Actually, in this case the defense of Senja Larsen is that she is doing business, not collecting money without giving anything back - which is easier in Finland than getting a permit for asking money for "nothing" or a "good cause".
The law is considered by many associations a relic and it can be abused - for an example Electronic Frontier Finland was sued by the state because their website stated that according to their rules they can receive donations and there was an account number visible. State lost - but they "had to prosecute" because someone anonymously demanded so.
On the other hand the law:
- Prevents money laundering. - Makes it easier to shut down shady operations which for an example state to collect money for cancer kids and the money goes actually to Thailand vacations of a few "charitable persons" and the kids get two used playstations - at least there is some oversight on who can publicly collect money.
Is it? From my perspective as a consumer, what is important is that the rewards are large enough that the company is able to continue to innovate.
For me as a consumer I would say that good product is number one, and cheap price is number two, and I can admit that order of those are sometimes reversed when making a purchase decision. And Apple is certainly not after the cheap price because they make a crapton of money with their current offering - and they certainly would not like cheap competition.
There is a fine line between rewarding success and protecting profits and Apple has clearly nowadays in my book stepped to the "protecting profits" side of things. And that will destroy competition if the game changes to patent wars where the patent holder will not license or demands too high license fees (the $20-30 per device Apple demanded for rounded corners (yes, Samsung was found infringing on this *on phones* - only the table patent was found not infringed) and bouncing scroll lists is ridiculous) because their target is to wipe competition, not license. And that is not an advantage to consumer. Apple has made hundreds of millions by being delivering the right product at the right time - should they be protected forever?
I hate Apple. And I think this lawsuit is bullshit, but I try to look at the bright side of things, and I want to believe this lawsuit will mean, finally, innovation in the smartphone market again. A couple of years ago, Motorola had some interesting phones (Backflip, Flipout and the Droid/Milestone series). Nowadays most, if not all, of the smartphones out there are "full touch", thin, rounded edges.
So why those phones did not sell? Some bits of success can be attributed to whats popular right now, and cell phone market can sometimes be like fashion - good product is not enough if it is not trendy. But I (maybe because I live in Europe) have never even heard of this phones before so maybe they were not *that* interesting (even the Nokia Maemo phones do get constant mentions on./ and other tech forums and they are really fringe phones...).
I got myself an HTC Sensation the other day. I'm very happy with it so far. But I went to connect it to my PC: it required drivers that didn't even came with the phone. I found them on XDA. If I was to download some "suite" for it, it would sure be a 400MB or more download, requiring me to constantly update it. That's the reason why people choose apple.
This and the rest of your rant really described iTunes. My HTC works just fine without any "suites" or drivers - that is tethering and charging + usb storage. Can't do that with an iPhone.
Well, Jobs has been quoted saying "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."
I would think that could include using the courts, not just building a better product.
Those links do nothing to explain why the UK - which happily extradites people to the US - is suddenly unable or unwilling to extradite him to the US, but will happily extradite him to Sweden, knowing full well - as part of this bizarre Illuminati conspiracy - that he's going to be shipped on to the US?
This just speculation, and maybe even in the tinfoil-hat category:
Assange is diplomatically too hot potato for the UK - yes, then can extradite the common alleged rapist to US, but Assange is in a different league. Maybe the UK doesn't want the international attention what his extradition would cause and have said through diplomatic channels that "You can have him but you have to use proxy.".
Sweden on the other hand - a relatively insignificant and small EU country, which has in the past looked the other way when CIA has been shuffling people around; earlier commentator provided link to Human Rights Watch (my country, Finland, right next to Sweden did so too, CIA used Helsinki for their "torture flights" - of course everybody in power denied that they knew about them). US might have been saying unofficially that "it would be really shame if the buyers of your Gripen fighters planes could not buy missiles from US" - extraditing Assange would cause protests, sure, but it would be a lot less hassle for Sweden than what it is for the UK./me removes tinfoil hat
Second, why are Western governments "persecuting" Assange (ignoring for a moment that if ANY Western government wanted Assange out of the picture, he would have been dead long ago) to whatever extent they are?
The "Western" governments I value highly are not those who engage in secret (or not so secret) assassinations when they want someone "out of the picture".
There are governments who just make people disappear, put them in indefinite detention or just assassinate people with car bombs or poison - and then there are governments who respect their citizens (and foreign citizens as well!) rights and don't do those things. The former ones tend to be dictatorships and oppressive regimes, but indeed there are also few "Western" nations using those means. So I do not subscribe to the notion that "ANY Western government" would do things like that. Yours may, and that is a pity.
As others have already pointed out - embassies you see on action movies and where these kinds of "situations" are even possible to think of are embassies of USA, Russia and UK and a few others (and even they don't have private buildings nearly everywhere). Your typical embassy of a typical country in a typical city is an apartment in a building with other apartments, or even a rented office in office hotel - not gated mansion.
You could replace "Microsoft" with "Nokia" on that article. Both have great basic understanding of their field. They have lots of fundamental technology under their grasp - even patent, like it or not.
But both are failing for simple reasons:
- Too many meetings, not enough innovation and basic research done without interruptions. Everyone wanting to be "manager of something". - Red tape all over the place, teams competing with each other inside the company. - Management has lack of perspective.
Yes, I'm oversimplifying things and Microsoft is not as of yet failing, but they might be if they do not get other cash-cows than Windows and Office, and so far they have not been very successful at that.
Measurable: yes. Dangerous: no. Big difference (and I happen to live in Norhern Europe and remember the hoobla over Chernobyl - in the end it was reduced to "don't eat bucketloads of mushrooms in a short time"). And I do agree with you in principle, Fukushima was a major screwup. And nuclear operators elsewhere have show to cut corners (or at least tried to, in good environment they are caught). By the way - a lot of militaries seem to handle nuclear just fine (both engines on subs and nukes) - maybe we should outsource nuclear electricity to them?
But he did not plow into people with SUV. He did not build a homemade bomb. Yes, he might have done that if guns were not available but he took the easiest route this time, which was shooting people.
So...how many high-speed mass killings with a car have happened lately?
Yes, it is possible but for some reason mass murderers prefer guns - some also try home-made pipe bombs and other explosives, but I have not seen yet a mass-murderer doing his deed with a car alone... (maybe because a car massacre is not efficient, yes, you can probably kill and injure a few in a crowd, but is is a one-shot, once you are done you can't really do that again (people are quite quick to realize what is happening and can run) - with gun, you are dangerous as long as you have ammo and can shoot).
War on drugs and terrorism is quite far-fetched from what is going on in Israel. Even USA had communists during the cold war - the nation was not *that* united behind anti-communism as Israel is towards Palestinians (and I do not accuse all of them being evil, and the other side is as much to blame as Israelis, firing rockets to your neighborhood is not a good idea towards peace).
Israel has a long mandatory military service (for both men and women) - they have a very real everyday threat among them. Liberal gun policy works in that kind of environment, but I sure would not like to live in that kind of society.
I would not take Israel as a good example of good liberal gun control. Yes, you might have nice numbers on gun crime but you also have unified people with "common enemy" - the Palestinians. For a small group getting gun control "right" is easy, and Israel is a prime example of that, but good luck trying the same with larger population with different religions and world views....
I highly recommend the Udvar-Hazy - admission is free, the collection is incredible and they even have comprehensive free tours if you like that.
Of course they are in Virginia in the middle of nowhere compared to Intrepid which is a short walk away from Broadway. The most interesting part in my opinion on Intrepid is the ship itself, not the planes on the deck.
Yes, generally. But there are places in the world where just taking pictures of people on the street without their consent will get you beaten up. It is wise to check beforehand and obey not just local laws but local customs. I really don't know if restaurants are considered a public or private space in France or do people get generally annoyed if they are filmed in a restaurant (I would, I'd like to eat please, not be a part of someones home movie).
Geeks are often very black and white in these issues (and sometimes it is/extremely/ important to hold on to your rights) but common courtesy should come first in normal life, and that is what many geeks do not get for some reason.
Scumbags deserve justice too and the playground should be the same. And Dotcom is not likely to live in poverty right now, he just maybe can't go to Germany for his annual supercar-fest and has to rent a helicopter ride, not ride in his own. But this is a side-track, scumbags always stash money, even to the bitter and the dictators and criminals keep the last case of dollars/gold/jewelry with them. The real question is is the process done properly and should Dotcom have access to the material he seeks for his defense? That is not money, that is a principle of the justice system. And how are international cases handled and which laws are applied as more and more alleged criminals are citizens of country a, live in country b and are prosecuted in country c while their crime has happened in country d - this needs to be addressed more clearly.
It is shame rich scumbags (like Dotcom) usually do get better terms when facing for an example individuals that are victoms of a scam. But now he faces the mighty copyright-conglomerate of US of A and that means the opposite side can influence the rules as well.
It should not be this way, but we have to play with what we have, and I fear that two evils will make a deal in the end.
That doesn't correlate with history I remember - at first Youtube was *the source* for music videos and short tv shows and comedy clips. Which were there totally illegally and they knew it, nobody was interested in *somerandomguy* ranting about gas prices on his videoblog. Shortly they began to comply because they knew they had to at least when they would be start serving ads to takedown-requests and implemented all kinds of music-detectors (hello, Germany) to different markets and made deals with tv shows on ad-sharing revenue and encouraged them to post their content legally. And then the big G came and suddenly everybody just made threats to sue but ultimately wanted just a piece and now it's all good and nice. Minus the occasional take down by some script-generated message.
But the start was only possible with sharing copyrighted works, it would have never risen up if all content was user-made and copyrights strictly enforced. There are not *that many* good artists to create momentum who like to share freely (and Vimeo has captured most of them - those who actually provide 100% original work, including music they use etc.) and Youtube would have been a fringe site without for an example people uploading (illegally) old music videos which gained huge popularity.
Windows 8 may be a failure or maybe not, some even say it is a game-changer thing for Microsoft and it it defines if they will succeed in the future, but Apple is not really an option if you want to go cheaper.... (maybe, just maybe with some twisted math with Office on full retail price thrown in you can end up with Apple and web services being cheaper, if you really try hard).
Yes, I understood that - just corrected your choice of example because Sweden is a better one.
And lots of European countries are not outside EU, the main exceptions are Iceland, Norway and Switzerland who have chosen to stay outside (Iceland is applying for membership) + ex-Yugoslavia states (who are presumed to be accepted as would-be members or are already negotiating in the near future and Croatia becoming member on 1.1.2013) and Turkey. It is true however that EU is not a state union but rather a collection of treaties, including Euro as a currency, and we are not as tight as for an example the USA. But regarding the future of Euro as a currency, well, it is wrong to say that is on the verge of breaking-up because there are strong countries and there are weak countries, it is now a matter of decision if the weak should be supported (this means also supporting the banks of the strong ones) or not. One could predict doomsday scenarios for US $ also, but in reality things don't usually fall apart quickly and uncontrollably nowadays (thankfully).
Well, lately getting a work visa seems to be quite hard nowadays, and European and Indian companies have complained that US really doesn't want to grant visas on basis of domestic policy, and citizenship is totally different thing. It is not signing the guestbook - not the hardest thing to do on earth but on the hard side.
You know...there's plenty of people out there needing work...AND, I have no problem with having people that are on welfare and the like, being required to do some manual labor such as food harvesting to subsidize the money they're being given by the rest of the working taxpayers.
So what you really do want is not more expensive labor and workers being paid more but people on welfare being forced to work for their benefits (instead of employing illegals with same rate or *gasp* employing those who are in welfare for going rate which includes paying what is minimally required and if the employer is a human person - a sum that can actually legally support them). I can't really say which one is worse...
While I in principle agree with you, this is very much about freedom.
I agree that it is not probably wise for BMW or Mercedes to deal (directly) with people named Kim and address at the northern part peninsula at Korea. But this is freaking iPads, punishing the people because their leaders suck has not traditionally worked very well, you just get angry people who elect new leaders who spew more hate, or leaders that make sure people can't eat to stay in power (N-Korea). North Korea has been under trade embargo forever, Israel has blocked Gaza and West Bank forever, and how has that worked out?
I strongly object aiding oppressive leaders to bathe in money and blood of their minions. Saddam was a good example of that, and backed by west until he did invade the wrong country. It is all about politics and has very little to do about actually harming the ruling class. BTW Russia will sell iPads to Iran just fine, they have just the arms embargo underwritten, maybe Apple should not sell iPads to Russia?
Zimmerman survived from prosecution partly because he used a loophole of publishing source code as a dead-tree book and it was exported that way. In a little bit different climate he would have been convicted, but the start of 1990s was not that bad of a time and there was strong free-speech support behind him, which also ultimately lead to relaxing the rules to export cryptography software (but there still is the no-no list which includes Iran. Which is kind of funny because on the other hand US sponsors the TOR project which through obfuscation helps keep the internet anonymous and accessible to those in for an example in Iran, but exporting crypto tech export is still limited).
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Actually, in this case the defense of Senja Larsen is that she is doing business, not collecting money without giving anything back - which is easier in Finland than getting a permit for asking money for "nothing" or a "good cause".
The law is considered by many associations a relic and it can be abused - for an example Electronic Frontier Finland was sued by the state because their website stated that according to their rules they can receive donations and there was an account number visible. State lost - but they "had to prosecute" because someone anonymously demanded so.
On the other hand the law:
- Prevents money laundering.
- Makes it easier to shut down shady operations which for an example state to collect money for cancer kids and the money goes actually to Thailand vacations of a few "charitable persons" and the kids get two used playstations - at least there is some oversight on who can publicly collect money.
Is it? From my perspective as a consumer, what is important is that the rewards are large enough that the company is able to continue to innovate.
For me as a consumer I would say that good product is number one, and cheap price is number two, and I can admit that order of those are sometimes reversed when making a purchase decision. And Apple is certainly not after the cheap price because they make a crapton of money with their current offering - and they certainly would not like cheap competition.
There is a fine line between rewarding success and protecting profits and Apple has clearly nowadays in my book stepped to the "protecting profits" side of things. And that will destroy competition if the game changes to patent wars where the patent holder will not license or demands too high license fees (the $20-30 per device Apple demanded for rounded corners (yes, Samsung was found infringing on this *on phones* - only the table patent was found not infringed) and bouncing scroll lists is ridiculous) because their target is to wipe competition, not license. And that is not an advantage to consumer. Apple has made hundreds of millions by being delivering the right product at the right time - should they be protected forever?
I hate Apple. And I think this lawsuit is bullshit, but I try to look at the bright side of things, and I want to believe this lawsuit will mean, finally, innovation in the smartphone market again. A couple of years ago, Motorola had some interesting phones (Backflip, Flipout and the Droid/Milestone series). Nowadays most, if not all, of the smartphones out there are "full touch", thin, rounded edges.
So why those phones did not sell? Some bits of success can be attributed to whats popular right now, and cell phone market can sometimes be like fashion - good product is not enough if it is not trendy. But I (maybe because I live in Europe) have never even heard of this phones before so maybe they were not *that* interesting (even the Nokia Maemo phones do get constant mentions on ./ and other tech forums and they are really fringe phones...).
I got myself an HTC Sensation the other day. I'm very happy with it so far. But I went to connect it to my PC: it required drivers that didn't even came with the phone. I found them on XDA. If I was to download some "suite" for it, it would sure be a 400MB or more download, requiring me to constantly update it. That's the reason why people choose apple.
This and the rest of your rant really described iTunes. My HTC works just fine without any "suites" or drivers - that is tethering and charging + usb storage. Can't do that with an iPhone.
Well, Jobs has been quoted saying "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."
I would think that could include using the courts, not just building a better product.
Those links do nothing to explain why the UK - which happily extradites people to the US - is suddenly unable or unwilling to extradite him to the US, but will happily extradite him to Sweden, knowing full well - as part of this bizarre Illuminati conspiracy - that he's going to be shipped on to the US?
This just speculation, and maybe even in the tinfoil-hat category:
Assange is diplomatically too hot potato for the UK - yes, then can extradite the common alleged rapist to US, but Assange is in a different league. Maybe the UK doesn't want the international attention what his extradition would cause and have said through diplomatic channels that "You can have him but you have to use proxy.".
Sweden on the other hand - a relatively insignificant and small EU country, which has in the past looked the other way when CIA has been shuffling people around; earlier commentator provided link to Human Rights Watch (my country, Finland, right next to Sweden did so too, CIA used Helsinki for their "torture flights" - of course everybody in power denied that they knew about them). US might have been saying unofficially that "it would be really shame if the buyers of your Gripen fighters planes could not buy missiles from US" - extraditing Assange would cause protests, sure, but it would be a lot less hassle for Sweden than what it is for the UK. /me removes tinfoil hat
Second, why are Western governments "persecuting" Assange (ignoring for a moment that if ANY Western government wanted Assange out of the picture, he would have been dead long ago) to whatever extent they are?
The "Western" governments I value highly are not those who engage in secret (or not so secret) assassinations when they want someone "out of the picture".
There are governments who just make people disappear, put them in indefinite detention or just assassinate people with car bombs or poison - and then there are governments who respect their citizens (and foreign citizens as well!) rights and don't do those things. The former ones tend to be dictatorships and oppressive regimes, but indeed there are also few "Western" nations using those means. So I do not subscribe to the notion that "ANY Western government" would do things like that. Yours may, and that is a pity.
As others have already pointed out - embassies you see on action movies and where these kinds of "situations" are even possible to think of are embassies of USA, Russia and UK and a few others (and even they don't have private buildings nearly everywhere). Your typical embassy of a typical country in a typical city is an apartment in a building with other apartments, or even a rented office in office hotel - not gated mansion.
It is not wrong.
You could replace "Microsoft" with "Nokia" on that article. Both have great basic understanding of their field. They have lots of fundamental technology under their grasp - even patent, like it or not.
But both are failing for simple reasons:
- Too many meetings, not enough innovation and basic research done without interruptions. Everyone wanting to be "manager of something".
- Red tape all over the place, teams competing with each other inside the company.
- Management has lack of perspective.
Yes, I'm oversimplifying things and Microsoft is not as of yet failing, but they might be if they do not get other cash-cows than Windows and Office, and so far they have not been very successful at that.
Measurable: yes. Dangerous: no. Big difference (and I happen to live in Norhern Europe and remember the hoobla over Chernobyl - in the end it was reduced to "don't eat bucketloads of mushrooms in a short time"). And I do agree with you in principle, Fukushima was a major screwup. And nuclear operators elsewhere have show to cut corners (or at least tried to, in good environment they are caught). By the way - a lot of militaries seem to handle nuclear just fine (both engines on subs and nukes) - maybe we should outsource nuclear electricity to them?
But he did not plow into people with SUV. He did not build a homemade bomb. Yes, he might have done that if guns were not available but he took the easiest route this time, which was shooting people.
So...how many high-speed mass killings with a car have happened lately?
Yes, it is possible but for some reason mass murderers prefer guns - some also try home-made pipe bombs and other explosives, but I have not seen yet a mass-murderer doing his deed with a car alone... (maybe because a car massacre is not efficient, yes, you can probably kill and injure a few in a crowd, but is is a one-shot, once you are done you can't really do that again (people are quite quick to realize what is happening and can run) - with gun, you are dangerous as long as you have ammo and can shoot).
War on drugs and terrorism is quite far-fetched from what is going on in Israel. Even USA had communists during the cold war - the nation was not *that* united behind anti-communism as Israel is towards Palestinians (and I do not accuse all of them being evil, and the other side is as much to blame as Israelis, firing rockets to your neighborhood is not a good idea towards peace).
Israel has a long mandatory military service (for both men and women) - they have a very real everyday threat among them. Liberal gun policy works in that kind of environment, but I sure would not like to live in that kind of society.
I would not take Israel as a good example of good liberal gun control. Yes, you might have nice numbers on gun crime but you also have unified people with "common enemy" - the Palestinians. For a small group getting gun control "right" is easy, and Israel is a prime example of that, but good luck trying the same with larger population with different religions and world views....
I highly recommend the Udvar-Hazy - admission is free, the collection is incredible and they even have comprehensive free tours if you like that.
Of course they are in Virginia in the middle of nowhere compared to Intrepid which is a short walk away from Broadway. The most interesting part in my opinion on Intrepid is the ship itself, not the planes on the deck.
Generally:
Yes, generally. But there are places in the world where just taking pictures of people on the street without their consent will get you beaten up. It is wise to check beforehand and obey not just local laws but local customs. I really don't know if restaurants are considered a public or private space in France or do people get generally annoyed if they are filmed in a restaurant (I would, I'd like to eat please, not be a part of someones home movie).
Geeks are often very black and white in these issues (and sometimes it is /extremely/ important to hold on to your rights) but common courtesy should come first in normal life, and that is what many geeks do not get for some reason.
Scumbags deserve justice too and the playground should be the same. And Dotcom is not likely to live in poverty right now, he just maybe can't go to Germany for his annual supercar-fest and has to rent a helicopter ride, not ride in his own. But this is a side-track, scumbags always stash money, even to the bitter and the dictators and criminals keep the last case of dollars/gold/jewelry with them. The real question is is the process done properly and should Dotcom have access to the material he seeks for his defense? That is not money, that is a principle of the justice system. And how are international cases handled and which laws are applied as more and more alleged criminals are citizens of country a, live in country b and are prosecuted in country c while their crime has happened in country d - this needs to be addressed more clearly.
It is shame rich scumbags (like Dotcom) usually do get better terms when facing for an example individuals that are victoms of a scam. But now he faces the mighty copyright-conglomerate of US of A and that means the opposite side can influence the rules as well.
It should not be this way, but we have to play with what we have, and I fear that two evils will make a deal in the end.
That doesn't correlate with history I remember - at first Youtube was *the source* for music videos and short tv shows and comedy clips. Which were there totally illegally and they knew it, nobody was interested in *somerandomguy* ranting about gas prices on his videoblog. Shortly they began to comply because they knew they had to at least when they would be start serving ads to takedown-requests and implemented all kinds of music-detectors (hello, Germany) to different markets and made deals with tv shows on ad-sharing revenue and encouraged them to post their content legally. And then the big G came and suddenly everybody just made threats to sue but ultimately wanted just a piece and now it's all good and nice. Minus the occasional take down by some script-generated message.
But the start was only possible with sharing copyrighted works, it would have never risen up if all content was user-made and copyrights strictly enforced. There are not *that many* good artists to create momentum who like to share freely (and Vimeo has captured most of them - those who actually provide 100% original work, including music they use etc.) and Youtube would have been a fringe site without for an example people uploading (illegally) old music videos which gained huge popularity.
Cheaper, from Apple, you got to be kidding.
Windows 8 may be a failure or maybe not, some even say it is a game-changer thing for Microsoft and it it defines if they will succeed in the future, but Apple is not really an option if you want to go cheaper.... (maybe, just maybe with some twisted math with Office on full retail price thrown in you can end up with Apple and web services being cheaper, if you really try hard).
I dislike what Cisco had done on this case, really, really bad,
But geek-rage has gone over the top here, people are calling a Cisco employee a "dumb whore" on their Facebook page, how mature is that?
Yes, I understood that - just corrected your choice of example because Sweden is a better one.
And lots of European countries are not outside EU, the main exceptions are Iceland, Norway and Switzerland who have chosen to stay outside (Iceland is applying for membership) + ex-Yugoslavia states (who are presumed to be accepted as would-be members or are already negotiating in the near future and Croatia becoming member on 1.1.2013) and Turkey. It is true however that EU is not a state union but rather a collection of treaties, including Euro as a currency, and we are not as tight as for an example the USA. But regarding the future of Euro as a currency, well, it is wrong to say that is on the verge of breaking-up because there are strong countries and there are weak countries, it is now a matter of decision if the weak should be supported (this means also supporting the banks of the strong ones) or not. One could predict doomsday scenarios for US $ also, but in reality things don't usually fall apart quickly and uncontrollably nowadays (thankfully).
Just to nitpick - Norway is not a member of EU. Sweden is, and they have their own currency.
Well, lately getting a work visa seems to be quite hard nowadays, and European and Indian companies have complained that US really doesn't want to grant visas on basis of domestic policy, and citizenship is totally different thing. It is not signing the guestbook - not the hardest thing to do on earth but on the hard side.
You know...there's plenty of people out there needing work...AND, I have no problem with having people that are on welfare and the like, being required to do some manual labor such as food harvesting to subsidize the money they're being given by the rest of the working taxpayers.
So what you really do want is not more expensive labor and workers being paid more but people on welfare being forced to work for their benefits (instead of employing illegals with same rate or *gasp* employing those who are in welfare for going rate which includes paying what is minimally required and if the employer is a human person - a sum that can actually legally support them). I can't really say which one is worse...
While I in principle agree with you, this is very much about freedom.
I agree that it is not probably wise for BMW or Mercedes to deal (directly) with people named Kim and address at the northern part peninsula at Korea. But this is freaking iPads, punishing the people because their leaders suck has not traditionally worked very well, you just get angry people who elect new leaders who spew more hate, or leaders that make sure people can't eat to stay in power (N-Korea). North Korea has been under trade embargo forever, Israel has blocked Gaza and West Bank forever, and how has that worked out?
I strongly object aiding oppressive leaders to bathe in money and blood of their minions. Saddam was a good example of that, and backed by west until he did invade the wrong country. It is all about politics and has very little to do about actually harming the ruling class. BTW Russia will sell iPads to Iran just fine, they have just the arms embargo underwritten, maybe Apple should not sell iPads to Russia?
Zimmerman survived from prosecution partly because he used a loophole of publishing source code as a dead-tree book and it was exported that way. In a little bit different climate he would have been convicted, but the start of 1990s was not that bad of a time and there was strong free-speech support behind him, which also ultimately lead to relaxing the rules to export cryptography software (but there still is the no-no list which includes Iran. Which is kind of funny because on the other hand US sponsors the TOR project which through obfuscation helps keep the internet anonymous and accessible to those in for an example in Iran, but exporting crypto tech export is still limited).