Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 26th Apr 2010 23:11 UTC, submitted by UglyKidBill
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:2005-06-29
Where did I compare it to a security breach impacting national security.
Right here:
What if I simply lost my USB keystick with classified government data on it (as seems to happen readily over in the UK).
Lost classified government data, by definition, is a security breach. Once again, your original flawed analogy falls flat on its face and bites you in the ass.
Gizmodo didn't "break" news... They bought a stolen item, took it apart, and published their findings to the world.
It was news, as in no one else knew about it, and they were the first to break the story. Or is there a new definition of "breaking news" that I wasn't aware of? If so, point me to the dictionary that contains it so I can learn it. Note that I'm not defending Gizmodo; I think they were stupid to do what they did. Just pointing out your inept attempts at discussion.
Why not change the law if you're so overwrought with disdain for Apple. Clearly we don't need that particular law do we?
The problem isn't the letter of the law; it's a good thing that the police will get involved when there is a justification. The problem is with whom they choose to give the most help to, and why. In this situation, they took a strong-arm approach when it was not needed. Remember, the DA has not brought charges yet, so a subpoena would have been the most logical course of action and would have avoided an impression of overwhelming favoritism towards Apple. One is left to wonder how much influence companies like Apple really have in the government. Certainly, it seems to be much more than most of us would be comfortable with.
Member since:2006-12-15
The problem isn't the letter of the law; it's a good thing that the police will get involved when there is a justification. The problem is with whom they choose to give the most help to, and why. In this situation, they took a strong-arm approach when it was not needed. Remember, the DA has not brought charges yet, so a subpoena would have been the most logical course of action and would have avoided an impression of overwhelming favoritism towards Apple. One is left to wonder how much influence companies like Apple really have in the government. Certainly, it seems to be much more than most of us would be comfortable with.
The problem _is_ the letter of the law. Gizmodo took an equally strong arm approach in purchasing stolen property, disassembling it and posting its findings to the world and were quite cavalier about the entire situation.
How many other large tech companies are in Santa Clara's county? Quite a few, actually. Do they want a DA that plays nice? Putting Apple as the sole instigator in this is sophomoric.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2006-12-15
Besides, the most amazing thing about the new iPhone is OS 4, which Jobs already spilled the beans about during the iPad launch. There's an hour long video about it on the Apple website if you'd care to get in on the secrets. The only thing new we got to see on Gizmodo was the physical design, which is subject to change anyway. At the end of the day it's still just a phone.
The fact remains, Apple has pull with the government that even other big companies can't touch, and they are using it for intimidation and harassment. The actual security breach was with their own employee and whoever found the phone, why aren't their massive efforts focused there? Why harass the journalist who broke the story? Because they can. It sends a clear message to other journalists and bloggers: Don't break Apple news that isn't officially sanctioned, or you'll be greatly inconvenienced.
Where did I compare it to a security breach impacting national security. I merely stated classified. Sure it could go that far, but there is quite a lot out there that is classified without being tied to national security.
Gizmodo didn't "break" news... They bought a stolen item, took it apart, and published their findings to the world.
Why not change the law if you're so overwrought with disdain for Apple. Clearly we don't need that particular law do we?