According to TFA, his leaving the iPhone has nothing to do with Three20.
Personally, I understand completely why developers are leaving. Apple is aggressively anti-developer with the iPhone. I was initially very excited by the platform, registered as a developer and started planning projects. After looking at the process, I began to get nervous. After watching how Apple runs things, my fears proved founded.
There is no possible way that I'd waste my time continuing to use the iPhone, let alone developing for the platform.
I answered this for the first person who brought it up, but there's been three more people asking this same thing since then, so I'll re-answer: Keep a backup list with your other valuable papers. I use a private safe, but a safe deposit box works just as well.
100% security is impossible. Any data you transmit or store on a physical device can be recovered, regardless of encryption. All you can do is make it more costly to recover that data -- the best security makes it more expensive than it is worth.
Given that's true, then all security is a tradeoff. Storing passwords on a piece of paper in your wallet is actually very secure for the majority of people, more secure than you can really hope for without going to extreme lengths.
If you have communications or data that are so sensitive that you really have to go to extreme lengths to protect it, then you need the help of a security professional, not encryption and advice on password management.
So, make your passwords random, different for each thing that requires a password, and write it down on a cheat sheet. Guard that sheet like you would your credit cards. If your wallet is lost, immediately set all your passwords to something temporary then build a new password list all over again.
From reading all the FireEye blog posts on the operation, I can't find any point where they broke the law or even behaved in a way that violated anybody's rights.
What they did was to coordinate things so that ISPs and domain registrars followed existing procedures to shut down sites and revoke domain names. They also found some domain names that were programmed to be used as fallbacks but had not yet been registered, then registered those.
It looks like at no time did they actually hack anybody or penetrate computers, either innocent bystanders or guilty people, nor did they use the botnet themselves, so there's no legal or ethical problem here -- assuming their reports are complete and correct, obviously.
Counterfeit is attempting to deceive the recipient into believing that a good is legitimately sourced, even if the good itself is a perfect reproduction.
Hmm, I think that your distinction is not too bad, but then the argument for counterfeiting being a national security issue becomes unsustainable. And, again, why wouldn't this simply be considered a trademark violation in addition to copyright?
The whole purpose of trademarks is, after all, to render this type of nefarious behavior (passing off a product as if it were made by the legitimate manufacturer) illegal.
It seems to me that the term "counterfeit" is being abuse a bit. To my mind, and obviously IANAL, "counterfeit" is falsified monetary instruments of some sort (money, checks, etc.). Trademark doesn't cover that type of thing. Falsified commercial products are trademark violations, probably in combination with copyright and possibly patent violations.
Actually, yes, I agree -- and in fact much good journalism can be had in many places outside of the U.S. But I was speaking about the U.S. media. I apologize for my USian blinders.
1. It is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The word "counterfeiting" in there seems like an important data point.
No it doesn't. If we've learned anything over the past few decades it's that the name of an agreement or bill rarely bears much relationship to the content, except insofar as it obfuscates its purpose.
2. It has been quashed by citing national security. National security has certainly become an extraordinarily loose standard, but it still means something.
It still means something? Really? What? I ask in all seriousness, because recent history, particularly post 9/11 history, has taught me that "national security" has lost all useful meaning whatsoever.
It is on this basis that investigation and punishment of counterfeit products is a more serious issue than of copyright infringement alone.
I have a hard time seeing how "counterfeit" is meaningfully different than "illegal copy" when it comes to digital goods, unless the "counterfeit" is in fact not a copy of the original at all but is something different being passed off as the original. In which case, it's a trademark, not copyright issue.
But I like your analysis. It really did enlighten me as to the twisted logic that could be used to subvert our government and society like this. Thank you. (That's not sarcasm, just in case there's doubt.)
The difference between a blog and a news site is that I expect (to some degree) a news site to be credible, I want reporters to do their fact checking, relevant research, etc etc when they pick up a story.
When you find a site (or any outlet, online or otherwise) that does any of that, please let me know. Because I'm dying for such a thing and can't find it anywhere.
It was MS-DOS that killed CP/M. Until then, CP/M was by far the most dominant OS for microcomputers. Digital Research blew their shot at the IBM deal, and IBM went with MS-DOS. It could have easily gone the other way.
By the way, MS-DOS is only half based on CP/M. It's also half based on Unix. It also sucked, as you say, as on OS from the very start, since it took the worst aspects of both of those OSes. But that's not relevant to this discussion, really.
I have as big a beef with Microsoft and the impact their software had on the direction of the industry as you. But, to my mind anyway, an outfit isn't a dinosaur until they are no longer relevant to where the industry is going. And whatever faults Microsoft had, nobody can say they were irrelevant to the industry. They still aren't, or we wouldn't be talking about them.
They are, however, well into the process of becoming a dinosaur, and it's about time.
MS-DOS came out in 1981. (Windows 1.0 was 1985.) Yes, they stole DOS but it was the thing that made them as a company. So Microsoft has been a dinosaur from the very start?
Nope. Absolutely not critical to the functioning of the internet at large. It's not even critical to the functioning of the web (which is a subset of the internet, remember) -- I block all flash (and ActiveX, which you mention later) objects by default when I surf and only rarely allow them to run, and yet the web works great for me.
Ajax is DOM based, lots of sites use Ajax.
And lots of (most) sites don't, so absolutely not critical. Also, web-oriented, not broad internet.
Because the in-house techies are the canaries in the coal mine. Sure, Microsoft's income has tripled right now, but Microsoft is also in danger of becoming irrelevant to the larger world of industry innovation (i.e., losing it's cool). This translates into lower-than-otherwise income in the future.
Ever since the '80s, I've been predicting that Microsoft will follow the same path as it's then-archrival, IBM. You become what you hate and all that. So far, my prediction is holding true. Microsoft will become irrelevant in the same sense that IBM has: it will remain very profitable and be an industry leader in a certain niche, but will no longer dominate the market like it has and the industry would not be harmed if it were to vanish.
Well, you're correct that ultimately the answer is "no reason," or as I like to think of it, the ultimate meaning of anything is whatever meaning we give to it, since the notion of "meaning" is an emotional, human one.
Still, it's an important question to address simply because so many people need an answer and expect to find it outside of themselves. It's irrational, but it's a mistake to pretend it's unimportant.
However, none of it has anything to do with science.
I don't think that people need to be lied to. I think that people can be brought around to see what this need for belief is all about, and can make up their own narratives if they still need one so much.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that it seems we are on the same page.
I'm well-versed in the history, thank you very much. I was talking about how most people today embrace their religious beliefs, not the history of religious belief.
Excluding fundamentalists, literalists, and other assorted extremists, most religious people today embrace religion as a framework for making emotional sense of their world. In other words, for them, religion is a way they can answer "why?"
Science doesn't address "why?" as that is a philosophical question whose answer is compeletly subjective. Science addresses the "how?" and "what?" questions.
In other words, religion isn't trying to ascertain truth in the sense that science is. Religion is trying to use myth to provide an emotional and psychological framework that many people seem to need.
because science (i.e. by the 'academics') typically results in 80% wrong facts, and 20% absolute fact. Academics can't accept this, cause science is supposed to always produce 100% fact
Hmmm, you must not know many scientists, academic or otherwise, because this in no way reflects their perspective.
Scientists (and science) thrive on and seek out "error," because all the interesting things (to them) are the things we don't know or are wrong about.
If there's any sort of perpetual religion/science conflict (and I kindof doubt it, based on the number of religious scientists I've known) then it is because science likes to find error (it is self-correcting and evidence-based) and religion does not (it is unchanging and faith-based.)
But science and religion address different questions anyway, so it's all a bit apples-and-oranges.
The second issue is that newspapers once stood for something. They were either avowedly and unabashedly partisan in their outlook, or they proclaimed journalistic objectivity.
And whichever kind they were, they strove to be at least somewhat accurate rather than just a PR outlet.
This is the newsbiz's real failing: they have become entirely unreliable. You can no longer read a newspaper and have any confidence that you're getting even an approximation of the facts. Newspapers used to do journalism, or at the least give it the old college try.
This means that newspapers (and TV & radio news) have no real innate value. It's hard to retain readers when you aren't offering them anything worthwhile.
The government wields an enormous amount of power over us, and as such should expect a greater amount of scrutiny (as in less privacy) than us. This isn't hypocritical because the same rule applies to everyone. If you are given power over others, you sacrifice privacy through security screenings, etc.
Also, the government is an artificial organization that we, the people, make up. It has no inherent, natural, moral, or ethical rights -- only those that we collectively grant it.
We, as people, are a different animal altogether. We do have inherent, natural rights simply by virtue of our existence.
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This is my current plan. Unless Nokia biffs it completely, the N900 looks to be Truly Great.
According to TFA, his leaving the iPhone has nothing to do with Three20.
Personally, I understand completely why developers are leaving. Apple is aggressively anti-developer with the iPhone. I was initially very excited by the platform, registered as a developer and started planning projects. After looking at the process, I began to get nervous. After watching how Apple runs things, my fears proved founded.
There is no possible way that I'd waste my time continuing to use the iPhone, let alone developing for the platform.
Don't you mean 'hedge-you'r-bet's"?
Then I revert to my backup backup, which I keep on a post-it note stuck to my work computer.
I answered this for the first person who brought it up, but there's been three more people asking this same thing since then, so I'll re-answer: Keep a backup list with your other valuable papers. I use a private safe, but a safe deposit box works just as well.
I keep a backup list in a personal safe at home.
I agree.
100% security is impossible. Any data you transmit or store on a physical device can be recovered, regardless of encryption. All you can do is make it more costly to recover that data -- the best security makes it more expensive than it is worth.
Given that's true, then all security is a tradeoff. Storing passwords on a piece of paper in your wallet is actually very secure for the majority of people, more secure than you can really hope for without going to extreme lengths.
If you have communications or data that are so sensitive that you really have to go to extreme lengths to protect it, then you need the help of a security professional, not encryption and advice on password management.
So, make your passwords random, different for each thing that requires a password, and write it down on a cheat sheet. Guard that sheet like you would your credit cards. If your wallet is lost, immediately set all your passwords to something temporary then build a new password list all over again.
From reading all the FireEye blog posts on the operation, I can't find any point where they broke the law or even behaved in a way that violated anybody's rights.
What they did was to coordinate things so that ISPs and domain registrars followed existing procedures to shut down sites and revoke domain names. They also found some domain names that were programmed to be used as fallbacks but had not yet been registered, then registered those.
It looks like at no time did they actually hack anybody or penetrate computers, either innocent bystanders or guilty people, nor did they use the botnet themselves, so there's no legal or ethical problem here -- assuming their reports are complete and correct, obviously.
By the purest coincidence, TechDirt is reporting that Canada copyrghts their money: http://techdirt.com/articles/20091102/0418556762.shtml
Clearly, this whole subject is very, very muddled!
Counterfeit is attempting to deceive the recipient into believing that a good is legitimately sourced, even if the good itself is a perfect reproduction.
Hmm, I think that your distinction is not too bad, but then the argument for counterfeiting being a national security issue becomes unsustainable. And, again, why wouldn't this simply be considered a trademark violation in addition to copyright?
The whole purpose of trademarks is, after all, to render this type of nefarious behavior (passing off a product as if it were made by the legitimate manufacturer) illegal.
It seems to me that the term "counterfeit" is being abuse a bit. To my mind, and obviously IANAL, "counterfeit" is falsified monetary instruments of some sort (money, checks, etc.). Trademark doesn't cover that type of thing. Falsified commercial products are trademark violations, probably in combination with copyright and possibly patent violations.
Actually, yes, I agree -- and in fact much good journalism can be had in many places outside of the U.S. But I was speaking about the U.S. media. I apologize for my USian blinders.
1. It is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The word "counterfeiting" in there seems like an important data point.
No it doesn't. If we've learned anything over the past few decades it's that the name of an agreement or bill rarely bears much relationship to the content, except insofar as it obfuscates its purpose.
2. It has been quashed by citing national security. National security has certainly become an extraordinarily loose standard, but it still means something.
It still means something? Really? What? I ask in all seriousness, because recent history, particularly post 9/11 history, has taught me that "national security" has lost all useful meaning whatsoever.
It is on this basis that investigation and punishment of counterfeit products is a more serious issue than of copyright infringement alone.
I have a hard time seeing how "counterfeit" is meaningfully different than "illegal copy" when it comes to digital goods, unless the "counterfeit" is in fact not a copy of the original at all but is something different being passed off as the original. In which case, it's a trademark, not copyright issue.
But I like your analysis. It really did enlighten me as to the twisted logic that could be used to subvert our government and society like this. Thank you. (That's not sarcasm, just in case there's doubt.)
That's not at all how I read TFA. To me, it came off as the infringer's fault, not Microsoft's. I didn't smell any insinuation otherwise.
The difference between a blog and a news site is that I expect (to some degree) a news site to be credible, I want reporters to do their fact checking, relevant research, etc etc when they pick up a story.
When you find a site (or any outlet, online or otherwise) that does any of that, please let me know. Because I'm dying for such a thing and can't find it anywhere.
Otherwise we won't have investigative journalism anymore and stories that go deep.
But, with very very rare exceptions, we haven't had that for at least a couple of decades anyway. So where's the loss?
It was MS-DOS that killed CP/M. Until then, CP/M was by far the most dominant OS for microcomputers. Digital Research blew their shot at the IBM deal, and IBM went with MS-DOS. It could have easily gone the other way.
By the way, MS-DOS is only half based on CP/M. It's also half based on Unix. It also sucked, as you say, as on OS from the very start, since it took the worst aspects of both of those OSes. But that's not relevant to this discussion, really.
I have as big a beef with Microsoft and the impact their software had on the direction of the industry as you. But, to my mind anyway, an outfit isn't a dinosaur until they are no longer relevant to where the industry is going. And whatever faults Microsoft had, nobody can say they were irrelevant to the industry. They still aren't, or we wouldn't be talking about them.
They are, however, well into the process of becoming a dinosaur, and it's about time.
Wait, wait wait...
MS-DOS came out in 1981. (Windows 1.0 was 1985.) Yes, they stole DOS but it was the thing that made them as a company. So Microsoft has been a dinosaur from the very start?
Heh, I just realized my mistake in where the Ajax quote came from. Sorry about that!
Hmm, let's see ... how's Flash for one ?
Nope. Absolutely not critical to the functioning of the internet at large. It's not even critical to the functioning of the web (which is a subset of the internet, remember) -- I block all flash (and ActiveX, which you mention later) objects by default when I surf and only rarely allow them to run, and yet the web works great for me.
Ajax is DOM based, lots of sites use Ajax.
And lots of (most) sites don't, so absolutely not critical. Also, web-oriented, not broad internet.
Why should they?
Because the in-house techies are the canaries in the coal mine. Sure, Microsoft's income has tripled right now, but Microsoft is also in danger of becoming irrelevant to the larger world of industry innovation (i.e., losing it's cool). This translates into lower-than-otherwise income in the future.
Ever since the '80s, I've been predicting that Microsoft will follow the same path as it's then-archrival, IBM. You become what you hate and all that. So far, my prediction is holding true. Microsoft will become irrelevant in the same sense that IBM has: it will remain very profitable and be an industry leader in a certain niche, but will no longer dominate the market like it has and the industry would not be harmed if it were to vanish.
Why ask why?
Well, you're correct that ultimately the answer is "no reason," or as I like to think of it, the ultimate meaning of anything is whatever meaning we give to it, since the notion of "meaning" is an emotional, human one.
Still, it's an important question to address simply because so many people need an answer and expect to find it outside of themselves. It's irrational, but it's a mistake to pretend it's unimportant.
However, none of it has anything to do with science.
I don't think that people need to be lied to. I think that people can be brought around to see what this need for belief is all about, and can make up their own narratives if they still need one so much.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that it seems we are on the same page.
I'm well-versed in the history, thank you very much. I was talking about how most people today embrace their religious beliefs, not the history of religious belief.
Excluding fundamentalists, literalists, and other assorted extremists, most religious people today embrace religion as a framework for making emotional sense of their world. In other words, for them, religion is a way they can answer "why?"
Science doesn't address "why?" as that is a philosophical question whose answer is compeletly subjective. Science addresses the "how?" and "what?" questions.
In other words, religion isn't trying to ascertain truth in the sense that science is. Religion is trying to use myth to provide an emotional and psychological framework that many people seem to need.
because science (i.e. by the 'academics') typically results in 80% wrong facts, and 20% absolute fact. Academics can't accept this, cause science is supposed to always produce 100% fact
Hmmm, you must not know many scientists, academic or otherwise, because this in no way reflects their perspective.
Scientists (and science) thrive on and seek out "error," because all the interesting things (to them) are the things we don't know or are wrong about.
If there's any sort of perpetual religion/science conflict (and I kindof doubt it, based on the number of religious scientists I've known) then it is because science likes to find error (it is self-correcting and evidence-based) and religion does not (it is unchanging and faith-based.)
But science and religion address different questions anyway, so it's all a bit apples-and-oranges.
The second issue is that newspapers once stood for something. They were either avowedly and unabashedly partisan in their outlook, or they proclaimed journalistic objectivity.
And whichever kind they were, they strove to be at least somewhat accurate rather than just a PR outlet.
This is the newsbiz's real failing: they have become entirely unreliable. You can no longer read a newspaper and have any confidence that you're getting even an approximation of the facts. Newspapers used to do journalism, or at the least give it the old college try.
This means that newspapers (and TV & radio news) have no real innate value. It's hard to retain readers when you aren't offering them anything worthwhile.
It's not hypocrisy, it's power differential.
The government wields an enormous amount of power over us, and as such should expect a greater amount of scrutiny (as in less privacy) than us. This isn't hypocritical because the same rule applies to everyone. If you are given power over others, you sacrifice privacy through security screenings, etc.
Also, the government is an artificial organization that we, the people, make up. It has no inherent, natural, moral, or ethical rights -- only those that we collectively grant it.
We, as people, are a different animal altogether. We do have inherent, natural rights simply by virtue of our existence.