Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 23rd Oct 2012 18:24 UTC, submitted by Jane Doe
"Last week, the Dutch Minister of Safety and Justice asked the Parliament of the Netherlands to pass a law allowing police to obtain warrants to do the following: install malware on targets’ private computers, conduct remote searches on local and foreign computers to collect evidence, and delete data on remote computers in order to disable the accessibility of 'illegal files'. Requesting assistance from the country where the targetted computer(s) were located would be 'preferred' but possibly not required. These proposals are alarming, could have extremely problematic consequences, and may violate European human rights law." You get true net neutrality with one hand, but this idiocy with another. This reminds me a lot of how some of our busy intersections are designed; by people who bike to city hall all their lives and have no clue what it's like to drive a car across their pretty but extremely confusing and hence dangerous intersections.
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Member since:2010-02-18
Yes indeed, trust is the keyword here. If I would live in another country I would not be able to see a positive side to this.
Just read the other day (from an US perspective) how in Iran the Ayatollah (portrayed as "the bad guy") reused the snooping infrastructure of the Shah ("the reasonable guy") after taking over power.
Also, the Netherlands had a "religion" field in their citizens register, which became an issue when the Nazis went in. (for the Nazis, that harmless item became useful infrastructure)
It's nice to be able to trust your current government, but it's not a bad idea to think about the consequences when things change. (In case of the religion field, it's hard to think of _that_ before it happened, but AFAIK many European countries stopped keeping track like that after WW2 due to what happened)
Both Ayatollah and the Nazis could have built up the desired infrastructure by themselves after their power grab, but each would have taken time. Time that could prove crucial when attempting to set things straight early.
Giving police (or anybody) up-to-date equipment to easily enter machines can be very uncomfortable for a democratic opposition of an undesirable future government.
And since there's so much future ahead of us, I'm afraid things are just bound to happen. Not everywhere, but the "let us (but only us, and secretly) snoop on computers" movement is uncomfortably global.
Considering things like child pornography, we have had some issues where an apprehended suspect had this on an encrypted drive. In that case it might be very useful for law enforcement to be able to get the encryption's key in advance some way or other.
And plant some data on the way, since the images on the suspect's system are uncomfortably close, but not quite illegal yet ("but he's definitely one of 'those'")?
Or to push the statistics, so everyone can see that this newly granted power was really, really necessary? (Wouldn't even have to be organizational. One "well-meaning" staff at the right place is enough for real damage)
In the end, I'd prefer the police to hunt those who physically hurt children, not necessarily those who keep the pictures (those, too - but IMHO it's secondary).
Otherwise we'll live in a world were family members still rape their kids (people close to the children make up >80% of the abusers), but simply don't produce graphic evidence anymore.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
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2008-12-10
Yes indeed, trust is the keyword here. If I would live in another country I would not be able to see a positive side to this.
Considering things like child pornography, we have had some issues where an apprehended suspect had this on an encrypted drive. In that case it might be very useful for law enforcement to be able to get the encryption's key in advance some way or other.