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I dunno why you're getting down voted here. There is definitely some major nerd cognitive dissonance going on. The ability to have full control over one's own h

by harryh 11y ago

I dunno why you're getting down voted here. There is definitely some major nerd cognitive dissonance going on. The ability to have full control over one's own hardware is supposed to be a core tenant of hacker-dom. Amazing how quickly it's been thrown out in this case.

empressplay 11y ago
I don't get it either. A black box that prevents you from running your own code on it = bad. A black box that encrypts your data and keeps it away from the evil gubbermint (let's be clear here, that _is_ what the community is saying) = good ? It's confusing.
- MCRed 11y ago
  The iPhone has never prevented you from running your own code on it. It shipped with a javascript SDK and then within the year they opened it up to objective-c programs. They charge you $99 a year for the certificate signing service, but it's really no big deal... if you can afford an iPhone you can afford $99 a year. (Hell, I think these days you don't even need to be a paid developer, the free developers can run their code on their phones.)
  - rimantas 11y ago
    You no longer need to pay $99 to run code on your phone. You pay only if you want to distribute it through AppStore.
- sago 11y ago
  > I don't get it either. You may be missing it, yes. As I understand it, the issue is not about software, but about the security keys. It isn't about some code being written, but about signing that code with the root certificate of all iOS devices. Nobody is celebrating their closed-source codebase as a paragon of security. If Apple used open source code, sure the FBI could pay a third party to write the code, but Apple would still be right to refuse to sign it. [edit: softened tone]
shkkmo 11y ago
"The ability to have full control over one's own hardware" is a core tenant of the FOSS software movement. FOSS is certainly not synonymous with hacker-dom nor with HN. Actually having 'full' control over one's own hardware is pretty much impossible (and AFAIK will remain so for the foresee-able future without some major changes among the companies that make hardware and write firmware). Apple has a varied track record on the degree to which users are allowed to have control, they do better on OSX and worse on iOS (which is a big reason I use Android and a MacBook Pro). That said, this particular incident is an example of Apple standing up for the right of consumer to control their devices , particularly to control who has access to the data on them). As such, it seems completely reasonable for the EFF (and the rest of us) to support Apple in this case. Failure to do so because you dislike some of Apple's other decision is cutting off the nose to spite the face

by harryh 11y ago

empressplay 11y ago

I don't get it either. A black box that prevents you from running your own code on it = bad. A black box that encrypts your data and keeps it away from the evil gubbermint (let's be clear here, that _is_ what the community is saying) = good ? It's confusing.

MCRed 11y ago
The iPhone has never prevented you from running your own code on it. It shipped with a javascript SDK and then within the year they opened it up to objective-c programs. They charge you $99 a year for the certificate signing service, but it's really no big deal... if you can afford an iPhone you can afford $99 a year. (Hell, I think these days you don't even need to be a paid developer, the free developers can run their code on their phones.)
- rimantas 11y ago
  You no longer need to pay $99 to run code on your phone. You pay only if you want to distribute it through AppStore.
sago 11y ago
> I don't get it either. You may be missing it, yes. As I understand it, the issue is not about software, but about the security keys. It isn't about some code being written, but about signing that code with the root certificate of all iOS devices. Nobody is celebrating their closed-source codebase as a paragon of security. If Apple used open source code, sure the FBI could pay a third party to write the code, but Apple would still be right to refuse to sign it. [edit: softened tone]

shkkmo 11y ago

"The ability to have full control over one's own hardware" is a core tenant of the FOSS software movement. FOSS is certainly not synonymous with hacker-dom nor with HN. Actually having 'full' control over one's own hardware is pretty much impossible (and AFAIK will remain so for the foresee-able future without some major changes among the companies that make hardware and write firmware). Apple has a varied track record on the degree to which users are allowed to have control, they do better on OSX and worse on iOS (which is a big reason I use Android and a MacBook Pro). That said, this particular incident is an example of Apple standing up for the right of consumer to control their devices , particularly to control who has access to the data on them). As such, it seems completely reasonable for the EFF (and the rest of us) to support Apple in this case. Failure to do so because you dislike some of Apple's other decision is cutting off the nose to spite the face