It's a fact that OS/UI developers seem to believe that the Operating System and User Interface are these most important things. They certainly don't see it the way users see it. (To be clear, most users don't identify which OS/UI is in use, they just want to run the programs they want to run.) And while we all like to have some eye candy and flexibility in the way we do things, we generally need increasingly large displays [read: pixel counts] in order to restore focus on the application and to minimize the impact on screen and usability which the OS/UI claims. This has instinctively been my biggest beef with Desktop UI developments with Linux lately. The GNOME 2 experience defaults to two tool bars, one top and one bottom. The first tweak I usually do is to add a drop-down window list to the upper-right corner and remove the lower tool bar. Yes, it's MacOS9 style, but it minimizes the space claimed by the OS/UI and let's me focus on what I'm doing.
Now let's look at Android 2.x+. Android seeks to minimize the UI impact and it does a nice job of it. A minimal row of buttons give the user a single and simple home from which to go home, switch apps, go backward and open a context menu. Swiping from the top of the screen is a useful feature which enables the user to quickly access contols and status information. With Jellybean, we actually have two sides of the top to choose from on larger devices and it is always opposite of the button row at the bottom. Simple and effective. It is also visibly obvious.
What Ubuntu-phone is proposing is unintuitive and seeks to infringe on how an app can live on a device. Do. Not. Want.
I am sure there are a lot of ways they could add incentives in with the price of admission. There is still something nice about the act of going to the cinema. Watching shows at home tends to be a less formal thing and so you usually don't turn your phone off and other distractions tend to take precedence. At the movies, you are locking yourself away and dedicating yourself to the big screen experience.
I might return to the theaters if I had a subscription of some sort. I think perhaps $20/monthly would not be a plan suitable for me, but perhaps a "discount membership" which would enable me to watch movies at a discount and perhaps excluding "opening night" movies would be a better plan for me.
According to the article, there are [still] no software patents in the EU. So theoretically, any FRAND claims of software patents should be ignored. Of course, software patent holders never say "these are software patents." They just say "patents." It'll be interesting how initial claims of this sort will work out.
And you know lately? I have found spending as much as $5 to be more convenient than downloading things and taking my chances that there is no malware inside.
That said, I have a bit of a problem with Google's play and others. They all validate your license to apps in some way. I legally had many things from Amazon's app store and was troubleshooting my phone as something had gone awry and removed the Amazon app store from my phone. Then everything I bought through there stopped working. That's a string I can live without. Fortunately nothing cost all that much so turning my back on the loss didn't take much consideration on my part.
But Google Play does the same thing... just can't easily remove Google play... can you?
Indeed. And the NRC is extremely necessary as well. Business always takes the cheapest route for everything from labor to purchasing. The BP gulf of mexico incident proves they are more than willing to break rules at every opportunity. And the coal mining industry in the US doesn't even need mention as it is apparently a corrupt way of life for them.
I think the fact that they are only now testing for conventional electronics in planes is pretty pathetic because it fails to account for a lot of things. If you want to make something illegal or against the rules, then there must also be a way to enforce and detect non-compliance. After all, if it's for 'safety' what guarantee are they offering that everyone is complying? I know I NEVER turn my stuff off. But they also don't detect malfunctioning gear which transmits too much.
In the end, for the FAA to restrict something "for safety" and not test for it is simply ridiculous. Don't make a rule you can't or won't enforce.
The difference is that you think because big brother Apple has locked things down in some way that you are safe. That just isn't the case. If Apple is in control, then you are not. Who does Apple serve?
In any case, Apple iOS is equally vulnerable. As another commenter pointed out, for this malware to get onto an Android, the user would have to enable other sources to install. Though it's not a simple check box, it's fairly easy to enable other sources on iOS at which point malware can be installed by the user.
Once in, each platform is comprimised. There is no difference.
We know where this all started. We know what company and which figurehead got things moving in this direction. No need to mention that any further.
What we are seeing here is that this mentality cannot be justified because it does not only affect only the parties directly involved in any given case. It affects case law and lots and lots of jurisdictions. Worse, it seems to have put a trend into place which has created a standard of behavior which previously would have been found unacceptable. It is still unacceptable but somehow the courts are unable or unwilling to put a stop to it.
You know? Sometimes when someone does something as obviously bone-headed as that, it needs to be responded to with something of equal bone-headedness.
If the response was "oh, hey... you made a bit of a mistake there. Don't do it again." I doubt it would have gotten much notice. The is especially true when the guy who made the mistake was looking to shift the blame all around himself. Only public shaming and condemnation could yeild the result needed. And in that case the target of the shame can either
(a) straighten up and fly right or (b) be forever doubted by everyone who witnessed the shaming and possibly end his involvement or even his career if he refused to change.
Linux is huge. It's no longer the "hobbyist" system it started out as. It is something which just about everything depends upon. Also, it is still available to hobbyists. But those kinds of errors and problems are extremely critical and simply can't be allowed.
That one slip proves it is possible. And knowing it's possible, if I were to plan a massive hit, I would make sure the timing on activation was such that my trojan app would have the widest possible distribution before it became active.
I did not say anything in support of any particular platform as I mentioned them all in a neutral manner. But perhaps I should have said something about the notion of "giving up freedom for [the illusion of] security" has been a false notion for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Public behavior is not blackmail. Your behavior in public paints you as an obsessive, delusional and unstable person. I am not this Jorge Bastida. The last time I went through this, you ended it with "you're not worth it." What changed? Your more recent insane flood of harassing taunts adds to the long, long list of examples of your stalker-like behavior. The first go around, it kinda bothered me. But now I realize you're pretty harmless to anyone but yourself or anyone who actually knows you. I pity them.
I'll go back to ignoring your nonsense now. But we're in the holidays, approaching a new year. It's your chance to get ahold of yourself and go in a new direction. This is your opportunity. Take it.
Though the function was different, the point is the same. Malware was installed by users using a trusted source (in this case the apple app store) and it did things the user were not aware of or gave permission for it to do. That the functions were different is not relevant. It was a compromise of the device and its contents by use of malware which is the relevant similarity.
And should Apple's app store let another one slip through, this process can and will repeat itself.
Where did you get this strange notion that this trojan horse program was also a virus in that it will infect other devices? I didn't read that anywhere. The point of infection is when the user voluntarily installs the malware to their device. It is a trojan because it pretends to be something safe.
In your belief and desire to defend Apple, I think you forgot to check facts long enough to know what you are talking about. But I have to ask. Why are you so defensive about Apple? They are a business like all the others. They serve their interests first and foremost. Customer satisfaction is primarily based on customer acceptance of Apple's terms and conditions because Apple does not make exceptions for its customers. Apple also has a history of blaming its customers before it blames itself for anything. ("You're holding it wrong" is not the only example of this.)
I totally understand the human aspects of this behavior. We do it all the time with sports, religion and politics. We care about things which do not return the affection. But as this phenomenon is extended into consumerism, it presents some very interesting psychology indeed. Your affection for Apple things does not make you who you are. It does not make you a better person. If you draw a sense of happiness from the notion that owning (excuse me, I mean licensing) some hardware and software makes you a member of some club, then I might invite you to read or watch Dr. Seuss' "Star-Bellied Sneetches" as it is a lesson for all of us everywhere. (Interestingly if it available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3yJomUhs0g )
All of this and the above replies are very interesting information.
I had no knowledge of their CDMA-ness. I use GSM phones.
One thing they mentioned was that they do not [yet] flash my phone model. (T-Mobile, Galaxy S2) That part didn't bother me as I was still stuck on the notion that they wanted to flash my phone at all.
I can see where they would be an "exploit the poor" type of company. It seems to fit.
I was investigating prepaid phone service options because I want to save money and prepaid service seems to be the way to do it. Once shop I visited was "Cricket." The first thing they asked was "what kind of phone do you have?" I said "unlocked GSM." They said, but we have to install our software on it... we have to flash your device before we can put it on our network. I was utterly shocked and then angered. I left before I said anything I might regret, but I will not be doing business with Cricket now or in the future. Bad enough the carriers I buy my phones from want to control my devices. Another carrier wants to modify my property so that I can be their customer.
No. And why would I object so much to that idea?
Because I don't know what they will be putting on my computer and nor will they tell me. And so for the same reason I would not do business with Cricket, I will not generally install software from unknown sources.
Indeed this is the most significant truth of it all.
In iOS land alone are users "not responsible for their actions." For people to go around installing malware on PCs is a known problem. Save MSIE vulnerabiilities enabling drive-by installations and program execution, people install malware on their own machines.
Now if this story was about a vulnerability in Android devices which permitted this type of system compromise, we might have a much more significant story. But what we have, instead, is reaffirmation that with Android, users have freedom to install the software of their choice just as they have with MacOSX and Microsoft Windows and other Linux distributions. We also have the recognition that users are not invulnerable to attack because they are using something other than MS Windows.
Is this a sign that Android has "matured"? No. iOS is pretty mature and does not exactly suffer from such attacks. (oh wait, yes it does!) It is a sign that bad-wetware has recognized that Android is popular enough and free enough to make its users a target. At the end of the day, of course, it is the users which are being targetted and their devices, software and data are the means and the objective of the attack.
This story is useful in that it is important that everyone be aware of the risks of running any software, but especially software from dubious sources. But let's hope the real message is not lost in the hype and flag waving.
One thing is more important than shareholders' interests: Their own personal interests. (But then they are 'shareholders' too! And the only ones that matter!)
That's the dirty little secret with corporations like these. To explain all the things they do which people largely disapprove of, the answer is invariably something with "fiduciary" in it. But when they ignore opportunities as obvious as expanding a product into different growing markets, you begin to see that it's merely an empty excuse. Some might see it as strategy. I just see it as trying to prevent a competitor from being accepted in the market place through "cut off your nose to spite your face" tactics.
In any case, if they attempted to do Word for Android, it would fail. MS's weakness is inability to scale down. They have decades of backward compatibility to deal with. Fun thing is, their document formats depend on the OS's APIs to operate. And when porting the app to other OSes, they have to simulate the same functions. (The story of getting OOXML accepted as an ISO standard taught us a LOT of what is wrong with MS Office and its file formats.) This might be workable in something larger like MacOS, but something tiny like iOS and Android? Seems impractical.
I've been saying it for years and it keeps getting worse. Microsoft should "start over." Support their old stuff, but create something new and clean and then provide a bridge across. Support "legacy" through virtualization and move forward with open standards. Then their problems of "can't get smaller" are no more. And the market has much interest in getting smaller.
We know how to handle the basic problems of food handling and processing. The problem is when we go too far beyond that. We challenge the forces of nature itself and when we do, we invariably lose.
We wash food, we pasteurize milk and cheese. Those are good to do. What's not good to do is drug our sources of food. It is well known that the over use of antibiotics breeds stronger bugs. Despite this knowledge they persist in the practice.
No. That's the thing I forgot about shame. For shame to work, you have to have something that psychopaths and sociopaths lack. This guy is all over the place. With every new story posted here, he is now a first-poster making comments about me. It's funny actually. I was recently contacted by a news resource on just this guy. So stay tuned -- this might hit the news. Hopefully it won't end with any mass shootings or other such thing. I really do think he is that level of insane.
The problem is they want a cheap and/or free review system they don't have to pay for.
They might be able to have a volunteer group of book reviewers but someone will have to manage those reviewers and inevitably, it will cost Amazon even to maintain a crew of volunteers.
The short is they need to hire people to do the reviews. That's right. Employees! What a novel idea right? Okay, I know I didn't think of it first. But the reality is in everyone's face. Sourcing opinions from online sources results in a lot of what we see.... here, there, everywhere. If they want good reviews and opinions, they will have to pay for them. But who would volunteer for that? Not me... well maybe I would if the pay was good. But there are a lot of people who would do this as a part-time job to be sure.
Slashdot Mirror
This is probably THE most useful comment made.
It's a fact that OS/UI developers seem to believe that the Operating System and User Interface are these most important things. They certainly don't see it the way users see it. (To be clear, most users don't identify which OS/UI is in use, they just want to run the programs they want to run.) And while we all like to have some eye candy and flexibility in the way we do things, we generally need increasingly large displays [read: pixel counts] in order to restore focus on the application and to minimize the impact on screen and usability which the OS/UI claims. This has instinctively been my biggest beef with Desktop UI developments with Linux lately. The GNOME 2 experience defaults to two tool bars, one top and one bottom. The first tweak I usually do is to add a drop-down window list to the upper-right corner and remove the lower tool bar. Yes, it's MacOS9 style, but it minimizes the space claimed by the OS/UI and let's me focus on what I'm doing.
Now let's look at Android 2.x+. Android seeks to minimize the UI impact and it does a nice job of it. A minimal row of buttons give the user a single and simple home from which to go home, switch apps, go backward and open a context menu. Swiping from the top of the screen is a useful feature which enables the user to quickly access contols and status information. With Jellybean, we actually have two sides of the top to choose from on larger devices and it is always opposite of the button row at the bottom. Simple and effective. It is also visibly obvious.
What Ubuntu-phone is proposing is unintuitive and seeks to infringe on how an app can live on a device. Do. Not. Want.
Are they just Tizen us?
Membership has its priviledges.
I am sure there are a lot of ways they could add incentives in with the price of admission. There is still something nice about the act of going to the cinema. Watching shows at home tends to be a less formal thing and so you usually don't turn your phone off and other distractions tend to take precedence. At the movies, you are locking yourself away and dedicating yourself to the big screen experience.
I might return to the theaters if I had a subscription of some sort. I think perhaps $20/monthly would not be a plan suitable for me, but perhaps a "discount membership" which would enable me to watch movies at a discount and perhaps excluding "opening night" movies would be a better plan for me.
According to the article, there are [still] no software patents in the EU. So theoretically, any FRAND claims of software patents should be ignored. Of course, software patent holders never say "these are software patents." They just say "patents." It'll be interesting how initial claims of this sort will work out.
And you know lately? I have found spending as much as $5 to be more convenient than downloading things and taking my chances that there is no malware inside.
That said, I have a bit of a problem with Google's play and others. They all validate your license to apps in some way. I legally had many things from Amazon's app store and was troubleshooting my phone as something had gone awry and removed the Amazon app store from my phone. Then everything I bought through there stopped working. That's a string I can live without. Fortunately nothing cost all that much so turning my back on the loss didn't take much consideration on my part.
But Google Play does the same thing... just can't easily remove Google play... can you?
Each new year I take a vow of celibacy as my father before me and his father before him. It's a long standing family tradition.
Indeed. And the NRC is extremely necessary as well. Business always takes the cheapest route for everything from labor to purchasing. The BP gulf of mexico incident proves they are more than willing to break rules at every opportunity. And the coal mining industry in the US doesn't even need mention as it is apparently a corrupt way of life for them.
I think the fact that they are only now testing for conventional electronics in planes is pretty pathetic because it fails to account for a lot of things. If you want to make something illegal or against the rules, then there must also be a way to enforce and detect non-compliance. After all, if it's for 'safety' what guarantee are they offering that everyone is complying? I know I NEVER turn my stuff off. But they also don't detect malfunctioning gear which transmits too much.
In the end, for the FAA to restrict something "for safety" and not test for it is simply ridiculous. Don't make a rule you can't or won't enforce.
The difference is that you think because big brother Apple has locked things down in some way that you are safe. That just isn't the case. If Apple is in control, then you are not. Who does Apple serve?
In any case, Apple iOS is equally vulnerable. As another commenter pointed out, for this malware to get onto an Android, the user would have to enable other sources to install. Though it's not a simple check box, it's fairly easy to enable other sources on iOS at which point malware can be installed by the user.
Once in, each platform is comprimised. There is no difference.
We know where this all started. We know what company and which figurehead got things moving in this direction. No need to mention that any further.
What we are seeing here is that this mentality cannot be justified because it does not only affect only the parties directly involved in any given case. It affects case law and lots and lots of jurisdictions. Worse, it seems to have put a trend into place which has created a standard of behavior which previously would have been found unacceptable. It is still unacceptable but somehow the courts are unable or unwilling to put a stop to it.
You know? Sometimes when someone does something as obviously bone-headed as that, it needs to be responded to with something of equal bone-headedness.
If the response was "oh, hey... you made a bit of a mistake there. Don't do it again." I doubt it would have gotten much notice. The is especially true when the guy who made the mistake was looking to shift the blame all around himself. Only public shaming and condemnation could yeild the result needed. And in that case the target of the shame can either
(a) straighten up and fly right or
(b) be forever doubted by everyone who witnessed the shaming and possibly end his involvement or even his career if he refused to change.
Linux is huge. It's no longer the "hobbyist" system it started out as. It is something which just about everything depends upon. Also, it is still available to hobbyists. But those kinds of errors and problems are extremely critical and simply can't be allowed.
A vulnerability is found in door lock #1 and in that case, the result of the vulnerability was a burglary.
A vulnerability is found in door lock #2 and in that case, the result of the vulnerability was a rape and murder.
Clearly, the house of door lock #1 is safer than the house of door lock #2 because of the severity of the instance which followed the breech.
Do you see a problem with that line of logic? I do. The point is the breech. Not what was done after the breech.
That one slip proves it is possible. And knowing it's possible, if I were to plan a massive hit, I would make sure the timing on activation was such that my trojan app would have the widest possible distribution before it became active.
I did not say anything in support of any particular platform as I mentioned them all in a neutral manner. But perhaps I should have said something about the notion of "giving up freedom for [the illusion of] security" has been a false notion for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Google "Alexander P. Kowalski slashdot". There's quite a bit of history and a well established pattern of behavior. He is an embarassment to himself.
*sigh*
Public behavior is not blackmail. Your behavior in public paints you as an obsessive, delusional and unstable person. I am not this Jorge Bastida. The last time I went through this, you ended it with "you're not worth it." What changed? Your more recent insane flood of harassing taunts adds to the long, long list of examples of your stalker-like behavior. The first go around, it kinda bothered me. But now I realize you're pretty harmless to anyone but yourself or anyone who actually knows you. I pity them.
I'll go back to ignoring your nonsense now. But we're in the holidays, approaching a new year. It's your chance to get ahold of yourself and go in a new direction. This is your opportunity. Take it.
Anyone else finding this amusing?
Please explain how iOS users are protected?
I have always believed AT&T and T-Mobile are GSM carriers and that Sprint and Verizon are CDMA carriers.
Please educate me.
Though the function was different, the point is the same. Malware was installed by users using a trusted source (in this case the apple app store) and it did things the user were not aware of or gave permission for it to do. That the functions were different is not relevant. It was a compromise of the device and its contents by use of malware which is the relevant similarity.
And should Apple's app store let another one slip through, this process can and will repeat itself.
Where did you get this strange notion that this trojan horse program was also a virus in that it will infect other devices? I didn't read that anywhere. The point of infection is when the user voluntarily installs the malware to their device. It is a trojan because it pretends to be something safe.
In your belief and desire to defend Apple, I think you forgot to check facts long enough to know what you are talking about. But I have to ask. Why are you so defensive about Apple? They are a business like all the others. They serve their interests first and foremost. Customer satisfaction is primarily based on customer acceptance of Apple's terms and conditions because Apple does not make exceptions for its customers. Apple also has a history of blaming its customers before it blames itself for anything. ("You're holding it wrong" is not the only example of this.)
I totally understand the human aspects of this behavior. We do it all the time with sports, religion and politics. We care about things which do not return the affection. But as this phenomenon is extended into consumerism, it presents some very interesting psychology indeed. Your affection for Apple things does not make you who you are. It does not make you a better person. If you draw a sense of happiness from the notion that owning (excuse me, I mean licensing) some hardware and software makes you a member of some club, then I might invite you to read or watch Dr. Seuss' "Star-Bellied Sneetches" as it is a lesson for all of us everywhere. (Interestingly if it available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3yJomUhs0g )
All of this and the above replies are very interesting information.
I had no knowledge of their CDMA-ness. I use GSM phones.
One thing they mentioned was that they do not [yet] flash my phone model. (T-Mobile, Galaxy S2) That part didn't bother me as I was still stuck on the notion that they wanted to flash my phone at all.
I can see where they would be an "exploit the poor" type of company. It seems to fit.
Cricket.
I was investigating prepaid phone service options because I want to save money and prepaid service seems to be the way to do it. Once shop I visited was "Cricket." The first thing they asked was "what kind of phone do you have?" I said "unlocked GSM." They said, but we have to install our software on it... we have to flash your device before we can put it on our network. I was utterly shocked and then angered. I left before I said anything I might regret, but I will not be doing business with Cricket now or in the future. Bad enough the carriers I buy my phones from want to control my devices. Another carrier wants to modify my property so that I can be their customer.
No. And why would I object so much to that idea?
Because I don't know what they will be putting on my computer and nor will they tell me. And so for the same reason I would not do business with Cricket, I will not generally install software from unknown sources.
Indeed this is the most significant truth of it all.
In iOS land alone are users "not responsible for their actions." For people to go around installing malware on PCs is a known problem. Save MSIE vulnerabiilities enabling drive-by installations and program execution, people install malware on their own machines.
Now if this story was about a vulnerability in Android devices which permitted this type of system compromise, we might have a much more significant story. But what we have, instead, is reaffirmation that with Android, users have freedom to install the software of their choice just as they have with MacOSX and Microsoft Windows and other Linux distributions. We also have the recognition that users are not invulnerable to attack because they are using something other than MS Windows.
Is this a sign that Android has "matured"? No. iOS is pretty mature and does not exactly suffer from such attacks. (oh wait, yes it does!) It is a sign that bad-wetware has recognized that Android is popular enough and free enough to make its users a target. At the end of the day, of course, it is the users which are being targetted and their devices, software and data are the means and the objective of the attack.
This story is useful in that it is important that everyone be aware of the risks of running any software, but especially software from dubious sources. But let's hope the real message is not lost in the hype and flag waving.
One thing is more important than shareholders' interests: Their own personal interests. (But then they are 'shareholders' too! And the only ones that matter!)
That's the dirty little secret with corporations like these. To explain all the things they do which people largely disapprove of, the answer is invariably something with "fiduciary" in it. But when they ignore opportunities as obvious as expanding a product into different growing markets, you begin to see that it's merely an empty excuse. Some might see it as strategy. I just see it as trying to prevent a competitor from being accepted in the market place through "cut off your nose to spite your face" tactics.
In any case, if they attempted to do Word for Android, it would fail. MS's weakness is inability to scale down. They have decades of backward compatibility to deal with. Fun thing is, their document formats depend on the OS's APIs to operate. And when porting the app to other OSes, they have to simulate the same functions. (The story of getting OOXML accepted as an ISO standard taught us a LOT of what is wrong with MS Office and its file formats.) This might be workable in something larger like MacOS, but something tiny like iOS and Android? Seems impractical.
I've been saying it for years and it keeps getting worse. Microsoft should "start over." Support their old stuff, but create something new and clean and then provide a bridge across. Support "legacy" through virtualization and move forward with open standards. Then their problems of "can't get smaller" are no more. And the market has much interest in getting smaller.
I completely understand what you mean.
We know how to handle the basic problems of food handling and processing. The problem is when we go too far beyond that. We challenge the forces of nature itself and when we do, we invariably lose.
We wash food, we pasteurize milk and cheese. Those are good to do. What's not good to do is drug our sources of food. It is well known that the over use of antibiotics breeds stronger bugs. Despite this knowledge they persist in the practice.
No. That's the thing I forgot about shame. For shame to work, you have to have something that psychopaths and sociopaths lack. This guy is all over the place. With every new story posted here, he is now a first-poster making comments about me. It's funny actually. I was recently contacted by a news resource on just this guy. So stay tuned -- this might hit the news. Hopefully it won't end with any mass shootings or other such thing. I really do think he is that level of insane.
The problem is they want a cheap and/or free review system they don't have to pay for.
They might be able to have a volunteer group of book reviewers but someone will have to manage those reviewers and inevitably, it will cost Amazon even to maintain a crew of volunteers.
The short is they need to hire people to do the reviews. That's right. Employees! What a novel idea right? Okay, I know I didn't think of it first. But the reality is in everyone's face. Sourcing opinions from online sources results in a lot of what we see .... here, there, everywhere. If they want good reviews and opinions, they will have to pay for them. But who would volunteer for that? Not me... well maybe I would if the pay was good. But there are a lot of people who would do this as a part-time job to be sure.