Apple's Steve Jobs had vision of building an open Wi-Fi utopia

13

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 71
    ksecksec Posts: 1,569member

    Well that was a problem when the first iPhone came out with only GPRS network. Now 4G LTE is even faster then my god damn ADSL Home network. (Sigh). In the next 2 - 3 years the world will move to LTE-A, micro-cell, VoLTE, and hopefully pCell. The mobile network has never been better.

    Of course this is mainly a Asia and EU perspective where LTE deployment are ahead of US. But it is not like US mobile network aren't improving. And we are very likely to see the first LTE only network in the next few years, when the cost to support 2G and 3G users become a burden for Teleco ( 3G likely to come off first ).

  • Reply 42 of 71
    blah64blah64 Posts: 993member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DocNo42 View Post


    Only connect to sites that use HTTPS, and make sure your email accounts are all using SSL (a good idea period, no matter where your machine is). If your email provider doesn't support SSL, the switch providers! Yes, it's that serious.


    It's good to get people thinking about this, but if people don't understand that this is only one part of the problem, then the unintended consequence of (unqualified) advice like this can be that people will think their communications are private if they just secure the connection from their client to their ISP/provider.

    It's important that people understand every email from yahoo to gmail, or from msn to comcast, or between any two different providers travels completely in the clear. They are almost certainly all read and stored by various gov agencies, but also by other states (China, etc) and various well-funded malicious groups that will sniff for anything that might give clues to passwords or otherwise be profitable for them. This is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.

    But worse than that IMO, and this is really big-picture stuff, is that people want to make sure their communications are secure from prying eyes, and yet, if you use gmail or hotmail or any of these "free" services, nothing you type is private from the providers. Every word of every email is read, analyzed and stored indefinitely. Even if their purpose is not strictly dishonorable, it is indisputable that they are creating detailed psychological profiles of their users for profit, and there are virtually no regulations about how that data will be used, stored, sold or made public in the future. Some people kinda sorta understand this, but few people understand how deep it goes and bother to consider the downside to what it means to live under such intense surveillance over a lifetime. It's not just email, but email is a huge chunk of it.
  • Reply 43 of 71
    Free WIFI = can see what you are surfing. Thats the trade off.
  • Reply 44 of 71
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by vaporland, whose username I won’t be editing, as that would be endlessly juvenile View Post

    Perhaps this would appeal to your sense of generosity

     

    Or, you know, you could answer the question instead of posting completely irrelevant nonsense.

  • Reply 45 of 71
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    [@]vaporland[/@], changing a username to something derogatory is an [I]ad hominem[/I] personal attack.
  • Reply 46 of 71
    vaporlandvaporland Posts: 358member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    [@]vaporland[/@], changing a username to something derogatory is an ad hominem personal attack.

    The poster to whom we are referring is continually arrogant and nasty and admins never call him on it.

    I extend apologies to any whom I offended.

    (Note: these are words you'll never hear from him...)

    Jump on my case, ban me, close my account - I really don't care.
  • Reply 47 of 71
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    vaporland wrote: »
    The poster to whom we are referring is continually arrogant and nasty and admins never call him on it.

    I extend apologies to any whom I offended.

    (Note: these are words you'll never hear from him...)

    Jump on my case, ban me, close my account - I really don't care.

    If he breaks the one rule the forum has then report him, or at least call him out on it, but my concern is that any reasonable rebuttal you may have gets lost in the name calling.
  • Reply 48 of 71
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    I get the idea, but why should I pay to allow John Q. Public to mooch my Internet speed?

    So that Tallest Q. Skil can do the same whenever he goes out galavanting.
  • Reply 49 of 71
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Free WIFI = can see what you are surfing. Thats the trade off.

    Unless you have a VPN.
  • Reply 50 of 71
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    dasanman69 wrote: »
    Unless you have a VPN.

    OTx2: I've always been surprised Google has never offered a free VPN to secure public WiFi as well any private network where the user doesn't want their data tracked by other nodes on the network. They could not only see what you do when you go to google.com but have access to all your other traffic through the VPN, save for SSL to sites within the VPN. This would give a lot more data to pull from and could even offer targeted ads if you don't want to pay a small usage fee, like other "free" VPN services have done. This seems like a gold mine of data and I'd gladly let Google see what I'm posting here to AppleInsider instead of someone at a WiFi hotspot.


    PS: I would also gladly pay for AI to offer a paid SSL version of the site.
  • Reply 51 of 71
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by vaporland View Post

    Jump on my case, ban me, close my account - I really don't care.

     

    That’s evident by your long-term dislike of Apple.

     

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post

    So that Tallest Q. Skil can do the same whenever he goes out galavanting.



    I threw out my back while gallivanting a few years ago. Never again. I now limit my exploits to just wing-dinging, shindiging, and hootinannification. It’s a real foofaraw, I’ll tell you.

  • Reply 52 of 71
    pazuzupazuzu Posts: 1,728member
    But did Steve want it to work only on Apple products? Just sayin?
  • Reply 53 of 71
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    It's a shame Google is the only entity out there right now making a significant dent in the high speed
    pazuzu wrote: »
    But did Steve want it to work only on Apple products? Just sayin?

    Oh, who knows at this point?
  • Reply 54 of 71
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    pazuzu wrote: »
    But did Steve want it to work only on Apple products? Just sayin?

    Actually, you're just asking, at least as indicated by your question mark, but it does reveal your true intention to belittle Apple and Jobs at every turn by suggesting that the intent was to exclude any product that doesn't use Apple's networking protocols despite Apple having dropped AppleTalk a very long time ago and Jobs stating during the 1997 WWDC Q&A that Apple should adopt whatever is best in a question about "being different" and specifically using TCP/IP as an example.
  • Reply 55 of 71
    blah64blah64 Posts: 993member
    This was a fascinating post.

    Everything in this first paragraph I completely agree with. It's analysis, and at least IMO your analysis is generally quite good.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post

    OTx2: I've always been surprised Google has never offered a free VPN to secure public WiFi as well any private network where the user doesn't want their data tracked by other nodes on the network. They could not only see what you do when you go to google.com but have access to all your other traffic through the VPN, save for SSL to sites within the VPN. This would give a lot more data to pull from and could even offer targeted ads if you don't want to pay a small usage fee, like other "free" VPN services have done. This seems like a gold mine of data


    But your conclusion is a complete 180 from mine! Of course, the next part is opinion, not analysis, and it's understandable that people have different opinions. Still, it was almost humorous to me to see just how opposite your conclusion was from mine.

    Quote:
    ... and I'd gladly let Google see what I'm posting here to AppleInsider instead of someone at a WiFi hotspot.


    I would much rather someone at an open WiFi see what I'm posting on AI or any random public site.

    1) Unless I'm also posting on another site tied to my real-world identity, during the same visit, without SSL, they have no way to tie that data together. It's no different than anyone else reading my post here. Losing credentials is another story, but in any case, I understand how to protect myself in those situations.

    2) There is no way to similarly protect yourself from google, and they have waaaaay too much personal information about most people already. It's just wrong. As in: arguably immoral. For those people who are adults and have knowingly opted to give google the keys to their brain, oh well, that's their choice. But google also gathers data on millions of people who choose to not use their services, and there is currently nothing that anyone can do about it. They are unregulated and out of control.

    The gmail class action lawsuit has been denied "class action" status for technical reasons, but "Judge Koh denied Google’s motion to dismiss the case in September, however, when she failed to accept the argument that anyone sending an e-mail to a Gmail user has implicitly consented to Google scanning the e-mail’s content for purposes of ad feeds. http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/jurisdiction/district-courts/privacy-class-action-against-google-denied

    This lawsuit will not go away, but it will morph. It's not just people sending email to gmail users (foolishly thinking it's a private conversation) but the other way around. You can be just sitting around minding your own business and have a friend send you an email that says: "Hey Joe, happy birthday! Hope your ((horrifying medical condition)) is getting better! -Sam" In a few seconds, through absolutely no action of your own, you've now been tagged as a close friend of Sam, a victim of a specific medical condition, and your birthday is there to help confirm your identity (along with whatever else other people have sent you). This particular practice should be illegal, as you have never even implicitly given permission for that data to be released, let alone snarfed up and analyzed.
  • Reply 56 of 71
    vaporlandvaporland Posts: 358member
    [quote name="Tallest Skil" url="/t/181695/apples-steve-jobs-had-vision-of-building-an-open-wi-fi-utopia/30#post_2574517"][QUOTE]
    Jump on my case, ban me, close my account - I really don't care.[/QUOTE]

    That’s evident by your long-term dislike of Apple.[/QUOTE]

    Yeah, I've used macs & Apple gear since '84, so I must really despise them.

    That's why I once worked for one of their biggest international resellers, as a top sales engineer- I hated them so much.

    And freedom - don't forget freedom - I hate that too ( when uncoupled from responsibility).

    Your continuous aggressive antagonism is distasteful, and everytime you whine about being attacked after being so provocative, it's just the icing on the cake.

    After six years on this forum I'm moving on and closing this account.

    Posting the most messages doesn't make you the tallest or the most skillful.

    It just means you're loud. You Win! Bye!
  • Reply 57 of 71
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by pazuzu View Post



    But did Steve want it to work only on Apple products? Just sayin?

    If it did, that could solve a lot of the security problems; make iOS and Mac devices provide AppleID credentials (linked to a credit card for identity verification) to get access to the free Wi-Fi that is provided by guest Apple Airport routers (potentially auth could also use the iCloud control panel on Windows).

     

    Could also limit access on the router by applying bandwidth and data caps, with parental filters and blocking websites that figure lowly in Trust tests, or are known providers of illegal material, all synced back to whitelists held at Apple.

     

    That could be a whole new element to iCloud - buy into the Apple ecosystem and get access to free Wi-Fi in all localities where there is an Airport Extreme nearby.

  • Reply 58 of 71
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    PS: I would also gladly pay for AI to offer a paid SSL version of the site.

    Other than the obvious benefit, anything specific? Would a proxy server be sufficient for your 'needs' until AI offers SSL?
  • Reply 59 of 71
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    Marvin wrote: »
    This sort of thing shouldn't be far off with cellular tech:

    Ahh, the wireless perpetual motion machine...

    RF spectrum is a constrained resource. Once it's saturated, that's it - it's used up. Also the more devices you have, the more issues you get into with collision, overlap, etc. And most current wireless standards are little better than ethernet at sensing activity and not stomping on someone else. At least with ethernet you have a defined medium with known characteristics (as long as people heed the length limits). Not so with wireless. Heck, you can get interference from just about anything - microwaves, cosmic waves, poorly shielded electrical equipment - so the theoretical maximums for most RF spectrum are really theoretical. The more variables you introduce into a complex system, the number of fail points rise exponentially. Layer stupid design on top of all that and you get the current mess. Quite honestly it's amazing it works as well as it does in the current use cases.

    Peer to peer wireless can work, but it's hardly fast. And it won't scale. It's not replacing hard lines (be they copper, coax or fiber) any time soon.
  • Reply 60 of 71
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    philboogie wrote: »
    Other than the obvious benefit, anything specific? Would a proxy server be sufficient for your 'needs' until AI offers SSL?

    A VPN between my roaming device and a known good ISP entry point takes care of the low hanging fruit today, but as more and more exploits become prevalent and as more ISPs are attacked I don't think it's safe to assume that any point between you and the server you are connecting to is safe. It never really has been, but historically it's been impractical or pretty much unnecessary to worry about all the points between. It seems the safe ground and reasonable assumptions are quickly changing. Be the threats originate from governments, government backed/condoned hacker groups like the Russian hackers stealing large amounts of accounts that broke yesterday, or other groups. The only safe thing to assume is that everything is hostile. That has high costs and a large pain factor, but I think as time goes on people who really care are going to start using security as a major discriminator in their choices. This is just the beginning (finally!)
Sign In or Register to comment.