Forgive me for being a Brit so not really understanding what this is all about, but is it not the case that when you buy a phone in the US you are buying it for a small fraction of the actual cost (or being given it free) under the condition that you only use it on their network and hence pay for the calls to the people who subsidised the phone? That is how it works over here.
Yes, that's part of the justification for locking phones.
In the US, we also have the same rent-to-own system for paying for expensive electronic appliances and expensive furniture. Basically, in exchange for a subsidized appliance upfront, you end up paying over a two-year (or a three-year) period multiple times the normal retail price for that appliance. Of course for rent-to-own, only the people in the most extreme circumstances end up using that system, and the overwhelming 90% of the population wouldn't even think to enter a rent-to-own store.
For cell phones in the US however, we're not given much of a choice even if we pay the full unsubsidized price. Technically, I could unlock my Verizon CDMA phone, or I could pay full retail price for a Verizon phone, or I could wait until the two years are up and ask that they unlock it for me, but that phone still wouldn't work on any GSM network, nor would it work on the Sprint/Nextel CDMA network. That's how CDMA works. It's a form of proprietary technology lock-in. Once unlocked, the most I could do with it is use it with PagePlus Cellular, or may be with Boost Mobile (assuming Boost Mobile even lets me), but that's only because those two outfits are subleasing the same Verizon CDMA network.
The US is not like Europe. In Europe, the law says that all carriers must all standardize on the same technology. In the US, there is no such law. And even if I were to bring back a fully unsubsidized GSM phone from Asia, or Europe, my choices would be extremely limited in terms of US carriers that would even support that technology (and I'd be lucky for one to even cover adequately my normal geographical area).
Also, we're acting defensively when we should be going on the offensive instead. Reinstating our rights to unlock our phones is not enough.
The locking of phones by carriers should be made illegal in the first place. Our airways are a public good. They're part of our public infrastructure. They're just like our public roads. As a society, we get to set the rules of the road, or update them as need be. The locking of phones may have been ok in the beginning, but this is a business practice that needs to stop right now.
But TOS is a civil matter. Share your connection and they're entitled to cut you off.
My provider, Speakeasy.net, explicitly allows me to do this.
I know not everyone is in my situation, but I live in a densely-populated US metropolitan area where there are more than enough competing options for broadband. If my provider ever changed those terms of service on me (because of their recent takeover, or a change in management, or whatever) I'd be the first one to cut them off from my money and I'd go elsewhere. I'm the customer. I don't need the aggravation.
And again, I'm not saying everyone has the same options as I do (thought, it's probably worth checking out this site to really make sure you know all your options). I'm just saying that where I live, I actually have ISPs that try extra hard to serve customers like me.
Don't forget to mention this little tidbit, or US-based Slashdotters could get into trouble. "TM" or "SM" is fine, but don't get caught using the "®" symbol when not registered.
Here is the rest of rule, from the same page you quoted from:
[...]
However, you may use the federal registration symbol "®" only after the USPTO actually registers a mark , and not while an application is pending. Also, you may use the registration symbol with the mark only on or in connection with the goods and/or services listed in the federal trademark registration. [source]
Last I checked (which was over 15 years ago) you could be fined in upwards of $3,000 for using that little symbol when not registered. There was even a hotline where you can snitch on a company, or on a person, using the wrong symbol when not registered. And since the rule doesn't seem to have changed, my assumption is that the penalty amount hasn't changed either, or perhaps has even increased to keep up with inflation.
With RIM, you are in control. The server that controls your devices is in your data center, under your control. We at RIM have no control over your devices. You have the keys, and you set the keys. We have no way to get into your phone. We can't listen in, nor can we let a government listen in.
Apparently, the French government and half of the European countries do not believe this statement. They seem to be under the impression that RIM is an intricate part of the US-UK-Australian-Canadian Echelon program.
Also, you should note this article:
If you’re a BES user, your IT department has the option of encrypting the body — not the the PIN — of your PIN-to-PIN BBM messages with a key unique to the company. By default, however, BBM messages are not encrypted because it restricts PIN-to-PIN BBM communication to only employees of the company, instead, they are scrambled. Scrambling is done with a universal cryptographic key that every BlackBerry has.
[...]
RIM can provide this universal key to governments to unscramble messages even in a BES environment — if no additional encryption is applied. [source]
So not only, by default your message is not encrypted by your IT department like you think it might be, thus providing you a false sense of security, but because RIM insists on having a centralized BBM communication network (even in this internet age). It doesn't matter what European country you may be working in: Spain, France, or whatever... A BBM that you send to your colleague sitting less than 1 meter away from you will always get routed through their closest hub in the UK before it even returns back to your country and your colleague.
Half the time, "Beta" nowadays means "Software we aren't anywhere close to done with but still want to make public in order to generate publicity and/or revenue" (looking at you Valve).
The publicity notwithstanding, does EA actually charge for its beta? I bet they don't.
I don't know the practice of Valve. I would be surprised if they charged for their beta as well.
Update: 01/29 18:00 GMT by S : The player's ban has been lifted, and it seems to have happened for an unrelated issue anyway.
Personally, if I had been EA I would have prevented the player from participating in any future *closed* betas (and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they tried to do in this case). Clearly, that player knew he was in a "closed beta", he mentioned that fact twice at least, but apparently he doesn't seem to understand the meaning of that word "closed".
In a closed beta, the feedback you provide stays private. That's the entire point of a beta being closed. Either you email the company directly, or you post in a private forum (designated only for closed beta players), but you do not post your feedback in their public forum.
Sheesh!! The standard is becoming so high, even that word beta doesn't seem to mean anything anymore.
Even if the author abandoned an FOSS program, he can keep a copy of the apk and install it on whatever devices he wants to. If the author pulls an app from play.google.com, he is out of luck.
For this reason I only use programs for which I can download an apk file for any device.
This is one reason you should have at least one rooted device.
With a rooted device, you have access to the apk you downloaded, and with an app like Titanium Backup (on a rooted device), you can maintain backups of your apps, so if you don't like an App update for some reason, you can always revert back to its previous version.
To the few of you with Google TVs, having a rooted phone in your case also means you can send your Google TVs apks that were not officially released on Google TV, but that work just fine on it (or that work just fine on Google TV with rotation control)
I don't understand this. Why would you take your inconvenient, expensive to upgrade, battery-sucking tablet and put your SIM card inside it? Then bring a smaller device in case it's too inconvenient to take out your smartphone?
Why not have a small phone with great battery life and core features, then just use it as a hotspot for a tablet? I was looking at wristwatch phones and none of them seem to do this.
A watch-sized 4G hotspot with a tiny watch battery would last about 30 minutes in real life.
This device would do the trick I suppose, but with that baby strapped to your wrist -- it would look more like a court-mandated gps-tracker. And I doubt that's the fashion statement you'd want to go for.
It's just kind of fishy how he discussed it with the Hamed, since Hamed seems to imply this is the first time he's hearing of this from Taza (or may be, I'm reading it wrong, I don't know).
Taza said he also reached out to Hamed Al-Khabaz, 20, and offered him a part-time job in information technology security. The student said he was surprised by the offer because he said Skytech had done nothing to help him since being expelled from Dawson College.
In any case, this Taza guy is a slippery character.
This Hamed kid made the mistake of meeting with Taza without a lawyer the first time. He better not make that same mistake again. And whatever Hamed does, he better do it fast. Once the TV/internet lights are turned away from this story, you can rest assured this offer will evaporate into thin air, or will get nullified somehow.
In this case however, github makes it so easy to fork/clone the same project, and it's so widely used, the censors probably can't keep the block list up-to-date because the same project can get forked so many times under different name spaces. They probably just gave up and blocked everything.
In any case, if I was a Chinese-based programmer right now, I'd be very angry. There is bound to be some backlash because of this.
If O'Reilly really wanted to honor Swartz' memory, shouldn't they release all of their books for free? Isn't that closer to what he was after?
That depends.
Are most O'Reilly books publicly funded project, funded, bought, and paid for by our government dollars, designed to be disseminated to to the public at large?
Releasing just one book, in his name, while still planning to charge everybody for everything else in their catalog, sounds more like a publicity stunt.
Granted this is a self-serving publicity stunt, but considering that you didn't know what the kid had hacked into, then at least, this "stunt" will probably educate some of the public, at least one can hope.
That’s like CSI calling you up and telling you “We’re coming over next week, so make sure you prepare the crime scene for our arrival.”
If AMD is anything like Intel. It will have former spooks on staff. And it will have the former employees in question already under 24 hour surveillance and on a weekly trash pick up/combing snooping expedition.
Those former employees in question better not even erase their porn folders (fetish porn, or otherwise). If they try to erase anything now, after having received this order, things could get a lot worse for them. The same goes for their spouse and kids. Everybody in those households better bend over and get ready for a very thorough virtual body cavity search.
Why are these people showing up at his door anyhow? Isn't that the job of the police, and isn't vigilantism illegal even in Las Vegas?
And what if you just lost your phone at a conference and it wasn't stolen -- just picked up? And the ringer is off, or the battery is low/dead? What then? Do you really need to get the police involved for every little thing?
...the courts have decided it wasn't intentional fraud by the executives that caused it
That's not exactly true. This is what was said by the judge. Notice how very careful the judge is with his words.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Marrocco dismissed fraud charges against former Nortel chief executive Frank Dunn, former chief financial officer Douglas Beatty and ex-controller Michael Gollogly, saying the Crown had failed to meet “the high standard of proof” in a criminal case.
“I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Frank A. Dunn, Douglas C. Beatty and Michael J. Gollogly deliberately misrepresented the financial results of Nortel Networks Corporation,” Justice Marrocco said in his ruling.
He noted, however, that the case is separate from civil actions brought by securities regulators and a mediation process resuming in Toronto this week aimed at divvying up about $9 billion in insolvent Nortel’s remaining assets.
Apple Care is extended warranty, and is not insurance.
That's the entire point of his post.
It all depends on whether you believe the crack was caused by a manufacturing defect or improper/accidental user behavior. In his case, he clearly believes it was a manufacturing defect. Of course, you can choose not to believe him if you want, that's your call.
I doubt you would get a replacement for notebook either.
That's a strawman. He was asking for the device to be fixed, not be replaced (which according to him at least, could have been easily done).
Besides, an extended warranty doesn't just extend the default limitation of a standard manufacturer warranty, but it's supposed to dictate more advantageous terms than a standard existing warranty (even when a defect is found only within the standard warranty period).
So if one is to truly believe that this was caused by a manufacturing defect, and not user behavior, it wouldn't be unusual to expect better warranty service when one has purposefully purchased better warranty service in the first place.
My congratulations to Australians for having an ISP that stands up for the interests of its customers. I wonder if we could ever get something like that in the United States? Haha, I'm just kidding... I know we can't.
There are ISPs like that in the United States like that one. It just depends on where you live, and if you took the time to do your research.
I assume it's the same in Australia. Since Australia is huge too, I'll bet that most aussies couldn't get iinet even if they wanted to.
A second section allows Facebook to charge money. It says that "a business or other entity may pay us to display your... photos... in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you." That language does not exist in the current terms of use.
This reminds me of the Judge Judy case where a promoter used a young woman's semi-provocative facebook pictures on flyers to advertise a new strip joint.
The way the summary is worded makes it sound like a user having root is a security exploit...
The Cleaner is correct. In the case of Android, each application is considered a separate user. That's how applications are sandboxed away from each other. This way, an application only has access to its own files (which reside in its home folder). An application only has access to its own SQlite database instances (which again reside only within its own home folder, since SQLite is file-based, this arrangement works). With its own userid, an application can only access its own process and its own data. Etc.
In other words, Android is an operating system built on top of another operating system and Android doesn't try to completely reinvent the wheel when it comes to security.
Slashdot Mirror
Forgive me for being a Brit so not really understanding what this is all about, but is it not the case that when you buy a phone in the US you are buying it for a small fraction of the actual cost (or being given it free) under the condition that you only use it on their network and hence pay for the calls to the people who subsidised the phone? That is how it works over here.
Yes, that's part of the justification for locking phones.
In the US, we also have the same rent-to-own system for paying for expensive electronic appliances and expensive furniture. Basically, in exchange for a subsidized appliance upfront, you end up paying over a two-year (or a three-year) period multiple times the normal retail price for that appliance. Of course for rent-to-own, only the people in the most extreme circumstances end up using that system, and the overwhelming 90% of the population wouldn't even think to enter a rent-to-own store.
For cell phones in the US however, we're not given much of a choice even if we pay the full unsubsidized price. Technically, I could unlock my Verizon CDMA phone, or I could pay full retail price for a Verizon phone, or I could wait until the two years are up and ask that they unlock it for me, but that phone still wouldn't work on any GSM network, nor would it work on the Sprint/Nextel CDMA network. That's how CDMA works. It's a form of proprietary technology lock-in. Once unlocked, the most I could do with it is use it with PagePlus Cellular, or may be with Boost Mobile (assuming Boost Mobile even lets me), but that's only because those two outfits are subleasing the same Verizon CDMA network.
The US is not like Europe. In Europe, the law says that all carriers must all standardize on the same technology. In the US, there is no such law. And even if I were to bring back a fully unsubsidized GSM phone from Asia, or Europe, my choices would be extremely limited in terms of US carriers that would even support that technology (and I'd be lucky for one to even cover adequately my normal geographical area).
Also, we're acting defensively when we should be going on the offensive instead. Reinstating our rights to unlock our phones is not enough.
The locking of phones by carriers should be made illegal in the first place. Our airways are a public good. They're part of our public infrastructure. They're just like our public roads. As a society, we get to set the rules of the road, or update them as need be. The locking of phones may have been ok in the beginning, but this is a business practice that needs to stop right now.
But TOS is a civil matter. Share your connection and they're entitled to cut you off.
My provider, Speakeasy.net, explicitly allows me to do this.
I know not everyone is in my situation, but I live in a densely-populated US metropolitan area where there are more than enough competing options for broadband. If my provider ever changed those terms of service on me (because of their recent takeover, or a change in management, or whatever) I'd be the first one to cut them off from my money and I'd go elsewhere. I'm the customer. I don't need the aggravation.
And again, I'm not saying everyone has the same options as I do (thought, it's probably worth checking out this site to really make sure you know all your options). I'm just saying that where I live, I actually have ISPs that try extra hard to serve customers like me.
Don't forget to mention this little tidbit, or US-based Slashdotters could get into trouble. "TM" or "SM" is fine, but don't get caught using the "®" symbol when not registered.
Here is the rest of rule, from the same page you quoted from:
[...]
However, you may use the federal registration symbol "®" only after the USPTO actually registers a mark , and not while an application is pending. Also, you may use the registration symbol with the mark only on or in connection with the goods and/or services listed in the federal trademark registration. [source]
Last I checked (which was over 15 years ago) you could be fined in upwards of $3,000 for using that little symbol when not registered. There was even a hotline where you can snitch on a company, or on a person, using the wrong symbol when not registered. And since the rule doesn't seem to have changed, my assumption is that the penalty amount hasn't changed either, or perhaps has even increased to keep up with inflation.
With RIM, you are in control. The server that controls your devices is in your data center, under your control. We at RIM have no control over your devices. You have the keys, and you set the keys. We have no way to get into your phone. We can't listen in, nor can we let a government listen in.
Apparently, the French government and half of the European countries do not believe this statement. They seem to be under the impression that RIM is an intricate part of the US-UK-Australian-Canadian Echelon program.
Also, you should note this article:
If you’re a BES user, your IT department has the option of encrypting the body — not the the PIN — of your PIN-to-PIN BBM messages with a key unique to the company. By default, however, BBM messages are not encrypted because it restricts PIN-to-PIN BBM communication to only employees of the company, instead, they are scrambled. Scrambling is done with a universal cryptographic key that every BlackBerry has.
[...]
RIM can provide this universal key to governments to unscramble messages even in a BES environment — if no additional encryption is applied.
[source]
So not only, by default your message is not encrypted by your IT department like you think it might be, thus providing you a false sense of security, but because RIM insists on having a centralized BBM communication network (even in this internet age). It doesn't matter what European country you may be working in: Spain, France, or whatever... A BBM that you send to your colleague sitting less than 1 meter away from you will always get routed through their closest hub in the UK before it even returns back to your country and your colleague.
Half the time, "Beta" nowadays means "Software we aren't anywhere close to done with but still want to make public in order to generate publicity and/or revenue" (looking at you Valve).
The publicity notwithstanding, does EA actually charge for its beta? I bet they don't.
I don't know the practice of Valve. I would be surprised if they charged for their beta as well.
Update: 01/29 18:00 GMT by S : The player's ban has been lifted, and it seems to have happened for an unrelated issue anyway.
Personally, if I had been EA I would have prevented the player from participating in any future *closed* betas (and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they tried to do in this case). Clearly, that player knew he was in a "closed beta", he mentioned that fact twice at least, but apparently he doesn't seem to understand the meaning of that word "closed".
In a closed beta, the feedback you provide stays private. That's the entire point of a beta being closed. Either you email the company directly, or you post in a private forum (designated only for closed beta players), but you do not post your feedback in their public forum.
Sheesh!! The standard is becoming so high, even that word beta doesn't seem to mean anything anymore.
Even if the author abandoned an FOSS program, he can keep a copy of the apk and install it on whatever devices he wants to. If the author pulls an app from play.google.com, he is out of luck.
For this reason I only use programs for which I can download an apk file for any device.
This is one reason you should have at least one rooted device.
With a rooted device, you have access to the apk you downloaded, and with an app like Titanium Backup (on a rooted device), you can maintain backups of your apps, so if you don't like an App update for some reason, you can always revert back to its previous version.
To the few of you with Google TVs, having a rooted phone in your case also means you can send your Google TVs apks that were not officially released on Google TV, but that work just fine on it (or that work just fine on Google TV with rotation control)
I don't understand this. Why would you take your inconvenient, expensive to upgrade, battery-sucking tablet and put your SIM card inside it? Then bring a smaller device in case it's too inconvenient to take out your smartphone?
Why not have a small phone with great battery life and core features, then just use it as a hotspot for a tablet? I was looking at wristwatch phones and none of them seem to do this.
A watch-sized 4G hotspot with a tiny watch battery would last about 30 minutes in real life.
This device would do the trick I suppose, but with that baby strapped to your wrist -- it would look more like a court-mandated gps-tracker. And I doubt that's the fashion statement you'd want to go for.
Hopefully, this baby will come with its own hand pumps, to put your passengers to work.
Unless you write in your manifest that your app supports the multi-window feature, this shouldn't affect you in the least.
Why does the review have more about the reviewer than the software being reviewed?
Well, it does look like Skytech is offering him something now
"We will offer him a scholarship so he can finish his diploma in the private sector," said Edouard Taza, the president of Skytech.
It's just kind of fishy how he discussed it with the Hamed, since Hamed seems to imply this is the first time he's hearing of this from Taza (or may be, I'm reading it wrong, I don't know).
Taza said he also reached out to Hamed Al-Khabaz, 20, and offered him a part-time job in information technology security. The student said he was surprised by the offer because he said Skytech had done nothing to help him since being expelled from Dawson College.
In any case, this Taza guy is a slippery character.
This Hamed kid made the mistake of meeting with Taza without a lawyer the first time. He better not make that same mistake again. And whatever Hamed does, he better do it fast. Once the TV/internet lights are turned away from this story, you can rest assured this offer will evaporate into thin air, or will get nullified somehow.
and in other news.
An unprecendented number of US-based programmers at Verizon and other major Corporations are taking their sick days today.
It's funny, I've hosted customers that had sites blocked by China, and the blocks were always very specific.
So the blocks would affect the main target with urls like this https://github.com/chinesedissident/* but didn't affect our other customers like this one https://github.com/otherguy/* even if those other customers were using the same domain name.
In this case however, github makes it so easy to fork/clone the same project, and it's so widely used, the censors probably can't keep the block list up-to-date because the same project can get forked so many times under different name spaces. They probably just gave up and blocked everything.
In any case, if I was a Chinese-based programmer right now, I'd be very angry. There is bound to be some backlash because of this.
Most of the sellers I read about we're just dumb
Here is the first one I read.
http://conferencesburnedbypaypal.tumblr.com/post/9341558088/a-major-open-source-conference-in-paris
That guy doesn't seem very dumb to me.
Credit card policies are not very different
Again, citing the example I linked above, "six months" seems to be going above and beyond what most credit card policies try to enforce.
At least, I would never expect eventbrite.com to take that long to transfer funds (obviously) needed for a conference.
If O'Reilly really wanted to honor Swartz' memory, shouldn't they release all of their books for free? Isn't that closer to what he was after?
That depends.
Are most O'Reilly books publicly funded project, funded, bought, and paid for by our government dollars, designed to be disseminated to to the public at large?
Releasing just one book, in his name, while still planning to charge everybody for everything else in their catalog, sounds more like a publicity stunt.
Granted this is a self-serving publicity stunt, but considering that you didn't know what the kid had hacked into, then at least, this "stunt" will probably educate some of the public, at least one can hope.
That’s like CSI calling you up and telling you “We’re coming over next week, so make sure you prepare the crime scene for our arrival.”
If AMD is anything like Intel. It will have former spooks on staff. And it will have the former employees in question already under 24 hour surveillance and on a weekly trash pick up/combing snooping expedition.
Those former employees in question better not even erase their porn folders (fetish porn, or otherwise). If they try to erase anything now, after having received this order, things could get a lot worse for them. The same goes for their spouse and kids. Everybody in those households better bend over and get ready for a very thorough virtual body cavity search.
Why are these people showing up at his door anyhow? Isn't that the job of the police, and isn't vigilantism illegal even in Las Vegas?
And what if you just lost your phone at a conference and it wasn't stolen -- just picked up? And the ringer is off, or the battery is low/dead? What then? Do you really need to get the police involved for every little thing?
...the courts have decided it wasn't intentional fraud by the executives that caused it
That's not exactly true. This is what was said by the judge. Notice how very careful the judge is with his words.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Marrocco dismissed fraud charges against former Nortel chief executive Frank Dunn, former chief financial officer Douglas Beatty and ex-controller Michael Gollogly, saying the Crown had failed to meet “the high standard of proof” in a criminal case.
“I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Frank A. Dunn, Douglas C. Beatty and Michael J. Gollogly deliberately misrepresented the financial results of Nortel Networks Corporation,” Justice Marrocco said in his ruling.
He noted, however, that the case is separate from civil actions brought by securities regulators and a mediation process resuming in Toronto this week aimed at divvying up about $9 billion in insolvent Nortel’s remaining assets.
Apple Care is extended warranty, and is not insurance.
That's the entire point of his post.
It all depends on whether you believe the crack was caused by a manufacturing defect or improper/accidental user behavior. In his case, he clearly believes it was a manufacturing defect. Of course, you can choose not to believe him if you want, that's your call.
I doubt you would get a replacement for notebook either.
That's a strawman. He was asking for the device to be fixed, not be replaced (which according to him at least, could have been easily done).
Besides, an extended warranty doesn't just extend the default limitation of a standard manufacturer warranty, but it's supposed to dictate more advantageous terms than a standard existing warranty (even when a defect is found only within the standard warranty period).
So if one is to truly believe that this was caused by a manufacturing defect, and not user behavior, it wouldn't be unusual to expect better warranty service when one has purposefully purchased better warranty service in the first place.
My congratulations to Australians for having an ISP that stands up for the interests of its customers. I wonder if we could ever get something like that in the United States? Haha, I'm just kidding... I know we can't.
There are ISPs like that in the United States like that one. It just depends on where you live, and if you took the time to do your research.
I assume it's the same in Australia. Since Australia is huge too, I'll bet that most aussies couldn't get iinet even if they wanted to.
A second section allows Facebook to charge money. It says that "a business or other entity may pay us to display your... photos... in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you." That language does not exist in the current terms of use.
This reminds me of the Judge Judy case where a promoter used a young woman's semi-provocative facebook pictures on flyers to advertise a new strip joint.
You're right. What I said was a huge oversimplification. What I said really only applies to their home folders.
The way the summary is worded makes it sound like a user having root is a security exploit ...
The Cleaner is correct. In the case of Android, each application is considered a separate user. That's how applications are sandboxed away from each other. This way, an application only has access to its own files (which reside in its home folder). An application only has access to its own SQlite database instances (which again reside only within its own home folder, since SQLite is file-based, this arrangement works). With its own userid, an application can only access its own process and its own data. Etc.
In other words, Android is an operating system built on top of another operating system and Android doesn't try to completely reinvent the wheel when it comes to security.