From what I remember of EE210, a moving curent creates both an electric field and a magnetic field (right hand rule). I forget if there is no moving charge and a magnetic field, if a electric field would exist.
If there is a non-moving charge, an electric field will exist. If there is no charge, and a changing magnetic field, an electric field will exist, if I remember correctly (it'll induce a current, meaning there's an electric field kicking the charges). If there's no charge, and a static magnetic field, I don't think an electric field will exist.
If it's older than Astrolabe's database (that has a DOS version), then Astrolabe can't claim that Olsen's database stole information from their database (in fact, it's likely to be the other way around).
...it's not as if the Olson database was published in 1986 and never modified (that would have made the Olson code and database not very useful - the whole point of the exercise was to allow systems using them to adapt to changes in time zone rules), and some subsequent changes cited Shanks' dead-tree atlases as sources. The database source cites later versions of those atlases (5th edition of the American atlas, 1991; 6th edition of the International atlas, 2003). It does not speak of the PC Atlas at all.
Astrolabe created ACS Atlas, which has historical timezone data. Mr. Olson supposedly posted this to the elsie site, said it came from ACS Atlas, and claimed the data was public domain. Astrolabe said, "no, it's not; take it down." Mr. Olson said, "no." Astrolabe told their lawyers, "get him!"
Try:
Thomas G. Shanks created two (dead-tree) atlases giving historical time zone information. In 1986, Mr. Olson created a time zone database (and implementations of localtime() and the like using that database), without reference to Shanks, when the daylight savings time rules in the US were changed and the compiled-in time zone information in UN*X libc's were out of date . The database has been updated over the years, with Shanks' atlases being one of many sources used to supply the data; Shanks' atlases were used to provide historical data....
The facts are not copyrighted, but the compilation is. The allegation is that he really just republished the compilation in whole or in part.
In whole, most definitely not. The Olson database existed long before anybody started looking at Shanks' atlases. In part - well, as the comments say, the Shanks' atlases have been consulted in some cases, but sometimes its claims were rejected in favor of other claims, for example
# From Paul Eggert (2002-10-20): # # The information in the rest of this paragraph is derived from the # <a href="http://www.dlapr.lib.az.us/links/daylight.htm"> # Daylight Saving Time web page (2002-01-23)</a> maintained by the # Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records. # Between 1944-01-01 and 1944-04-01 the State of Arizona used standard # time, but by federal law railroads, airlines, bus lines, military # personnel, and some engaged in interstate commerce continued to # observe war (i.e., daylight saving) time. The 1944-03-17 Phoenix # Gazette says that was the date the law changed, and that 04-01 was # the date the state's clocks would change. In 1945 the State of # Arizona used standard time all year, again with exceptions only as # mandated by federal law. Arizona observed DST in 1967, but Arizona # Laws 1968, ch. 183 (effective 1968-03-21) repealed DST. # # Shanks says the 1944 experiment came to an end on 1944-03-17. # Go with the Arizona State Library instead.
and
# From Paul Eggert (1999-03-31): # Shanks writes that Michigan started using standard time on 1885-09-18, # but Howse writes (pp 124-125, referring to Popular Astronomy, 1901-01) # that Detroit kept # # local time until 1900 when the City Council decreed that clocks should # be put back twenty-eight minutes to Central Standard Time. Half the # city obeyed, half refused. After considerable debate, the decision # was rescinded and the city reverted to Sun time. A derisive offer to # erect a sundial in front of the city hall was referred to the # Committee on Sewers. Then, in 1905, Central time was adopted # by city vote. # # This story is too entertaining to be false, so go with Howse over Shanks.
or ignored for pre-UNIX-Epoch times:
# Shanks partitioned Indiana into 345 regions, each with its own time history, # and wrote ``Even newspaper reports present contradictory information.'' # Those Hoosiers! Such a flighty and changeable people! # Fortunately, most of the complexity occurred before our cutoff date of 1970.
It looks like this guy perhaps just copied large portions from an existing compilation.
"Copied portions from an existing compilation", or "looked facts up in an existing compilation"?
Change of ownership of "ACS Atlas database" from ACS to Astrolabe in 2008: http://alabe.com/history.htm
" The ACS PC Atlas, the premier longitude, latitude and time zone reference for astrologers. Astrolabe worked with Astro Computing Services in the early 1990s, advising on the user interface for the PC version of their well-known reference work, and in 2008, Astrolabe bought the rights to the Atlas. Astrolabe and ACS (now Astro Communications Services) maintain a mutual dealership agreement for each other's software products."
Presumably that also includes the rights to the dead tree version, which the comments in the tz database seem to be speaking of.
OK, so it's a copyright infringement case, claiming that ACS Atlas's compilation of historical time zone data was copied. It seems that this would fall under the "phone book" interpretation of copyright (facts cannot be copyrighted but their presentation can be) does anyone know if this ACS American Atlas software contained these historical time zones as tzdata source files that could have been copied?
The comments in the tz database speak of dead tree atlases, not software atlases, being consulted.
Wiki-administrator David Gerardreverted it back, with the very telling comment "rv apparent vanity entry to redirect".
What the comment "tells" me is that Gerard may have misjudged JulDes' and "TZ master"'s motivations. It sounds to me as if they just wanted to give information on the author of the atlases used as a source for some of the tz database entries. (Whether Thomas G. Shanks is notable enough to deserve a Wikipedia page is another matter, on which I have no opinion.)
As a side note, the infowars portion of the suit has begun. The reference to Shanks on the "Tz database" page was added as close to the top as could be managed by user JulDes on Sept. 3, which seems to be the day the account was created. As of May 2006, "Thomas Shanks" on Wikipedia redirected to Irish footballer Tommy Shanks. As of One month ago, it now instead has information on the otherwise unknown author of the American Atlas, 1978, ACS publications. The editing account, "TZ Master" seems to have been created expressly for the purpose 5 minutes earlier.
Looking at TZ master's contributions, he or she appears to be a tz database nerd; the "Thomas Shanks" edits might have been his or her first edits, but they are far from his or her last edits.
Here's a decent and quick summary, clipped in part from the complaint. Short version: Astrolabe, Inc. has purchased the copyright to the American Atlas
Purchased it as in "they, rather than ACS, own it now", or licensed it, so that they're not the ultimate owners, they're just a licensee? The complaint says
Pursuant to a written agreement, Astrolabe is the copyright assignee of the copyright owner, of certain copyright-protected computer software programs and information contained therein, pursuant to the Copyright Protection Act,17 U.S.C. Section 101, et seq., known as the “ACS Atlas,” consisting of both the “ACS International Atlas,” and the “ACS American Atlas,” in the form of computer software program(s) and/or data bases, and in the form of electronic output and future electronic media from said programs [hereinafter “the Works”].
and
In connection with its rights to reproduce the Works, plaintiff Astrolabe is contractually obligated to pay royalties to the owner/assignor of the copyright and the authors of the same.
which seems to suggest the latter. If it's the latter, I don't know whether that means that Astrolabe can sue, or if ACS has to be the one suing. I'll leave that to copyright lawyers, or somebody with more time than I to look at the relevant bits of US copyright law, to answer.
Could it be that his email password was stolen somehow and this mail is just a hoax?
Computer compromised by a keylogger,etc, so the bad guys had access to mailing list credentials,etc to shut it down as well?
Just mentioning since there's no significant detail in the message
ADO's lawyers and/or the Department of Health's lawyers probably said "shut down the mailing list and the FTP site now and say as little as possible". And, from the actual legal complaint people have found and linked to in other comments, it's not a hoax.
# From Paul Eggert (2006-03-22): # A good source for time zone historical data in the US is # Thomas G. Shanks, The American Atlas (5th edition), # San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (1991). # Make sure you have the errata sheet; the book is somewhat useless without it. # It is the source for most of the pre-1991 US entries below.
and
# From Paul Eggert (2006-03-22): # A good source for time zone historical data outside the U.S. is # Thomas G. Shanks and Rique Pottenger, The International Atlas (6th edition), # San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (2003).
I get that this is the Nobel prize - but these people appear to have already accomplished something. Indeed, the noteworthy achievement for which they are receiving the prize is over a decade in the past. I thought the Nobel prize was awarded to encourage responsible action?
By the way, what the hell is up with "dividing" a Nobel prize like it's some sort of peach pie? Half for one white male, while the other two share the other half?
Not all "most important [discoveries] or [inventions] within the field of physics" - or any of the other fields for which there are Nobel prizes - can be uniquely credited to one individual. (And sometimes it's split between Asians, or between an Asian and a white guy, or....:-))
Who comes up with this stuff?
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (Hint: you may think that as a random geek with a/. account and an opinion, you're smarter than they all are. That is not necessarily the case. HTH.)
The capability-based privilege system applies to all applications, not just App Store ones.
No, it only applies to applications that have opted into it, which App Store apps have to, but other apps don't.
An application on 10.7 can't access paths on the filesystem without either getting explicit permission or asking through an NSOpenPanel, which on 10.7 runs in a separate process.
Again, only if it's opted into it. cat doesn't have to ask permission, and neither do, say, Wireshark or Microsoft Office or Quicken or.... Some apps that ship with Lion are sandboxed, such as TextEdit and Preview, but most aren't.
Actually, as near as I can tell it is an executable with no extension at all, but with a PDF icon of some sort and MIME type included in the resource fork.
Actually, if you skip all the journalism and follow links all the way to the F-Secure blog posting about the trojan, it's a file "where the icon is stored in a separate fork that is not readily visible in the OS", which presumably means "in the resource fork". The F-Secure item for the trojan says "Trojan-Dropper:OSX/Revir.A drops a downloader component that downloads a backdoor program onto the system, while camouflaging its activity by opening a PDF file to distract the user.", which seems to indicate that both a PDF that "[distracts] the user" and other stuff including "a backdoor program" are involved. It sounds a bit more complex than what the articles about the trojan say it is and the/. discussion of the trojan seem to imply it is, but they don't indicate what "a downloader component" is. I guess I've spent too much time dealing with Mac OS X at the UN*X level to know what "a downloader component" is....
How do you view Mac OS X's file extensions (e.g,.exe)? I always thought they didn't have them like MS' OSes.
You were mistaken. Executable images in Mac OS X have no file extensions (Mac OS X being a UN*X), and classic Mac OS didn't use extensions, but Mac OS X uses extensions for a lot of file types, including "application bundles" (.app), which is what files (well, directories) in, for example,/Applications are.
You view them either by using ls or by (at least on Snow Leopard) opening up the preferences for the Finder, selecting the Advanced tab, and checking "Show all filename extensions", so that it shows the extensions even for files for which "don't show the extension" was specified.
Urgh - a quick google unearths nothing more than copy-pastes of this article
Anyone got something more interesting on the actual tech?
Well, a quick Google for "claremont site:intel.com" found this page, but I suspect somebody else has already discovered it and posted it here, or the site's running from that processor and somebody turned the light off, as it's responding rather slowly. From the Google summary, it's a "Near Threshold Voltage Processor".
It is only a coincidence that you can use (as you claim, I did not verify it) the program with an option click into the WiFi icon on the menu bar.
Actually, no, it is not even remotely a coincidence; it is entirely intentional - Apple intended that to be the way you can invoke it, they did not intend it to be invoked by browsing to /System/Library/CoreServices and double-clicking it. It's unfortunate that option+click is not as well known as it should be to the subset of the users of Mac OS X for whom it's useful, but that's a separate matter.
This is my computer, everything that is not directly obvious is "non existing" for me. And I'm tired to be treated by Apple just the same every one else is treated by MS.
Then perhaps Mac OS X is not the right operating system for you; it is, as you note, your computer, so perhaps you should consider loading an OS more to your liking on it. Seriously. If there are aspects of Mac OS X that you want, you will, for better or worse, have to put up with aspects of it that you might hate; for better or worse, that's life with Apple operating systems.
...which leads me to wonder what this program provides that we can't already get from Wireshark. It's a trivial matter to compile this for OS X
It's an even more trivial matter to download a precompiled binary from wireshark.org, but, as another response already noted, one thing Wi-Fi Diagnostics provides is that you don't have to download and install it, much less compile it. It also offers a pane to get information about Wi-Fi networks your machine is seeing and a signal-and-noise graph, and to report that information to Apple for troubleshooting, and it can report various Wi-Fi network events.
In addition, if you're not the person who's going to be reading the capture, it offers a much simpler UI than Wireshark (which is intended for people who are going to be reading the capture).
No, I just want to point out that not all applications, in the sense of "programs that offer a UI and that are inside an app bundle", need to be in/Applications or ~/Applications, whether it's because they're launched automatically (as, yes, I knew the Finder was) or are launched from a menu item or....
My guess (I don't have Lion) is that this new little utility is designed to be launched from some other user facing application
Well, more like from the user-facing Wi-Fi menu extra (the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar on the right side); option-click on that and you get some additional stuff even in pre-Lion releases, such as signal information; as the AppleInsider article on this app notes, it's launched by the "Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics..." option+menu item for that menu extra.
Slashdot Mirror
From what I remember of EE210, a moving curent creates both an electric field and a magnetic field (right hand rule). I forget if there is no moving charge and a magnetic field, if a electric field would exist.
If there is a non-moving charge, an electric field will exist. If there is no charge, and a changing magnetic field, an electric field will exist, if I remember correctly (it'll induce a current, meaning there's an electric field kicking the charges). If there's no charge, and a static magnetic field, I don't think an electric field will exist.
How long has Olsen's database been available?
Since 1986. However:
If it's older than Astrolabe's database (that has a DOS version), then Astrolabe can't claim that Olsen's database stole information from their database (in fact, it's likely to be the other way around).
...it's not as if the Olson database was published in 1986 and never modified (that would have made the Olson code and database not very useful - the whole point of the exercise was to allow systems using them to adapt to changes in time zone rules), and some subsequent changes cited Shanks' dead-tree atlases as sources. The database source cites later versions of those atlases (5th edition of the American atlas, 1991; 6th edition of the International atlas, 2003). It does not speak of the PC Atlas at all.
To sum it up:
Astrolabe created ACS Atlas, which has historical timezone data. Mr. Olson supposedly posted this to the elsie site, said it came from ACS Atlas, and claimed the data was public domain. Astrolabe said, "no, it's not; take it down." Mr. Olson said, "no." Astrolabe told their lawyers, "get him!"
Try:
Thomas G. Shanks created two (dead-tree) atlases giving historical time zone information. In 1986, Mr. Olson created a time zone database (and implementations of localtime() and the like using that database), without reference to Shanks, when the daylight savings time rules in the US were changed and the compiled-in time zone information in UN*X libc's were out of date . The database has been updated over the years, with Shanks' atlases being one of many sources used to supply the data; Shanks' atlases were used to provide historical data. ...
The facts are not copyrighted, but the compilation is. The allegation is that he really just republished the compilation in whole or in part.
In whole, most definitely not. The Olson database existed long before anybody started looking at Shanks' atlases. In part - well, as the comments say, the Shanks' atlases have been consulted in some cases, but sometimes its claims were rejected in favor of other claims, for example
and
or ignored for pre-UNIX-Epoch times:
It looks like this guy perhaps just copied large portions from an existing compilation.
"Copied portions from an existing compilation", or "looked facts up in an existing compilation"?
Change of ownership of "ACS Atlas database" from ACS to Astrolabe in 2008: http://alabe.com/history.htm " The ACS PC Atlas, the premier longitude, latitude and time zone reference for astrologers. Astrolabe worked with Astro Computing Services in the early 1990s, advising on the user interface for the PC version of their well-known reference work, and in 2008, Astrolabe bought the rights to the Atlas. Astrolabe and ACS (now Astro Communications Services) maintain a mutual dealership agreement for each other's software products."
Presumably that also includes the rights to the dead tree version, which the comments in the tz database seem to be speaking of.
OK, so it's a copyright infringement case, claiming that ACS Atlas's compilation of historical time zone data was copied. It seems that this would fall under the "phone book" interpretation of copyright (facts cannot be copyrighted but their presentation can be) does anyone know if this ACS American Atlas software contained these historical time zones as tzdata source files that could have been copied?
The comments in the tz database speak of dead tree atlases, not software atlases, being consulted.
Wiki-administrator David Gerard reverted it back, with the very telling comment "rv apparent vanity entry to redirect".
What the comment "tells" me is that Gerard may have misjudged JulDes' and "TZ master"'s motivations. It sounds to me as if they just wanted to give information on the author of the atlases used as a source for some of the tz database entries. (Whether Thomas G. Shanks is notable enough to deserve a Wikipedia page is another matter, on which I have no opinion.)
As a side note, the infowars portion of the suit has begun. The reference to Shanks on the "Tz database" page was added as close to the top as could be managed by user JulDes on Sept. 3, which seems to be the day the account was created. As of May 2006, "Thomas Shanks" on Wikipedia redirected to Irish footballer Tommy Shanks. As of One month ago, it now instead has information on the otherwise unknown author of the American Atlas, 1978, ACS publications. The editing account, "TZ Master" seems to have been created expressly for the purpose 5 minutes earlier.
Looking at TZ master's contributions, he or she appears to be a tz database nerd; the "Thomas Shanks" edits might have been his or her first edits, but they are far from his or her last edits.
Besides, JulDes, not "TZ master", was the person who made the "Thomas Shanks" page talk about the time zone atlas person. From JulDes' user page and contributions, I see no reason to assume he or she is part of the Evil Astrolabe Cabal, either.
Here's a decent and quick summary, clipped in part from the complaint. Short version: Astrolabe, Inc. has purchased the copyright to the American Atlas
Purchased it as in "they, rather than ACS, own it now", or licensed it, so that they're not the ultimate owners, they're just a licensee? The complaint says
and
which seems to suggest the latter. If it's the latter, I don't know whether that means that Astrolabe can sue, or if ACS has to be the one suing. I'll leave that to copyright lawyers, or somebody with more time than I to look at the relevant bits of US copyright law, to answer.
Could it be that his email password was stolen somehow and this mail is just a hoax? Computer compromised by a keylogger,etc, so the bad guys had access to mailing list credentials,etc to shut it down as well? Just mentioning since there's no significant detail in the message
ADO's lawyers and/or the Department of Health's lawyers probably said "shut down the mailing list and the FTP site now and say as little as possible". And, from the actual legal complaint people have found and linked to in other comments, it's not a hoax.
This blog article has an analysis of the action. It appears, essentially, that Astrolabe publishes an altas
Astrolabe, in Brewster, Massachusetts, appears to sell an application called "the ACS American and International PC Atlas for Windows".
The comments in the TZ database:
and
speak of two atlases from ACS Publications in New Hampshire, The American Atlas and The International Atlas. It's not clear what connection there is between Astrolabe and Astro Computing Services/Starcrafts Publishing/ACS Publications; perhaps Astrolabe licensed Astro Computing Services' ACS Atlas Software for their product.
I get that this is the Nobel prize - but these people appear to have already accomplished something. Indeed, the noteworthy achievement for which they are receiving the prize is over a decade in the past. I thought the Nobel prize was awarded to encourage responsible action?
As noted, this is the Nobel Prize in Physics, which is to be awarded to "the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics"
Look at the photo at the linked article - three white males.
OK, fine. Yeah, the physics prize has mostly gone to white males, but there's C. V. Raman (if "Indian" counts as "non-white"), Hideki Yukawa, Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Leo Esaki, Samuel C. C. Ting, Abdus Salam (if "Pakistani" counts as "non-white"), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (see previous comments), Steven Chu, Daniel C. Tsui, Masatoshi Koshiba, Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa, Yoichiro Nambu, and Charles K. Kao. Oh, yeah, and Marie Skodowska Curie and Maria Goeppert-Mayer.
By the way, what the hell is up with "dividing" a Nobel prize like it's some sort of peach pie? Half for one white male, while the other two share the other half?
Not all "most important [discoveries] or [inventions] within the field of physics" - or any of the other fields for which there are Nobel prizes - can be uniquely credited to one individual. (And sometimes it's split between Asians, or between an Asian and a white guy, or.... :-))
Who comes up with this stuff?
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. (Hint: you may think that as a random geek with a /. account and an opinion, you're smarter than they all are. That is not necessarily the case. HTH.)
I just checked, dscl is not a daemon
Correct - as man dscl will tell you, it's the "Directory Service command line utility".
The capability-based privilege system applies to all applications, not just App Store ones.
No, it only applies to applications that have opted into it, which App Store apps have to, but other apps don't.
An application on 10.7 can't access paths on the filesystem without either getting explicit permission or asking through an NSOpenPanel, which on 10.7 runs in a separate process.
Again, only if it's opted into it. cat doesn't have to ask permission, and neither do, say, Wireshark or Microsoft Office or Quicken or.... Some apps that ship with Lion are sandboxed, such as TextEdit and Preview, but most aren't.
Actually, as near as I can tell it is an executable with no extension at all, but with a PDF icon of some sort and MIME type included in the resource fork.
Actually, if you skip all the journalism and follow links all the way to the F-Secure blog posting about the trojan, it's a file "where the icon is stored in a separate fork that is not readily visible in the OS", which presumably means "in the resource fork". The F-Secure item for the trojan says "Trojan-Dropper:OSX/Revir.A drops a downloader component that downloads a backdoor program onto the system, while camouflaging its activity by opening a PDF file to distract the user.", which seems to indicate that both a PDF that "[distracts] the user" and other stuff including "a backdoor program" are involved. It sounds a bit more complex than what the articles about the trojan say it is and the /. discussion of the trojan seem to imply it is, but they don't indicate what "a downloader component" is. I guess I've spent too much time dealing with Mac OS X at the UN*X level to know what "a downloader component" is....
How do you view Mac OS X's file extensions (e.g, .exe)? I always thought they didn't have them like MS' OSes.
You were mistaken. Executable images in Mac OS X have no file extensions (Mac OS X being a UN*X), and classic Mac OS didn't use extensions, but Mac OS X uses extensions for a lot of file types, including "application bundles" (.app), which is what files (well, directories) in, for example, /Applications are.
You view them either by using ls or by (at least on Snow Leopard) opening up the preferences for the Finder, selecting the Advanced tab, and checking "Show all filename extensions", so that it shows the extensions even for files for which "don't show the extension" was specified.
What makes you think it wouldn't be sandboxed on OS X 10.7 by default, the same as every other app you download?
Because it wasn't downloaded from the App Store, so it isn't sandboxed by default.
Urgh - a quick google unearths nothing more than copy-pastes of this article
Anyone got something more interesting on the actual tech?
Well, a quick Google for "claremont site:intel.com" found this page, but I suspect somebody else has already discovered it and posted it here, or the site's running from that processor and somebody turned the light off, as it's responding rather slowly. From the Google summary, it's a "Near Threshold Voltage Processor".
It is only a coincidence that you can use (as you claim, I did not verify it) the program with an option click into the WiFi icon on the menu bar.
Actually, no, it is not even remotely a coincidence; it is entirely intentional - Apple intended that to be the way you can invoke it, they did not intend it to be invoked by browsing to /System/Library/CoreServices and double-clicking it. It's unfortunate that option+click is not as well known as it should be to the subset of the users of Mac OS X for whom it's useful, but that's a separate matter.
This is my computer, everything that is not directly obvious is "non existing" for me. And I'm tired to be treated by Apple just the same every one else is treated by MS.
Then perhaps Mac OS X is not the right operating system for you; it is, as you note, your computer, so perhaps you should consider loading an OS more to your liking on it. Seriously. If there are aspects of Mac OS X that you want, you will, for better or worse, have to put up with aspects of it that you might hate; for better or worse, that's life with Apple operating systems.
...which leads me to wonder what this program provides that we can't already get from Wireshark. It's a trivial matter to compile this for OS X
It's an even more trivial matter to download a precompiled binary from wireshark.org, but, as another response already noted, one thing Wi-Fi Diagnostics provides is that you don't have to download and install it, much less compile it. It also offers a pane to get information about Wi-Fi networks your machine is seeing and a signal-and-noise graph, and to report that information to Apple for troubleshooting, and it can report various Wi-Fi network events.
In addition, if you're not the person who's going to be reading the capture, it offers a much simpler UI than Wireshark (which is intended for people who are going to be reading the capture).
You know that the finder starts automatically?
Well, yo only want to nitpick it seems.
No, I just want to point out that not all applications, in the sense of "programs that offer a UI and that are inside an app bundle", need to be in /Applications or ~/Applications, whether it's because they're launched automatically (as, yes, I knew the Finder was) or are launched from a menu item or....
Sorry, a useful "utility" is wrongly placed there.
Better tell Apple about that hidden "Finder" app there, then. Anybody tried launching it to see what it does?
(And, yes, there is a way to launch the Wi-Fi Diagnostics app from the UI; option+click the Wi-Fi menu extra and select "Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics...".)
so you can capture network packets in iOS
This article is about Mac OS X, not iOS.
does that mean no more Apples for the germans ? http://politics.slashdot.org/story/07/05/31/1629259/Germany-Declares-Hacking-Tools-Illegal
OS X has had tcpdump since, I think, 10.0, so, no, nothing changes here.
I'm not certain how you'd invoke Wi-Fi diagnostics
Hold down the "option" key when clicking on the Wi-Fi menu extra in the menu bar, and select "Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics..." from the menu.
My guess (I don't have Lion) is that this new little utility is designed to be launched from some other user facing application
Well, more like from the user-facing Wi-Fi menu extra (the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar on the right side); option-click on that and you get some additional stuff even in pre-Lion releases, such as signal information; as the AppleInsider article on this app notes, it's launched by the "Open Wi-Fi Diagnostics..." option+menu item for that menu extra.