True; but location also wouldn't give away anything personal. Doesn't help with the others though...
I've taken to being less forgiving of apps that don't explain specifically what each permission is needed for. Developer laziness (or more likely - simple lack of awareness) is a lot of what contributes to the "click through it" mentality. When users want to use an app and are given no guidance as to what it's actually needing permissions for - they'll grant them out of habit, so that they can do the task at hand.
;this is the type of bad PR that can & should change some policies
This is the type of PR that has nannies running about to enact new policies to "protect the users" -- when if the users had paid attention in the first place (eg - denied the requested permissions) this never would have been a problem. Don't punish the few because the many can't or don't read.
At install time, the user is shown a list of resources the app will access, but since most apps need at least some resources on the device to be useful, we are all in the habit of just clicking past this screen and installing, and then hoping the app is not malevolent in some way.
That's a bad habit to be in - why would you get into it? Deny first - go back and approve only after you see what doesn't work.
This isn't an Android issue, it's common sense for any platform.
Sadly there are reasons a wallpaper application would actually require full internet access, such as loading new pictures, etc. The fact it's a wallpaper application is not really that relevant, it could have been anything. I'm not sure of the depth of review at Apple, but I'm fairly sure the same thing could be slipped through without too much trouble. Poorly behaved applications are going to appear from time to time on any platform.
Internet? Sure. Phone, google account, location, and contact data? C'mon. Why would anyone grant these permissions?
This is probably something that google needs to explain better, or I need to learn better, or things need to be changed.
I think Option 2. Blackberry does something similar - an app can't ever do anything you don't explicitly give permissions for. When in doubt, *always* choose "Deny"; and don't check "don't ask again" since if it turns out that the app legitimately needed the permission, it will make it easier to correct later.
I am curious though - if a web site can't charge for their effort; and advertising is useless -- how do they fund themselves? (Personally, I'm a fan of paywalls as long as there's no advertising on the site.)
Sure; but for the people whose products are being bought, I would argue that even in the long term there's no negative (unfortunately). THere will *always* be people who click the links and make purchases -- no matter what site they're coming from. This means that vendors will continue to get value from investing in google adwords
Now, anything mark under a 70 will be a failing score. The new policy will apply to middle and high school students.
... unless schools have changed *that* much in the last 15-20 years, if you don't pass - and don't make up the work in any other way - you're not getting to the next grade. I'm sure there are some schools where this is the case, but I don't see anything indicating it's a significant percentage of them - never mind a majority.
And certainly the tone of the SI's statement didn't seem to bode well for those in his district.
Advertisers aren't stupid. Google ads are only worthwhile if they're actually generating revenue for the advertiser. Eventually, if they keep allowing this sort of practice, it's only going to drive down their own ad revenue (as advertisers realize they're not getting as much revenue from their ads as they once were).
If someone clicks on an advertisement then buys, does it really matter which spam site they arrived through? There's nothing that suggests they're getting less revenue; in fact, they may be getting more since the ads themselves will be relevant to what is searched for.
I was going to say, "because their results will look the same anyway"... but I checked first and theirs are actually quite relevant - so I have to say that I don't use it because it makes me look at a picture I don't want to see every time I visit the site;)
On the other hand - I did the same search at google, and lo! the results were actually fine. I guess the blogger is specifically talking about the news search results?
Agreed - but my comment was made in the in the context of the original poster who seems to think that there should be no responsible behavior exercised by the researcher...
Never, ever a responsibility. You didn't write the bug, you didn't miss it in testing, you didn't release it. You owe the developer nothing.
The flaw in this thinking is that it's not the developer who is ultimately harmed by a disclosure... and I rather doubt that the x-million users of the software will appreciate that you released the information for their own ultimate good.
On the other hand, having 27% of your customer base unhappy with your chosen exclusive carrier is probably nothing to brag about. Too, this number is suspiciously close to the 23% of iPhone users who won't buy another iPhone -- perhaps because of carrier lock-in?
There's no context at all for that statement; and of course we don't know what questions were really asked to arrive at that conclusion. It could be as simple as Android users being happy with the capabilities of their platform so not feeling the *need* to upgrade to the latest. Or it could be that Apple does much better at marketing each new generation of its phones, making people feel they must have the new features.
.
The only thing that makes me question this survey is the timing -- it just so happens to be released a week after the antenna debacle, during which AT&T received its own share of abuse? Then there's this comment:
But AT&T says its network really isn't as bad as many people think. It's a perception problem, not a service problem, in the company's eyes.
I've been an AT&T user for years, and the network *is* as bad as people think (at least around my region) -- slow download speeds and inconsistent signal strength. This isn't a perception problem, it's an infrastructure issue that should be corrected -- and it's a bit frustrating to learn that AT&T thinks it's a perception problem.
Too many options. I'm a fairly hard core geek but sometimes you just don't want to be bothered with all the options. They just make things confusing.
Sorry, you just lost your geek cred. Go astroturf on the Apple forums, please
Here's a novel concept for you - sometimes people just like to perform a task at hand without having to endlessly tweak the tools they want to use. Now if you'd please go back to the Gentoo forums, that'd be great.
No, you see neither pedestrians nor drivers are expected to take responsibility for our own inattention. Instead, we must all take responsibility for each other. It's the American way. (Yes, mods, that last was sarcasm.)
Yep. The best thing you can do is remove your muffler completely. Or get one of those spiffy coffee-can looking exhausts. That way everyone can hear you coming and get out of your way! (Even if they drew the more logical conclusion in the latter case -- that the horrendous noise is a weed-whacker gone mad -- they're still going to get out of the way!)
Ah, I see. No wonder it's acceptable that the methodology is riddled with holes. The name of the site that publishes it seems to indicate that
FTA...
It concluded that hybrids like the Toyota Prius were involved in pedestrian crashes at a rate of 0.9 percent, half again as high as the 0.6 percent rate for gasoline vehicles. Hybrids were also twice as likely to have hit cyclists, at a rate of 0.6 percent versus 0.3 percent.
Okay, this is pretty clear - the original study.
But now EV enthusiast Mark Larson (he's also an Emeritus Professor of Spanish at Utah State University) has analyzed some additional data. He used 1994-2008 figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by the NHTSA.
If silent hybrid vehicles posed a threat to pedestrians, he reasoned, then the number of pedestrian deaths should have risen since 2000, when the first hybrids were sold. There are now roughly 1 million hybrid-electric vehicles among the 300 million on U.S. roads.
But in fact, despite increasing numbers of hybrids on the roads, the rate of pedestrian fatalities has in fact fallen over that same period.
Wait, what? There's kind of a gaping hole here folks...
But reading on shows that this objective and reputable news site has some doubts of their own as to Larson's methodology. Phew.
We like Larson's analysis,
Yeah, I'll just bet you do.
but we would observe that it has two problems.
Oh? Pray tell...
First, it doesn't factor in Vehicle Miles Traveled, which is correlated with a fall in accident deaths.
Okay, sure.
Second, Larson really only addresses half the issue. Fatalities from accidents are one data point, but injuries would be another--and are far more common than deaths.
Oh, yeah -- you nailed it exactly! Oh, wait - no, no you didn't. My bad, it was a typo -- I meant to write "you just completely ignored the glaring hole in the methodology applied by this professor of Spanish Studies". You can see how I made such a mistake, can't you? It could have happened to anyone.
Here it is, because I have to say it even though it's pretty flippin' obvious: In spite of the fact that OVERALL accidents are going down, the percentage of accidents caused by EVs is higher than non-EVs -- and when you consider that EVs still make up a very minor portion of the vehicles on the road, that's a pretty disturbing trend. Or how about the premise of his "report": The overall fatalities have decreased, and the number of EVs on the road has increased -- therefore EVs clearly do not pose any additional threat over their louder counterparts.
Oh, wait, here's what happened:
Nice "reporting" greencarreports.com. I am duly impressed.
Slashdot Mirror
I've taken to being less forgiving of apps that don't explain specifically what each permission is needed for. Developer laziness (or more likely - simple lack of awareness) is a lot of what contributes to the "click through it" mentality. When users want to use an app and are given no guidance as to what it's actually needing permissions for - they'll grant them out of habit, so that they can do the task at hand.
;this is the type of bad PR that can & should change some policies
This is the type of PR that has nannies running about to enact new policies to "protect the users" -- when if the users had paid attention in the first place (eg - denied the requested permissions) this never would have been a problem. Don't punish the few because the many can't or don't read.
At install time, the user is shown a list of resources the app will access, but since most apps need at least some resources on the device to be useful, we are all in the habit of just clicking past this screen and installing, and then hoping the app is not malevolent in some way.
That's a bad habit to be in - why would you get into it? Deny first - go back and approve only after you see what doesn't work.
This isn't an Android issue, it's common sense for any platform.
Sadly there are reasons a wallpaper application would actually require full internet access, such as loading new pictures, etc. The fact it's a wallpaper application is not really that relevant, it could have been anything. I'm not sure of the depth of review at Apple, but I'm fairly sure the same thing could be slipped through without too much trouble. Poorly behaved applications are going to appear from time to time on any platform.
Internet? Sure. Phone, google account, location, and contact data? C'mon. Why would anyone grant these permissions?
This is probably something that google needs to explain better, or I need to learn better, or things need to be changed.
I think Option 2. Blackberry does something similar - an app can't ever do anything you don't explicitly give permissions for. When in doubt, *always* choose "Deny"; and don't check "don't ask again" since if it turns out that the app legitimately needed the permission, it will make it easier to correct later.
I am curious though - if a web site can't charge for their effort; and advertising is useless -- how do they fund themselves? (Personally, I'm a fan of paywalls as long as there's no advertising on the site.)
Sure; but for the people whose products are being bought, I would argue that even in the long term there's no negative (unfortunately). THere will *always* be people who click the links and make purchases -- no matter what site they're coming from. This means that vendors will continue to get value from investing in google adwords
Now, anything mark under a 70 will be a failing score. The new policy will apply to middle and high school students.
... unless schools have changed *that* much in the last 15-20 years, if you don't pass - and don't make up the work in any other way - you're not getting to the next grade. I'm sure there are some schools where this is the case, but I don't see anything indicating it's a significant percentage of them - never mind a majority.
And certainly the tone of the SI's statement didn't seem to bode well for those in his district.
Now, anything mark under a 70 will be a failing score. The new policy will apply to middle and high school students.
The usual thought of failing is that the student doesn't get credit for passing; and I saw nothing in the writeup that suggested otherwise.
News flash: 400 million user profile pages can be found online at facebook.com.
Advertisers aren't stupid. Google ads are only worthwhile if they're actually generating revenue for the advertiser. Eventually, if they keep allowing this sort of practice, it's only going to drive down their own ad revenue (as advertisers realize they're not getting as much revenue from their ads as they once were).
If someone clicks on an advertisement then buys, does it really matter which spam site they arrived through? There's nothing that suggests they're getting less revenue; in fact, they may be getting more since the ads themselves will be relevant to what is searched for.
On the other hand - I did the same search at google, and lo! the results were actually fine. I guess the blogger is specifically talking about the news search results?
until the experiment has been repeated by someone else, I'm not holding any hope.
Never, ever a responsibility. You didn't write the bug, you didn't miss it in testing, you didn't release it. You owe the developer nothing.
That depends on your life philosophy.
In my opinion you owe your fellow human beings a lot more than mere courtesy, but it appears I am quickly joining a minority.
Nah, I pretty much draw the line at courtesy until you earn more than that ;)
Technically speaking, you don't owe the other users anything either - it's still a matter of courtesy.
Technically speaking, sociopaths need not apply.
You owe the developer nothing.
The flaw in this thinking is that it's not the developer who is ultimately harmed by a disclosure... and I rather doubt that the x-million users of the software will appreciate that you released the information for their own ultimate good.
On the other hand, having 27% of your customer base unhappy with your chosen exclusive carrier is probably nothing to brag about. Too, this number is suspiciously close to the 23% of iPhone users who won't buy another iPhone -- perhaps because of carrier lock-in?
There's no context at all for that statement; and of course we don't know what questions were really asked to arrive at that conclusion. It could be as simple as Android users being happy with the capabilities of their platform so not feeling the *need* to upgrade to the latest. Or it could be that Apple does much better at marketing each new generation of its phones, making people feel they must have the new features. .
But AT&T says its network really isn't as bad as many people think. It's a perception problem, not a service problem, in the company's eyes.
I've been an AT&T user for years, and the network *is* as bad as people think (at least around my region) -- slow download speeds and inconsistent signal strength. This isn't a perception problem, it's an infrastructure issue that should be corrected -- and it's a bit frustrating to learn that AT&T thinks it's a perception problem.
Too many options. I'm a fairly hard core geek but sometimes you just don't want to be bothered with all the options. They just make things confusing.
Sorry, you just lost your geek cred. Go astroturf on the Apple forums, please
Here's a novel concept for you - sometimes people just like to perform a task at hand without having to endlessly tweak the tools they want to use. Now if you'd please go back to the Gentoo forums, that'd be great.
In other words, if someone is already logged into a network they can perform a MITM attack against user(s) on that network?
Maybe it's just me, but I never considered traffic *within* a network to be secure from other network users, even on a wired network.
No, you see neither pedestrians nor drivers are expected to take responsibility for our own inattention. Instead, we must all take responsibility for each other. It's the American way. (Yes, mods, that last was sarcasm.)
Yep. The best thing you can do is remove your muffler completely. Or get one of those spiffy coffee-can looking exhausts. That way everyone can hear you coming and get out of your way! (Even if they drew the more logical conclusion in the latter case -- that the horrendous noise is a weed-whacker gone mad -- they're still going to get out of the way!)
It concluded that hybrids like the Toyota Prius were involved in pedestrian crashes at a rate of 0.9 percent, half again as high as the 0.6 percent rate for gasoline vehicles. Hybrids were also twice as likely to have hit cyclists, at a rate of 0.6 percent versus 0.3 percent.
Okay, this is pretty clear - the original study.
But now EV enthusiast Mark Larson (he's also an Emeritus Professor of Spanish at Utah State University) has analyzed some additional data. He used 1994-2008 figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by the NHTSA. If silent hybrid vehicles posed a threat to pedestrians, he reasoned, then the number of pedestrian deaths should have risen since 2000, when the first hybrids were sold. There are now roughly 1 million hybrid-electric vehicles among the 300 million on U.S. roads. But in fact, despite increasing numbers of hybrids on the roads, the rate of pedestrian fatalities has in fact fallen over that same period.
Wait, what? There's kind of a gaping hole here folks... But reading on shows that this objective and reputable news site has some doubts of their own as to Larson's methodology. Phew.
We like Larson's analysis,
Yeah, I'll just bet you do.
but we would observe that it has two problems.
Oh? Pray tell...
First, it doesn't factor in Vehicle Miles Traveled, which is correlated with a fall in accident deaths.
Okay, sure.
Second, Larson really only addresses half the issue. Fatalities from accidents are one data point, but injuries would be another--and are far more common than deaths.
Oh, yeah -- you nailed it exactly! Oh, wait - no, no you didn't. My bad, it was a typo -- I meant to write "you just completely ignored the glaring hole in the methodology applied by this professor of Spanish Studies". You can see how I made such a mistake, can't you? It could have happened to anyone.
Here it is, because I have to say it even though it's pretty flippin' obvious: In spite of the fact that OVERALL accidents are going down, the percentage of accidents caused by EVs is higher than non-EVs -- and when you consider that EVs still make up a very minor portion of the vehicles on the road, that's a pretty disturbing trend. Or how about the premise of his "report": The overall fatalities have decreased, and the number of EVs on the road has increased -- therefore EVs clearly do not pose any additional threat over their louder counterparts.
Oh, wait, here's what happened: Nice "reporting" greencarreports.com. I am duly impressed.