101–110 of 157 posts
This is stupid. Anyone interested in writing jailbreaks for iOS would have already had access to these binaries. People are blowing this way out of proportion.
additionally: we now know what Watchtower looks like, something that was previously a mystery and even incorrectly thought to be something that ran on SEP instead of the AP.
Could this be an invitation for researchers to find a backdoor the NSA required Apple to put in there? Or are they just utilizing the crowd to help secure against NSA attacks?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know enough about their new ethical approach to say whether it's PR, whether it's just a few well-publicized decisions, or whether it's broad-based and substantial. I'm not saying either way; I just don't know. But it could make me a loyal customer much more than cool design and fashionable cache ever would.
A couple days after Tim Cook stepped into the CEO position, he reversed a Jobs policy and announced that the company would begin matching employee donations to charities. I considered this a fairly classy and subtle way to signal that he wasn't going to lie down on the job (it had been requested many times on company mailing lists). Source: I was on those lists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Billings Learned Hand once said: > Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. If we want companies to pay more taxes (which I think we do want) we should change the laws. You can't blame anybody for only paying the legally required amount of taxes.
>You can't blame anybody for only paying the legally required amount of taxes. Of course I can (and I do). Apple and various other companies go to great lengths to pay the least amount of taxes they can get away with.
Don't get me wrong: I believe that corporations should be obligated to pay much more in taxes than most currently do, but I'm going to assume that you don't knowingly pay more in taxes than you owe. If I'm wrong about that, then I'm interested in hearing your reasoning as to why you feel like the government is entitled to money to which they have explicitly stated that you aren't required to pay if you meet certain conditions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When they took on the FBI I decided that it was more than just vacuous PR. A PR person would bristle at the idea of denying to unlock the phone of a terrorist. It took real cojones for Apple to stand up for privacy at such a time.
I supported Apple's stand against the FBI, but believing it's purely altruistic would be simplistic and optimistic thinking at best. When safety and security are your perceived selling point, it's the best PR you can have. I'm not entirely sure about the validity of this nytimes article [1], but if we believe it, Tim Cook had asked FBI to submit their request 'in private' - but FBI did it openly, so Tim Cook 'had to'…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I supported Apple's stand against the FBI, but believing it's purely altruistic would be simplistic and optimistic thinking at best. When safety and security are your perceived selling point, it's the best PR you can have. I'm not entirely sure about the validity of this nytimes article [1], but if we believe it, Tim Cook had asked FBI to submit their request 'in private' - but FBI did it openly, so Tim Cook 'had to'…
> I supported Apple's stand against the FBI, but believing it's purely altruistic would be simplistic and optimistic thinking at best. When safety and security are your perceived selling point Only safety and security weren't Apple's "perceived selling points". They were mostly touted for user friendliness, it just works, being the first to bring some technologies to market in a well-thought way (e.g. as opposed to c…
(Incidentally, why the past tense?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a French person without the culture of corporate donations, I'm both wondering why it was seen as negative that Apple didn't match? Shouldn't they redirect donations to people they prefer?
It's just another perk that's customary in large US corporations. By comparison, it's like the ticket repas and chèques vacances in the French companies—getting subsidies for food and vacations would look quite odd to Americans. Different cultures, different perks.
Silicon Valley companies frequently subsidize food for their employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, all you need is one insider kernel developer to get all the source code anyways. I always find these kinds of initiatives silly -- A lot of companies think that an insider is a side-channel attack when really it's the main vector.
Also, given enough money available, why ask people to build vulnerabilities in ? Does anyone seriously think Apple's (or anyone's) kernel team doesn't have a single guy/girl that made at least one mistake ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I supported Apple's stand against the FBI, but believing it's purely altruistic would be simplistic and optimistic thinking at best. When safety and security are your perceived selling point, it's the best PR you can have. I'm not entirely sure about the validity of this nytimes article [1], but if we believe it, Tim Cook had asked FBI to submit their request 'in private' - but FBI did it openly, so Tim Cook 'had to'…
Not sure whether it has a name but I believe long-term thinking + egoism are undistinguishable from altruism, maybe they are even the same.
A move like this fits with a more general ideology Apple has been advocating for the last three years. Privacy, security, and ultruism. Tim Cook has put is mark on the company. One of the first things he did was apologize, (for maps) something unheard of in Apple's culture. I haven't drank the cool-aid and Apple has a lot of issues. I do see they however are making attempts at differentiating from the general corpora…
I don't know enough about their new ethical approach to say whether it's PR, whether it's just a few well-publicized decisions, or whether it's broad-based and substantial. I'm not saying either way; I just don't know. But it could make me a loyal customer much more than cool design and fashionable cache ever would.