Well, this is unexpected. The iPhone 4G saga just got a whole lot crazier - dare I say it, a whole lot more ridiculous. Have you ever reported anything like a phone or something similarly small stolen to the police? What was their reaction? Did you ever get the device back? Did they send an army of officers to get your device back? No? Odd. They raided Jason Chen's house, and took four computers and two servers. Update: And thus our true colours reveal. "The raid that San Mateo area cops conducted last week on the house of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen came at the behest of a special multi-agency task force that was commissioned to work with the computer industry to tackle high-tech crimes. And Apple Inc. sits on the task force's steering committee." Update II: According to TechCrunch, the investigation has been put on hold while the DA ponders Gizmodo's shield defence. Update III: Some legal insight from a constitutional law and first amendment expert and a law professor. The gist? The DA has said no one has been charged with anything here, making this just an investigation - however, this makes the search and seizing of material worse. "If the police are literally just gathering information, with no suspect targeted yet, then a subpoena against a journalist would have probably been smarter than a search warranted that resulted in the front door of Chen's home being bashed in."
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Member since:2009-09-23
Jeeez, not another person who dropped very early in history class. If you had any idea what the "Gestapo" really was you would not make any of these stupid, moronic Nazi comparisons which trivialize the cruelties of the Nazis and disparage their victims. Nazi comparisons are NOT appropriate within this context, not even remotely, so please refrain from doing that!
Adrian
Member since:2005-06-29
I'm genuinely curious: What comparison would you make? Myself, I'd choose CIA or KGB, except this is happening within the borders of the US where neither agency is (or was, in KGB's case) allowed to take action. NSA, perhaps, or Men in Black? "Thought Police" comes to mind too, though this isn't really thoughtcrime. Wait, I know; he mentioned a hit man, how about the Mafia?
Unfortunately, there is really no better comparison than Fascism, and the Fascist regime that stands out most prominently in our minds today is Nazi Germany.
Though I must say I'm sick of hearing the word "Gestapo" thrown around so much myself.
Edited 2010-04-27 00:49 UTC
Member since:2009-07-30
Nazi parallels are generally abused for political purposes and grossly off (like the one about Germany in 30's and need for Iraqi invasion+occupation). Nonetheless, it is good when citizens are sensitive to changes in society. Since you have done your due diligence in your history classes, you are well aware how did Nazis (or many other totalitarian systems) get to power.
Often in a democracy (perhaps more fragile, because of threats from believe or real... or shaken economy) and by legal democratic means, pretty much never by saying: We will torture people, we will run a huge scale genocide, we will have your children fight and die in a war and you left home cower for your lives... Their way to the atrocities went through several stages during which many though to themselves... this really is a good idea: We're building our nation, we're keeping our enemies at distance and there is law and order in my home town.
Member since:2006-10-10
Actually, I received high marks in history....but thanks for asking.
Yes, I do know what the actual term "gestapo" meant, and stood for. I'm not a f'ing imbecile. And although no one was sent to "the ovens" I would dare say that this search and seizure bit is shady. The ends do not justify the means. This isn't a laptop from los alamos laboratories that was stolen, or a breach of a hack of the CIA servers......it's a f**king nothing prototype of a cell phone.
So, ok, maybe there shouldn't have been money exchanged (allegedly), and yes you can possibly deem it "stolen" (allegedly); but the judge agrees to a warrant that confiscates everything that even resembles a computer/cell phone so forensics agents can sift through it for months on end? All for an "investigation"? A bit harsh, don't you think?
Who was it that said fascism is when the corporations run the government? You really think our new world order of today is really that far off?
Member since:2010-03-23
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life.
Member since:
2006-10-10
I believe the analogy you're looking for is "Gestapo".....just sayin'.