I don't see it. This means that slightly more than 2 years ago Samsung hit a slump and have just pulled themselves out of it. Apple just hit their slump last quarter. I don't see that as evidence that Only Apple is slumping, but that they are on different timelines for whatever reason.
In fact, for Samsung, it doesn't even necessarily mean they've pulled out of the slump. For all we know (I haven't looked at their past performance) their peak could have been five years ago, and they are only now where they were 2 years ago when the slump was still on a downward trajectory. Recovering, but not yet recovered.
The success of any new product or service has always been contingent on it being marketable. The difference between the golden age of yesteryear and today is that we now try to figure out the viability of success beforehand so that we don't waste as many resources on untenable things, whereas in the past the new thing would come about and then disappear when the business went under. In the long run, there isn't much of a difference for the failed vs never tried.
Economics is the science (and I use that term very loosely) of allocating scarce resources among multiple possible uses. It sucks, but it happens to suck less than all of the alternative in actual application.
I don't believe they've ever said that their phones were completely secure, not even today. Security is not binary complete or absent, there are levels of security, often resulting from trade offs between security and other features like ease of use. You seem to be upset at Apple for breaking a promise they never in-fact made.
Unless you've got a specific Chinese or Russian law to which you can point, your assertion is baseless. I don't disagree that these governments would very much like to have this information, but I fully expect that in the interest of public perception and geo politics, they rely on hackers to get access to these devices a la the Israeli company that the FBI has turned to in order to gain access. Any weakness that these hackers exploit could be closed in future software or hardware updates, leading to an arms race of sorts between Apple and the hackers (government affiliated or not)
One difference here is that the FBI was hoping to get the courts to compel Apple to do the work for them. Once it became clear they were going to lose the case on appeal, they turned to a 3rd party. The former head of the NSA essentially said that he believed the FBI was more interested in the precedent than then actual data because the NSA could have gotten them the data without the court case. I have no illusions that Apple is only looking out for my best interest, and was fighting this case based on their collective conscience. However, that doesn't mean that their business objectives and my personal interests can't align at times, or that I shouldn't support them when our interests coincide but for different reasons.
The iPhone 5C already has a backdoor; that's the problem. Furthermore, you can be certain that the NSA and other agencies can get in through that back door. Apple winning or losing makes no difference to that. But if Apple wins, it gives the appearance that your data is protected when in fact it is not. Furthermore, if Apple wins, it will give more ammunition to people demanding laws that require explicit backdoors.
So in your opinion we are damned if we do and damned if we don't? The lack of completely secure phones today (or at least back when the iPhone 5C was sold) completely invalidates any potential advances to make them more secure in the future, and if Apple wins in court then the legislature will (despite having failed to do so during the first encryption debate) of course pass laws to grant such a back door in the future. That's an awfully pessimistic view. If legislators from my state start supporting such a bill, they will get an earful from me, and I imagine that most of the tech industry will throw their lobbying weight around as well to prevent such a bill.
We know such a phone would be affordable, easy to use, and popular: there would be no user visible changes. Nor would it be any more expensive, because Apple already has a custom, secure crypto chip that could have implemented the PIN wipe securely without backdoors and at no extra cost.
You may believe that, but I see no reason to believe you are correct. There is a cost, even if not in money, to a completely secure phone. The costs are time and the hassle of remembering, or sharing it when you ask someone else to use your phone for you, etc. Those may be small costs, but to some they are big enough to result in many people still not having even a 4 character pin to protect their phone. You and I may value security (probably to differing degrees), but many don't at all, and requiring a pin that could wipe the phone if a kid gets their hands on it and tries too many wrong passwords/pins scares many. Myself included. I've been locked out of my phone several times because my 2 year old got the phone and tried to get into it, or because it became activated in my pocket some how and ran up several attempts without any deliberate action on my part.
Security may be easy in a technical sense, but to make something that is both secure, easy to use, and desirable to a wide range of buyers all at the same time is something different entirely. Apple prioritized ease of use and desirability over security. Their call, don't buy if you don't want, but they've increased their emphasis on security over time. Maybe they'll never get to where you'd like them to be, but I'm glad for any improvement since I hate the Android and Windows phones I've used thus far. A little protection is better than none.
My guess is that the weak security architecture of the iPhone 5C was deliberate
And unless you've got real evidence, that is just an opinion. And not even one that is logically consistent, since one of the issues at the heart of this case is that the iPhone 6 and 6S are even more secure, meaning the work around that the FBI wants Apple to implement for the 5C won't work on these newer phones.
If Apple loses, then they and other cell phone manufacturers will be required to include backdoors and maintain work arounds for the government indefinitely. Sucks to be you if the FBI wants access to your phone, and sucks to be you if someone other than Apple or the Government is able to get access to the tools or reverse engineer the work around.
If Apple wins, then it will still be possible in the future to develop completely encrypted bullet proof phones in the future because their will not be a court president validating the Justice Departments use of the All Writs Act to compel companies to build in back doors for the government. Even if Apple never does develop said phone, there will at least not be a legal precedent preventing anyone else from doing so.
Don't buy into Apple's PR, but looking at the case I fail to see how them winning such a suit, should it come up again, would hurt me.
Also, while it has been possible for more than a decade, that doesn't mean such phone would be affordable, easy to use, or popular. Apple is a purveyor of mass market technology. I get that they haven't done so for business reasons, but since no one else has either I won't fault them for it. If Google, Microsoft, or even forbid BB were to beat them to the punch on such a phone I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple taken to task for it, but of the phones available now Apples seems to me (not a security expert mind you) to be the next best thing.
Lets be clear, Apple - Like every other company in the world - has a statutory obligation to obey any law of any country within which they operate. If China were to say tomorrow "no encryption on any device" Apple would have to choose to either stop selling, try to fight the law in court, or comply. In the US the company is choosing option 2, but if they lose they will have to revert to either option 1 (fiscal suicide) or option 3. The issue here is that the west has been able to, through political machinations and public shaming, been able to rein in some of the initiatives countries like China have tried to put in place. If the government of the US is to go all hypocrite by demanding far more then they have ever accepted China requesting, then they will be less likely to comply with the machinations of the west next time. I have no illusion that Apple doesn't obey laws I find repugnant in other countries, but I'm going to be damned if I'm going to let my country pass similar laws without supporting Apple if they try to object on my behalf, even if they aren't doing it for me per se.
Apple has never said they have your best interest at heart, mearly that their opposition to this court order, and your best interest happen to coincide. and besides, it's hardly as if the FBI isn't trying equally hard to portray the absolute fiction that this is about a single phone, and not the legal precedent to use this same maneuver to get every seller of encryption software in the US to have to decrypt on demand for the FBI or other law enforcement agencies at any time. A lot of the press i've read seems to indicate that Apple was quite surprised by the route the FBI was taking up until they filed very publicly in court. They have not denied that they've worked with law enforcement before, and that the do what they can with the tools as they currently exist, but the FBI is asking them to now develop new tools to undermine security that already exists. That is new and what they are fighting.
The encryption on iPhones has gotten more comprehensive at every revision of the hardware/software. That it wasn't bullet proof at d1 or that it isn't bullet proof now is not evidence that it isn't more secure than previous models by leaps and bounds. Fact is the on device encryption was added to secure the phones against hackers, not the government. The problem now is that the government has found that they too cannot get into the devices and are trying to get the court to grand them powers the congress and deliberately decided in the past NOT to grant them by use of a legal loophole and some pretty blatant lying in the press.
Cook should build phones that just cannot be broken into, not even by someone with full access to the source code, firmware signing keys, and hardware.
That does appear to be the way he is pushing his engineers. However, in the mean time there are billions of iPhones out there for whom this level of protection is not yet possible, and cannot be retroactively applied. I don't even believe that Cook has attempted to portray his actions as altruistic, just that what is in the best interest of Apple Inc., and what is in the best interest of owners of Apple devises are in sync with each other on this issue.
Apple Inc sees no value and only cost associated with developing and maintaining a special version of IOS that can be used to by-pass their current security protocols. If Apple had already developed such a device on their own he wouldn't be able to keep the FBI from requesting that he use it on their behalf. However, the tools don't exist precisely because Apple sees no value in creating them other than avoiding a very public fight with the FBI over this issue. The negative PR from this is nothing compared to the negative PR of those tools escaping and getting into the hands of identify thieves, or celebrity stalkers, or hostile foreign governments, etc.
Keep in mind that Cook is a gay man, and he managed to keep that more or less a secret for most of his career as a public figure at Apple. In 2016 that doesn't mean what it used to in the US, but in Russia and many other countries around the world it is a crime that can lead to incarceration, torture, and death. I wouldn't be surprised if for Mr. Cook personally, the idea that a government that would view people like him as sub-human or criminals due to their sexual preference might request the exact same tools that the FBI is requesting is terrifying. Or if you want to take sexual preference off of the table, you can trot out any persecuted minority. China very recently planned on passing a law of similar scope and due to pressure from the US government and western technology companies they abandoned it. If the US creates this precedent, the Chinese will take it even further, and while you may think the FBI is trustworthy I doubt most people would extend similar trust to the governments of every country in which Apple operates.
So because there is always some risk, any attempt to minimize risk is pointless? What kind of logic is that?
Yes, I could install and uninstall, and if I didn't have access to my work laptop that would have been my next choice. However, that doesn't invalidate the complaint.
Government program should strive to be efficient, not just internally, but externally as well. Everyone hates the DMV, largely because they tend to be so inefficient with taxpayer time (waiting for hours to get documents processed). Periodically states I've lived in have attempted to address those issues and I have greatly appreciated it when those programs have succeeded. By your logic, no one should ever complain about long wait times or long processing times at the DMV because it is "whinging for whinging's sake".
I agree that electronic formats are preferable, but it is possible to have an electronic format that doesn't require the use of Adobe software. I filing my federal tax return online with no need for me to install any extra software, Adobe or otherwise, so it is certainly possible to do so securely. They've picked a solution that excludes a non-zero percentage of the population. My best guess is up to approximately 20% of tax payers not using a professional service like H&R Block (Who incidentally have been accused of trying to increase tax form complexity so as to scare a larger proportion of tax payers into using their services instead of filing on their own).
Identifying inefficiencies or unnecessary complexity in a system for which I, as a tax payer and voter, am responsible to a certain extent is not whinging, but participating in the process.
You apparently didn't read my original posts since 1. I already have a computer, but the NJ tax office has erected artificial barriers to my using it 2. roughly 20% of the installed base in the US (and probably higher in the state of NJ) have a mac at home, which would be their first choice for E-filing their taxes. 3. Most computer users are idiots at least some of the time. I am trying NOT to be an idiot by NOT installing software known to increase security risks. In essence, part of my complaint is that the NJ tax office is trying to force me to act like an idiot for no apparently good reason. 4. Explain to me how putting a flat form online along side the wizbang filled version translates into "spending huge amounts of money" to cater to something on the order of 20% of potential tax filers. Their form has active code, meaning it is probably MORE EXPENSIVE to maintain than the form I would like them to post since there is no debugging necessary for a flat PDF. 5. I am not talking about Linux (although the ultimate OP was), I'm talking about a mac, but that is beside the point. The issue is security, not platform preferences. Adobe is an absolute requirement to even open the damn form. If adobe had a stellar security reputation, then I could see your point, but they DON'T. They have a reputation for opening computers up to all sorts of attacks that would not otherwise work. I wouldn't want to install it on any PC I might own either if it could be avoided. 6. And finally, you make my damn point for me. I don't have an option to not file my taxes unless I am owed a return. So they are erecting artificial barriers to tax filing for no discernible benefit to me or the state of NJ, UNLESS it dissuades me from requesting the money that they owe me, because if I owe them money they will get it plus interest in the long run anyway.
Finally, it is not whining to point out unnecessary complications in a system for which I am partially footing the bill, and which is supposed to exist to serve the needs of those like me. Government agencies are supposed to be responsive to the needs of the citizens. As a citizen of NJ, it is completely appropriate for me to complain about things I perceive as flaws in the system, not just because they inconvenience me, but because they are unnecessary inconveniences and could potentially affect up to 20% of the people expected to use those services. This is supposed to be how government services improve and evolve. It remains to be seen if they will respond to my complaint in any way. I was simply adding my anecdote to that of the author of the original article.
Not sure why any of that has apparnetly made you so butt hurt. Do you work for the NJ tax office or Adobe or something?
And are these understood well enough to be SURE of fixing things, on a permanent basis?
Yes
This is the cellular equivalent of an organ transplant, without the associated risks of organ rejections. Mitocondria have their own DNA separate from the Nuclear DNA. It is inherited only from the mother. In the case of a surrogate pregnancy the child is technically the offspring of all 3 parents (half of nuclear DNA from father, half of nuclear DNA from mother, and mitochondrial DNA from surrogate). All they are talking about is taking the mitochondria from someone who has no mitochondrial associated inherited disorders and substituting it for the mitochondria from a mother with a known mitochondrial associated inherited disorder. No genes are being modified (although even then the answer would still be "Yes"), they are simply moving one organelle from one cell to another cell and letting the normal cellular machinery do what it is supposed to.
Yes, because all tax payers have access to a 3rd party corporate IT managed machine to make sure that insecure software doesn't introduce security risks./sarcasm.
Many employers have guidelines restricting what information can be accessed via corporate machines. For all I know, using my work laptop to file my personal taxes could be violation of that approved use. The alternative is to enter my CONFIDENTIAL TAX INFORMATION into a computer about which I know very little with regard to security and have to trust that there isn't key logger software or something else that will enable someone to cull my information from the forms (library, friends, family, etc.).
Please explain to me why anyone would consider that to be an acceptable security trade off.
Governments have an obligation to not put in place unnecessary barriers to prevent the citizens from using those services. Particularly for something like tax filing which is obligatory (financial and criminal fines can result). Requiring Adobe software is a small friction, it is available for most platforms (Linux excluded as far as I know), but the friction ALSO introduces unnecessary risks as well. IF adobe forms are one option, then fine but by making them the only way to e-file without paying a tax preparer, they are doing a disservice to their citizens.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but financial information is considered particularly attractive to data thieves. If you are getting a refund, for example, there is a spot on the form for your bank account and routing numbers so that funds can be direct deposited. That's the kind of information we like to consider Sensitive.
You may also be unaware that Adobe has a less than stellar reputation for software security. Combining sensitive information with software known to be rather insecure is a potentially dangerous combination for the one who's information is being transmitted.
Having a flat PDF that could be printed from any computer capable of meeting the open portions of the PDF specification would enable virtually all tax payers to be able to print and complete the forms at home without having to transmit any sensitive information via insecure software. However, the NJ Tax office only offers the forms online in a PDF that does not conform to the open portion of the PDF specification such that the forms are not accessible at all without Adobe brand PDF software. Therefore, the NJ Tax office is in fact requiring tax payers to reduce the security of their personal computers in order to access a form for no reason that I have been able to determine anyway, other than they've signed a contract with Adobe.
Hell I wouldn't even object to the use of a special PDF form as long as there is a vanilla PDF form for printing also available. Their current set up adds friction and potentially cost to a system where none is justified. Complexity for complexity sake.
That may be. I know it was the case in past years, and is probably true now.
If they are going to go through the hassle of hosting a website with the forms, why lock 20% of people out of them? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd assume that a flat PDF version of the form is cheaper to host on their website for people to print out at home, than it is to send pre-printed copies of the tax forms to libraries. Just seems wasteful and needlessly inefficient.
Seeing as about 20% of the installed base in the US is mac, (and I'd guess it is even higher for personal as opposed to work computers, especially in a wealthy state like NJ) I'm hardly a special snowflake.
Windows computers still don't come with PDF capabilities by default, but the Mac has for years. There is no justification for requiring the installation of a proprietary, and security flaw riddled piece of software to render a PDF, when the built in software can do that already. It is unnecessary. The Tax office has an obligation to make those forms accessible to everyone, to the extent possible. All they had to do was disable the stupid (Download Adobe or else) feature and I could have used the form without issue. It is the lock out that makes this so fucking stupid.
Remember, this isn't about something I have a real choice about. I have to file my taxes, and so does everyone else. Therefore, the government agency mandating tax filings should make every effort to at the very least not lock people out of being able to even open the damn file. The fact that we are discussing my most sensitive financial information, and they expect me to trust it to adobe with their horrific security track record is just special.
I did have to. I get to decide security policy for my personal machine, not the NJ state tax office.
If they want to use software from a company with a horrible security record, that is their decision, but they should not be able to force that decision on others. I was fortunate enough (well fortunate isn't really the word but...) that my employer also has the same horrible taste in security policy, and was therefore able to access the forms on a computer I had handy without having to create a virtualization just to maintain security.
I have a perfectly good PDF reader on my computer, and if the tax office kept to the open parts of the PDF standard we wouldn't have a problem, but they didn't. They used a bunch of proprietary Adobe features to make the supposedly open PDF anything but.
I don't know. The only version of the forms they had available on their website were the PDF I couldn't (and in fact still can't) read and a web form that I was never able to log into.
I filed my state tax return a few days ago and had to use my work laptop (a POS Dell) instead of my Mac because I refused to install Adobe software on it. They even prevented me from SEEING the form on my Mac so that I could print it out and fill it in by hand, it just showed an error page instructing me to install Adobe software. Even after completing and submitting the form I couldn't convert it to a flat file that was readable on my Mac, which is just fucking stupid.
Before that I couldn't even access parts of their website because those parts are only tested with Internet Explorer, and the security certificate clashes with Safari. So basically the state of NJ wants me to use the least secure browser, and software with a reputation for security holes to submit my CONFIDENTIAL TAX information!
You all seem to be missing that the 100,000 Genome project is based in the UK, not the US. US insurance policy won't affect her. Even if she emigrated to the US later in life, the "Pre-existing conditions" copout has been removed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obama care).
Being jaded and conspiratorial may make you feel cool, but at least make sure you've got your basic facts right first. Otherwise you just look like a stark raving fool.
But, even then, a lot of FDA mandated labeling is neutral. If I am told how many carbs or how much fiber my cereal has, it is neutral, because all other cereals have those ingredients.
Not true. There are plenty of products on the store shelves with labels like "Fat Free", "No Added Sugar", "12g of Fiber". These are being used to target a subset of customer that may not include you, but it is intended to communicate something about the value of the product to those customers motivated by these labels.
For example, the label "Natural" implies that their competitors products are somehow unnatural. That is how the "Organic" label started out. In order to bring clarity to the consumer space the USDA instituted the National Organic Program which defined what practices and ingredients could be used and remain eligible for the organic label. These kinds of certifications cost money, and they wouldn't spend the additional money if people weren't willing to pay a much larger premium for products bearing the label.
Whether harmful or not, as a consumer, I should know where my food comes from.
You have EVERY RIGHT to ask, but unless there is a valid health/safety reason the vendor has EVERY RIGHT not to tell you. I'd like to know the exact recipe for Coca-Cola Classic. Right down to the mg. Doesn't mean the Coca-Cola company has to tell me, or that I can use the FDA to force them to release that information without good cause. Same goes for GM foods. You can choose to only buy products where companies disclose on their labels the GM status of all ingredients, but that is as far as your rights go unless there is a valid health/safety reason for you to know.
Assuming the products are indeed safe (and I have no reason to suspect otherwise), shouldn't they be labeled like everything else and those companies wanting to produce them educate the population? After all, if they have nothing to hide with GMO, then why hide that it is GMO?
Lets unpack this a little. First you are correct that the products are safe. Otherwise the FDA wouldn't have approved them (that is their job after all).
Second, you are approaching the labeling discussion from the "Why Not", when in fact the FDA must approach it from the other side, as in "Why Should They". As I pointed out above, there is a cost associated with labelling (supply chain segregation, verification testing, certifications, inventory management and demand projections, etc.). These costs may seem trivial from the outside, but as someone who's been involved in this stuff at work I can assure you that they are anything but trivial. Under the law, if the FDA is going to institute a new policy they need to conduct an economic analysis to determine the cost of their new policy and the benefits. Mandatory labelling of GM status has NO MEANINGFUL UPSIDE, and as all cost. Voluntary labelling on the other hand requires does not require this economic analysis, and can be supported through user fees (those seeking to get the label pay for the federal expenses associated with overseeing the label).
Now from the consumer side, it is perfectly reasonable to request that AquAdvantage label all of its GM salmon, and based on the unprecedented levels of transparency the company has demonstrated thus far, it is entirely possible that they will. I, for one, would like to buy their salmon to support them and say a big "FUCK YOU" to the anti-science fear mongers out there (plus I like salmon!). However, that is a MARKETING decision, not a SAFETY or REGULATORY decision. As someone who has had direct dealing with the FDA, it is very important to make sure they don't put my products at a disadvantage by trying to make marketing decisions for me. That is my job not theirs, and in my experience they are not very qualified to make those types of decisions.
What is "proper" is defined in-part by the government. Since labeling is a form of compelled speech there are limits on the circumstances in which the government can mandate a label, as well as limitations on the information that they can require be put on the label. Public health and safety are the justifications for the ingredients list, nutrient composition labels, and allergneicity statements. However, since there is no public health and safety difference between GM and non-GM salmon (if there had been a difference, the salmon would not have been approved in the first place), they cannot force AquAdvantage or their customer to label the GM status of their salmon.
However, what they can do is *enable* voluntary labeling of GM status. That is why they released 2 draft guidance documents to address how companies can legally label their plant and salmon products as GM-free.
But GM meat creates a problem: A(n) (American) corporation owns the food supply. So it can reduce supply to keep profit margins high. The advantage will be a lot less if other corporations create other supplies of quick-grown meat. Or, they can all keep prices as high as the market will bear.
They still must compete against other farm raised salmon, much of which is located in the continental US, which is not the case for these fish. They have no ability to increase market prices, only to push them down due to their (presumably) lower cost of production. They were handed a patent for fish they already own, not all of the salmon in the US. In fact, the current approval only authorizes them to use 2 manufacturing sites. One in Canada for the breeding animals, and one in Latin America (Panama I think).
I wouldn't assume that but it is certainly suspicious: There's nothing wrong with the meat (at the moment) and they're already trying to avoid responsibility. What's the point? If, far in the future, GM foods do become defective, no corporation can undo the 50 years worth of disease already foisted onto its customers. When dealing with an unknown cost, the cost of honesty is low because the cost of the truth is fixed.
Complete mischaracterization. We are not looking at no risk (not approved) vs risk (approved), but at 2 scenarios that both pose their own risks. Someone could incubate Salmon eggs with radioactive isotopes today to try and create a new strain of salmon and the FDA would not need to be notified at all. That salmon could be marketed tomorrow. The risk of the current breeding programs are equivalent to the risks posed by this new GM salmon. And since the risks are the same, the relative increase in risk is unchanged.
In the "Rama" trilogy (AC Clarke), there are several sentences that I remember. One sentence mentions that a planet that embraced genetic engineering soon became extinct. In the 'Star trek' universe ('G' Roddenberry), WW 3 is fought over genetic engineering. Visionaries have assumed that genetic engineering will be bad. The reason may be the greed and deception built-in to the supply chain of most industries.
Are you seriously throwing up science fiction as an argument? In the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy series there is a cautionary tale about a consumerist society collapsing because of their obsession with designer shoes, and they eventually evolved into birds so that they wouldn't have to set foot on the ground again. So. Fucking. What. does the HHGG book mean we should ban all designer shoes because we,might get carried away and cause civilization to collapse based on the imaginings of a beloved fiction author?
You must not have any product marketing experience. If my product is labeled differently from yours, from a marketing perspective (which is based on the psychology of people when they are buying things) one is better than the other. Back before the USDA Certified Organic program existed marketers were putting the word "organic" on everything because it didn't mean anything legally (so they weren't lying) and it increased the perceived value of a product (thus increasing sales volumes or sales price). Marketing team are always looking for the next buzzword, as well as looking for the next term to avoid because they have the opposite effect on perceived value. Natural is another term that doesn't have a legal definition and so is getting slapped on everything despite meaning precisely nothing.
Due to all of the fear mongering about GM products by Big Organic et al., labeling your product as GM means to most consumers that it is unsafe. Nothing is stopping anyone from labeling their product as containing GM, and the FDA released 2 guidances to industry at the same time as the GM salmon announcement to address voluntary GM free labeling.
The difference between these salmon, and the newly revised food labeling rules come down to justification. Mandatory labeling requires justification. It is the government compelling speech, and that power cannot be abused on a whim. "I'd simply like to know" is too low of a bar, and that is the only really valid reason I've seen put forward in support of a GM-status label. With the nutritional labels, on the other hand, there is definitive health and nutrition concern being addressed. Public health and safety is a sufficiently high bar, and that is the basis for the nutritional guide labeling revisions recently pushed out.
The FDA is a food safety organization that is part of the federal government. They can oversee voluntary labeling plans to ensure that they are accurate and safe, but they cannot impose new labeling requirements based on a popular vote. That is why they are proposing new rules to address the desire of a subset of consumers to know the GM status of their food. Furthermore, they must (by law) consider the cost/benefit of any new regulation. There is a cost associated with labeling, and it is higher than most realize. Since there is no health and safety benefit to GM labeling, the cost/benefit is entirely one sided. If you want to voluntarily increase the cost of your product to cover certifications and labels, they can support you, but they cannot force your competitors to do the same without a good reason, which in this case there isn't.
Good advice. The FDA also released 2 Draft Guidance For Industry documents at the same time aimed at establishing voluntary labels for GM status. One for salmon and the other for plant derived products.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan...http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan...
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I don't see it. This means that slightly more than 2 years ago Samsung hit a slump and have just pulled themselves out of it. Apple just hit their slump last quarter. I don't see that as evidence that Only Apple is slumping, but that they are on different timelines for whatever reason. In fact, for Samsung, it doesn't even necessarily mean they've pulled out of the slump. For all we know (I haven't looked at their past performance) their peak could have been five years ago, and they are only now where they were 2 years ago when the slump was still on a downward trajectory. Recovering, but not yet recovered.
In "over two years"? How is 2 years a meaningful period of time for such a headline?
The success of any new product or service has always been contingent on it being marketable. The difference between the golden age of yesteryear and today is that we now try to figure out the viability of success beforehand so that we don't waste as many resources on untenable things, whereas in the past the new thing would come about and then disappear when the business went under. In the long run, there isn't much of a difference for the failed vs never tried.
Economics is the science (and I use that term very loosely) of allocating scarce resources among multiple possible uses. It sucks, but it happens to suck less than all of the alternative in actual application.
I don't believe they've ever said that their phones were completely secure, not even today. Security is not binary complete or absent, there are levels of security, often resulting from trade offs between security and other features like ease of use. You seem to be upset at Apple for breaking a promise they never in-fact made.
Unless you've got a specific Chinese or Russian law to which you can point, your assertion is baseless. I don't disagree that these governments would very much like to have this information, but I fully expect that in the interest of public perception and geo politics, they rely on hackers to get access to these devices a la the Israeli company that the FBI has turned to in order to gain access. Any weakness that these hackers exploit could be closed in future software or hardware updates, leading to an arms race of sorts between Apple and the hackers (government affiliated or not)
One difference here is that the FBI was hoping to get the courts to compel Apple to do the work for them. Once it became clear they were going to lose the case on appeal, they turned to a 3rd party. The former head of the NSA essentially said that he believed the FBI was more interested in the precedent than then actual data because the NSA could have gotten them the data without the court case. I have no illusions that Apple is only looking out for my best interest, and was fighting this case based on their collective conscience. However, that doesn't mean that their business objectives and my personal interests can't align at times, or that I shouldn't support them when our interests coincide but for different reasons.
The iPhone 5C already has a backdoor; that's the problem. Furthermore, you can be certain that the NSA and other agencies can get in through that back door. Apple winning or losing makes no difference to that. But if Apple wins, it gives the appearance that your data is protected when in fact it is not. Furthermore, if Apple wins, it will give more ammunition to people demanding laws that require explicit backdoors.
So in your opinion we are damned if we do and damned if we don't? The lack of completely secure phones today (or at least back when the iPhone 5C was sold) completely invalidates any potential advances to make them more secure in the future, and if Apple wins in court then the legislature will (despite having failed to do so during the first encryption debate) of course pass laws to grant such a back door in the future. That's an awfully pessimistic view. If legislators from my state start supporting such a bill, they will get an earful from me, and I imagine that most of the tech industry will throw their lobbying weight around as well to prevent such a bill.
We know such a phone would be affordable, easy to use, and popular: there would be no user visible changes. Nor would it be any more expensive, because Apple already has a custom, secure crypto chip that could have implemented the PIN wipe securely without backdoors and at no extra cost.
You may believe that, but I see no reason to believe you are correct. There is a cost, even if not in money, to a completely secure phone. The costs are time and the hassle of remembering, or sharing it when you ask someone else to use your phone for you, etc. Those may be small costs, but to some they are big enough to result in many people still not having even a 4 character pin to protect their phone. You and I may value security (probably to differing degrees), but many don't at all, and requiring a pin that could wipe the phone if a kid gets their hands on it and tries too many wrong passwords/pins scares many. Myself included. I've been locked out of my phone several times because my 2 year old got the phone and tried to get into it, or because it became activated in my pocket some how and ran up several attempts without any deliberate action on my part.
Security may be easy in a technical sense, but to make something that is both secure, easy to use, and desirable to a wide range of buyers all at the same time is something different entirely. Apple prioritized ease of use and desirability over security. Their call, don't buy if you don't want, but they've increased their emphasis on security over time. Maybe they'll never get to where you'd like them to be, but I'm glad for any improvement since I hate the Android and Windows phones I've used thus far. A little protection is better than none.
My guess is that the weak security architecture of the iPhone 5C was deliberate
And unless you've got real evidence, that is just an opinion. And not even one that is logically consistent, since one of the issues at the heart of this case is that the iPhone 6 and 6S are even more secure, meaning the work around that the FBI wants Apple to implement for the 5C won't work on these newer phones.
How does the public lose if Apple wins?
If Apple loses, then they and other cell phone manufacturers will be required to include backdoors and maintain work arounds for the government indefinitely. Sucks to be you if the FBI wants access to your phone, and sucks to be you if someone other than Apple or the Government is able to get access to the tools or reverse engineer the work around.
If Apple wins, then it will still be possible in the future to develop completely encrypted bullet proof phones in the future because their will not be a court president validating the Justice Departments use of the All Writs Act to compel companies to build in back doors for the government. Even if Apple never does develop said phone, there will at least not be a legal precedent preventing anyone else from doing so.
Don't buy into Apple's PR, but looking at the case I fail to see how them winning such a suit, should it come up again, would hurt me.
Also, while it has been possible for more than a decade, that doesn't mean such phone would be affordable, easy to use, or popular. Apple is a purveyor of mass market technology. I get that they haven't done so for business reasons, but since no one else has either I won't fault them for it. If Google, Microsoft, or even forbid BB were to beat them to the punch on such a phone I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple taken to task for it, but of the phones available now Apples seems to me (not a security expert mind you) to be the next best thing.
Lets be clear, Apple - Like every other company in the world - has a statutory obligation to obey any law of any country within which they operate. If China were to say tomorrow "no encryption on any device" Apple would have to choose to either stop selling, try to fight the law in court, or comply. In the US the company is choosing option 2, but if they lose they will have to revert to either option 1 (fiscal suicide) or option 3. The issue here is that the west has been able to, through political machinations and public shaming, been able to rein in some of the initiatives countries like China have tried to put in place. If the government of the US is to go all hypocrite by demanding far more then they have ever accepted China requesting, then they will be less likely to comply with the machinations of the west next time. I have no illusion that Apple doesn't obey laws I find repugnant in other countries, but I'm going to be damned if I'm going to let my country pass similar laws without supporting Apple if they try to object on my behalf, even if they aren't doing it for me per se.
Apple has never said they have your best interest at heart, mearly that their opposition to this court order, and your best interest happen to coincide. and besides, it's hardly as if the FBI isn't trying equally hard to portray the absolute fiction that this is about a single phone, and not the legal precedent to use this same maneuver to get every seller of encryption software in the US to have to decrypt on demand for the FBI or other law enforcement agencies at any time. A lot of the press i've read seems to indicate that Apple was quite surprised by the route the FBI was taking up until they filed very publicly in court. They have not denied that they've worked with law enforcement before, and that the do what they can with the tools as they currently exist, but the FBI is asking them to now develop new tools to undermine security that already exists. That is new and what they are fighting.
The encryption on iPhones has gotten more comprehensive at every revision of the hardware/software. That it wasn't bullet proof at d1 or that it isn't bullet proof now is not evidence that it isn't more secure than previous models by leaps and bounds. Fact is the on device encryption was added to secure the phones against hackers, not the government. The problem now is that the government has found that they too cannot get into the devices and are trying to get the court to grand them powers the congress and deliberately decided in the past NOT to grant them by use of a legal loophole and some pretty blatant lying in the press.
Cook should build phones that just cannot be broken into, not even by someone with full access to the source code, firmware signing keys, and hardware.
That does appear to be the way he is pushing his engineers. However, in the mean time there are billions of iPhones out there for whom this level of protection is not yet possible, and cannot be retroactively applied. I don't even believe that Cook has attempted to portray his actions as altruistic, just that what is in the best interest of Apple Inc., and what is in the best interest of owners of Apple devises are in sync with each other on this issue.
Apple Inc sees no value and only cost associated with developing and maintaining a special version of IOS that can be used to by-pass their current security protocols. If Apple had already developed such a device on their own he wouldn't be able to keep the FBI from requesting that he use it on their behalf. However, the tools don't exist precisely because Apple sees no value in creating them other than avoiding a very public fight with the FBI over this issue. The negative PR from this is nothing compared to the negative PR of those tools escaping and getting into the hands of identify thieves, or celebrity stalkers, or hostile foreign governments, etc.
Keep in mind that Cook is a gay man, and he managed to keep that more or less a secret for most of his career as a public figure at Apple. In 2016 that doesn't mean what it used to in the US, but in Russia and many other countries around the world it is a crime that can lead to incarceration, torture, and death. I wouldn't be surprised if for Mr. Cook personally, the idea that a government that would view people like him as sub-human or criminals due to their sexual preference might request the exact same tools that the FBI is requesting is terrifying. Or if you want to take sexual preference off of the table, you can trot out any persecuted minority. China very recently planned on passing a law of similar scope and due to pressure from the US government and western technology companies they abandoned it. If the US creates this precedent, the Chinese will take it even further, and while you may think the FBI is trustworthy I doubt most people would extend similar trust to the governments of every country in which Apple operates.
So because there is always some risk, any attempt to minimize risk is pointless? What kind of logic is that?
Yes, I could install and uninstall, and if I didn't have access to my work laptop that would have been my next choice. However, that doesn't invalidate the complaint.
Government program should strive to be efficient, not just internally, but externally as well. Everyone hates the DMV, largely because they tend to be so inefficient with taxpayer time (waiting for hours to get documents processed). Periodically states I've lived in have attempted to address those issues and I have greatly appreciated it when those programs have succeeded. By your logic, no one should ever complain about long wait times or long processing times at the DMV because it is "whinging for whinging's sake".
I agree that electronic formats are preferable, but it is possible to have an electronic format that doesn't require the use of Adobe software. I filing my federal tax return online with no need for me to install any extra software, Adobe or otherwise, so it is certainly possible to do so securely. They've picked a solution that excludes a non-zero percentage of the population. My best guess is up to approximately 20% of tax payers not using a professional service like H&R Block (Who incidentally have been accused of trying to increase tax form complexity so as to scare a larger proportion of tax payers into using their services instead of filing on their own).
Identifying inefficiencies or unnecessary complexity in a system for which I, as a tax payer and voter, am responsible to a certain extent is not whinging, but participating in the process.
You apparently didn't read my original posts since
1. I already have a computer, but the NJ tax office has erected artificial barriers to my using it
2. roughly 20% of the installed base in the US (and probably higher in the state of NJ) have a mac at home, which would be their first choice for E-filing their taxes.
3. Most computer users are idiots at least some of the time. I am trying NOT to be an idiot by NOT installing software known to increase security risks. In essence, part of my complaint is that the NJ tax office is trying to force me to act like an idiot for no apparently good reason.
4. Explain to me how putting a flat form online along side the wizbang filled version translates into "spending huge amounts of money" to cater to something on the order of 20% of potential tax filers. Their form has active code, meaning it is probably MORE EXPENSIVE to maintain than the form I would like them to post since there is no debugging necessary for a flat PDF.
5. I am not talking about Linux (although the ultimate OP was), I'm talking about a mac, but that is beside the point. The issue is security, not platform preferences. Adobe is an absolute requirement to even open the damn form. If adobe had a stellar security reputation, then I could see your point, but they DON'T. They have a reputation for opening computers up to all sorts of attacks that would not otherwise work. I wouldn't want to install it on any PC I might own either if it could be avoided.
6. And finally, you make my damn point for me. I don't have an option to not file my taxes unless I am owed a return. So they are erecting artificial barriers to tax filing for no discernible benefit to me or the state of NJ, UNLESS it dissuades me from requesting the money that they owe me, because if I owe them money they will get it plus interest in the long run anyway.
Finally, it is not whining to point out unnecessary complications in a system for which I am partially footing the bill, and which is supposed to exist to serve the needs of those like me. Government agencies are supposed to be responsive to the needs of the citizens. As a citizen of NJ, it is completely appropriate for me to complain about things I perceive as flaws in the system, not just because they inconvenience me, but because they are unnecessary inconveniences and could potentially affect up to 20% of the people expected to use those services. This is supposed to be how government services improve and evolve. It remains to be seen if they will respond to my complaint in any way. I was simply adding my anecdote to that of the author of the original article.
Not sure why any of that has apparnetly made you so butt hurt. Do you work for the NJ tax office or Adobe or something?
You are correct. I was confusing it with Cytoplasmic Transfer, a different procedure for dealing with infertility. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...
And are these understood well enough to be SURE of fixing things, on a permanent basis?
Yes
This is the cellular equivalent of an organ transplant, without the associated risks of organ rejections. Mitocondria have their own DNA separate from the Nuclear DNA. It is inherited only from the mother. In the case of a surrogate pregnancy the child is technically the offspring of all 3 parents (half of nuclear DNA from father, half of nuclear DNA from mother, and mitochondrial DNA from surrogate). All they are talking about is taking the mitochondria from someone who has no mitochondrial associated inherited disorders and substituting it for the mitochondria from a mother with a known mitochondrial associated inherited disorder. No genes are being modified (although even then the answer would still be "Yes"), they are simply moving one organelle from one cell to another cell and letting the normal cellular machinery do what it is supposed to.
Yes, because all tax payers have access to a 3rd party corporate IT managed machine to make sure that insecure software doesn't introduce security risks. /sarcasm.
Many employers have guidelines restricting what information can be accessed via corporate machines. For all I know, using my work laptop to file my personal taxes could be violation of that approved use. The alternative is to enter my CONFIDENTIAL TAX INFORMATION into a computer about which I know very little with regard to security and have to trust that there isn't key logger software or something else that will enable someone to cull my information from the forms (library, friends, family, etc.).
Please explain to me why anyone would consider that to be an acceptable security trade off.
Governments have an obligation to not put in place unnecessary barriers to prevent the citizens from using those services. Particularly for something like tax filing which is obligatory (financial and criminal fines can result). Requiring Adobe software is a small friction, it is available for most platforms (Linux excluded as far as I know), but the friction ALSO introduces unnecessary risks as well. IF adobe forms are one option, then fine but by making them the only way to e-file without paying a tax preparer, they are doing a disservice to their citizens.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but financial information is considered particularly attractive to data thieves. If you are getting a refund, for example, there is a spot on the form for your bank account and routing numbers so that funds can be direct deposited. That's the kind of information we like to consider Sensitive.
You may also be unaware that Adobe has a less than stellar reputation for software security. Combining sensitive information with software known to be rather insecure is a potentially dangerous combination for the one who's information is being transmitted.
Having a flat PDF that could be printed from any computer capable of meeting the open portions of the PDF specification would enable virtually all tax payers to be able to print and complete the forms at home without having to transmit any sensitive information via insecure software. However, the NJ Tax office only offers the forms online in a PDF that does not conform to the open portion of the PDF specification such that the forms are not accessible at all without Adobe brand PDF software. Therefore, the NJ Tax office is in fact requiring tax payers to reduce the security of their personal computers in order to access a form for no reason that I have been able to determine anyway, other than they've signed a contract with Adobe.
Hell I wouldn't even object to the use of a special PDF form as long as there is a vanilla PDF form for printing also available. Their current set up adds friction and potentially cost to a system where none is justified. Complexity for complexity sake.
That may be. I know it was the case in past years, and is probably true now.
If they are going to go through the hassle of hosting a website with the forms, why lock 20% of people out of them? Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd assume that a flat PDF version of the form is cheaper to host on their website for people to print out at home, than it is to send pre-printed copies of the tax forms to libraries. Just seems wasteful and needlessly inefficient.
Seeing as about 20% of the installed base in the US is mac, (and I'd guess it is even higher for personal as opposed to work computers, especially in a wealthy state like NJ) I'm hardly a special snowflake.
Windows computers still don't come with PDF capabilities by default, but the Mac has for years. There is no justification for requiring the installation of a proprietary, and security flaw riddled piece of software to render a PDF, when the built in software can do that already. It is unnecessary. The Tax office has an obligation to make those forms accessible to everyone, to the extent possible. All they had to do was disable the stupid (Download Adobe or else) feature and I could have used the form without issue. It is the lock out that makes this so fucking stupid.
Remember, this isn't about something I have a real choice about. I have to file my taxes, and so does everyone else. Therefore, the government agency mandating tax filings should make every effort to at the very least not lock people out of being able to even open the damn file. The fact that we are discussing my most sensitive financial information, and they expect me to trust it to adobe with their horrific security track record is just special.
I did have to. I get to decide security policy for my personal machine, not the NJ state tax office.
If they want to use software from a company with a horrible security record, that is their decision, but they should not be able to force that decision on others. I was fortunate enough (well fortunate isn't really the word but...) that my employer also has the same horrible taste in security policy, and was therefore able to access the forms on a computer I had handy without having to create a virtualization just to maintain security.
I have a perfectly good PDF reader on my computer, and if the tax office kept to the open parts of the PDF standard we wouldn't have a problem, but they didn't. They used a bunch of proprietary Adobe features to make the supposedly open PDF anything but.
I don't know. The only version of the forms they had available on their website were the PDF I couldn't (and in fact still can't) read and a web form that I was never able to log into.
I filed my state tax return a few days ago and had to use my work laptop (a POS Dell) instead of my Mac because I refused to install Adobe software on it. They even prevented me from SEEING the form on my Mac so that I could print it out and fill it in by hand, it just showed an error page instructing me to install Adobe software. Even after completing and submitting the form I couldn't convert it to a flat file that was readable on my Mac, which is just fucking stupid.
Before that I couldn't even access parts of their website because those parts are only tested with Internet Explorer, and the security certificate clashes with Safari. So basically the state of NJ wants me to use the least secure browser, and software with a reputation for security holes to submit my CONFIDENTIAL TAX information!
You all seem to be missing that the 100,000 Genome project is based in the UK, not the US. US insurance policy won't affect her. Even if she emigrated to the US later in life, the "Pre-existing conditions" copout has been removed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obama care).
Being jaded and conspiratorial may make you feel cool, but at least make sure you've got your basic facts right first. Otherwise you just look like a stark raving fool.
But, even then, a lot of FDA mandated labeling is neutral. If I am told how many carbs or how much fiber my cereal has, it is neutral, because all other cereals have those ingredients.
Not true. There are plenty of products on the store shelves with labels like "Fat Free", "No Added Sugar", "12g of Fiber". These are being used to target a subset of customer that may not include you, but it is intended to communicate something about the value of the product to those customers motivated by these labels.
For example, the label "Natural" implies that their competitors products are somehow unnatural. That is how the "Organic" label started out. In order to bring clarity to the consumer space the USDA instituted the National Organic Program which defined what practices and ingredients could be used and remain eligible for the organic label. These kinds of certifications cost money, and they wouldn't spend the additional money if people weren't willing to pay a much larger premium for products bearing the label.
Whether harmful or not, as a consumer, I should know where my food comes from.
You have EVERY RIGHT to ask, but unless there is a valid health/safety reason the vendor has EVERY RIGHT not to tell you. I'd like to know the exact recipe for Coca-Cola Classic. Right down to the mg. Doesn't mean the Coca-Cola company has to tell me, or that I can use the FDA to force them to release that information without good cause. Same goes for GM foods. You can choose to only buy products where companies disclose on their labels the GM status of all ingredients, but that is as far as your rights go unless there is a valid health/safety reason for you to know.
Assuming the products are indeed safe (and I have no reason to suspect otherwise), shouldn't they be labeled like everything else and those companies wanting to produce them educate the population? After all, if they have nothing to hide with GMO, then why hide that it is GMO?
Lets unpack this a little. First you are correct that the products are safe. Otherwise the FDA wouldn't have approved them (that is their job after all).
Second, you are approaching the labeling discussion from the "Why Not", when in fact the FDA must approach it from the other side, as in "Why Should They". As I pointed out above, there is a cost associated with labelling (supply chain segregation, verification testing, certifications, inventory management and demand projections, etc.). These costs may seem trivial from the outside, but as someone who's been involved in this stuff at work I can assure you that they are anything but trivial. Under the law, if the FDA is going to institute a new policy they need to conduct an economic analysis to determine the cost of their new policy and the benefits. Mandatory labelling of GM status has NO MEANINGFUL UPSIDE, and as all cost. Voluntary labelling on the other hand requires does not require this economic analysis, and can be supported through user fees (those seeking to get the label pay for the federal expenses associated with overseeing the label).
Now from the consumer side, it is perfectly reasonable to request that AquAdvantage label all of its GM salmon, and based on the unprecedented levels of transparency the company has demonstrated thus far, it is entirely possible that they will. I, for one, would like to buy their salmon to support them and say a big "FUCK YOU" to the anti-science fear mongers out there (plus I like salmon!). However, that is a MARKETING decision, not a SAFETY or REGULATORY decision. As someone who has had direct dealing with the FDA, it is very important to make sure they don't put my products at a disadvantage by trying to make marketing decisions for me. That is my job not theirs, and in my experience they are not very qualified to make those types of decisions.
What is "proper" is defined in-part by the government. Since labeling is a form of compelled speech there are limits on the circumstances in which the government can mandate a label, as well as limitations on the information that they can require be put on the label. Public health and safety are the justifications for the ingredients list, nutrient composition labels, and allergneicity statements. However, since there is no public health and safety difference between GM and non-GM salmon (if there had been a difference, the salmon would not have been approved in the first place), they cannot force AquAdvantage or their customer to label the GM status of their salmon.
However, what they can do is *enable* voluntary labeling of GM status. That is why they released 2 draft guidance documents to address how companies can legally label their plant and salmon products as GM-free.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/ucm469802.htm
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/ucm059098.htm
But GM meat creates a problem: A(n) (American) corporation owns the food supply. So it can reduce supply to keep profit margins high. The advantage will be a lot less if other corporations create other supplies of quick-grown meat. Or, they can all keep prices as high as the market will bear.
They still must compete against other farm raised salmon, much of which is located in the continental US, which is not the case for these fish. They have no ability to increase market prices, only to push them down due to their (presumably) lower cost of production. They were handed a patent for fish they already own, not all of the salmon in the US. In fact, the current approval only authorizes them to use 2 manufacturing sites. One in Canada for the breeding animals, and one in Latin America (Panama I think).
I wouldn't assume that but it is certainly suspicious: There's nothing wrong with the meat (at the moment) and they're already trying to avoid responsibility. What's the point? If, far in the future, GM foods do become defective, no corporation can undo the 50 years worth of disease already foisted onto its customers. When dealing with an unknown cost, the cost of honesty is low because the cost of the truth is fixed.
Complete mischaracterization. We are not looking at no risk (not approved) vs risk (approved), but at 2 scenarios that both pose their own risks. Someone could incubate Salmon eggs with radioactive isotopes today to try and create a new strain of salmon and the FDA would not need to be notified at all. That salmon could be marketed tomorrow. The risk of the current breeding programs are equivalent to the risks posed by this new GM salmon. And since the risks are the same, the relative increase in risk is unchanged.
In the "Rama" trilogy (AC Clarke), there are several sentences that I remember. One sentence mentions that a planet that embraced genetic engineering soon became extinct. In the 'Star trek' universe ('G' Roddenberry), WW 3 is fought over genetic engineering. Visionaries have assumed that genetic engineering will be bad. The reason may be the greed and deception built-in to the supply chain of most industries.
Are you seriously throwing up science fiction as an argument? In the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy series there is a cautionary tale about a consumerist society collapsing because of their obsession with designer shoes, and they eventually evolved into birds so that they wouldn't have to set foot on the ground again. So. Fucking. What. does the HHGG book mean we should ban all designer shoes because we ,might get carried away and cause civilization to collapse based on the imaginings of a beloved fiction author?
You must not have any product marketing experience. If my product is labeled differently from yours, from a marketing perspective (which is based on the psychology of people when they are buying things) one is better than the other. Back before the USDA Certified Organic program existed marketers were putting the word "organic" on everything because it didn't mean anything legally (so they weren't lying) and it increased the perceived value of a product (thus increasing sales volumes or sales price). Marketing team are always looking for the next buzzword, as well as looking for the next term to avoid because they have the opposite effect on perceived value. Natural is another term that doesn't have a legal definition and so is getting slapped on everything despite meaning precisely nothing.
Due to all of the fear mongering about GM products by Big Organic et al., labeling your product as GM means to most consumers that it is unsafe. Nothing is stopping anyone from labeling their product as containing GM, and the FDA released 2 guidances to industry at the same time as the GM salmon announcement to address voluntary GM free labeling.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan...
http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan...
The difference between these salmon, and the newly revised food labeling rules come down to justification. Mandatory labeling requires justification. It is the government compelling speech, and that power cannot be abused on a whim. "I'd simply like to know" is too low of a bar, and that is the only really valid reason I've seen put forward in support of a GM-status label. With the nutritional labels, on the other hand, there is definitive health and nutrition concern being addressed. Public health and safety is a sufficiently high bar, and that is the basis for the nutritional guide labeling revisions recently pushed out.
The FDA is a food safety organization that is part of the federal government. They can oversee voluntary labeling plans to ensure that they are accurate and safe, but they cannot impose new labeling requirements based on a popular vote. That is why they are proposing new rules to address the desire of a subset of consumers to know the GM status of their food. Furthermore, they must (by law) consider the cost/benefit of any new regulation. There is a cost associated with labeling, and it is higher than most realize. Since there is no health and safety benefit to GM labeling, the cost/benefit is entirely one sided. If you want to voluntarily increase the cost of your product to cover certifications and labels, they can support you, but they cannot force your competitors to do the same without a good reason, which in this case there isn't.
Good advice. The FDA also released 2 Draft Guidance For Industry documents at the same time aimed at establishing voluntary labels for GM status. One for salmon and the other for plant derived products. http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan... http://www.fda.gov/Food/Guidan...