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Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#271

Post by RandallBrown »

bratsche wrote: post #229
swamp40 wrote: post #60

I was really hoping for NFC support - sigh. I do love the fingerprint sensor and the intelligent auto-focusing features, though. Blurry smartphone pictures are so ubiquitous these days.

Why does everyone keep going on about NFC? It's been on Android for years and it's never been used in any meaningful way. I don't see Apple introducing some new hardware component just for the sake of adding it. They'll introduce something when they have a really solid use for it, which is something that Google seems to have never really had with NFC.

Being able to use your phone as a credit card is a pretty big deal.

NFC readers are normal for many point of sale terminals now and I would love to not have to get out a credit card to pay for something.

One of the Lumia phones was supposed to be able to do this, but it didn't work in the US or something because it required some weird encrypted SIM card.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#272

Post by melling »

cheald wrote: post #171
dev_jim wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urgh. When do we get to the point where I can read HN without a snarky NSA comment being voted to the top?

Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying on the citizens it is supposed to serve.

I guess if you want to constantly complain about the NSA spying on you, you are entitled. However, some of us have had enough of the complaining. After all, you're probably going to be doing it for the rest of your life. I'd rather not spend mine listening to it. So, can we clearly tag a thread as NSA rant, so those of us who don't want to hear it ad nauseam, we can skip the rehash.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#273

Post by kyro »

meerita wrote: post #129

I visualize this: husband is sleeping deeply, wife picks up the phone and taps the home button while he's sleeping and unlocks the phone. Release the kraken.

This is why the husband has his mistress unlock his phone.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#274

Post by scrrr »

stanleydrew wrote: post #213
cheald wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably when the NSA stops illegally spying on the citizens it is supposed to serve.

More snark. This isn't helpful. For those who want to believe it, I doubt there is any amount of information that could ever be released to convince them that the NSA isn't spying on people anymore.

But they are! And this is a very important issue to be dealt with. I'm very disappointed by all the companies and all governments involved, and I earn money writing iOS and cloud-applications. And I understand it's bad for business, but the issue is too important to be ignored.

So yes, by all means, keep talking about it.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#275

Post by joshuacc »

sliverstorm wrote: post #150
pilif wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that I can't change my fingerprint. If it gets out by some third-party abusing the secret backdoor (or just abusing whatever other place you have your fingerprint stored), then they can potentially forge your fingerprint when committing a crime or when otherwise attempting to access resources you have access to. When a third-party loses your password, you change it and life goes on (you are not reusing…

They probably already have your fingerprint. I believe you usually have to give it to the DMV to get your license.

That has not been required by any of the four states that I've lived in.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#276

Post by mikeash »

awestley wrote: post #93
aw3c2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to check? iOS is closed-source. You cannot monitor the traffic 24/7 over the whole lifetime of the device. Maybe the fingerprint delivery can be ordered remotely.

It's a phone... If you are concerned that your fingerprints MIGHT be uploaded you need to consider just not using a smartphone. AKA "a voluntary spy device".

It's quite odd. Here's a device that can listen to everything you say all day long, that can read all of your e-mail, take pictures of you and your surroundings, sniff all of your passwords, etc. etc. etc., but people are freaking out because it might be stealing your fingerprints, which you leave thousands of on various public surfaces every day anyway? I just don't get it.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#277

Post by julsonl »

randomdata wrote: post #179
mratzloff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My music alone fills up my 64 GB 4S. I am waiting for the 128 GB.

On the other hand, my 4S has a persistent mobile data connection, so storing music locally is of no great benefit to me. I guess all we can conclude is that 16GB can be huge, or tiny, depending on how you want to use your device.

Having local storage is good for services like Spotify though, especially for those long road trips where the signal can be a bit spotty.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#278

Post by bratsche »

swamp40 wrote: post #252
bratsche wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone keep going on about NFC? It's been on Android for years and it's never been used in any meaningful way. I don't see Apple introducing some new hardware component just for the sake of adding it. They'll introduce something when they have a really solid use for it, which is something that Google seems to have never really had with NFC.

Something is going to replace the credit card. If Apple had thrown their weight behind NFC, that would have closed the deal. I give them one more year (one iWatch release, and the iPhone 6 release) and then I agree, NFC will be a dead end.

What I meant is, if NFC is the best way to replace credit cards then Apple would want to be in on making that happen, they wouldn't just put the hardware on their devices and leave someone else to implement it. Something like NFC has just been basically a bullet point on Android phones' feature lists, but that's not really Apple's style. They're going to build something to use it on day 1 or they're not going to include it in their device.

Maybe they're working on payment stuff, maybe they're not.. but since it's obviously not ready I'm not the least bit surprised that we don't see NFC on Apple devices.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#279

Post by madisp »

cheald wrote: post #202
uptown wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're cautious enough to use a 26 character passphrase, why are you comfortable revealing how many characters your passphrase contains?

Because even if it's just digits and numbers, 62^26 - 62^25 is a non-brute forceable keyspace.

ah, but it is a passphrase, not a password. Limiting phrases to exactly 26 chars doesn't seem that big anymore.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#280

Post by mikeash »

jonknee wrote: post #238
mikeash wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not quite sure I get this level of paranoia. We all leave thousands of fingerprints in public areas every day.

Not on high resolution cameras designed to record them attached to your identity.

How hard would it be to run a mobile scanner over public surfaces and correlate the data with security camera footage?

In any case, we're talking about devices that can already spy on you to an enormous extent (conversations, photos, e-mail, passwords, plenty more). Fingerprints seem way down the list of important things they could be stealing.

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