larryjw

swineone said:

Company that profits hugely from a 30% cut from non-sideloaded apps claims that sideloading is dangerous. It certainly is — to their bottom line.

The only thing I’m surprised by is that anyone would even bother reading what Apple writes on the subject, given their inherent conflict of interest.

Almost everyone has some conflict of interest, if nothing more than a general bias in one direction or another.

There is no shortcut to thinking. One, or someone, needs to think in depth about the issues and facts to come to even tentative conclusions. 

Nihilism is the result if it's enough to claim some bias to reject any discussion. If that's your approach, just believe anything you want, but don't claim any thought process was involved. 

One side loading issue has not been brought up -- maybe because I'm wrong. But here it goes.

iPads, iPhones, Apple TVs, etc are general purpose computers, but are restricted by Apple from being programmed to behave as such. Apple's restrictions on these devices prevent apps from being general programming devices -- you can't install a c compiler, fortran, Julia, lisp, etc.

So, you can't turn these devices into network monitors, scanners which allow them to snoop around. 

This is on my mind.

As an election official, the bogus claims of election fraud and the nonsense that voting machines were being controlled from China, Brazil, etc to change votes from Trump to Biden has strong backing by 70% of Republicans opens up the argument that anyone carrying an iPhone could be hacking into voting machines and thus invalidating every election result. I'm sure there is nothing that would prevent that story from gaining widespread adoption. No proof is necessary.

Of course, there is nothing to prevent these any machines from using http, or VNC protocols from controlling other machines if they've been designed to allow that connection. 

There is nothing now that prevents any computer from monitoring insecure networks if users don't use VPN services. 

At least, at this time, we can look to Apple to implement security protocols that limits snooping of, and by, our devices; but if side loading is allowed, no security of any kind is likely to be effective. 

A kid committed suicide having used Robin Hood to "buy" options. He thought he had lost $730,000. 

I know, even the idea that businesses have any social responsibility is seen as traitorous to capitalism. 

If Verizon and ATT can throttle your data speeds if you use too much, it would be easy to do the same for in-app purchases. 

Apple should implement that feature, since they certainly track in realtime such transactions. 

It shouldn't have to be $5000 before such throttling takes place.

mikethemartian said:

rob53 said:

chris-net said:

The people who’s info is accessed should be told who accessed it, when, for what reason & under what authority. If doesn’t have to be real time, maybe a 90 day delay between access and notification. 

I think people will be much more mindful what they publish once they know they’ve been snooped on. 

If any of this is done without a legal order from a judge I want to know what law(s) is being broken or what laws allow them to monitor a free society the way this article is mentioning. I agree with your comment and I don’t want to have to file a FOIA to try and get it. This isn’t Nazi Germany, Russia or any other country that’s afraid of their citizens. 

A legal order or warrant is only required if the company doesn’t want to voluntarily cooperate. If they do want to voluntarily cooperate they can provide law enforcement any information they have on you just as if you were on the street and witnessed an incident involving someone else.

NO!!!!!! 

The Constitution requires a warrant where the government must show probably cause. There are exigent circumstances that allow warrantless searches and seizures but those are disfavored. 

Few people who can afford Apple products buy Android. There is at least a perception that Apple is a luxury brand so we're more likely able to afford to spend more. 

There is just a lot less Android users who buy top-of-the-line android devices, which cost the same as Apple devices.