But what's an OS worth that has hardly any apps that are in any way optimized for a tablet?
That's the major problem right now with Honeycomb. As an OS it's not bad, but compared to the loads of apps for the iPad there are hardly any for Honeycomb. This surely will change sooner or later, but right now?
At least OS X supports Emacs shortcuts everywhere. What do you need a delete key for when you can press Control-D instead? iOS too, by the way (if you have a BT keyboard paired to your iPad or iPhone).
What I'm missing most are people using computers and looking forward to new ones, tossing away the dusty old stuff of yesterday and actually being curious what the future brings instead of looking back in nostalgia.
Just because you select a list of reasons why Apple are not evil does not mean they are not evil in other ways.
He's still right. Apple is very good at protecting their business and has a very clear vision how things should work and an unbending will to see it through, but I can't see anything genuinely evil here. In fact lots of things Apple does are rather considerate and cautios. iTunes has DRM but still you can install the apps and music you bought on all iPads and iPhones and iPods you may own. Same with the Mac App Store: You have more than one Mac? Buy once, install on all. They don't give your data to the newspaper publishers, they use random IDs for iAD instead of Device-IDs without anyone asking them to do that. They don't code their iOS apps in a way to fail on jailbroken devices. They may go after people who try to attack them, but they quite surely respect their users and customers.
And even if the file system encryption in iOS is less than perfect at least there is encryption, other than with Android which has none at all.
It seems like this would work on any phone, in principle. If you're using a 4-digit numeric password to protect your phone, any kind of phone, yeah, somebody's eventually going to crack it in a non-end-of-the-universe timeframe, if they get unattended access to it, and you don't remote-wipe it.
Well, on most phones (like Android ones) you don't need to go that far. The password ist just for protecting you against someone using the phone, but since the file system isn't encrypted at all on most phones, you can just dump the data and be done with it.
It is for the purposes of issuing an injunction against releasing those products, should they cause problems.
And as for Samsung copying the "design" of the iPhone, the iPhone is rectangular based shape with a screen
Still, an icon for your photo gallery doesn't exactly *have* to show yellow flower petals, you know. Samsung copied details here to a depth that makes it more than clear that the phone and the software should look "just like the iPhone".
Personally I think it's just pathetic what Samsung did, even if the lawsuit is somewhat silly. On the other hand Apple has to draw a line somewhere.
When I first handled the Galaxy S I was surprised how obviously and unashamed this thing tried to ape the iPhone. "Rectangular shape with a screen" doesn't even begin to cover it.
You will never get anywhere making a clone. You'll always be a step behind.
Yeah, but at least you're behind the leader which is more than where you'd be when you wouldn't try that.
This isn't new. Linux is a Unix clone, then tried to become a Windows clone until Gnome tried to clone OS X. Miro tried to be something original and nobody cared and now Miro tries to clone iTunes for Android (which tried to clone iOS). So what?
Coming up with something original *and* being successful with that is really, really hard.
The Usenet is still there, nothing has changed. Just a lack of users, so get an account somewhere (news.eternal-september.org maybe) and help to get it back up...
Unexpected results are not neccessarily random. You may just have missed some bug that generates very predictable results which were just unexpected because you didn't knew about that bug.
Still, true randomness is hard. While I don't think this applies here, randomness also includes random clusters. People accept these if the process that generates the randomness is very obvious random, but do the same with a computer or by sieving through large amounts of data and they see patterns and don't accept these as random anymore.
Example: There have been discussions about clusters of cases of certain kinds of cancer around nuclear reactors. Can't be random, you think. Well, if you look at many different kinds of cancer and check the distribution of those you'll find random clusters for one or more of them. One of those clusters may be found around a reactor. May still be random, but nobody will ever believe you. In fact, if you sieve the data fine enough and have enough reactors and NONE of these clusters coincide with a reactor, the conclusion would be that nuclear reactors PROTECT against cancer. But explain that to people.
Other example: Apple introduced random playlists on iPods years ago. Now people noticed that some songs got played more than once before all others were played. Can't be random! There's a bug! Well, no. Still, Apple had to modify their software to make the choice actually LESS random (by have no song being played twice) to make it appear "really" random to the users.
It appears that Bin Laden was so secure in the idea that he'd never get caught, that he didn't have any real contingencies planned for the day that someone came knocking.
But still had an AK47 and a pistol in arm's reach, yeah.
Anyone willing to strap on a vest of C4, or snug the straps on someone else's vest, is already wearing a tinfoil hat.
And at the same time the top terrorist himself isn't clever enough to store this sensible data in a cabinet with a pound of thermite in case he gets raided? Or to use a thumb drive only once and then destroy it?
I think it's in no way above the DoD to have a second-choice strategy in case they don't find anything useful. In fact this is the thing I would do in such a case. The only bad thing about this is that WE are being lied to also. The fog of war, indeed. The first victim of any war is the truth, as they say.
I guess there're lots of terrorists out there who have no better idea what amounts of data Bin Laden stored in his hiding place than you or me. Telling all the world about thousands of messages found before actually trying to hunt down whoever you can find with this would be totally idiotic if true. This makes sense only if it actually isn't true, so you have nothing to lose and can at least disrupt and panic the guys.
1) They have indeed found loads of data, disks, CDs and DVDs, hundreds of thumb drives and so on. They can now do one of two things: a) Go through that data and come up with press releases every few days to keep the media interested in this. The news will spread everywhere. Every terrorist who even suspects his name, e-mail adress or similar among this data will now immediately try to cover his tracks, abandon accounts, change his location and generally get away. Rather silly to warn them, isn't it? b) Keep silent, don't tell anyone about what they've found and try to track down whoever they can find with this silently. That would be clever.
2) They haven't found anything to speak of. Now they can again one of two things: a) Tell the media and anyone interested they haven't found anything. Terrorists may believe this or not, but they won't be in any hurry to get away. Silly. b) Despite finding nothing, come up with a media campaign telling all the world they have found a "mother lode" of data and make sure to refresh this lie again and again with made-up stories. The terrorists will now change names, delete accounts, change location, cut communication channels, build new ones, etc. This not only disrupts their organizations, it may also create a certain buzz which makes it easier to catch them. Again, clever idea.
So, what do you think: Have they found a "mother lode of data" or not? I don't think so. Because if they did, they wouldn't tell all the world about that. They would silently analyze that data and act on it. What we're seeing here is a carefully orchestrated campaign as a second choice because they didn't find anything useful.
And most software is not written by one individual.
As soon as you have an actual team writing software and as soon as there are others telling this team what they have to code, you need every bit of control you can get. There's no way around that and every anecdote "proving" you can get away with passion and good coders just proves that you can be lucky.
If you want a real exploit, look into the "i0n1c" exploit being used to jailbreak phones on the latest OS.
Exactly. It's not that there are no iOS exploits out in the wild. As far as I know there's no remote exploit out there, though. You need physical access to the device or its backup (and then restore from that which requires physical access).
Location data that is anonymous (or uses random IDs that frequently change) can't be abused easily
Sure it can, any time you are in the real world.
GOOG report shows "The anonymous owner of this phone supports rights for X people, where X is a minority opinion" therefore evil majority member guy beats up the anonymous phone's owner. I only used majority / minority language to gain support, its just as evil when swapped around or there is no majority / minority issue.
There is also a semi-anonymous failure mode. "The anonymous owner of this phone, which happens to be located at the Lat/Lon coordinates of this interview room, often visits websites which are mostly popular amongst people of the political persuasion generally opposite to yours". Result -> "I'm sorry to inform you we found a candidate more closely suited to the position, who would be a better fit with the team."
This is only possible if the random ID does not change all the time and if the same ID is used to tag other data than the location.
If all you have is millions of datasets consisting of a random ID and an associated location, how do you do what you're describing with that?
What you're describing is exactly what's possible if you use a Unique Device ID which never (or very rarely) changes and if you use the same ID for many different things. Well, exactly this is what Google does with Android and AdMob, but it's not the only way to do it.
It boggles the mind, but the twice daily locally generated random IDs Apple uses for tagging location data are avoiding these problems very nicely.
How should that work? If there were hundreds of people at Fred's workplace and thousands of people at Fred's supermarket, how do you know who is Fred? What you're saying makes only sense if you already know who Fred actually is and which random IDs his phone had at these moments. But you don't. All what you have is lots of different random IDs with an associated location.
The difference is that only very few Mac apps require an admin password since most are just bundles you throw into your Applications folder (or where you want them to be) without actually "installing" (= spraying files and data all over the system) anything.
Maybe not a really huge difference, but most people are not really used to that and any app running an actual installer is eyed with suspicion.
It would help a lot if apps like Adobe Reader wouldn't needlessly come with such an installer. But then it's very nearly malware anyway.
All I want to know is whether this malware is worthy of the Apple platform or not: Does it use Grand Central Dispatch to efficiently allocate the load of multiple form-stealing processes between all my system's cores? Are the misleading dialog boxes that frighten me further into folly fully compliant with Apple's HID guidelines?
Well, that "MAC defender" scamware uses Growl for its fake virus notifications and with this uses the theme you selected for notification bubbles and such. Depending on your own style it's surely stylish. And you can of course even customize the theme it uses! Try that with Windows.
How could we have ended up with being a rather intelligent species during our evolution if it were different?
Have you ever thought about the fact that exactly you are the product of an uninterrupted string of heroes who have managed to fight and survive every hardship the world threw at them for millions of years? And managed not only to survive but to bear and protect their children until they were able to protect themselves and bear their own children and protect them against nature, against animals, against droughts and floods and everything?
On the other hand all of this is irrelevant in the short term. We're not more intelligent than people thousands of years ago and the impact of education and the social environment is much larger than every advantage or disadvantage your genes may give your children. There's no need to be smug or depressed, you are obviously carrying genes of survivors and your children will have everything they need to make their way.
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But what's an OS worth that has hardly any apps that are in any way optimized for a tablet?
That's the major problem right now with Honeycomb. As an OS it's not bad, but compared to the loads of apps for the iPad there are hardly any for Honeycomb. This surely will change sooner or later, but right now?
In that video he does not look good.
He clearly looks like someone with a nutrition problem. On the other hand I've seen obese people his age who don't look exactly healthier.
At least OS X supports Emacs shortcuts everywhere. What do you need a delete key for when you can press Control-D instead? iOS too, by the way (if you have a BT keyboard paired to your iPad or iPhone).
What I'm missing most are people using computers and looking forward to new ones, tossing away the dusty old stuff of yesterday and actually being curious what the future brings instead of looking back in nostalgia.
As always here: "This isn't true, you know." -- "Yeah, I know, but it sounds better this way."
He's still right. Apple is very good at protecting their business and has a very clear vision how things should work and an unbending will to see it through, but I can't see anything genuinely evil here. In fact lots of things Apple does are rather considerate and cautios. iTunes has DRM but still you can install the apps and music you bought on all iPads and iPhones and iPods you may own. Same with the Mac App Store: You have more than one Mac? Buy once, install on all. They don't give your data to the newspaper publishers, they use random IDs for iAD instead of Device-IDs without anyone asking them to do that. They don't code their iOS apps in a way to fail on jailbroken devices. They may go after people who try to attack them, but they quite surely respect their users and customers.
And even if the file system encryption in iOS is less than perfect at least there is encryption, other than with Android which has none at all.
Well, maybe because there is a setting that just wipes the phone after 10 failed attempts.
It seems like this would work on any phone, in principle. If you're using a 4-digit numeric password to protect your phone, any kind of phone, yeah, somebody's eventually going to crack it in a non-end-of-the-universe timeframe, if they get unattended access to it, and you don't remote-wipe it.
Well, on most phones (like Android ones) you don't need to go that far. The password ist just for protecting you against someone using the phone, but since the file system isn't encrypted at all on most phones, you can just dump the data and be done with it.
It is for the purposes of issuing an injunction against releasing those products, should they cause problems.
And as for Samsung copying the "design" of the iPhone, the iPhone is rectangular based shape with a screen
Still, an icon for your photo gallery doesn't exactly *have* to show yellow flower petals, you know. Samsung copied details here to a depth that makes it more than clear that the phone and the software should look "just like the iPhone".
Personally I think it's just pathetic what Samsung did, even if the lawsuit is somewhat silly. On the other hand Apple has to draw a line somewhere.
When I first handled the Galaxy S I was surprised how obviously and unashamed this thing tried to ape the iPhone. "Rectangular shape with a screen" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Yeah, but at least you're behind the leader which is more than where you'd be when you wouldn't try that.
This isn't new. Linux is a Unix clone, then tried to become a Windows clone until Gnome tried to clone OS X. Miro tried to be something original and nobody cared and now Miro tries to clone iTunes for Android (which tried to clone iOS). So what?
Coming up with something original *and* being successful with that is really, really hard.
Right around the corner where I live yesterday two people died on a building site when a wall fell. Didn't get much news, though.
The Usenet is still there, nothing has changed. Just a lack of users, so get an account somewhere (news.eternal-september.org maybe) and help to get it back up...
Unexpected results are not neccessarily random. You may just have missed some bug that generates very predictable results which were just unexpected because you didn't knew about that bug.
Still, true randomness is hard. While I don't think this applies here, randomness also includes random clusters. People accept these if the process that generates the randomness is very obvious random, but do the same with a computer or by sieving through large amounts of data and they see patterns and don't accept these as random anymore.
Example: There have been discussions about clusters of cases of certain kinds of cancer around nuclear reactors. Can't be random, you think. Well, if you look at many different kinds of cancer and check the distribution of those you'll find random clusters for one or more of them. One of those clusters may be found around a reactor. May still be random, but nobody will ever believe you. In fact, if you sieve the data fine enough and have enough reactors and NONE of these clusters coincide with a reactor, the conclusion would be that nuclear reactors PROTECT against cancer. But explain that to people.
Other example: Apple introduced random playlists on iPods years ago. Now people noticed that some songs got played more than once before all others were played. Can't be random! There's a bug! Well, no. Still, Apple had to modify their software to make the choice actually LESS random (by have no song being played twice) to make it appear "really" random to the users.
Randomness is hard and can be spooky.
But still had an AK47 and a pistol in arm's reach, yeah.
And at the same time the top terrorist himself isn't clever enough to store this sensible data in a cabinet with a pound of thermite in case he gets raided? Or to use a thumb drive only once and then destroy it?
I think it's in no way above the DoD to have a second-choice strategy in case they don't find anything useful. In fact this is the thing I would do in such a case. The only bad thing about this is that WE are being lied to also. The fog of war, indeed. The first victim of any war is the truth, as they say.
I guess there're lots of terrorists out there who have no better idea what amounts of data Bin Laden stored in his hiding place than you or me. Telling all the world about thousands of messages found before actually trying to hunt down whoever you can find with this would be totally idiotic if true. This makes sense only if it actually isn't true, so you have nothing to lose and can at least disrupt and panic the guys.
Why? Let's check possible scenarios:
1) They have indeed found loads of data, disks, CDs and DVDs, hundreds of thumb drives and so on. They can now do one of two things:
a) Go through that data and come up with press releases every few days to keep the media interested in this. The news will spread everywhere. Every terrorist who even suspects his name, e-mail adress or similar among this data will now immediately try to cover his tracks, abandon accounts, change his location and generally get away. Rather silly to warn them, isn't it?
b) Keep silent, don't tell anyone about what they've found and try to track down whoever they can find with this silently. That would be clever.
2) They haven't found anything to speak of. Now they can again one of two things:
a) Tell the media and anyone interested they haven't found anything. Terrorists may believe this or not, but they won't be in any hurry to get away. Silly.
b) Despite finding nothing, come up with a media campaign telling all the world they have found a "mother lode" of data and make sure to refresh this lie again and again with made-up stories. The terrorists will now change names, delete accounts, change location, cut communication channels, build new ones, etc. This not only disrupts their organizations, it may also create a certain buzz which makes it easier to catch them. Again, clever idea.
So, what do you think: Have they found a "mother lode of data" or not? I don't think so. Because if they did, they wouldn't tell all the world about that. They would silently analyze that data and act on it. What we're seeing here is a carefully orchestrated campaign as a second choice because they didn't find anything useful.
And most software is not written by one individual.
As soon as you have an actual team writing software and as soon as there are others telling this team what they have to code, you need every bit of control you can get. There's no way around that and every anecdote "proving" you can get away with passion and good coders just proves that you can be lucky.
Exactly. It's not that there are no iOS exploits out in the wild. As far as I know there's no remote exploit out there, though. You need physical access to the device or its backup (and then restore from that which requires physical access).
Location data that is anonymous (or uses random IDs that frequently change) can't be abused easily
Sure it can, any time you are in the real world.
GOOG report shows "The anonymous owner of this phone supports rights for X people, where X is a minority opinion" therefore evil majority member guy beats up the anonymous phone's owner. I only used majority / minority language to gain support, its just as evil when swapped around or there is no majority / minority issue.
There is also a semi-anonymous failure mode. "The anonymous owner of this phone, which happens to be located at the Lat/Lon coordinates of this interview room, often visits websites which are mostly popular amongst people of the political persuasion generally opposite to yours". Result -> "I'm sorry to inform you we found a candidate more closely suited to the position, who would be a better fit with the team."
This is only possible if the random ID does not change all the time and if the same ID is used to tag other data than the location.
If all you have is millions of datasets consisting of a random ID and an associated location, how do you do what you're describing with that?
What you're describing is exactly what's possible if you use a Unique Device ID which never (or very rarely) changes and if you use the same ID for many different things. Well, exactly this is what Google does with Android and AdMob, but it's not the only way to do it.
It boggles the mind, but the twice daily locally generated random IDs Apple uses for tagging location data are avoiding these problems very nicely.
How should that work? If there were hundreds of people at Fred's workplace and thousands of people at Fred's supermarket, how do you know who is Fred? What you're saying makes only sense if you already know who Fred actually is and which random IDs his phone had at these moments. But you don't. All what you have is lots of different random IDs with an associated location.
You. Are. A. Fool.
Whatever data corporations collect about you is available to the government. Period.
Sometimes they can just buy it on the open market. Other times they need a National Security letter or even a (gasp!) subpoena.
The only way to keep this kind of stuff out of the hands of the government is to not generate it in the first place.
Yes, and I was exactly saying this and if you had read what I wrote you would have understood what I was saying.
The difference is that only very few Mac apps require an admin password since most are just bundles you throw into your Applications folder (or where you want them to be) without actually "installing" (= spraying files and data all over the system) anything.
Maybe not a really huge difference, but most people are not really used to that and any app running an actual installer is eyed with suspicion.
It would help a lot if apps like Adobe Reader wouldn't needlessly come with such an installer. But then it's very nearly malware anyway.
All I want to know is whether this malware is worthy of the Apple platform or not: Does it use Grand Central Dispatch to efficiently allocate the load of multiple form-stealing processes between all my system's cores? Are the misleading dialog boxes that frighten me further into folly fully compliant with Apple's HID guidelines?
Well, that "MAC defender" scamware uses Growl for its fake virus notifications and with this uses the theme you selected for notification bubbles and such. Depending on your own style it's surely stylish. And you can of course even customize the theme it uses! Try that with Windows.
How could we have ended up with being a rather intelligent species during our evolution if it were different?
Have you ever thought about the fact that exactly you are the product of an uninterrupted string of heroes who have managed to fight and survive every hardship the world threw at them for millions of years? And managed not only to survive but to bear and protect their children until they were able to protect themselves and bear their own children and protect them against nature, against animals, against droughts and floods and everything?
On the other hand all of this is irrelevant in the short term. We're not more intelligent than people thousands of years ago and the impact of education and the social environment is much larger than every advantage or disadvantage your genes may give your children. There's no need to be smug or depressed, you are obviously carrying genes of survivors and your children will have everything they need to make their way.