That's an interesting possibility, you should get modded up.:-) I was wondering myself why Snow Leo is slated to have significant security improvements yet Apple is mum about them, while they are willing to prominently display other non-security-oriented architectural improvements coming in 10.6
I don't have a beta copy, but from the videos others have posted there are certainly security improvements. For example, the application level firewall now has the option to apply some level of restrictions, by default to applications that are not signed using their signing framework. Apple hasn't been talking much about most of their improvements in OS X, instead just going over major architecture upgrades. I don't expect a lot in snow leopard in the way of features we haven't already heard about, but security features are just the kind of stuff Apple doesn't publicize to the general public. Heck, Apple implemented and applied (in a limited fashion) a mandatory access control scheme in Leopard which is a huge deal, but basically no one outside the security community even knows it exists.
What makes me laugh is that the Mac fanbois are so determined to never hear a bad word about their chosen God^H^H^HOperating System, that they immediately turn the whole discussion thread on it's head and say "well MS invented ActiveX, and it's the suckzorz".
Would you mind linking to that post I must have missed it maybe because it doesn't exist or has been modded down so far.
However, one of JAVA's great selling points was "it's secure because it runs in a sandbox". And over the years we've discovered the sandbox has not one, but several big fucking holes in the bottom.
JVMs have never been well implemented to actually provide the security features originally conceived. Security never became a priority largely because Java has never been a very big hole compared to all the others in modern OS's.
And now, because every other vendor has patched, and OSX is waiting presumably to fleece their users for another $150 with the next version before patching...
Please learn what you're talking about. Apple has a very good record of backporting security fixes for free. When they get around to fixing this hole I'm sure they will include it in a security update for the last three or four versions of OS X, like they always do, regardless of if you pay for Leopard.
And of course "we don't need antiviruses, because we run Macs".
If you've found in the wild propagating viruses for the Mac that would make antivirus software useful, please post it. It's a much bigger story than this one.
(Expecting to get modded into oblivion with this one, but what the hell, my karma can handle it).
Rightfully, you will be modded down for posting inflammatory nonsense like this. Seriously, there is plenty of space for valid criticism of Apple here. Why do ignorant twats like yourself have to go off with your uninformed rants and strawman attacks? It's just sad you have to make crap up instead of sticking to the facts and providing a rational and well deserved criticism of Apple's failure to fully patch and publish clear documentation on their lackluster Java support and lack of attention to security on the project.
Yeah, this page listing all of the security patches in every Apple update must surely not exist. You know, complete with links to knowledge base articles containing links to the CVE-IDs patched by that particular patch.
I prefer proactive security rather than reactive.
So you're happy with Apple having implemented MAC in Leopard and proactively sandboxed their most vulnerable default services adding an extra layer of protection. (Hopefully they extend their sandboxing to include both the JVM and some applications like Safari in Snow Leopard.) Of course you were presenting a false dichotomy, since you need to be both proactive and reactive to have a working security policy.
That having been said, there's nothing on there about added security. I can tell you there are some rumors that things like more complete code page protection and address randomization will be in Snow Leo, but Apple's priorities concerning security are rather low;
Actually, Apple does quite a bit with security in the core of their system, they just don't talk a lot about it. In leopard they introduced quite a few significant improvements:
In doing so they leapfrogged Ubuntu Linux, for example in practical application of several technologies. Their sandboxing of their ZeroConf service, for example, was the only thing standing between OS X and a major vulnerability in a default service, but it did not get a lot of press outside of the security community. Apple just doesn't publicize security particulars, trying to keep the message simple and aimed at the general public.
That is not to say all is sunshine and roses for Apple on security. Their culture is very mixed with old school UNIX guys who live and breath security mingling with pre-OS X era application programmers where security is not even on their radar. (The java team is apparently in the latter category or at least is not actively keeping up with the security issues.) In my mind Apple does not do enough vulnerability testing and is hit and miss on their acceptance of feedback from outside Apple. Still I think they don't get a fair shake when it comes to security because most of their vocal critics aren't actually knowledgeable about what Apple has done. It is fairly undeniable that Apple has managed to implement security that is good enough to deal with the level of threat their average customer is experiencing.
OS-X has a pretty good balance between honestly trying to protect the user from doing stupid things and implementing a Vista-esque approach (i.e. so draconian that users find a way to turn it off entirely). You get asked for a password whenever something needs root equivalence. But that's not going to help people who will do anything to see the dancing squirrels...
Take a look at the iPhone and OS X's latest security frameworks and the recent hire of Ivan Krstic, reported here, and Apple's strong push for use of the signing to work with the application level firewall. It's entirely possible Apple is moving towards default restrictive sandboxing of all nonsigned apps in the near future. That with a little UI work to let the users know what level of trust an application has and exactly what it wants to do may very well stop a goodly number of dancing squirrel style trojans. Once users learn whether they put in their password or not they can still see or not see the dancing squirrels, and are given a good choice as to how much they trust the dancing squirrels, regardless of seeing them... we move towards some real trojan mitigation. All the pieces are there now except for a well crafted UI and a few connecting bits.
Because Google is taking money from HP to suggest it everytime someone searches for Dell. It's Payola.
So what if they are? What law do you think makes that illegal?
The key phrase in the summary is "protection racket". Google is basically telling the trademark holder to pay up or the customers will be sent elsewhere.
That is patently untrue. if a copyright holder does not pay, they still are the first search result. Any one can pay to add their advertisement to the sidebar. If they were selling search results there would be a case. They are not. They're selling advertisements. on the side. No case at all, just an attempt to extort money and stop people from finding out about competitors.
Now if you want to discuss the issue, please answer the questions I asked, as per the rhetorical method.
This question MUST be answered to the satisfaction of MILLIONS of end users before Linux will become popular on the desktop: What can I do with Linux that I can not do with Mac OS or Windows?
That question has long been answered. The answer is: I can keep my money in my wallet instead of paying it out for licensing. Linux simply needs to meet the useful capabilities of other OS's and in a free market it will win on price.
GM, for the first time in years is producing cars of decent quality, yet they are staring death in the face. Why?
GM has poisoned their own brand(s), for a few ore bucks. Every time a manager figured out a way to save money at the cost of long term reliability, implemented said measure and was promoted out of there long before the negative results of their actions came to light, GM bled. Now maybe the cars GM makes will last or maybe they won't. The average consumer, however, has no faith that they will because the brand is so tarnished by past, crappy products. Other companies, like Honda, have developed just the opposite brand value.
Linux needs to have capabilities not found on proprietary systems; that will give end users reasons to switch. Nothing else matters.
Linux's ship has sailed. If you're not using it now, you probably never will.
Most people are using it now, but many don't know it.
That they are still problems even though they've been known for years - sometimes decades shows that they will never be addressed, or fixed.
It's a question of motivation, mostly financial.
Linux is a hobby systyem[sic].
I'm sure IBM will be surprised to hear that.
The code is donated mostly by amateurs (or people working for rewards other than money - for example the recognition of their peers) and is therefore not within the normal disciplines of IT developemt[sic].
Having been paid to work on Linux for most of my professional life, I find that quite surprising. In my experience most of the code donated to both Linux and the GNU/Linux environment is written by paid developers working for companies that use Linux to make money. If anything the fact that the code is open source makes coders more likely to be scrupulous since other companies may use it when evaluating them for new jobs and companies don't want to be embarrassed by having messy code associated with them as it leads to a negative image for closed source products they make.
If you tell a Linux developer their code is crap - or the application they have written is junk, they'll just walk.
It's the same as with any other platform, developers are all over the board. Have you told MS that Notepad sucks lately. I e-mailed them about bugs a decade ago that are still unresolved.
As they will if you ask them to do things they don't want to: such as write a manual, fix bugs, add (or remove) features.
So when you tell IBM you need a manual to go with the system they don't meet said requirement? When you file bug reports to them they ignore them? Stop paying them and move to a competitor who does respond. It sounds like you just do business with lousy companies.
Basically guys, this is as good as it gets. Live with it or go elsewhere.
Linux on the server and Linux as a appliance platform are both really good ecosystems. Companies make a pile of money and Linux improves daily for those roles. Linux is just starting to make real money in a desktop role and may or may not ever become a real player there. It has significant issues in that role, but there is a significant probability companies will decide to move into that market, which will lead to a lot of investment and rapid improvement for Linux on the desktop. But I don't think you really grasp how the Linux ecosystem is functioning today well enough to understand why or how that might happen.
And if a Google search for a particular company turned up ads for the company's competitors but NOT and ad for the company in question (because that company did not have a Google ad deal), wouldn't that be a little misleading for end users?
No, I don't think it would be. If Google provided search links that only went to competitors you'd have an argument, but we're talking about the ads, not the search results. No one is tricked into thinking the advertisements are for the company you're searching for assuming you are searching for a company, which usually you aren't.
If I do a search for "apple" do you think it should be illegal for Google to not place present ad for both the Apple music company and Apple computers company? After all, they both have trademarks on the word. I just don't understand how you think this is a valid trademark argument.
I don't expect any sort of advertisement to be listed when I do a search, but if I do a search for a specific product, it's redundant to also give me an ad for that product, since it is presumably presented as the search link. I, personally, find it much more useful to the consumer to present ads for competitors that I may not know about and no, I'm not for one millisecond confused into thinking the ads presented are affiliated with one of the companies who has a trademark on the term for which I'm searching.
This is simply another attempt by overly litigious companies to try to prevent consumers from finding out about their competitors rather than spending their time making better products so people actually prefer them to said competitors. This is not why we have trademark laws.
Apps link to dlls. A dll may be part of the OS or it may not be. If it's not, the dll should be packaged with the app install. I'm not sure how this is different on any OS.
The difference is when you install a Windows application the "dll" goes in the registry. When you install a Mac application it is contained within the.app folder which constitutes an executable. So if you want to stop a Windows application from screwing with other programs, you need to customize every ACL for each program so it can still write the dll's. With a Mac, you just write an ACL that restricts any untrusted application to writing to it's own.app folder. The self contained nature makes strong ACLs significantly easier or, makes quick and dirty ACLs significantly more secure against viruses.
There's not much value in your post - you appear to be trying to bait another mac vs win argument that GP is specifically trying to avoid.
The article only talks about his work on Linux. I was writing about the same technologies as they have been applied on OS X, where he is now going to be working on them. I'm not trying to bait anyone into arguing about OS X vs. Windows as it is pointless with 90% of people who don't understand one or the other well enough to comprehend the issues. That rather seems to be the case with you. You're obviously not understanding how OS X implements the NextStep style applications or what the ramifications of that are for mandatory access controls. I apologize for trying to inject an informed opinion into your insistence on attacking another poster from an ignorant stance yourself.
The key is that Google is charging money for these names..
That doesn't matter if they aren't confusing consumers.
I can make money by placing an ad in the paper that says "Is your GM car a piece of shit? Buy a Honda at...". Just because I use a trademarket term to make money does not mean my actions are illegal. I have to be confusing consumers into thinking my product is a trademarked one or one from a specific trademarked company name.
This is similar to cybersquatting on domain names.
Not really. It's a lot closer to "DellSucksBuyAMac.com". Cybersquatting, I might mention is not a violation of normal trademark laws. ICANN has policies about distribution of names with regard to trademarks and the US passed a special law to cover it because it was not illegal under existing trademark statutes.
Just because the trademarked name doesn't have somebody paying for ads doesn't mean Google can charge for ads against that name+field+keywords in it's "newspaper".
The onus is on proving Google violated a law, not the other way around.
...because the law says Hydra gets exclusive use of the name in their field of many headed pets.
I don't know if this an attempt to answer my question or not. If it is it failed. I asked that if Google displays results related to to one trademarked use of a word instead of another trademarked use of the same word, do you consider that to be a trademark violation? If so, why one and not the other? If not, how is that any different from what you are claiming is illegal?
I know it gets abuse by Gucci's and Rollerblades suing every body under the sun, but the case is valid.
I don't see how. Here's an example I used in another post:
Suppose you hire me a business consultant. You ask me, "hey, should we buy servers from Dell?"I respond, "Well you could. We'll comparison shop and look at HP and Lenovo too." Am I infringing upon Dell's trademark? After all I'm making money suggesting alternatives when someone mentioned the trademarked term "Dell".
Do tell me how that is qualitatively different in the eyes of the law compared to what Google is doing.
Google's use is obviously commercial. They are SELLING the trademarked word.
No, they're selling advertising slots to anyone who wants to provide ads for a given word. Google is operating a for profit business, but they aren't "selling the trademarked word" they sell services associated with trademarked words. If I hire somebody to go interview people down on the corner by the Ford dealership, regardless of my use of the word "Ford" in describing it to them, I'm not making commercial use of the trademark, even if I'm charging people for the survey results.
Basically, this whole suit is a desperate, attempt to get a settlement from Google through frivolous litigation. I've seen a lot of analogies here, but none are all that close. Here's mine:
Suppose you hire me a business consultant. You ask me, "hey, should we buy servers from Dell?"I respond, "Well you could. We'll comparison shop and look at HP and Lenovo too." Am I infringing upon Dell's trademark? After all I'm making money suggesting alternatives when someone mentioned the trademarked term "Dell". It's the same thing Google does. Sheer stupidity! This is not why we have trademark laws.
How is Google supposed to know a word is violating someone's trademark?
They should hire someone to research these things.
This whole argument fails because it implies that a "word" violates a trademark. Trademarks's are words, phrases, images, and the like that are associated with a specific company or product in a specific market. The same word can be trademarked hundreds of times as it applies to different markets.
The purpose of trademark laws are to prevent one company from masquerading as another and thus mislead customers. If you offer a product similar to someone else you can't have a name so similar that it would confuse customers. That's the only valid purpose for trademarks.
So you're saying only large companies deserve trademark protection?
This is a strawman argument. He said no such thing.
YES That is why we have trademarks. The IPO (UK trademark office) has a searchable database and I'd bet the US equivalent does too.
No we have trademarks to prevent one company from fooling consumers into thinking they're buying from someone else. For example, say I do a search for "hydra". The word is trademarked by several companies. Google wants to provide appropriate ads. Suppose they show an advertisement for the services offered by the Hydra Biosciences company. Does this mean they're confusing users since they might think those services are being offered by the same software company that produces the sewage planning software "Hydra" (also trademarked under that name)? If they show ads for other biosciences companies like Phizer, are they misleading consumers into thinking that the advertisements which clearly say "Phizer" in them are actually from the company "Hydra Biosciences"?
You can make that argument, but it is a bloody weak one. I don't buy it and I don't think the courts will. Presenting me with ads for competitors is not a trademark violation any more than when I go to the grocery store and buy Coke, the company matches a keyword and gives me a coupon for Pepsi. I'm not confused that one is actually the other unless the names and products are confusingly similar. This is just companies looking for any and all ways to use the courts to try to stop competitors from advertising to people who know their brand. Here's a better idea, make products that are better and cheaper, rather than trying to prevent people from hearing about your competitors through legal shenanigans.
I understand security concepts very well - I'm asking for people to discuss Krstic's take on what he will do (architecturally) for Mac security.
I've never read anything he wrote about Macs in particular, but he seems to subscribe to the security trend towards increased security granularity at the application level. SELinux, TrustedBSD, Solaris, and OS X have all moved the same direction with underlying technology but aside from locked down high security installations, have not widely deployed said technologies across the application space. Such a move requires some serious effort and, potentially both changes in the way developers work and serious UI innovation.
OS X on the iPhone uses this to lock down all the applications into their own little jails, with issues for any interactions between applications (like how hard it was to implement copy and paste). OS X on the desktop only uses it to lock down a few high risk services. Krstic could be hired to help make the iPhone more flexible, to expand security on OS X, or both.
The previous poster did have a point, albeit he may not have realized how it applied here. OS X applications being contained in a single package does make it easier to write ACLs that restrict it from doing damage without making it useless. likewise the fact that OS X already tracks file changes by application, makes it easier to do the same.
DLLs are just libraries that you link to at run-time. Every OS has this concept (.so or.sol on linux -- something like that on Mac).
Sort of, yeah. OS X has some interesting dynamic linking for libraries that is actually a bit complex sometimes (but cool).
There's no deep/deeper/deepest dependency than the signature of the API you're calling in a DLL. It's pretty simple stuff -- no voodoo on any platform. Delete a dll/so/sol on any platform, and the code that calls into it will break.
The point with OS X being that libraries for end user applications are within the application package if they aren't part of the OS's APIs, so deleting an application will never delete the equivalent of a DLL used by another application breaking it. Also, when installing an application, you can reasonably restrict it from editing any files outside of its.app folder and the config XML file in the user's home directory (which is actually also optional) and restrict it from editing any files it did not create. That sort of a default, restrictive ACL on Windows would be painful to implement. Obviously, a comprehensive security approach will be more nuanced, but simply talking about random, unsigned applications the more modern API's in use on OS X and the NextStep style packaging are a huge boon for trojan and virus mitigation using the technologies Krstic used on the XO.
it will either require apps to be re-authored or make exceptions for apps that need to use certain IPC mechanisms (or perhaps use heuristics to decide when to permit what).
The heuristics in question are ACLs. Both Bitfrost on the XO and OS X have MAC style frameworks in use today. The trick is applying them well and getting software well behaved enough and with well crafted ACLs. Apple already uses this to sequester a few high risk, exposed services like ZeroConf. The next step will probably be to get it working well for high risk end user software, then all Apple software, then third party applications. The last step being the hardest, of course. Still, Apple has an advantage here in that they use fairly modern APIs and fairly self contained application packages, greatly simplifying the task compared to other OS's.
My first thought on reading that -- it depends on the 'virtual OS' we're talking about. I mean, is this a sandbox, or is it a hypervisor type thing?
Apple currently uses a framework that is basically a port of the Mandatory Access Control from TrustedBSD. You can consider it a sandbox defined by an ACL or combination of ACLs. Assuming this is why they hired Krstic, he'll probably be working on expanding the use of that, rather than replacing it.
I haven't quite wrapped my mind around what are the attack vectors you would use in a scheme like this...
You can try to break out of the sandbox or exploit a service offered to your application or try to get a given application to have enough privileges to be dangerous. The attack, of course, depends upon what the default sandboxing is (if any) and what kind of UI it has for social engineering.
Good to see Apple starting to take action before they go through a Nimda or Blaster type experience.
While Apple does use this to mitigate potential worms (still the biggest risk) having so few exposed services to start with makes Apple pretty hardened anyway. Where this is really interesting is in dealing with trojans as it (combined with Apple's largely unused signing framework) is a realistic method of mitigating the damage from trojans, even with mostly clueless users.
Honest question, why are Apple releasing security updates if there are no security exploits in their software?
Please go learn what the words you're using mean. A potential vulnerability, vulnerability, and exploit are all different things and proper security updates address the two former, not the latter.
Apple execs have put down their glasses of marketing Kool-Aid and joined the real world.
Apple has always been a bit erratic when it comes to security, owing to their odd blend of cultures. To suggest, however, that they've been ignoring security is more than a little misguided. Leopard included the addition of a MAC framework ported from TrustedBSD, an application signing framework, and ACLs restricting some exposed services (like zeroconf) that would have been vulnerabilities otherwise. Apple has done a very good job of shipping an OS hardened enough to deal with the level of worm and virus infections facing it in the wild. Now, with trojans being a bigger concern, they bring in a person who helped write and implement a pretty decent MAC implementation for general, if limited use. With luck this may be the beginning of a new era of consumer level trojan mitigation, something Apple already laid the groundwork for but has not really implemented the UI and market components for.
Basically I disagree with you that Apple has been ignoring security and I disagree that OS X is as vulnerable to most classes of real world threats as Windows. I see this as Apple making a good hire that fits with their current security strategies, assuming that is what they hired him for.
Bitfrost is DRM... Apple might be thinking about here - preventing their OS being installed on non-Apple systems.
Bitfrost is a security suite including a working MAC implementation; one of the few in real world use. Since Apple introduced an MAC framework in Leopard, but applied it to only a small subset of applications, I'm guessing that's the most likely area for him to be working. Apple isn't losing significant money because of piracy of their OS but they are looking at threats to their very valuable brand from recent malware and security issues. Hopefully, Apple is pushing for a more comprehensive security strategy linking their ACLs to automated processes and a working UI.
The mosquito repellant/mousetrap example was helpful. However - so far as I know, no one charges for their music playing software - so there's no market to undermine - so long as you don't penalize for the non-use of your software. Is that correct?
Actually, no. Markets do not have to have direct sales to exist as markets. So long as people are making money, even by facilitating the sale of other products, it is still a market. For example, Opera uses their regular (non-mobile) browser to make money selling ads, Apple uses Safari to sell hardware, MS uses Explorer to sell their OS, and Mozilla makes money directing people to Google's search. None of them charges a dime directly, but all the court rulings to date have declared browsers to be a separate market.
But that leaves the iTMS as the leveraged market (I believe that I got the use of terms right here).
Apple leverages their iPod product to gain in the markets where they provide iTMS and iTunes.app. So technically, portable digital music players is the market being leveraged to affect the other markets. It is a fulcrum analogy.
Here's the EU antitrust complaint about iTMS - only on the grounds of sales territories
Ahh, that's a different complaint than the one I was describing. In that case Apple was considered an agent of the RIAA (actually their european counterparts) in leveraging a music cartel in violation of standing EU pricing laws. The market being leveraged in that case was the cartel controlling music publishing. That's a completely different case than the more recent EU probe into Apple's potential abuse of their iPod market share. The iPod did not even enter into said case, just Apple's pricing of music in different EU countries on behalf of the copyright holders.
Frankly, this sounds exactly like the explanation that you've given - except - the charge is not necessarily true.
Agreed. At the time Apple did not have market dominance and was under no obligation to provide a level playing field for competitors with regard to DRM. The charge stemmed from weaker consumer protection laws. The point being, that situation may have changed if Apple now has enough market share (which is very debatable).
But still - the action isn't that iTMS is bad or iPods only support AAC and AAC is private - all misstatements I've seen regularly - it's that iTMS has locked out those preferring to use WMA. If that's true - what about Ogg/Vorbis?
Okay, there are several things here. If Apple has monopoly influence they are suddenly obligated to provide a level playing field with regard to how their monopoly influences other markets. That means if Apple sells DRM'd songs that play on the iPod, they have to let others do the same. The means by which they must do this, however, is up to them unless the courts have to intervene because the solution they provide is not sufficient.
So, Apple could solve this by licensing FairPlay or by supporting WMA+PlaysForSure or whatever. They just need to provide some means by which others can fairly compete. Ogg Vorbis is a different matter. It does not have an integral DRM scheme at all and people selling music for the iPod not being able to sell in a different format than Apple does is not a economic disadvantage over Apple. Regardless of market dominance Apple has no obligation to support any given format. They just need to support a format where everyone can compete against them fairly. It is support for DRM that others cannot use that gives Apple an advantage, not support for MP3 instead of Ogg.
Your points are interesting, but both instances you cite are sort of tangental. Neither directly deals with Apple having a monopoly, which was the most recent issue, although the latter issue now comes to light in as a potential antitrust issue instead of as a consumer protection law issue. The real question is if Apple has monopoly influence. The EU seems to think they don't have enough of the market. In the US it has not been brought up, but they have less and less every day as the market merges with the cell phone market.
ID is about removing evolution from curriculum? I guess it's easy to debase your opponents argument when you make their assertions for them...
That would be a straw man argument, but that's not the case here. It is fairly well established at this point, including in the courts, that the intelligent design movement was just that based upon their internal documents and statements made by the originators.
That doesn't mean people couldn't take the idea and change it though. If you're up to the task, present us with a hypothesis of intelligent design and propose a scientific experiment. It's that easy. We're all waiting.
You cannot logically extrapolate these things into anything more than they are without direct evidence of something more. No matter how much evidence the universe gives of its own existence, it does not point to anything beyond that, be it God or invisible unicorns or Flying Spaghetti Monsters, sauce be upon him, or anything else.
This isn't technically true. By studying the universe and laws of physics we can create theories as to how the universe came into existence. Then, we can perform experiments to determine if those theories are likely to be correct. For example, some scientific theories predict that many multidimensional universes exist within a "hyperspace" but that they tend to collapse into universes with stable numbers of dimensions, one type being our own. As we learn more about the physics of our universe, we can provide more support for these theories or we can falsify them by disproving the predictions predicated upon such a model. Thus the universe can provide evidence via the scientific method about things beyond itself (note evidence not proof, this is science not math).
Thus by studying the universe we could provide evidence to support a scientific theory of the existence of a flying spaghetti monster or christian god. The only issue is any such test performed to date has been unable to support the existence of either.
However - my chronology was of Apple's actions and is - so far as I honestly know - not flawed. Yes, other products preceded theirs in the market.
Perhaps I'm unclear. Your facts are fine, but not relevant. Antitrust law is all about markets, as I've mentioned. The pre-existing products demonstrate existing markets and help define the markets in the eyes of the law. Can we agree at this point that the following markets are then separate economically and legally:
portable digital music players - iPod, Zune, Zen, etc.
music download services - iTunes Music Store, Amazon, etc.
music player software - iTunes, Songbird, WMP, RealPlayer, etc.
It is clear that is how other courts have already viewed it and is pretty much the only reasonable interpretation based upon existing products.
No - only your language is clear - this may be illegal depending upon how Apple's influence was. Why is that illegal?
In this case your language is unclear. Do you want me to explain why antitrust law was written to make this illegal from an economic and historical perspective or do you want to know why the law applies in this specific instance?
I have only a layman's understanding of the law - but it's not a small understanding, IMO.
So having read and understood the Clayton and Sherman acts, you have the basis for antitrust law in the US. The EU laws are almost identical, in fact antirust law around the world is surprisingly uniform. It has changed little over the years and a 70 year old textbook is fine for getting a good idea as to how it works. It can be summed up fairly simply. You can't conspire to form a monopoly with others. If you have a monopoly, you can't use it to gain an advantage in a separate market. That's it.
They did not use leverage against suppliers, partners or distributors. They used their market leverage only.
In antitrust law that's the only kind of leverage there is. "leveraging" is using power you gain from having a monopoly to win in other markets in any way. The whole point of antitrust law is to preserve the operation of the free market. In each market everyone competes and the best suited product wins the most market share. When the portable digital music player market decides Apple has the best product by huge margin Apple gains a lot of power. When that power reaches a certain level (debatable if this has happened) the law says they have to then be careful not to use that power to influence other markets. When Apple ties their iPod to iTunes by bundling them together in the same package they gain an unfair advantage in the music player software market, and that is potentially illegal. More people use iTunes because of the iPod than use Songbird, as would happen in a free market if people were simply judging music player software on their merits. Thus the music player software market is broken. Of course, MS already bundles WMP with Windows, which as a much longer and more egregious antitrust violation, so the music player market is already hopelessly broken.
They built a better mousetrap, marketed it, and expanded the product line. That is not illegal.
You can build a better mousetrap all you want. You can dominate the mousetrap market. What you can't do is dominate the mousetrap market then start bundling your mousetraps with "free" mosquito repellant, thus undermining that secondary market. You likewise can't tie your mousetraps to a single brand of bait using a microchip and sensor that makes the trap less functional if you use a competing brand.
That is not illegal. If I am wrong, kindly either explain the law or point me somewhere where I can get that explanation.
I should think I've been pretty clear at this point. Perhaps the main problem has been your misunderstanding of what the term "leveraging" means in terms of monopolies.
None of this is science - let's stop using that word.
Yes, this is. You just don't seem to know what science is.
Everyone here is making conjectures about a certain something that happened in a point of time.
It's called a hypothesis.
. That isn't science, that is history.
The scientific method can be applied to historical events and often has been.
Proving that life can be created spontaneously does not infer that it did.
Actually it does. It provides support for the theory that it did. It doesn't prove that it did, but that's not what science is about. Science is about making useful predictions and testing those predictions to provide support for a theory. The theory with the most support is the one logical, rational people believe. It's a formal process for determining belief, rather than supporting them.
In the negative, not having a method to have it happen today does not mean that it didn't happen in the past.
No, but demonstrating there is no method by which the molecules could have combined given what we know about the past state of the earth in the past does disprove the specific theory. This is the RNA world theory of abiogenesis. Disproving it lends support to other abiogenesis theories.
cience tells us what is most likely to happen in the future. It isn't a great historian because history isn't subject to testing (today only happens once).
Nonsense. Science has predicted observations about the past over and over again. Everything from "my theory predicts the gold has dissolved into the solution" to "we should find those intermediate skeletons in layers of rock 16 feet down".
Yes, I know the laws are generalized, but the violations always revolve around the specific and concrete.
I never said they didn't. I said what determines the components is markets, not technological definitions. The case you refer to decided browsers were an issue because there was a preexisting market for Web browsers separate from OS's. Whether or not an OS had a browser built in in a way that could not be removed applied only to the remedy phase, not to determining guilt.
So, what I'm driving at - in an attempt to understand your point of view - is very much at the heart of the matter.
But you're ignoring the way the law defines things. If you ignore the markets formed by products competing for the normal user's share, you fundamentally fail to understand how the law is applied.
...
Let me consolidate your other post for convenience.
When MS was convicted of violations for tying WMP to Windows, the separation between the application and underlying frameworks within the OS was not even an issue. It's about markets, not technologies.
That was a European finding, not a US one. Further, this opinion shows that things are never cut and dried. Most interestingly, they state...
Again, what you cite applies only to remedies to prevent the damage from abuses, not to determining if abuses have happened. They were trying to create a compromise remedy that would still be effective, and I might mention they failed miserably.
I think you're jumping the shark - the anticompetitive part was about compatibilities.
I don't think you understand what that reference means, nor do I think you understand antitrust law enough to understand what it makes illegal and why.
Slashdot Mirror
That's an interesting possibility, you should get modded up. :-) I was wondering myself why Snow Leo is slated to have significant security improvements yet Apple is mum about them, while they are willing to prominently display other non-security-oriented architectural improvements coming in 10.6
I don't have a beta copy, but from the videos others have posted there are certainly security improvements. For example, the application level firewall now has the option to apply some level of restrictions, by default to applications that are not signed using their signing framework. Apple hasn't been talking much about most of their improvements in OS X, instead just going over major architecture upgrades. I don't expect a lot in snow leopard in the way of features we haven't already heard about, but security features are just the kind of stuff Apple doesn't publicize to the general public. Heck, Apple implemented and applied (in a limited fashion) a mandatory access control scheme in Leopard which is a huge deal, but basically no one outside the security community even knows it exists.
What makes me laugh is that the Mac fanbois are so determined to never hear a bad word about their chosen God^H^H^HOperating System, that they immediately turn the whole discussion thread on it's head and say "well MS invented ActiveX, and it's the suckzorz".
Would you mind linking to that post I must have missed it maybe because it doesn't exist or has been modded down so far.
However, one of JAVA's great selling points was "it's secure because it runs in a sandbox". And over the years we've discovered the sandbox has not one, but several big fucking holes in the bottom.
JVMs have never been well implemented to actually provide the security features originally conceived. Security never became a priority largely because Java has never been a very big hole compared to all the others in modern OS's.
And now, because every other vendor has patched, and OSX is waiting presumably to fleece their users for another $150 with the next version before patching...
Please learn what you're talking about. Apple has a very good record of backporting security fixes for free. When they get around to fixing this hole I'm sure they will include it in a security update for the last three or four versions of OS X, like they always do, regardless of if you pay for Leopard.
And of course "we don't need antiviruses, because we run Macs".
If you've found in the wild propagating viruses for the Mac that would make antivirus software useful, please post it. It's a much bigger story than this one.
(Expecting to get modded into oblivion with this one, but what the hell, my karma can handle it).
Rightfully, you will be modded down for posting inflammatory nonsense like this. Seriously, there is plenty of space for valid criticism of Apple here. Why do ignorant twats like yourself have to go off with your uninformed rants and strawman attacks? It's just sad you have to make crap up instead of sticking to the facts and providing a rational and well deserved criticism of Apple's failure to fully patch and publish clear documentation on their lackluster Java support and lack of attention to security on the project.
Yeah, this page listing all of the security patches in every Apple update must surely not exist. You know, complete with links to knowledge base articles containing links to the CVE-IDs patched by that particular patch.
I prefer proactive security rather than reactive.
So you're happy with Apple having implemented MAC in Leopard and proactively sandboxed their most vulnerable default services adding an extra layer of protection. (Hopefully they extend their sandboxing to include both the JVM and some applications like Safari in Snow Leopard.) Of course you were presenting a false dichotomy, since you need to be both proactive and reactive to have a working security policy.
That having been said, there's nothing on there about added security. I can tell you there are some rumors that things like more complete code page protection and address randomization will be in Snow Leo, but Apple's priorities concerning security are rather low;
Actually, Apple does quite a bit with security in the core of their system, they just don't talk a lot about it. In leopard they introduced quite a few significant improvements:
Mac OS X Security
In doing so they leapfrogged Ubuntu Linux, for example in practical application of several technologies. Their sandboxing of their ZeroConf service, for example, was the only thing standing between OS X and a major vulnerability in a default service, but it did not get a lot of press outside of the security community. Apple just doesn't publicize security particulars, trying to keep the message simple and aimed at the general public.
That is not to say all is sunshine and roses for Apple on security. Their culture is very mixed with old school UNIX guys who live and breath security mingling with pre-OS X era application programmers where security is not even on their radar. (The java team is apparently in the latter category or at least is not actively keeping up with the security issues.) In my mind Apple does not do enough vulnerability testing and is hit and miss on their acceptance of feedback from outside Apple. Still I think they don't get a fair shake when it comes to security because most of their vocal critics aren't actually knowledgeable about what Apple has done. It is fairly undeniable that Apple has managed to implement security that is good enough to deal with the level of threat their average customer is experiencing.
OS-X has a pretty good balance between honestly trying to protect the user from doing stupid things and implementing a Vista-esque approach (i.e. so draconian that users find a way to turn it off entirely). You get asked for a password whenever something needs root equivalence. But that's not going to help people who will do anything to see the dancing squirrels...
Take a look at the iPhone and OS X's latest security frameworks and the recent hire of Ivan Krstic, reported here, and Apple's strong push for use of the signing to work with the application level firewall. It's entirely possible Apple is moving towards default restrictive sandboxing of all nonsigned apps in the near future. That with a little UI work to let the users know what level of trust an application has and exactly what it wants to do may very well stop a goodly number of dancing squirrel style trojans. Once users learn whether they put in their password or not they can still see or not see the dancing squirrels, and are given a good choice as to how much they trust the dancing squirrels, regardless of seeing them... we move towards some real trojan mitigation. All the pieces are there now except for a well crafted UI and a few connecting bits.
Because Google is taking money from HP to suggest it everytime someone searches for Dell. It's Payola.
So what if they are? What law do you think makes that illegal?
The key phrase in the summary is "protection racket". Google is basically telling the trademark holder to pay up or the customers will be sent elsewhere.
That is patently untrue. if a copyright holder does not pay, they still are the first search result. Any one can pay to add their advertisement to the sidebar. If they were selling search results there would be a case. They are not. They're selling advertisements. on the side. No case at all, just an attempt to extort money and stop people from finding out about competitors.
Now if you want to discuss the issue, please answer the questions I asked, as per the rhetorical method.
This question MUST be answered to the satisfaction of MILLIONS of end users before Linux will become popular on the desktop: What can I do with Linux that I can not do with Mac OS or Windows?
That question has long been answered. The answer is: I can keep my money in my wallet instead of paying it out for licensing. Linux simply needs to meet the useful capabilities of other OS's and in a free market it will win on price.
GM, for the first time in years is producing cars of decent quality, yet they are staring death in the face. Why?
GM has poisoned their own brand(s), for a few ore bucks. Every time a manager figured out a way to save money at the cost of long term reliability, implemented said measure and was promoted out of there long before the negative results of their actions came to light, GM bled. Now maybe the cars GM makes will last or maybe they won't. The average consumer, however, has no faith that they will because the brand is so tarnished by past, crappy products. Other companies, like Honda, have developed just the opposite brand value.
Linux needs to have capabilities not found on proprietary systems; that will give end users reasons to switch. Nothing else matters.
Price matters.
Linux's ship has sailed. If you're not using it now, you probably never will.
Most people are using it now, but many don't know it.
That they are still problems even though they've been known for years - sometimes decades shows that they will never be addressed, or fixed.
It's a question of motivation, mostly financial.
Linux is a hobby systyem[sic].
I'm sure IBM will be surprised to hear that.
The code is donated mostly by amateurs (or people working for rewards other than money - for example the recognition of their peers) and is therefore not within the normal disciplines of IT developemt[sic].
Having been paid to work on Linux for most of my professional life, I find that quite surprising. In my experience most of the code donated to both Linux and the GNU/Linux environment is written by paid developers working for companies that use Linux to make money. If anything the fact that the code is open source makes coders more likely to be scrupulous since other companies may use it when evaluating them for new jobs and companies don't want to be embarrassed by having messy code associated with them as it leads to a negative image for closed source products they make.
If you tell a Linux developer their code is crap - or the application they have written is junk, they'll just walk.
It's the same as with any other platform, developers are all over the board. Have you told MS that Notepad sucks lately. I e-mailed them about bugs a decade ago that are still unresolved.
As they will if you ask them to do things they don't want to: such as write a manual, fix bugs, add (or remove) features.
So when you tell IBM you need a manual to go with the system they don't meet said requirement? When you file bug reports to them they ignore them? Stop paying them and move to a competitor who does respond. It sounds like you just do business with lousy companies.
Basically guys, this is as good as it gets. Live with it or go elsewhere.
Linux on the server and Linux as a appliance platform are both really good ecosystems. Companies make a pile of money and Linux improves daily for those roles. Linux is just starting to make real money in a desktop role and may or may not ever become a real player there. It has significant issues in that role, but there is a significant probability companies will decide to move into that market, which will lead to a lot of investment and rapid improvement for Linux on the desktop. But I don't think you really grasp how the Linux ecosystem is functioning today well enough to understand why or how that might happen.
eah, I could get OpenOffice, but then, I can run that on my Windows box too. I might as well just use MS Office, as my workplace pays for that.
And people wonder why American companies are in trouble.
And if a Google search for a particular company turned up ads for the company's competitors but NOT and ad for the company in question (because that company did not have a Google ad deal), wouldn't that be a little misleading for end users?
No, I don't think it would be. If Google provided search links that only went to competitors you'd have an argument, but we're talking about the ads, not the search results. No one is tricked into thinking the advertisements are for the company you're searching for assuming you are searching for a company, which usually you aren't.
If I do a search for "apple" do you think it should be illegal for Google to not place present ad for both the Apple music company and Apple computers company? After all, they both have trademarks on the word. I just don't understand how you think this is a valid trademark argument.
I don't expect any sort of advertisement to be listed when I do a search, but if I do a search for a specific product, it's redundant to also give me an ad for that product, since it is presumably presented as the search link. I, personally, find it much more useful to the consumer to present ads for competitors that I may not know about and no, I'm not for one millisecond confused into thinking the ads presented are affiliated with one of the companies who has a trademark on the term for which I'm searching.
This is simply another attempt by overly litigious companies to try to prevent consumers from finding out about their competitors rather than spending their time making better products so people actually prefer them to said competitors. This is not why we have trademark laws.
Apps link to dlls. A dll may be part of the OS or it may not be. If it's not, the dll should be packaged with the app install. I'm not sure how this is different on any OS.
The difference is when you install a Windows application the "dll" goes in the registry. When you install a Mac application it is contained within the .app folder which constitutes an executable. So if you want to stop a Windows application from screwing with other programs, you need to customize every ACL for each program so it can still write the dll's. With a Mac, you just write an ACL that restricts any untrusted application to writing to it's own .app folder. The self contained nature makes strong ACLs significantly easier or, makes quick and dirty ACLs significantly more secure against viruses.
There's not much value in your post - you appear to be trying to bait another mac vs win argument that GP is specifically trying to avoid.
The article only talks about his work on Linux. I was writing about the same technologies as they have been applied on OS X, where he is now going to be working on them. I'm not trying to bait anyone into arguing about OS X vs. Windows as it is pointless with 90% of people who don't understand one or the other well enough to comprehend the issues. That rather seems to be the case with you. You're obviously not understanding how OS X implements the NextStep style applications or what the ramifications of that are for mandatory access controls. I apologize for trying to inject an informed opinion into your insistence on attacking another poster from an ignorant stance yourself.
The key is that Google is charging money for these names..
That doesn't matter if they aren't confusing consumers.
I can make money by placing an ad in the paper that says "Is your GM car a piece of shit? Buy a Honda at...". Just because I use a trademarket term to make money does not mean my actions are illegal. I have to be confusing consumers into thinking my product is a trademarked one or one from a specific trademarked company name.
This is similar to cybersquatting on domain names.
Not really. It's a lot closer to "DellSucksBuyAMac.com". Cybersquatting, I might mention is not a violation of normal trademark laws. ICANN has policies about distribution of names with regard to trademarks and the US passed a special law to cover it because it was not illegal under existing trademark statutes.
Just because the trademarked name doesn't have somebody paying for ads doesn't mean Google can charge for ads against that name+field+keywords in it's "newspaper".
The onus is on proving Google violated a law, not the other way around.
...because the law says Hydra gets exclusive use of the name in their field of many headed pets.
I don't know if this an attempt to answer my question or not. If it is it failed. I asked that if Google displays results related to to one trademarked use of a word instead of another trademarked use of the same word, do you consider that to be a trademark violation? If so, why one and not the other? If not, how is that any different from what you are claiming is illegal?
I know it gets abuse by Gucci's and Rollerblades suing every body under the sun, but the case is valid.
I don't see how. Here's an example I used in another post:
Suppose you hire me a business consultant. You ask me, "hey, should we buy servers from Dell?"I respond, "Well you could. We'll comparison shop and look at HP and Lenovo too." Am I infringing upon Dell's trademark? After all I'm making money suggesting alternatives when someone mentioned the trademarked term "Dell".
Do tell me how that is qualitatively different in the eyes of the law compared to what Google is doing.
Google's use is obviously commercial. They are SELLING the trademarked word.
No, they're selling advertising slots to anyone who wants to provide ads for a given word. Google is operating a for profit business, but they aren't "selling the trademarked word" they sell services associated with trademarked words. If I hire somebody to go interview people down on the corner by the Ford dealership, regardless of my use of the word "Ford" in describing it to them, I'm not making commercial use of the trademark, even if I'm charging people for the survey results.
Basically, this whole suit is a desperate, attempt to get a settlement from Google through frivolous litigation. I've seen a lot of analogies here, but none are all that close. Here's mine:
Suppose you hire me a business consultant. You ask me, "hey, should we buy servers from Dell?"I respond, "Well you could. We'll comparison shop and look at HP and Lenovo too." Am I infringing upon Dell's trademark? After all I'm making money suggesting alternatives when someone mentioned the trademarked term "Dell". It's the same thing Google does. Sheer stupidity! This is not why we have trademark laws.
How is Google supposed to know a word is violating someone's trademark?
They should hire someone to research these things.
This whole argument fails because it implies that a "word" violates a trademark. Trademarks's are words, phrases, images, and the like that are associated with a specific company or product in a specific market. The same word can be trademarked hundreds of times as it applies to different markets.
The purpose of trademark laws are to prevent one company from masquerading as another and thus mislead customers. If you offer a product similar to someone else you can't have a name so similar that it would confuse customers. That's the only valid purpose for trademarks.
So you're saying only large companies deserve trademark protection?
This is a strawman argument. He said no such thing.
YES That is why we have trademarks. The IPO (UK trademark office) has a searchable database and I'd bet the US equivalent does too.
No we have trademarks to prevent one company from fooling consumers into thinking they're buying from someone else. For example, say I do a search for "hydra". The word is trademarked by several companies. Google wants to provide appropriate ads. Suppose they show an advertisement for the services offered by the Hydra Biosciences company. Does this mean they're confusing users since they might think those services are being offered by the same software company that produces the sewage planning software "Hydra" (also trademarked under that name)? If they show ads for other biosciences companies like Phizer, are they misleading consumers into thinking that the advertisements which clearly say "Phizer" in them are actually from the company "Hydra Biosciences"?
You can make that argument, but it is a bloody weak one. I don't buy it and I don't think the courts will. Presenting me with ads for competitors is not a trademark violation any more than when I go to the grocery store and buy Coke, the company matches a keyword and gives me a coupon for Pepsi. I'm not confused that one is actually the other unless the names and products are confusingly similar. This is just companies looking for any and all ways to use the courts to try to stop competitors from advertising to people who know their brand. Here's a better idea, make products that are better and cheaper, rather than trying to prevent people from hearing about your competitors through legal shenanigans.
I understand security concepts very well - I'm asking for people to discuss Krstic's take on what he will do (architecturally) for Mac security.
I've never read anything he wrote about Macs in particular, but he seems to subscribe to the security trend towards increased security granularity at the application level. SELinux, TrustedBSD, Solaris, and OS X have all moved the same direction with underlying technology but aside from locked down high security installations, have not widely deployed said technologies across the application space. Such a move requires some serious effort and, potentially both changes in the way developers work and serious UI innovation.
OS X on the iPhone uses this to lock down all the applications into their own little jails, with issues for any interactions between applications (like how hard it was to implement copy and paste). OS X on the desktop only uses it to lock down a few high risk services. Krstic could be hired to help make the iPhone more flexible, to expand security on OS X, or both.
The previous poster did have a point, albeit he may not have realized how it applied here. OS X applications being contained in a single package does make it easier to write ACLs that restrict it from doing damage without making it useless. likewise the fact that OS X already tracks file changes by application, makes it easier to do the same.
DLLs are just libraries that you link to at run-time. Every OS has this concept (.so or .sol on linux -- something like that on Mac).
Sort of, yeah. OS X has some interesting dynamic linking for libraries that is actually a bit complex sometimes (but cool).
There's no deep/deeper/deepest dependency than the signature of the API you're calling in a DLL. It's pretty simple stuff -- no voodoo on any platform. Delete a dll/so/sol on any platform, and the code that calls into it will break.
The point with OS X being that libraries for end user applications are within the application package if they aren't part of the OS's APIs, so deleting an application will never delete the equivalent of a DLL used by another application breaking it. Also, when installing an application, you can reasonably restrict it from editing any files outside of its .app folder and the config XML file in the user's home directory (which is actually also optional) and restrict it from editing any files it did not create. That sort of a default, restrictive ACL on Windows would be painful to implement. Obviously, a comprehensive security approach will be more nuanced, but simply talking about random, unsigned applications the more modern API's in use on OS X and the NextStep style packaging are a huge boon for trojan and virus mitigation using the technologies Krstic used on the XO.
it will either require apps to be re-authored or make exceptions for apps that need to use certain IPC mechanisms (or perhaps use heuristics to decide when to permit what).
The heuristics in question are ACLs. Both Bitfrost on the XO and OS X have MAC style frameworks in use today. The trick is applying them well and getting software well behaved enough and with well crafted ACLs. Apple already uses this to sequester a few high risk, exposed services like ZeroConf. The next step will probably be to get it working well for high risk end user software, then all Apple software, then third party applications. The last step being the hardest, of course. Still, Apple has an advantage here in that they use fairly modern APIs and fairly self contained application packages, greatly simplifying the task compared to other OS's.
My first thought on reading that -- it depends on the 'virtual OS' we're talking about. I mean, is this a sandbox, or is it a hypervisor type thing?
Apple currently uses a framework that is basically a port of the Mandatory Access Control from TrustedBSD. You can consider it a sandbox defined by an ACL or combination of ACLs. Assuming this is why they hired Krstic, he'll probably be working on expanding the use of that, rather than replacing it.
I haven't quite wrapped my mind around what are the attack vectors you would use in a scheme like this...
You can try to break out of the sandbox or exploit a service offered to your application or try to get a given application to have enough privileges to be dangerous. The attack, of course, depends upon what the default sandboxing is (if any) and what kind of UI it has for social engineering.
Good to see Apple starting to take action before they go through a Nimda or Blaster type experience.
While Apple does use this to mitigate potential worms (still the biggest risk) having so few exposed services to start with makes Apple pretty hardened anyway. Where this is really interesting is in dealing with trojans as it (combined with Apple's largely unused signing framework) is a realistic method of mitigating the damage from trojans, even with mostly clueless users.
Honest question, why are Apple releasing security updates if there are no security exploits in their software?
Please go learn what the words you're using mean. A potential vulnerability, vulnerability, and exploit are all different things and proper security updates address the two former, not the latter.
Apple execs have put down their glasses of marketing Kool-Aid and joined the real world.
Apple has always been a bit erratic when it comes to security, owing to their odd blend of cultures. To suggest, however, that they've been ignoring security is more than a little misguided. Leopard included the addition of a MAC framework ported from TrustedBSD, an application signing framework, and ACLs restricting some exposed services (like zeroconf) that would have been vulnerabilities otherwise. Apple has done a very good job of shipping an OS hardened enough to deal with the level of worm and virus infections facing it in the wild. Now, with trojans being a bigger concern, they bring in a person who helped write and implement a pretty decent MAC implementation for general, if limited use. With luck this may be the beginning of a new era of consumer level trojan mitigation, something Apple already laid the groundwork for but has not really implemented the UI and market components for.
Basically I disagree with you that Apple has been ignoring security and I disagree that OS X is as vulnerable to most classes of real world threats as Windows. I see this as Apple making a good hire that fits with their current security strategies, assuming that is what they hired him for.
Bitfrost is DRM... Apple might be thinking about here - preventing their OS being installed on non-Apple systems.
Bitfrost is a security suite including a working MAC implementation; one of the few in real world use. Since Apple introduced an MAC framework in Leopard, but applied it to only a small subset of applications, I'm guessing that's the most likely area for him to be working. Apple isn't losing significant money because of piracy of their OS but they are looking at threats to their very valuable brand from recent malware and security issues. Hopefully, Apple is pushing for a more comprehensive security strategy linking their ACLs to automated processes and a working UI.
The mosquito repellant/mousetrap example was helpful. However - so far as I know, no one charges for their music playing software - so there's no market to undermine - so long as you don't penalize for the non-use of your software. Is that correct?
Actually, no. Markets do not have to have direct sales to exist as markets. So long as people are making money, even by facilitating the sale of other products, it is still a market. For example, Opera uses their regular (non-mobile) browser to make money selling ads, Apple uses Safari to sell hardware, MS uses Explorer to sell their OS, and Mozilla makes money directing people to Google's search. None of them charges a dime directly, but all the court rulings to date have declared browsers to be a separate market.
But that leaves the iTMS as the leveraged market (I believe that I got the use of terms right here).
Apple leverages their iPod product to gain in the markets where they provide iTMS and iTunes.app. So technically, portable digital music players is the market being leveraged to affect the other markets. It is a fulcrum analogy.
Here's the EU antitrust complaint about iTMS - only on the grounds of sales territories
Ahh, that's a different complaint than the one I was describing. In that case Apple was considered an agent of the RIAA (actually their european counterparts) in leveraging a music cartel in violation of standing EU pricing laws. The market being leveraged in that case was the cartel controlling music publishing. That's a completely different case than the more recent EU probe into Apple's potential abuse of their iPod market share. The iPod did not even enter into said case, just Apple's pricing of music in different EU countries on behalf of the copyright holders.
Frankly, this sounds exactly like the explanation that you've given - except - the charge is not necessarily true.
Agreed. At the time Apple did not have market dominance and was under no obligation to provide a level playing field for competitors with regard to DRM. The charge stemmed from weaker consumer protection laws. The point being, that situation may have changed if Apple now has enough market share (which is very debatable).
But still - the action isn't that iTMS is bad or iPods only support AAC and AAC is private - all misstatements I've seen regularly - it's that iTMS has locked out those preferring to use WMA. If that's true - what about Ogg/Vorbis?
Okay, there are several things here. If Apple has monopoly influence they are suddenly obligated to provide a level playing field with regard to how their monopoly influences other markets. That means if Apple sells DRM'd songs that play on the iPod, they have to let others do the same. The means by which they must do this, however, is up to them unless the courts have to intervene because the solution they provide is not sufficient.
So, Apple could solve this by licensing FairPlay or by supporting WMA+PlaysForSure or whatever. They just need to provide some means by which others can fairly compete. Ogg Vorbis is a different matter. It does not have an integral DRM scheme at all and people selling music for the iPod not being able to sell in a different format than Apple does is not a economic disadvantage over Apple. Regardless of market dominance Apple has no obligation to support any given format. They just need to support a format where everyone can compete against them fairly. It is support for DRM that others cannot use that gives Apple an advantage, not support for MP3 instead of Ogg.
Your points are interesting, but both instances you cite are sort of tangental. Neither directly deals with Apple having a monopoly, which was the most recent issue, although the latter issue now comes to light in as a potential antitrust issue instead of as a consumer protection law issue. The real question is if Apple has monopoly influence. The EU seems to think they don't have enough of the market. In the US it has not been brought up, but they have less and less every day as the market merges with the cell phone market.
ID is about removing evolution from curriculum? I guess it's easy to debase your opponents argument when you make their assertions for them...
That would be a straw man argument, but that's not the case here. It is fairly well established at this point, including in the courts, that the intelligent design movement was just that based upon their internal documents and statements made by the originators.
That doesn't mean people couldn't take the idea and change it though. If you're up to the task, present us with a hypothesis of intelligent design and propose a scientific experiment. It's that easy. We're all waiting.
You cannot logically extrapolate these things into anything more than they are without direct evidence of something more. No matter how much evidence the universe gives of its own existence, it does not point to anything beyond that, be it God or invisible unicorns or Flying Spaghetti Monsters, sauce be upon him, or anything else.
This isn't technically true. By studying the universe and laws of physics we can create theories as to how the universe came into existence. Then, we can perform experiments to determine if those theories are likely to be correct. For example, some scientific theories predict that many multidimensional universes exist within a "hyperspace" but that they tend to collapse into universes with stable numbers of dimensions, one type being our own. As we learn more about the physics of our universe, we can provide more support for these theories or we can falsify them by disproving the predictions predicated upon such a model. Thus the universe can provide evidence via the scientific method about things beyond itself (note evidence not proof, this is science not math).
Thus by studying the universe we could provide evidence to support a scientific theory of the existence of a flying spaghetti monster or christian god. The only issue is any such test performed to date has been unable to support the existence of either.
However - my chronology was of Apple's actions and is - so far as I honestly know - not flawed. Yes, other products preceded theirs in the market.
Perhaps I'm unclear. Your facts are fine, but not relevant. Antitrust law is all about markets, as I've mentioned. The pre-existing products demonstrate existing markets and help define the markets in the eyes of the law. Can we agree at this point that the following markets are then separate economically and legally:
It is clear that is how other courts have already viewed it and is pretty much the only reasonable interpretation based upon existing products.
No - only your language is clear - this may be illegal depending upon how Apple's influence was. Why is that illegal?
In this case your language is unclear. Do you want me to explain why antitrust law was written to make this illegal from an economic and historical perspective or do you want to know why the law applies in this specific instance?
I have only a layman's understanding of the law - but it's not a small understanding, IMO.
So having read and understood the Clayton and Sherman acts, you have the basis for antitrust law in the US. The EU laws are almost identical, in fact antirust law around the world is surprisingly uniform. It has changed little over the years and a 70 year old textbook is fine for getting a good idea as to how it works. It can be summed up fairly simply. You can't conspire to form a monopoly with others. If you have a monopoly, you can't use it to gain an advantage in a separate market. That's it.
They did not use leverage against suppliers, partners or distributors. They used their market leverage only.
In antitrust law that's the only kind of leverage there is. "leveraging" is using power you gain from having a monopoly to win in other markets in any way. The whole point of antitrust law is to preserve the operation of the free market. In each market everyone competes and the best suited product wins the most market share. When the portable digital music player market decides Apple has the best product by huge margin Apple gains a lot of power. When that power reaches a certain level (debatable if this has happened) the law says they have to then be careful not to use that power to influence other markets. When Apple ties their iPod to iTunes by bundling them together in the same package they gain an unfair advantage in the music player software market, and that is potentially illegal. More people use iTunes because of the iPod than use Songbird, as would happen in a free market if people were simply judging music player software on their merits. Thus the music player software market is broken. Of course, MS already bundles WMP with Windows, which as a much longer and more egregious antitrust violation, so the music player market is already hopelessly broken.
They built a better mousetrap, marketed it, and expanded the product line. That is not illegal.
You can build a better mousetrap all you want. You can dominate the mousetrap market. What you can't do is dominate the mousetrap market then start bundling your mousetraps with "free" mosquito repellant, thus undermining that secondary market. You likewise can't tie your mousetraps to a single brand of bait using a microchip and sensor that makes the trap less functional if you use a competing brand.
That is not illegal. If I am wrong, kindly either explain the law or point me somewhere where I can get that explanation.
I should think I've been pretty clear at this point. Perhaps the main problem has been your misunderstanding of what the term "leveraging" means in terms of monopolies.
None of this is science - let's stop using that word.
Yes, this is. You just don't seem to know what science is.
Everyone here is making conjectures about a certain something that happened in a point of time.
It's called a hypothesis.
. That isn't science, that is history.
The scientific method can be applied to historical events and often has been.
Proving that life can be created spontaneously does not infer that it did.
Actually it does. It provides support for the theory that it did. It doesn't prove that it did, but that's not what science is about. Science is about making useful predictions and testing those predictions to provide support for a theory. The theory with the most support is the one logical, rational people believe. It's a formal process for determining belief, rather than supporting them.
In the negative, not having a method to have it happen today does not mean that it didn't happen in the past.
No, but demonstrating there is no method by which the molecules could have combined given what we know about the past state of the earth in the past does disprove the specific theory. This is the RNA world theory of abiogenesis. Disproving it lends support to other abiogenesis theories.
cience tells us what is most likely to happen in the future. It isn't a great historian because history isn't subject to testing (today only happens once).
Nonsense. Science has predicted observations about the past over and over again. Everything from "my theory predicts the gold has dissolved into the solution" to "we should find those intermediate skeletons in layers of rock 16 feet down".
Yes, I know the laws are generalized, but the violations always revolve around the specific and concrete.
I never said they didn't. I said what determines the components is markets, not technological definitions. The case you refer to decided browsers were an issue because there was a preexisting market for Web browsers separate from OS's. Whether or not an OS had a browser built in in a way that could not be removed applied only to the remedy phase, not to determining guilt.
So, what I'm driving at - in an attempt to understand your point of view - is very much at the heart of the matter.
But you're ignoring the way the law defines things. If you ignore the markets formed by products competing for the normal user's share, you fundamentally fail to understand how the law is applied.
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Let me consolidate your other post for convenience.
When MS was convicted of violations for tying WMP to Windows, the separation between the application and underlying frameworks within the OS was not even an issue. It's about markets, not technologies.
That was a European finding, not a US one. Further, this opinion shows that things are never cut and dried. Most interestingly, they state...
Again, what you cite applies only to remedies to prevent the damage from abuses, not to determining if abuses have happened. They were trying to create a compromise remedy that would still be effective, and I might mention they failed miserably.
I think you're jumping the shark - the anticompetitive part was about compatibilities.
I don't think you understand what that reference means, nor do I think you understand antitrust law enough to understand what it makes illegal and why.