Posts by Michael Thibault 927 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2008
>"Q589: Are there any legal self defence products that I can buy?
>"The only fully legal self defence product at the moment is a rape alarm. These are not expensive and can be bought from most local police stations or supermarkets."
Blinkers! The ground beneath your feet has multiple uses in self-defence. And it's free and ubiquitous.
Can you make sense of this?
"Reports of periodic attacks on opal miners in Coober Pedy may be apocryphal and related to excessive consumption of cooling amber fluids in dry areas."
Hanging from your feet all day seems to lead to a dry sense of humour.
Everyone loves a good problem even though, when sufficiently well-specified, the problem dictates its solution. Of course, the devil is in the details--direction and means of communication, assessing the sat for what's still working, calculating delays in communications and timing of any instructions, quantity of thrust to be applied, etc. Before you know it, you're doing rocket science.
>successfully accessed the data
Pix or it didn't happen.
Seriously, there could be a bit of dissembling going on: the FBI/DoJ axis, plausibly, has reason to halt the train, and they may well have accessed the data--but without being able to read it. A fine distinction, but if that's applicable, they're not lying to the court in their request to vacate the court order.
It would be useful to have acronyms and abbreviations expanded--even at some length--via balloons/tooltips/flyovers, etc.. I've mentioned it before, and even tried it (unsuccessfully) in the comments. A little pre-processing, perhaps. A little grep joy-riding across the site. Who knows? Probably could be done. And, being relatively unobtrusive, this approach would leave the information accessible (practically on-screen), but won't slow down anyone already in-the-know, but unknowingly hurrying to their appointment with the underside of a bus.
As for VNC Roulette: a UI Horrors Roll if every I saw one.
>And the next order will be for the iOS source code and signing key, so the FBI can make it themselves, rendering the entire attempt of resistance moot and leading to a worse outcome all round.
TC: Ah, yes, the source code... Yes, the source... Er... um... there's a small problem with... the source code.
JC: The court order, Tim! The AWA, Tim! We've been through all that. It's time to pony up.
TC: Jim, you've really run us to ground, and there's just no room left to move, and no where really to turn. But...
JC: But nothing, Mr. Cook. Hand it over!
TC: I have every intention of handing it over. The small problem, though, is that the source code is now encrypted. And we have no idea who might have done it.. All we can do is comply with the court order, and leave it to you... Take it away, Jim-it's all yours now--,and make of it what you can. Good luck.
>if the fed drops the hammer and actually orders Apple to do this, those engineers really won't have any choice. If they refuse to do as they are told, they could be held personally accountable and put in jail for civil contempt of court and left in jail until they change their minds about cooperating.
There's a curious lacuna in the idea of corporations as being legal persons: they can't do jack, because they aren't corporeal. People, however, are. But people aren't the corporations they work for. Nor, in the final analysis, is the reverse true.
The FBI and the DOJ will be going after court-supported, mandated directives for "Apple, Inc.". The staff at Apple are only implicitly covered by that; Apple (the C-level types, in particular) will be responsible, then, for cracking the whip or cracking open the piggy bank to get the actual talent to do the required deed(s). The sought-after court-backed order will not, per se, be enforceable against any individual--only a legal fiction. That's a knotty problem in its own right.
Either way, getting to the point where there remain no further avenues of appeal for Apple means that the FBI could then pursue individuals within Apple. But that's a long way off, and likely they aren't really interested in the last mile anyway...
What would be most helpful to Apple at this junction would be proof that the FBI actually already has the ability to get past the current sticking point they claim to be at--whether that ability is original in-house, or available through their friendly, neighbourhood NSAgent, or whatever... Such proof would certainly blow the lid off of the the FBI-initiated theatre that is now playing out.
>if it turns out the phone can be easily cracked without help from Apple.
How will the world ever know? Because the FBI could make known what they found, or not. And they could lie about the results of their sub rosa inquiry, or not. Have a look around the table. Would you believe anything the FBI told you now, or ever?
>(4) Fail for revealing an abhorrent corporate culture to the outside world.
This, if true, wouldn't constitute a failure, but an error.
>The "exploitation" angle isn't really about the girls involved. It's about promoting the general idea that sex can be bought and paid for and is therefore under my control, that it is all about me and what I can get, without reference to the other person. It's about getting (or providing) sexual satisfaction outside of a real relationship, in a way manner which a real relationship can't match because a real relationship deals with imperfect people, not an unattainable showcase, an idealised imagination, which never has to deal with the reality of dirty dishes in the sink and inconsiderate drunken remarks.
In this paragraph, you're selling sex as a commodified service. And doing it fairly well, I must add. It's difficult to discern where, in such exchanges, exploitation occurs; to the extent that the commercial exchange involved is entered into freely (i.e. willingly) by all parties, there doesn't appear to be any exploitation. The 'fake/real' dichotomy you hold out is only relevant (i.e. problematic) when a party to sex-as-a-service exchanges professes fealty in a "real" relationship--or to the idea of such--by being in one.
>the victims are equally to blame for giving out their usernames/passwords>
Unfortunately, the wording here gives a leg-up to those who are inclined to invoke 'victim-blaming' at every pass. It's the word "equally"; it's inclusion puts the celebs affected in the same class (or fix) as the perpetrator. Yes, it's acknowledged that what he did deserved at least a fingering, but they shouldn't (and didn't) share his punishment. They should, though, be recognised as bearing some of the responsibility for the breach for having opened the kimono so wide and so readily.
*cough*
>The number of Britons who use ad blocking software has risen from 15 per cent last July to 22 per cent
Assume that this statistic is generalisable to the west, or even just Europe, which is where those publishers do business. The implication is that there are fully four months in which to get that number up--way up.
The 'adverts-pay-for-content' argument needs to be run into the ground, where it belongs, as it's bullshit. If every business has fully to pay the freight of their on-line publishing/web presence, it becomes a universal fixed-overhead item. At the margin, there will be an effort, in every case, to minimise costs while maximising effect/reach/reaction/buzz. Sucking up that reality could well make for lean, clean, gracefully-degrading sites served from servers in direct control of the publishers. Competition is supposed to be an incentive to excel--so the articles of the faith suggest. So: stop feeding the parasite of the on-line advertising industry, and compete with your content!
'Guilty. But we'll let you off if you never, never, ever do it again. OK?'
What response will be engendered by requiring that the stooges publicly admit, in appropriate context, to having whored their on-line personas to a commercial enterprise?
'OMFG! Easy money! Ker-fucking-ching! Sign me up.'
As for: "Companies are going to have to be much more careful and/or honest in future if they don't want the FTC knocking at their doors.", let me FTFY:
'Companies are going to have to be much more careful and/or honest in future if they don't want the FTC polishing their door knockers.'
>Does anyone recall the Cyberdog browser?
I've played with it, in its too-short life; that puppy died young, in the culling of OD, and never reached full-stride.
"... after 20 years, he still grieves .."
On Word: up to the late 90s, and even early into this millennium, almost everything done in Word by almost everyone everywhere could just as easily have been done in 4.
>the first time in American history a "corporate person" will find it's actual meat persons in jail for corporate decisions
I believe it's already occurred (a quick trawl of decades-old memories, as I can't be arsed to Google it, suggests it was along the lines of criminal negligence causing death, it involved radio-active material, and it may well have been in Texas).
>Intel Security has fixed a flaw that made it possible to shut down its McAfee Enterprise virus engine, thereby allowing the installation of malware and pirated software.
Being able to shut down McAfee... isn't that something of a blessing? So, shouldn't the above read:
"Intel Security has fixed a flaw that makes it possible to install McAfee Enterprise virus engine, thereby allowing the installation of malware and pirated software."
Clarity, please.
>refuse lawful court orders to reasonably assist law enforcement
Here are found two critical--even pivotal--qualifiers: "lawful" and "reasonable". I take it that Apple questions the applicability of both to the current situation. As they should.
If the idea is not to aid or abet criminals, directly or indirectly, why would anyone willingly oblige any agency, in any country, that colluded with its peers and created a planet-spanning, indiscriminate and omnivorous digital dragnet, in secret, and without specific authority, specific need, or evident oversight?
"Self-regulation" works when there is a single self involved. Maybe. Things go considerably piriform when you've got multiple bodies interacting.
>“Quite simply – if people don’t pay in some way for content,
>then that content will eventually no longer exist,” he said. Most
>people get this, he added.
Implicitly, everything must acquire a price--which is so much derived free-market dogma. Strangely, there's a parallel between the statement above and the extortionate behaviour being ascribed to the ad-blockers who set themselves up as gate-keepers (ignoring that, increasingly, content is withheld until you can demonstrate that your shields are down relative to the ad-serving domains... sigh); what the quote above suggests is 'everybody will have to pay up, eventually, or the bunny dies--so, take your time, but adjust your attitudes accordingly'.
Advertising hasn't always been the financing engine behind content.
>“We need the whole advertising sector to be smarter. If we can..
>avoid the intrusive ads that consumers dislike, then I believe there
>should be a decrease in the use of ad-blockers,” he said.
The problem can be seen as ad-blockers vs. advertising. However, at the root, it's about a lack of a micro-payments system. There's nothing inherently necessary about advertising online; it exists because an industry of self-serving parties has managed to sell the idea of their own necessity (and benefit) to the web-producing and web-consuming... and ads are now entrenched as a 'feature' of the web. Whether advertising-as-a-means-to-fund/pay-for-content does, in fact, pay for the content is not established--except, perhaps, in theory. There must, sure, be an alternative to advertising and probably the best way to bring one about is to make liberal use of ruthless, merciless ad-blockers.
OMFG! My browser supports the protocol natively.
Not much of a loss not having known, though: I've long since ceased lamenting the decline of gopher as a protocol, as the ever-more-fruitless sessions, attributable to decreasing deployment of it, were the writing seen on the wall not many years after the protocol launched.
>Do you stand back and leave all the disadvantaged people to their fate during that time, or do you try to do something to help them?
That something you do to help (them) would necessarily include determining that there's a point after which no more 'leveling' is practicable; defining equality as a strict function of parity (i.e. equality == parity in numbers) is a mistake, as doing so may well institutionally define inequality as perpetual, entrenching frustration. Not a wise thing to do.
Unfortunately, AC, your post does not receive a passing grade. The brevity of it suggested that you might have been under the mistaken assumption that you were limited to a fixed number of characters. I took the charitable view, though, in assessing your contribution...
Your analysis is not particularly deep; your prescription is, thereby, not particularly sophisticated. And the general thrust of your post goes against the (local) grain. Such are first efforts.
I suggest more lurking/reading/education before you post again.
Three dumbs and... not quite out: at least he had the sense to plea bargain a relatively short engagement at Club Fed, followed by a decade or more of abject poverty, which he'll be able to savour while walking aimlessly about, or--if he's lucky--from job interview to job interview. Don't do the crime...
>Really, it seems to me that the FBI is being extremely reasonable in their demands, compared to what they could have asked for.
Then why back up that request (you say "demand", which is curious, but...) with the full force of law, in the form of a court order, then further back up that with the DoJ directive, with all of this carried out on the public stage? Why? Perhaps because there isn't a means available to go about arranging the transfer that is 'off the books', because it's the law that matters. Which is where appearance and, particularly, precedent come into the picture. Precedent is an unavoidable consequence, and one of the long-view worries, I think, is the scope to which any such precedent will be applied/deemed applicable.
>a thorough and professional investigation under law
I wonder what the chances of this being resolved are if the following, grosso modo, are possibilities and are acted on: a) the talented and trusted at Apple are 'deputised' and charged with the task of recovering the data; and, b) the FBI issues an undertaking not to demand more of Apple than the data? The former would allow the chain of evidence to remain unbroken, while the latter would allay Apple's concerns about the incidental, but certainly lucrative (to the TLAs), benefits of the reveal.
The rub: precedent. I'm far more inclined to expect that Apple pulling the sought-for data out of anything will be taken as a precedent and the garotte turned a bit tighter; there's no point in any TLA saying--let alone promising--'now and forever, this far and no further'...
Here's a bit of a puzzler: what happens if Apple is forced to the ultimate wall on this court-ordered coercion, and all the requisite, technically-capable (and very trusted, obviously) individuals in its employ individually (and, for shits-n-giggles, severally) refuse the order of Apple's top brass to execute? Will the result be firing, then a firing squad?
>Why is it that critical that someone has access to this one phone?
>How about 14 murdered people, 22 severely wounded, many bereaved families wanting answers, unknown accomplices possibly yet to be discovered.
An arguments based on emotion. Meaning an argument that is entirely context-specific (and so not generalisable) and one which blithely ignores, or is ignorant of, the role of precedence in law.
I'll resist the temptation to go all Rumsfeldian on the 'possibly yet unknowns' tangent.
>What sort of undeniable, ultimately incriminating evidence do they expect to find there?
>Who knows, but if it does point to fellow conspirators you'd sure as hell would want to find out. This is not a game.
And if there turns out to be no evidence?
Isn't the court order having been sought at all based on speculation of there being something (or anything at all) to follow up on? It's a fishing expedition! And in at least two ways. And it is a game. One with long-lasting and far-reaching implications for just about every living soul on the planet--phone or no phone.
All of this mayhemist misdirection from the seriousness of the situation has made me wonder: what if Apple can't/is unable to, successfully*,--whether subject to un-appealable compulsion or after considered capitulation--re-arrange the phone into the desired configuration to satisfy their enslaving TLA? Is Apple liable? Culpable? Both? Neither?
* fail does happen, after all
>Which is where we're headed anyway, with autonomous cars.
I'd wager that XaaS (where x='just about anything') is where we're ultimately heading. Stability of fortunes depends on predictable flows of revenue, so there's an incentive (structure looming) for manufacturers to create objects with a reliably-knowable, but limited, lifetime and--instead of selling the object--renting the services provided by that object.
Of possible interest, if only to illustrate the seed-crystal of the relevant mindset:
@eff.org 'Federal Circuit: Patent Owners Can Prevent You from Owning Anything'
The move toward requiring manufacturers to shoulder some of the costs of recycling their wares inclines in the same general direction: if manufacturers build in the Nexus-6 quality, and never actually relinquish title to the object (instead charging for the services the object provides), they end up already owning the necessary resources that go into later versions of what they produce. There's even an incentive for them to build in recyclability, to streamline the whole process of converting their old kit into new kit. The game then becomes a game like Risk, where the territory is the entire relevant resource space.
>we will leave no stone unturned as we gather as much information and evidence as possible," a statement read.
Didn't the 'perps' make it into paradise? I thought they bought their tickets within hours of their crime... If so, evidence for what trial?
>"These victims and families deserve nothing less. The application filed today in federal court is another step – a potentially important step – in the process of learning everything we possibly can about the attack in San Bernardino."
All roads lead to Rome, of course; informationally all stones are, therefore, related. So... is the implication of this step in pursuit of information (that is only potentially under the next stone) that it is the beginning of a journey that is going to be perpetual and without practical limit?
per se.
But it is asking for a back door to a back door. The court order seems to be about having Apple do certain things it would not otherwise do, or even have reason to do. That such a request would be made (and I know it isn't a polite request) is disturbing. Apple's compliance--if, ultimately, any--with the specifics of the court order would set a precedent of compulsion of manufacturers, such as Apple, that is no less odious that compelling them to install a back door, per se. And end-run around the rules, as it were.
Screaming 'notional security' red-faced is poor justification for compelling a company to do your bidding, especially when their doing such a) may demonstrate the practical application of those acts in circumventing built-in security (and, also, yielding the sought-after data), but also b) will likely demonstrate that the power of compulsion can be brought to bear on even the most powerful/successful/visible corporate entity* ('pour encourager les autres'), regardless of what principles may be ground into dust in the process.
Apple does have some room to manoeuvre, though. What, ultimately, is being sought is the information on the phone. Unfortunately, the difference between the information sought after (and, remember, not demonstrably extant) and access to the device presumed to contain it is being concealed in the smoke-and-mirrors of this order for Apple to reveal as much as the court order demands.
* or, by extension, any person.
@Steven Roper
What you describe is likely to act as a virulent viral cancer, as various features and mechanisms in place within Fb will operate so as to encourage others intent on blotting out reality to 'give it a try'. It could easily put every Fb user, or clusters of Fb users, in their own virtual, walled-unreality. And there would be no one the wiser. Good thinking, but the devil's in the details. How to get the ball rolling? Do you think you're up to being the Anti-Zuck? If not, ... anyone you can recommend?
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