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We can't imagine a more hostile reaction to the wave of privacy concerns sweeping the world right now than debuting a proprietary, network-accessible fingerprin
by tnorthcutt 13y ago
We can't imagine a more hostile reaction to the wave of privacy concerns sweeping the world right now than debuting a proprietary, network-accessible fingerprint scanner as your new 'feature'.
I can't imagine a more short-sighted view of product development than to assume that new hardware is a reaction to events which occurred only a few months before the first shipment of that new hardware.
- diydsp 13y agoThey could have canceled the feature and launched the product without it. They could have referenced the privacy implications and their role in it, but they chose not to. The fingerprint scanner is clearly not a reaction to recent events, but we can't honestly pretend it has an existence outside their context. No matter how ineloquent the FSF may be, we need some people out there leading our introspection, driving us to answer questions for ourselves about the potential tradeoffs. We need multiple groups out their stirring people like us to communicate to "regular people in restaurants" and whatnot what the tradeoffs and technical capabilities are. This goes double for the new Google phone announced in the wake of the NSA scandal. One if it's new features? A single core is listening 24/7 for key phrases. We have to tell people why this is could be hazardous to their well-being.