You mean those click...... click....... click.... click...click.. click. click click CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK wheels?
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Apple Worked With U.S. Government on 'Secret' iPod
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US Dept of Energy is the branch of government that is responsible for nuclear weapons, so yup, as military as it gets.
Amazon sell real world products. All app developers on the App Store can integrate their own payment methods for real world products. This does not contravene Apple’s terms of service. Selling virtual products like an in game currency (as Epic did with their vBucks) is a different kettle of fish altogether. To do this you voluntarily agree (when you sign up as an Apple Developer) to only use Apple’s IAP system. So there is no contradiction here at all. Apple is not playing favourites, nor has it lost any credibility over this issue.
The issue here is with Epic’s greed in not wanting to give Apple the 30% cut of IAP sales that they agreed to when they signed up to the Apple developer program. As an independent developer of Apple apps I am sick of the arrogance of companies like Epic who think the rules don’t apply to them and that they can get a better deal just because of their massive size and power. Epic, like me and all other developers for Apple voluntarily agreed to Apple’s terms of service and all developers should be expected to abide by the terms they agreed to.
That, or to have a hidden function invisible to an uninformed user, as is seems here.
There was an app that did that when you covered the camera lens with a piece of electrical tape.
Just for completeness, tony fadell confirms on twitter.
www.macrumors.com
Tony Fadell ("Father of iPod") Leaves Apple [Updated]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Tony Fadell, the senior vice president of the iPod Division at Apple, is leaving the company for personal...
www.macrumors.com
Just for completeness, tony fadell confirms on twitter.
Tony Fadell ("Father of iPod") Leaves Apple [Updated]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Tony Fadell, the senior vice president of the iPod Division at Apple, is leaving the company for personal...
Thanks for adding in that link.
It’s nice to have a more complete story from a reputable source linked in here and made for a great read with this mornings coffee.
One engineer wouldn't be able to check in code like that without anyone else noticing. So, no that couldn't happen with one engineer. And considering a lot of the security of the phone is in it's hardware that's even harder to do.
It‘t not a secret backdoor in this case, more like a special edition for covert purposes, like a president’s smartphone. It’s not like this was built into every iPod.
Apple worked with the U.S. government on a "secret" modified iPod, according to a new report by former Apple software engineer David Shayer published by TidBits.
Shayer explains that in 2005, he was asked by the director of iPod software to "help two engineers from the U.S. Department of Energy build a special iPod." The engineers were in fact contractors from Bechtel, a large U.S. defense contractor. Only four individuals at Apple were aware of the project at the time, none of whom still work at the company, and there was no paper trail as all communication occurred in person.
The team set about modifying an iPod to record data from added custom hardware. It still had to look and work like a normal iPod, with any additional data recorded to the iPod's hard disk needing to be undetectable. Shayer's main role in the project was to oversee any help needed by the Department of Energy from Apple. The contractors were given an office at Apple headquarters, and over several months they were taught how to navigate and change the early iPod operating system.
The specific modified device was a fifth-generation iPod, chosen for its easily-opening case and large 60 GB disk. It was also the final iPod for which Apple did not digitally sign the operating system, allowing for easier software modification.
The Department of Energy is responsible for U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear power programs, and in 2005 its budget was $24.3 billion. $9 billion of this budget was intended to meet defense-related objectives such as nuclear deterrence.
Shayer never saw the additional hardware personally, but believes that the iPod was modified to function as a "stealth Geiger counter." He speculates that such a device would be extremely useful for the Department of Energy when conducting covert operations to gather evidence of radioactivity.
Article Link: Apple Worked With U.S. Government on 'Secret' iPod
Ok then so I knew this movie from Drake & Josh from Nick had some truth to it!
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So Huawei is banned not so much because they are working with the Chinese military but because the rules in China basically makes it impossible for Huawei to resist any involvement from the Chinese government. At least that's how I understood it. And I think it would be easy for the Chinese to just ban the iPhone in China if they wanted. They don't even need a reason, really.
The Epic saga is an entirely different story. Epic just wants to see the world (or Apple ecosystem) burn so they can put the money that Apple is earning into their own pockets, that's all.
It makes sense to use an iPod as a data collection device. Back in these days I was working in some clandestine datacenters, some underground in bunkers, some off the beaten track, a lot with armed guards with automatic weapons. On thing in common was, that you were not allowed to bring in any kind of phone or electronic device, besides your work issued notebook.
Actually they do. If you have an iPhone or iDevice and have cloud backup (on by default) Apple can and does spill all those beans. This means everything on your phone. It's "encrypted" on iCloud but Apple has the key. What Apple doesn't do is give them direct access to your phone. This is not because they don't want to but rather they can't do it.
Not a single employee of the DOE, or person serving in the US armed forces would agree with that.
DOE has certain responsibilities in the design, production, validation, transportation, maintainability, and disposition of many components of the USA’s nuclear arsenal. But that isn’t all that the DOE does. Far from it. And their staff of engineers, academics, technicians, administration staff, and a small cadre of pipe-hitting, heavily armed and trained nuclear materials transportation escort guards, are just another government agency.
Your local post office has more in common with a military Organization than DOE. DOE is physicists and specialized engineers. DOE is likely the only agency that had the engineers who could spec this device out to Apple. And it is likely that another agency (CIA) was shepherding they request. Also, the assumption that it was a Geiger counter is likely an oversimplification. The iPod could also just had been the logging, or data collection device. If these iPods were the sensors, they were more likely to validate and add precision to hits that other, wider ranging clandestine detectors had picked up.
I would also assume that Apple had also produced iPods intended to be dropped and found by targets In foreign countries, who would then unknowingly install a monitoring / control product onto their “secure” systems. The documentation on similar items are out there thanks to Snowden. And in the era of the iPod, nations like Iran, Pakistan, China, etc had less access to shiny, aspirational Apple products, and even highly comped scientists (for their home country) would place material temptation over common sense and fall for such a ruse. Much more so than the old “found a dropped usb drive” trick.
I think the couple of hundred thousand or so WWII dead and relatives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki might call bullsh*t on that level of denial.
That’s quite the cope there... I pointed out flawed claim, and you attack with a snippy argument that isn’t relevant. Regardless of the ethics of the WWII-ending uses of the atomic bomb, the DOE is not part of the armed forces of the United States (however war-era development did place aspects of Developmental organization under military leadership, as occured in many war-materials industries at the time including food and textile production).
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Dude...no company is truly consumer friendly or privacy respecting.
There is no such thing as privacy.
Everything is recorded.
Even our conversation right now is recorded.
Hail Capitalist Hydra!
A "snippy argument"? A couple of hundred thousand dead, and the only country to ever actually use Weapons of Mass Destruction, and indeed, use it on civilian targets, and not just one city, but hey, let's double up on it and destroy two cities full of civilians - men, women, and children, young and old, and leave those cities full of nuclear radiation that causes horrendous cancers for decades, and it's a "snippy argument". I do see your point though, those bombs weren't dropped on military targets, so I suppose you could argue that it wasn't a military action.
Huawei isn’t a reluctant pa
I don’t know who you are trying to explain that to, but that isn’t what upon you were called out.
Regardless, the Nagasaki Alternative target was definitely a military target. There were several critical munitions factories clustered together in the valley. One of which was the largest torpedo factory in the world.
Side note: Japanese torpedos made there and elsewhere contributed to sinking numerous allied and neutral ships including the USS Astoria with 239 US servicemen dead (none were DoE personnel). The wreck of this vessel was located by a privately funded venture of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who got his startin technology by poking around with university projects partially funded by DOEforce.
Quick thought exercise (let’s see if you can even answer without sidestepping the argument): Had the US atomic bomb been ready far enough ahead of time to use before the european front had ended, would you denounce a hypothetical attack atomic on nazi germany?
Anywho, enough time wasted on you. Back to your reddit orange man bad hug box.
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Very cool indeed. It makes me wonder what else the government has sought to collaborate with Apple about on such a level.