Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 715 posts

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#421

Post by VladRussian2 »

downandout wrote: post #398
VladRussian2 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the cost to Apple would be incalculable. the same statement about "not providing direct access" will get them off easily like it already did for them and Google/FB/etc in case of the rest of personal information. I'd say it would be negligent on the part of NSA to not use such a convenient source of fingerprints of "foreign" persons :) >at least hope, that Apple has designed the hardware involved to be subpoena proo…

Obstruction of justice can only occur if someone does something in response to a legal action that inhibits it. Fortunately it is not [yet] a crime to think ahead.

>Fortunately it is not [yet] a crime to think ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_%28crime%29

In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#422

Post by tedunangst »

jlgreco wrote: post #328
tedunangst wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the comments that will never go away helpful?

Comments about the virtue of weight and thinness never go away, are they helpful? Comments about the importance of good UI design never go away, are they helpful? Comments about IT security never go away, are they helpful? Comments about performance never go away, are they helpful? Comments about the importance of battery life never go away, are they helpful? Comments about privacy never go away, are they helpful? Th…

Most of those topics are not sidelined by "everything they tell us is a lie and should be replaced by uninformed speculation." If we're discussing the importance of battery life, a comment such as "How do we know they aren't lying? Maybe the new iPhone doesn't even have a battery and requires you to turn a hand crank." is not helpful.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#423

Post by gnaffle »

plg wrote: post #370
downandout wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So use a passcode - the fingerprint feature is optional. That said, I doubt they are doing anything nefarious with it - if it eventually leaked that fingerprints were being sent to the NSA, the cost to Apple would be incalculable. I would bet, or at least hope, that Apple has designed the hardware involved to be subpoena proof - meaning that the design would make it impossible to remotely collect fingerprints even if…

it HAS already leaked that emails, browsing, who knows what else, is being sucked up by NSA ... so apparently it doesn't matter. Apple is still selling plenty of iPhones, people are still using Gmail, etc etc. Apparently Americans don't much care.

What? Is iPhone leaking emails and browsing? Can you provide me more information on that?

If you're talking about ISP monitoring, that's not specific to the iPhone, and not relevant to this discussion.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#424

Post by cremnob »

RyJones wrote: post #257
gfodor wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that fingerprints are a bad biometric because some people can't use them is like saying escalators are a bad idea because some people can't use them. They might be a bad biometric but it's not because they aren't universally available to everyone.

When it's used as a gate, it is an issue. It took the Seattle PD and whatever agency actually issues civilian CAC (HSPD-12) a long, long time to get enough prints to allow me access to do my job. Both eventually had to accept three very partial prints as evidence.

Looks like you'll be using the passcode as usual.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#425

Post by wmeredith »

Pxtl wrote: post #83

I'm still weirded out by the idea that Apple has finally split the iPhone line into "premium" and "value" streams. It just seems so... un-Apple. The whole "last-year's-model" discount was a bit of a kludge, but still Apple stood out from the rest of the industry with such a simple product line - device, biannual release, size, that's it.

What about the iPod line? (that made Apple what they are today)

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#426

Post by Dirlewanger »

mikeash wrote: post #276
awestley wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Typical initial outrage at something new. The phone already logs your every move yet people have already forgotten about it and clearly don't care.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#427

Post by eco »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #282
seiji wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on Hacker News. On Hacker News your press conference should alternate new feature paragraphs with apologies. "We have a new fingerprint sensor! But, you probably don't want to use it because privacy crazies online think Apple is a front for the NSA." "We're moving to a 64-bit architecture! But, geeks with low reading comprehension think it's not that useful because we have tiny RAM, so you should just ignore this…

I'll bite. Explaining to a "geek with low reading comprehension", what is the actual benefit to the iPhone being 64-bit?

There are a lot of interesting things you can do with a massive address space even if you don't have the RAM to back it. You can mmap massive files. False pointers are virtually nonexistent for conservative GCs in a 64-bit environment (I believe modern Objective-C is compiler supported refcounting though so this doesn't really apply here). You can virtual alloc a 4GB array and just let it grow in physical memory on demand.

There is also a new instruction set to go along with the bump to 64-bits which improves things. However, I remember Herb Sutter saying that, in the case of x64, Microsoft generally found that the improved instruction set performance gains were a wash due to the increased cache misses caused by the doubling of the pointer width. I'm not sure how much ARM 64-bit instruction set improves things.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#428

Post by jlgreco »

nilliams wrote: post #418
res0nat0r wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. There is zero evidence of any type of NSA backdooring your iPhone nonsense. It would be great to read HN (where I thought we were more technically inclined than the rest of the net) for a day without unfounded nonsensical claims.

Backdooring iPhones does sound fantasical but that is not the only means your fingerprint data could conceivably make its way beyond your iPhone. I like that my fingerprint data is on precisely no computer anywhere. You don't have to be a massive conspiracy theory nut to feel slightly uneasy recording your fingerprint on anything .

> feel slightly uneasy recording your fingerprint on anything.

I assume you mean digitally record, unless you're wearing gloves. ;)

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#429

Post by PeterisP »

smtddr wrote: post #395
ripter wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you've ever handled a penny, the government's got your DNA. Why do you think they keep 'em in circulation?" - Simpsons

An internet-enabled smartphone fp-reader is probably just a little more accurate than a random penny floating about in society.......-_-

Actually, random banknotes can usually be traced to a specific person, so any DNA traces could probably be linked - there have been experiments that show that majority of non-tiny banknotes are [A] put in ATM [B] given out to a known person; [C] given to a shop/vendor; [D] retrieved by the bank. So, given multiple banknotes, they could reasonably list the identities of people who shopped in that shop, simply by looking at the banknote serial numbers.

Re: Apple Unveils The iPhone 5S

#430

Post by qwertzlcoatl »

pilif wrote: post #73

Now that we have to consider the iPhones to be backdoored by the NSA, I wonder whether I really want to give them my fingerprint together with the rest of my data. I'm also not so sure whether a fingerprint can't still be easily faked (like it was possible on that Mythbusters episode for example). Personally, I think I'd rather stay with my passcode. Did you btw know that you can turn off "simple passcode" and then u…

> I'm also not so sure whether a fingerprint can't still be easily faked

How to fake fingerprints from ChaosComputerClub: http://dasalte.ccc.de/biometrie/fingerabdruck_kopieren?langu...

Post reply on HN