22july2013

Why can't companies like Facebook and Apple provide secure End to End communication for US (and/or UK/Canada/etc.) citizens but key-escrowed communication for foreigners (eg, China, Iran, etc.)? All it would take is for Facebook and Apple to write software that determines the nationality of the user. That's a modest technical problem. The problem is primarily that Facebook and Apple actually want to provide secure communications for people who have no such right, and perhaps secondarily also that the government wants key-escrow for nationals who may have a "right" to privacy.

This solution would be unsatisfactory to Apple and Facebook because SOME of their customers (eg, citizens of Iran, China, Somalia) would be unhappy that their keys were being escrowed. And it would also be unsatisfactory to the governments because SOME of their suspects (eg, citizens of US, Canada, UK) would have keys that are NOT being escrowed. Both sides, government and corporations, aren't willing to settle for a 50% satisfactory solution, which is sad. They both want 100%.

Some of you may respond to this idea by saying that it's technically impossible for corporations to determine the nationality of its users. That's a false argument which I will ignore. And most of you are unimaginative enough to figure out how to solve this problem. I could explain how it could be done, technically, but I don't want to argue about technical solutions, I want to argue about whether this approach is a useful and legal approach. Is it legal? Very probably. Is it useful? Probably for many situations. But both sides want it all and aren't willing to compromise.

If I turn that LG TV off and on again, does it remember it was in Apple TV mode and go straight back to it, or do you have to manually press some buttons/menus to return to the Apple TV app? I own a car with Apple CarPlay but when I turn my car on I have to wait 30 seconds for the car manufacturer's splash screens to finish displaying before I have to manually press the screen to restart CarPlay.

On the subject of "southern Ireland", I would note that Dublin, where the production will be made, is actually in far eastern Ireland, geographically speaking. So obviously the original article wasn't being geographic but was instead being political.

When Peter Jackson was making the Lord of the Rings movie, early in its development cycle they were actually planning to use Foundation Series by Asimov, but changed for unstated reasons to the Tolkien series. The original Foundation Series was three books, but later in life Asimov wrote an additional four books and I found those four books (unlike the first three) to be fantastic. (There are a total of 18 books by Asimov in the same timeline so lots of material for Apple should they have the correct license arrangement.) In fact these last four books included Asimov's first books to ever make it onto the New York Times bestseller list. I won't give away who the real antagonist was. Of course, the writers don't have to respect the original series too much. I recall the 1980s adaptation of the Bourne Identity actually was faithful to the book and it turned out Jason Bourne was NOT actually a killer spy (jump to 2:33:40 for the real answer: ). The point I'm making is that a good TV show does not have to be faithful to the books. The last few pages of the last Foundation book refer to another civilization in another galaxy called Galaxia, but there has been no further expanding on that theme yet (so the new show could expand on it if it wants to.) Here's the only song ever written about a character in the Foundation Series, ("The Mule") it's by Deep Purple, and it would make a great theme song for the Apple TV Foundation Series:  perhaps without the lyrics.

I can't muster any interest. (Note: a group of Peacocks is called a Muster. A group of Peahens is called a Bevy.)