[NTLK] MyDevice (was: Re: Newton OS on iPad video)

[Lord Groundhog]

~~~ On 2010/09/18 21:54, L.W. Brown at lbrown_MoveOn_MCC at me.com wrote ~~~

> Nonetheless, there was immediate blog/media speculation that that was Apple's
> intent.
> The innocent purpose is, of course, for tracking/stopping stolen or
> network-harming machines...
> 


I don't want to dismiss or discount the possibility that there are genuine
and innocent uses for introducing this technology, but I have a question.
Am I the only person disturbed by the possibility that Apple will be
creating the technology that will also allow them to track thousands --
millions -- of owners of iPad/iPodTouch/ iPhone units?  The implications of
this, to customers who travel to countries like China, U.A.E., Turkey, and
similar, where the governments would welcome any technology that helps track
dissidents, are bad enough.  Then we have to consider the governments we
don't suspect:  not so long ago, some so-called "free democracies" started
closely monitoring the communications of citizens that disagreed with their
political decisions.

On top of that, what's to stop anyone with the savvy from hacking into this
for their own purposes:  tracking a business rival and then "killing"
his/her phone at a crucial moment for commercial gain, mindless vandalism in
the form of targetting phones randomly and then "killing" them off "because
they can"?  If you lived through the '80s viruses designed to trash hard
drives you know what I'm talking about.

And all that's in addition to hanging a sword over any of us if we decide to
put "unauthorized" software on the devices they want us to spend a few
hundred pieces of eight to buy.


Just my reflections.

 
Shalom. 
Christian 

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

³Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a Newton.²
            -- what Arthur C. Clarke meant

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzpdPJ7Zr4
(With thanks to Chod Lang)
http://tinyurl.com/29y2dl
http://www.diyplanner.com/node/3942


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