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This says nothing of NSA sleeper agents sneaking backdoors into Apple products, which seems pretty likely given the recent disclosures. The more centralized yo
by tedks 13y ago
This says nothing of NSA sleeper agents sneaking backdoors into Apple products, which seems pretty likely given the recent disclosures.
The more centralized you build a system, the easier it is to completely own.
Also, there's a massive confound in that Android phones come a lot cheaper than iPhones, making them far more accessible for the typical targets of active government surveillance.
- ubernostrum 13y agoYou could be an NSA sleeper agent, using HN to launch false-flag propaganda operations. Go ahead and prove otherwise, if you can. Until then I'm going to treat everything you say and do as an attempt to spy on me.
- vincie 13y agoYou could be an NSA sleeper-sleeper agent, using HN to launch false-false-flag propaganda operations. Go ahead and prove otherwise, if you can. Until then I'm going to treat everything you say and do as an attempt to spy on me.
- mck- 13y agoStack Overflow
- sliverstorm 13y agoWe're probably all NSA sleeper agents, every one of us, we just don't know it because we haven't been activated yet.
- tedks 13y agoI suppose so, but the NSA budget would have to be awfully big to fund me. It's high-cost, and low-gain. In contrast, owning Apple would be a massive win. But you're free to treat everything I say and do as an attempt to spy on me. How will that change your behavior? Or are you being deliberately obtuse for the sake of disrupting discussion?
- sbuk 13y agoBut your comment was obtuse too. Throwing the NSA thing at Apple is ridiculous frankly. It seems that the vast majority of tech companies were involved, including the likes of Google and all seemed to be far more embroiled is the sordid affair than Apple. So why are they more likely to be sharing stuff that anyone else? It's all very disingenuous from where I'm standing.
- tedks 13y agoA single walled garden is easily subverted by HUMINT. That is a valid counterstatement to the statement "Walled gardens make users more safe." I can't see how that was obtuse. What part did you not understand?
- sbuk 13y agoOh, I understand what you are saying perfectly. You are going about it in an obtuse manner.
- ubernostrum 13y agoI think there is a point at which mindlessly yelling "WHAT ABOUT THE NSA" at, well, basically everything stops being useful, because it offers no insight whatsoever, and provokes no thoughts that hadn't already been provoked. In fact, past a certain point it becomes counterproductive, as it enters "Old Man Yells At Cloud" territory and opens up the commenter, and by connection the content of the comment, as a subject of ridicule. Also, you've still not proven to me that you don't work for the NSA.
- tedks 13y agoWell, the insight I was going for here is that a walled garden is only as safe as the gardener, and whatever trust we as humans could have in that gardener should be totally shattered in the post-NSA leak world. If you think that isn't a legitimate insight, or if you're so blazing-fast that you'd already made that inference, I suppose you're entitled to think that, but it's very difficult for most humans to re-compute all of their cached thoughts in the light of new information, and the NSA leaks aren't any different.
- scoot 13y agoGiven that the USCIS (and so, presumably, the NSA) already has the fingerprints of every visitor to the USA, and (as I understand it) any US citizen with a drivers license, I'm not sure I understand what harvesting fingerprint signatures from the iPhone would achieve.
- nthj 13y agoHmm, I don't remember giving my fingerprints to anyone for a driver's license.
- scoot 13y agoYou're right, apparently not all states require this.
- Amadou 13y agoMost do not. But some of the most populous do. California and Texas are among the list that require thumbprints.
- selectodude 13y agoCalifornia, Colorado, Georgia, and Texas.
- drcube 13y agoIt goes the other way around. Because the government has almost everyone's fingerprint on file already, it is important to them that fingerprint scanners become a widespread method of authentication. Making sure the new locks fit all these old keys we have lying around, basically. Standard government cost saving measure.
- jarek 13y agoAs I've pointed out in another thread, Canadian citizens visiting the U.S. are not automatically fingerprinted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-VISIT http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/usvisit/usvisit_edu_us_canada_land_border_info_card_english.pdf http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/usvisit/usvisit_edu_us_ca...