Facebook took off precisely *because* people were concerned with privacy. You had to have a uni email address, and that meant that only other people at your university could see your details. Much more secure than any alternatives (at the time).
Of course, it helped that it didn't look like... well, like myspace.
Only in America. Nobody does in the UK. (Ok, there are always a few idiots...)
Then again, we got fill-in-the-gaps style handouts in our (Cambridge Engineering) lectures. Sounds silly but it was actually really good, for the following reasons:
1. Keeps you awake and concentrating - if you don't listen you don't get complete notes. 2. There's no way you could reproduce the volume of material gone through in the lectures. 3. You can draw diagrams - try doing that in real time on a laptop.
That is next to impossible. Consider an app that backs up your SMSs to gmail. There's one for android, I don't know if this is 'allowed' on the iPhone. Anyway, it has a perfectly legitimate reason to
a) Access your SMSs, phone number etc. b) Access the internet.
There's no way you or Apple can tell whether it will also send those messages to the hacker's own server unless you have the source code (and even then it would be prohibitively expensive for Apple to audit it). If you're thinking "but... wireshark... " you're not being imaginative enough.
Another example on android would be a keyboard replacement with ads in the settings menu. It has a legitimate reason to see everything you type, and contact the internet.
I'd vote for you. Fortunately it seems to be only America where the masses are quite so ignorant to the lie of the 'subsidy'. I have a feeling it is because you have so many different mobile technologies; if you change networks you'll generally have to buy a new phone anyway, so it is easier for the networks to force you to buy one.
You still have a phone number... Just get a PAYG SIM with a data plan, e.g. three have 3 GB/month for £5/month.
Not sure how it would work with paying for receiving calls in the US. It's a pretty crazy system if you ask me - what happens if someone calls you and you have no money on your phone?
Utter rubbish. You just aren't being imaginative enough about alternative election systems. Consider this system I just made up:
It is based on range voting (i.e. give each option up to, say 10 votes). On your ballot you have *two* choices. One is for the party you want to be in power, and the other is for your local MP. Each choice is decided by giving all options up to 10 votes.
You local MP is decided by whoever gets the most votes. Simple. Then we sum up the votes for each *party* to get N for each party. The 'power' of each MP in the house of commons is then made proportional to the votes for their party, divided by the number of elected MPs in that party. Where 'power' is how much their vote is worth. Again, reasonably simple.
Advantages of this system: * Eliminates tactical voting. * Separates voting for the party (which is what everyone wants to do) from voting for your MP (which is what everyone has to do) * Retains local representation. * MP is *more* accountable to their electorate since everyone is free to vote them out without hurting their party. * Your last point about 'attachment to electorate' is complete bollocks anyway. * One can freely vote for a MP they like even if he is in a party they don't, and vice versa.
Claimed disadvantages: * Too complicated. I really don't think it is. All you have to do is rate each party and candidate out of 10. * Results in a hung parliament. I honestly think that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Parties just pretend it is because *of course* they want a majority. Besides, this is easy to fix - just lower the voting threshold for something to pass in the house of commons. * People might complain that their MP can't represent them as well *in local issues* because his vote is less powerful. True, but he can still debate, and can't do anything with one vote anyway.
Actual disadvantages: * More complicated than FPTP. * MPs will have to do slightly more maths to work out if they will win a vote in the house of commons. * Although it would be way better than FPTP, it's not perfect, so people will always say "We can't use it because "
True, HTML5 doesn't replace all the uses of flash, but it does replace the vast majority of (ab)uses: playing videos, displaying interactive content (e.g. google analytics graphs, or the BBC quizzes), and vector graphics/custom fonts.
I doubt you could make something like homestarrunner, or a flash game using HTML5, but that is ok.
Androids "fragmentation" is actually simply that not everyone has upgraded yet - no different to any other platform (including the iPhone)
Sorry this is bullshit. Yes the fragmentation is simply that not everyone has upgraded, but that's because they *can't*. AFAIK if you have *any* iPhone model you can upgrade to the latest iPhone OS easily, for free, now.
If you want to upgrade your android phone to the latest version you need to wait for the manufacturer to perform the update. They really aren't good at doing this (evidenced by the 30% of people (me included) still using Android 1.5 - that's three versions behind the current one). This is probably because there's no real incentive - it *does* take work (it isn't "effectively free" as you say) and they don't make any money from it.
You're probably now thinking "but it's open source! you can upgrade it yourself!". Well, yeah. Maybe. If you can get all the closed source bits to work with the latest android version (tricky), rewrite the (closed source) camera driver for 2.x, etc. etc. And then you still don't get gmail, the market, and so on. It's not as simple as compiling a new version of gentoo for example and it definitely is a problem.
Yeah fair point. You would definitely have to keep the watermarking scheme secret. And in fact I realised there would be no real point to the encryption in my scheme - you may as well just give people usernames/passwords and require them to download the media.
I'd just like to point out that AACS *hasn't* been cracked. At least not properly. They decryption keys have been found (09 F9...) but these are revokable, so those keys are now useless. In fact around 10 keys have been found and subsequently revoked.
It requires an on-going effort to keep the encryption 'broken', and whenever the MPAA issues a new key there is always going to be a delay before the new releases are decryptable.
I think a workable open source DRM system could be like this: All of your subscribers receive unique keys, like the keys that each Blu-ray player has. The media they buy is also watermarked and linked to their account & credit card details. When something is leaked to bittorrent, you look up the watermark and can then ban that customer and revoke their keys.
Parent: "Apps can only see what everyone can see - your publically available information." You: "Apps can see information you've said everyone can see, as well as your publically available information."
Unless I'm mistaken, don't you have to pay to receive phone calls as well as to make them? In most of the world only the caller pays, hence you use half as many minutes on average.
"that cat has effectivly been out of the bag for quite a while now"
Indeed, you can use any GSM phone you want on GSM networks - the carriers don't restrict things at all! Don't know what this article is on about.
"Googles andriod uses java/sandboxing because it protects the phone from potentially "evil" applications."
Incorrect. Android applications can call native code using JNI. They used java so that they don't have to worry about architecture support, and apparently because it uses less memory (that's what they say; I don't really believe it). It has *nothing* to do with security.
Only in America. In the UK it's 'tissue' and 'photocopy'. Also 'cotton bud'. And coke isn't a generic name for all fizzy drinks (and don't remember it being so in America either when I visited).
This makes total sense. You have to finish paying for the actual phone that you bought and then lost. Presumably they will supply you with a new SIM card for the contract if you ask (or whatever the equivalent is for CDMA phones).
If you could cancel your contract at any time with no cost then everyone would get iPhones for $100 or whatever and then immediately cancel the contract. That's just silly.
Yeah, I was a bit annoyed that there was only 60 MB of space remaining on my T-Mobile Pulse, but it isn't really a problem. Most apps are only a few hundred kB, and to be honest there aren't that many good apps in the market, at least ones that still support Android 1.5.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes but those sites were shit.
Facebook took off precisely *because* people were concerned with privacy. You had to have a uni email address, and that meant that only other people at your university could see your details. Much more secure than any alternatives (at the time).
Of course, it helped that it didn't look like... well, like myspace.
Only in America. Nobody does in the UK. (Ok, there are always a few idiots...)
Then again, we got fill-in-the-gaps style handouts in our (Cambridge Engineering) lectures. Sounds silly but it was actually really good, for the following reasons:
1. Keeps you awake and concentrating - if you don't listen you don't get complete notes.
2. There's no way you could reproduce the volume of material gone through in the lectures.
3. You can draw diagrams - try doing that in real time on a laptop.
That is next to impossible. Consider an app that backs up your SMSs to gmail. There's one for android, I don't know if this is 'allowed' on the iPhone. Anyway, it has a perfectly legitimate reason to
a) Access your SMSs, phone number etc.
b) Access the internet.
There's no way you or Apple can tell whether it will also send those messages to the hacker's own server unless you have the source code (and even then it would be prohibitively expensive for Apple to audit it). If you're thinking "but ... wireshark... " you're not being imaginative enough.
Another example on android would be a keyboard replacement with ads in the settings menu. It has a legitimate reason to see everything you type, and contact the internet.
Yeah like, the fact that the phone costs more than $400.
You *always* pay full price for the phone. To phone companies, 'subsidy' is another word for 'monthly payment plan'.
If it's GSM you don't need your network's approval to use an unlocked phone. At least, not in any sane country.
I'd vote for you. Fortunately it seems to be only America where the masses are quite so ignorant to the lie of the 'subsidy'. I have a feeling it is because you have so many different mobile technologies; if you change networks you'll generally have to buy a new phone anyway, so it is easier for the networks to force you to buy one.
You still have a phone number... Just get a PAYG SIM with a data plan, e.g. three have 3 GB/month for £5/month.
Not sure how it would work with paying for receiving calls in the US. It's a pretty crazy system if you ask me - what happens if someone calls you and you have no money on your phone?
Utter rubbish. You just aren't being imaginative enough about alternative election systems. Consider this system I just made up:
It is based on range voting (i.e. give each option up to, say 10 votes). On your ballot you have *two* choices. One is for the party you want to be in power, and the other is for your local MP. Each choice is decided by giving all options up to 10 votes.
You local MP is decided by whoever gets the most votes. Simple.
Then we sum up the votes for each *party* to get N for each party. The 'power' of each MP in the house of commons is then made proportional to the votes for their party, divided by the number of elected MPs in that party. Where 'power' is how much their vote is worth. Again, reasonably simple.
Advantages of this system:
* Eliminates tactical voting.
* Separates voting for the party (which is what everyone wants to do) from voting for your MP (which is what everyone has to do)
* Retains local representation.
* MP is *more* accountable to their electorate since everyone is free to vote them out without hurting their party.
* Your last point about 'attachment to electorate' is complete bollocks anyway.
* One can freely vote for a MP they like even if he is in a party they don't, and vice versa.
Claimed disadvantages:
* Too complicated. I really don't think it is. All you have to do is rate each party and candidate out of 10.
* Results in a hung parliament. I honestly think that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Parties just pretend it is because *of course* they want a majority. Besides, this is easy to fix - just lower the voting threshold for something to pass in the house of commons.
* People might complain that their MP can't represent them as well *in local issues* because his vote is less powerful. True, but he can still debate, and can't do anything with one vote anyway.
Actual disadvantages:
* More complicated than FPTP.
* MPs will have to do slightly more maths to work out if they will win a vote in the house of commons.
* Although it would be way better than FPTP, it's not perfect, so people will always say "We can't use it because "
A man can dream...
True, HTML5 doesn't replace all the uses of flash, but it does replace the vast majority of (ab)uses: playing videos, displaying interactive content (e.g. google analytics graphs, or the BBC quizzes), and vector graphics/custom fonts.
I doubt you could make something like homestarrunner, or a flash game using HTML5, but that is ok.
Nah it could be worse. Remember phorm?
Yeah, American news sites like Slashdot and Digg *still* don't seem to get the the Daily Mail MAKES STUFF UP!!!
CODEC!
Yeah but it does have an IDE that doesn't suck!
Androids "fragmentation" is actually simply that not everyone has upgraded yet - no different to any other platform (including the iPhone)
Sorry this is bullshit. Yes the fragmentation is simply that not everyone has upgraded, but that's because they *can't*. AFAIK if you have *any* iPhone model you can upgrade to the latest iPhone OS easily, for free, now.
If you want to upgrade your android phone to the latest version you need to wait for the manufacturer to perform the update. They really aren't good at doing this (evidenced by the 30% of people (me included) still using Android 1.5 - that's three versions behind the current one). This is probably because there's no real incentive - it *does* take work (it isn't "effectively free" as you say) and they don't make any money from it.
You're probably now thinking "but it's open source! you can upgrade it yourself!". Well, yeah. Maybe. If you can get all the closed source bits to work with the latest android version (tricky), rewrite the (closed source) camera driver for 2.x, etc. etc. And then you still don't get gmail, the market, and so on. It's not as simple as compiling a new version of gentoo for example and it definitely is a problem.
Yeah fair point. You would definitely have to keep the watermarking scheme secret. And in fact I realised there would be no real point to the encryption in my scheme - you may as well just give people usernames/passwords and require them to download the media.
Well your TV licence number then. We're talking about the BBC here.
I'd just like to point out that AACS *hasn't* been cracked. At least not properly. They decryption keys have been found (09 F9...) but these are revokable, so those keys are now useless. In fact around 10 keys have been found and subsequently revoked.
It requires an on-going effort to keep the encryption 'broken', and whenever the MPAA issues a new key there is always going to be a delay before the new releases are decryptable.
I think a workable open source DRM system could be like this: All of your subscribers receive unique keys, like the keys that each Blu-ray player has. The media they buy is also watermarked and linked to their account & credit card details. When something is leaked to bittorrent, you look up the watermark and can then ban that customer and revoke their keys.
And it makes it trivial to upgrade the storage later...
Reading fail! To paraphrase you and the parent:
Parent: "Apps can only see what everyone can see - your publically available information."
You: "Apps can see information you've said everyone can see, as well as your publically available information."
How is that different?
Unless I'm mistaken, don't you have to pay to receive phone calls as well as to make them? In most of the world only the caller pays, hence you use half as many minutes on average.
"Sure, you can pay cash for a phone rather than purchasing a subsidized one, but you will still pay the same price for the service."
Only in retarded America. In most of the world you can get SIM-only contracts which are much cheaper than the ones that come with phones. E.g:
O2 SIM-only: £10/month for 150 mins (300 american mins), 300 texts.
O2 18 month contract with SE C902: £20/month for 75 mins, 250 texts.
The second one costs 18*5 = £90 more. The cost of an unlocked C902 is... £100 (from argos). Understand?
"that cat has effectivly been out of the bag for quite a while now"
Indeed, you can use any GSM phone you want on GSM networks - the carriers don't restrict things at all! Don't know what this article is on about.
"Googles andriod uses java/sandboxing because it protects the phone from potentially "evil" applications."
Incorrect. Android applications can call native code using JNI. They used java so that they don't have to worry about architecture support, and apparently because it uses less memory (that's what they say; I don't really believe it). It has *nothing* to do with security.
Only in America. In the UK it's 'tissue' and 'photocopy'. Also 'cotton bud'. And coke isn't a generic name for all fizzy drinks (and don't remember it being so in America either when I visited).
This makes total sense. You have to finish paying for the actual phone that you bought and then lost. Presumably they will supply you with a new SIM card for the contract if you ask (or whatever the equivalent is for CDMA phones).
If you could cancel your contract at any time with no cost then everyone would get iPhones for $100 or whatever and then immediately cancel the contract. That's just silly.
Yeah, I was a bit annoyed that there was only 60 MB of space remaining on my T-Mobile Pulse, but it isn't really a problem. Most apps are only a few hundred kB, and to be honest there aren't that many good apps in the market, at least ones that still support Android 1.5.