - it was a pre-emptive strike at managing the fallout when Apple stop selling iTunes in Norway. He added a sufficient number of things to make the "story of the day" not be this, of course. Now it's firmly in the subconscious that DRM is not Apple's fault, I expect the next salvo to be "and we made it as easy on the customer as the labels would let us" - that is, if the labels have the stomach for the upcoming fight.
What Norway was saying is "it is illegal for you to do business in the way you are"
Jobs replies "this is the only way that makes sense for us"
Norway replies "it's still illegal, you're going to have to fix it or withdraw"
[expectation: Jobs replies "Ok then, we'll stop doing business in Norway"]
Jobs' vision is of making consumers products (and computers, for that matter) that people lust after, while making money of course. He's not interested in getting in their way - a few years ago, I think the iTunes DRM effectively helped Apple, but now I genuinely think the market is theirs to lose, and they have a track-record of making very *very* attractive and successful products in the music market.
I don't think he cares about DRM any more, in fact I think he'd swap the DRM for the risk of running iTunes as it is right now (with the sword of Damocles over his head if FairPlay is ever seriously broken). And I think he'll be more than happy to give up the tiny percentage of iTunes sales that Norway represents in order to remove that risk - "goodbye Norway, thanks for playing, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out"
Simon.
Interesting, on my Mac Pro (X1900 card), they're fluid and really responsive.
Simon.
Because initialising the java VM takes (relatively) forever, and is ugly; because then I can integrate with a very capable 3D engine written in Flash.
Simon
The data I had for hostip.info was 1-pixel-per-kilometre. This new data is twice that resolution, and if I combine this new data with the soon-to-be-open-source 3d engine in Flash, I think it'd be really cool. Geolocate yourself or anyone else by their IP, then zoom around that location in 3d
Sounds like a fun thing to put together - maybe this weekend for the 2D stuff, and as soon as the 3D engine is open-source, I'll include that
As always with this sort of thing, it's getting hold of the data that's the hard part - kudos to those giving it away free to research, education, and me
Simon
hard links don't work with directory targets, as I mentioned above.
Simon.
Yes, I'm familiar with hard links. They don't work when linking to a directory.
Simon
Vista - so like a Mac that you can't even play games on it :-)
:-]
[And yes, this is a dig at *both* sides, so let's see how that goes down
Simon
... which is why it's nice to have both...
Simon
example:
/tmp/already.exists /path/to/symlink /tmp/already.exists /tmp/this.is.a.new.name
/tmp/already.exists would work just fine and peachy when the file was renamed (or moved elsewhere on the disk) as above.
prompt% ln -s
prompt% mv
The symlink is now screwed. An alias set up to point at
Simon.
Whoops - indeed you are correct.
Simon.
There's a lot wrong with this. Off the top of my head...
Any sustained attack on network infrastructure, on the scale that they're talking about, is almost certainly going to be a distributed attack. Botnets have no patriotic allegiance, their locality is a function of machine vulnerability (eg: N. Korea's dependence on Active-X), not politics.
If I'm crafting an attack, I don't have to even tell the truth about my IP address, TCP allows the sender to specify a (fake) IP address. Obviously I won't get any replies, but I don't care if I'm simply out to cause damage
Geolocation of IP addresses is pretty much a black art as well - there's far too much variability by IP address to try and localise to the precision needed for bombing the source. My hostip.infowebsite only attempted to locate to the
Not to mention that it's a pretty big precedent to set... At least they're talking about talking, before bombing; the problem is that if you make a threat to bomb someone, you have to be prepared to carry it out. Countries can't afford to be seen to be bluffing when it comes to things like this, the impact on future negotiations is too high.
Simon.
At least, as far as I'm aware it is. They may have added stuff to the SMB protocol to make it "CIFS", but I thought it was purely a marketing exercise, designed to allow MS to licence it to others.
It wouldn't surprise me to find that Apple had paid a licence fee to MS...
Simon
Yes, I know, software patents are the spawn of Satan, no-one (not even me, actually
I'm nowhere near a fanboy for Microsoft (quite the opposite, if you read my posting history), but in this case, I can't see they've done anything *wrong*. You can argue that software patents are bad - yes, agreed. You can argue that these particular patents are flawed, perhaps they are. You can argue that it's just not moral to profit from the work of others, and yes I agree with that too.
But, sadly, what they're doing appears to be legal, so perhaps the ire ought to be directed at what makes it legal, rather than shooting the messenger (dammit
Simon (ducking)
The last java applet I wrote geolocated you on the globe (by your IP address), and did an 'enemy-of-the-state' style zoom-in to your city. In retrospect, I wish I'd written it in flash - it's just annoying to see a grey box for a few seconds while the applet VM initialises itself. At least in Flash, you can put a "loading..." animation up quickly.
:-]
If you want to know more about the geolocation thang - details at my blog [no adverts
Simon.
Apple had to sign over the right for the record-labels to pull their entire catalogue from the iTunes store, if a breach happens and Apple don't fix it in a timely manner.
Jobs doesn't care about DRM, but (because he's sane) he doesn't want to lose the iTunes store either - here's his nightmare scenario:
Now Apple can try and pin liability on No-mark company, but at the end of the day, the iTunes store contract is between Apple and [insert record label], and if fairplay is compromised, [record-label] are fully entitled to pull their catalogue...
See it now ?
Simon
I'm not suggesting this is official Apple policy, but just because something has been cracked more times than any other doesn't actually imply much. If Apple deliberately set the bar low, then they fulfill their obligation and allow the counter-culture to flourish as much as the "official" party line. Hmmm, who would that benefit ?
:-)
I know some very smart engineers at Microsoft, and I know some very smart engineers at Apple. Devising a hard-to-break DRM system wouldn't be beyond any of them, and iTunes really doesn't go to too much effort. I'll let you draw your own conclusions
Simon.
However...
The bit that caught my eye, though, was the quote
Me like. If that can be said to be a precedent, it means anyone with an unsecured WiFi network has a strong argument for not being held liable for anything done on that network - it's open, after all. Anyone could drive by, park, download [insert bad stuff here], and drive off. Unless the prosecution has video surveillance of your house/apartment, it'll be very hard to *prove* who did what.
It seems the best protection may be none at all. How very Zen.
Simon
I did read the article, I picked up on: ... and sort of expected "office productivity suite" to include word-processing and spreadsheets, since they do *have* those. But you're right in as much as they don't do these *yet*
2) "Install Firefox. It works with more websites than Safari"
I just don't like Firefox - I've never had a great experience with it, and I have no need of google apps, so I'm happy as I am, thanks.
Simon
I thought the apps included the 'docs and spreadsheets' module ? It'd be a bit weird to omit them ... of course it doesn't run on Safari just yet, and I can't be bothered to install Firefox just to find out...
Simon