I realize that given enough "shady repair shops", and enough time, eventually someone, somewhere will have their phone compromised in the way Apple describes. But, at least till now, is there any verifiable evidence that evil repair shops are planting rootkits or whatever into third party part replacement jobs on iphones? I hear a great deal here that there exists a *potential* for malfeasance, and that argument sounds credible, but has anyone actually been taken to the cleaners by a technical exploit by a crooked shop?
I think I'd be reacting differently were this a story of hundreds or thousands of people getting ripped off by compromised phones. What I'm hearing is that people are suffering damage perpetrated by the maker of their phones, not people damaged by small time crooks.
Exactly. Disable the fingerprint reader and demand a PIN.
Bricking the phone is evil. Driving people to factory authorized repair doesn't cut it for me. Especially if that involves bricking phones. People are too dependent upon phones for apple to take it upon themselves to decide it is best to brick someone's phone on scant evidence of actual malfeasance. It is wrong. It is wrong minded. It is thoughtless. And it is selfish on apple's part.
Sorry - should have explained better - the blue ball in my system is where I am now, and red is the goal. It shows both well enough that I can see if it has got the now and goal right.
The over the top version: If she or anyone uses the voice, they're using it wrong.
The more nuanced version: If you use the map the GPS presents, you'll have a fair idea of how where you are relates to where you want to go. I never listen to the audio or use the turn by turn instructions. I don't need them. I don't trust them. The little blue ball on the map tells me all I usually want.
I have had a GPS try to send me off onto a defunct logging road, a once usable dirt wagon path that has become filled with trees. It was, in honesty, a more direct route, but only by foot.
"If you drop it and then take it to an unauthorized service vendor and they damage it"
But, the unauthorized servicer didn't damage it. They fixed it. They just don't have Apple's seal of approval on the fix. So Apple trashes the CUSTOMER's property. Great.
"Your door handle freezes up, you take it to a little shop who fixes it with an aftermarket part."
And the handle is definitely a security related part. So by the logic of some posts, bricking the car, rather than lesser measures like a recall notice, is perfectly reasonable.
The whole issue here is that bricking a car or a phone is a wildly disproportional response, and directed at the wrong target. If Apple wants to get people to use Apple Service and parts, and they can prove some sort of fraud that devalues the Apple brand by the indie repair place or by the indie part maker, then let them use appropriate means directed at said shops, BUT DON'T BRICK PEOPLES PHONES! (Yes, I'm yelling) It's a sneaky, nasty, underhanded, inappropriate, cheap, user hostile way to clobber indie shops and parts makers by clobbering Apple's own customers. Apple should leave the customer out of the direct line of fire.
"...Apple is attempting to curtail that type of attack by authenticating the physical sensor to the mainboard..."
No, Apple is trying to squash independent repair shops. Security is just the excuse.
They can drive business to their own repair shops with the bricking threat. There could have been other far better responses to a potential security issue. This kind of heavy handed behavior is one reason my next phone will not be an Apple.
"....If enough cases of exploding computers happen, due to a proliferation of dodgy USB-C cables, I would believe it would quickly get the attention of law makers..."
Two topics here. 1. Planned obsolescence - planned to keep working to specs, but to no longer mesh with current technology or fashion. 2. Planned failure - designed to fail sooner.
Example: many phones fall into the planned failure category as they irreparably fail early because the battery is unreplaceably glued in. Whereas pretty much all smartphones are rendered obsolete by the advance of many technologies - they still function, but begin to be surpassed by newer phones with more desirable features.
I think you attribute more power to the SJWs and their ilk than their woolly notions (I was going to say "ideas", but I don't think it rises to that level.) have earned. Granted their influence has been to greatly empower lazy cowardly "thinking", and their effects have been unequivocally negative, but I think it is easily possible to see them as more influential than they are.
I was wondering when someone would remember the fate of IBM. One way of looking at it is that IBM dominated - completely owned - their ecosystem. But their ecosystem is no longer that important.
Apple mostly owns the fan and peer-pressure driven igadget universe. Around me right now are ilaptops and iphones, among other gizmos. But how long will people pay the steep Apple premium? And more important, can some new ithis or ithat build an even larger mountain of cash?
To be crass, Apple has been gadgets, clever and slick gadgets, yes, but the ecosystem is now replete with gadgets. The next big thing will erupt from a new direction. Apple will just watch from the sidelines, as will most everyone now dominant, if they stay within their respective winning niches. The risk taker, innovaters, will be the new winners. Apple has stopped innovating. Apple is essentially treading water. Sure, little incremental stuff, watches etc, but Google and Musk are sending scouts to much more distant horizons.
But even they may get blindsided by some newcomer who finds the next wave.
Slashdot Mirror
But, since when is it ever not a time of insecurity or crime? You are arguing that there never be privacy.
Cheaper to pay than to fix it themselves. Yes?
I realize that given enough "shady repair shops", and enough time, eventually someone, somewhere will have their phone compromised in the way Apple describes. But, at least till now, is there any verifiable evidence that evil repair shops are planting rootkits or whatever into third party part replacement jobs on iphones? I hear a great deal here that there exists a *potential* for malfeasance, and that argument sounds credible, but has anyone actually been taken to the cleaners by a technical exploit by a crooked shop?
I think I'd be reacting differently were this a story of hundreds or thousands of people getting ripped off by compromised phones. What I'm hearing is that people are suffering damage perpetrated by the maker of their phones, not people damaged by small time crooks.
I was guessing it had to follow a scheme like that (not a network guy here.) Labor intensive, a vast and expensive pain in the neck, but doable.
As long as data is backed up. And maybe a bit less painful if IT has a plan for such issues.
I want to be the one to decide if I think something represents sufficient security danger. I want the right to decide where to repair it.
I own an old iphone. It is the first apple product I have purchased. It is also the last.
Exactly. Disable the fingerprint reader and demand a PIN.
Bricking the phone is evil. Driving people to factory authorized repair doesn't cut it for me. Especially if that involves bricking phones. People are too dependent upon phones for apple to take it upon themselves to decide it is best to brick someone's phone on scant evidence of actual malfeasance. It is wrong. It is wrong minded. It is thoughtless. And it is selfish on apple's part.
Is it not possible to wipe a machine totally clean? And thus all the hospital's machines? Or just get new machines and trash all old storage?
...of a platform from which to savage celebrities or those with greater achievement.
Never understood the point of Twitter. It sounds worse and worse. Good riddance.
"... the rape problem is rare now."
Not every night.
At least the NSA has the courtesy to not phone me.
We got to the moon how many years ago, and yet it is suggested this is the best we can do.
Sorry - should have explained better - the blue ball in my system is where I am now, and red is the goal. It shows both well enough that I can see if it has got the now and goal right.
The over the top version: If she or anyone uses the voice, they're using it wrong.
The more nuanced version: If you use the map the GPS presents, you'll have a fair idea of how where you are relates to where you want to go. I never listen to the audio or use the turn by turn instructions. I don't need them. I don't trust them. The little blue ball on the map tells me all I usually want.
I have had a GPS try to send me off onto a defunct logging road, a once usable dirt wagon path that has become filled with trees. It was, in honesty, a more direct route, but only by foot.
Maybe she'd fire them all?
"If you drop it and then take it to an unauthorized service vendor and they damage it"
But, the unauthorized servicer didn't damage it. They fixed it. They just don't have Apple's seal of approval on the fix. So Apple trashes the CUSTOMER's property. Great.
"Your door handle freezes up, you take it to a little shop who fixes it with an aftermarket part."
And the handle is definitely a security related part. So by the logic of some posts, bricking the car, rather than lesser measures like a recall notice, is perfectly reasonable.
The whole issue here is that bricking a car or a phone is a wildly disproportional response, and directed at the wrong target. If Apple wants to get people to use Apple Service and parts, and they can prove some sort of fraud that devalues the Apple brand by the indie repair place or by the indie part maker, then let them use appropriate means directed at said shops, BUT DON'T BRICK PEOPLES PHONES! (Yes, I'm yelling) It's a sneaky, nasty, underhanded, inappropriate, cheap, user hostile way to clobber indie shops and parts makers by clobbering Apple's own customers. Apple should leave the customer out of the direct line of fire.
No more Apple products for me.
"...Apple is attempting to curtail that type of attack by authenticating the physical sensor to the mainboard..."
No, Apple is trying to squash independent repair shops. Security is just the excuse.
They can drive business to their own repair shops with the bricking threat. There could have been other far better responses to a potential security issue. This kind of heavy handed behavior is one reason my next phone will not be an Apple.
"....If enough cases of exploding computers happen, due to a proliferation of dodgy USB-C cables, I would believe it would quickly get the attention of law makers..."
Lawmakers give attention to computer users?
I hate their DNA.
Well said.
And the phones too.
Two topics here.
1. Planned obsolescence - planned to keep working to specs, but to no longer mesh with current technology or fashion.
2. Planned failure - designed to fail sooner.
Example: many phones fall into the planned failure category as they irreparably fail early because the battery is unreplaceably glued in.
Whereas pretty much all smartphones are rendered obsolete by the advance of many technologies - they still function, but begin to be surpassed by newer phones with more desirable features.
I think you attribute more power to the SJWs and their ilk than their woolly notions (I was going to say "ideas", but I don't think it rises to that level.) have earned. Granted their influence has been to greatly empower lazy cowardly "thinking", and their effects have been unequivocally negative, but I think it is easily possible to see them as more influential than they are.
Boy, that's hard. Accurate though. Take a good laptop, cripple it, make it pretty, raise the price, and you have an Apple laptop.
I was wondering when someone would remember the fate of IBM. One way of looking at it is that IBM dominated - completely owned - their ecosystem. But their ecosystem is no longer that important.
Apple mostly owns the fan and peer-pressure driven igadget universe. Around me right now are ilaptops and iphones, among other gizmos. But how long will people pay the steep Apple premium? And more important, can some new ithis or ithat build an even larger mountain of cash?
To be crass, Apple has been gadgets, clever and slick gadgets, yes, but the ecosystem is now replete with gadgets. The next big thing will erupt from a new direction. Apple will just watch from the sidelines, as will most everyone now dominant, if they stay within their respective winning niches. The risk taker, innovaters, will be the new winners. Apple has stopped innovating. Apple is essentially treading water. Sure, little incremental stuff, watches etc, but Google and Musk are sending scouts to much more distant horizons.
But even they may get blindsided by some newcomer who finds the next wave.