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Senator Asks Apple and Google to Require Clear Privacy Policies for Apps
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Label: May cause drowsiness
Nytol sleeping pills
Label: This product may contain nuts
Peanut M&Ms
Label: This program may be able to locate your whereabouts (Al Frankin)
TomTom Navigation for iOS
We don't need additional warnings. We need people to become more personally aware for themselves:
You have a Cell Phone with a GPS chip in it and the phone contains memory? Well, one may conclude that there *could* be a possibility that the phone could log your location over time and store it somewhere in memory for later use. If you are paranoid, toggle location services off.
Should a coffee cup have really need warning for you that the contents may be hot?
Nytol sleeping pills
Label: This product may contain nuts
Peanut M&Ms
Label: This program may be able to locate your whereabouts (Al Frankin)
TomTom Navigation for iOS
We don't need additional warnings. We need people to become more personally aware for themselves:
You have a Cell Phone with a GPS chip in it and the phone contains memory? Well, one may conclude that there *could* be a possibility that the phone could log your location over time and store it somewhere in memory for later use. If you are paranoid, toggle location services off.
Should a coffee cup have really need warning for you that the contents may be hot?
Wes, are you seriously saying that many bad SCOTUS decisions OVER CENTURIES (!) collectively and cohesively led to this? Come on, this is how the provisions are refined in the entire constitution, and exactly how the founding fathers expected the Constitution to be refined (that is, when they weren't "fighting slavery"... thanks Michelle Bachmann aka one half of Bachmann-Palin Overdrive, the Dumbest People on Earth. I always love that one. And thanks to those brave patriots in Concord, New Hampshire, too, for that shot heard 'round the world and that bridge thingy and stuff).
And to be perfectly honest, the commerce clause as legislated ain't too bad for what it has to cover and the need to strike a balance between federal interests and state interests, which have grown from barter commerce with adjacent states in the beginning to today's astoundingly complex commerce across the continent and the world.
When SCOTUS decided that growing your own wheat, on your own land, for your own personal consumption could be regulated as interstate commerce, I'd say they had refined to about the level of powdered sugar.
Regular M&Ms and most MARS products contain peanut or significant enough traces of peanuts to kill most people with an allergy, and that's why they're labelled as containing peanuts.
That's beyond misleading, it's blatantly dishonest.
Of course the issue in Wickard v Filburn is whether his actions had an effect on interstate commerce. The federal interest was because they were trying to keep the entire farm economy from collapsing and causing a complete social breakdown. A drop in wheat prices would have had a tidal effect throughout the ag economy, especially in the late 30's. Filburn said he was growing it for his own use, but he was planting more acreage than he was allowed, and the feds determined that he was affecting commerce because the wheat prices would drop if that grain went to market. Prior restraint? Maybe. The feds may have been right, though. 20-20 hindsight and all. Not a simple issue at all.
Farming in general has always had kind of protected status in our economy because we can't under any circumstances allow a farm economy to crumble and starve the population, of which about 97% are non-farmers, and unable to feed themselves. And no seed stock for that backyard garden you think would tide you over.
Lexington (where the British first shot at and killed colonial minutemen on the town common) and Concord (where the colonial minutemen first shot at and killed British soldiers at the old north bridge) are adjoining towns IN MASSACHUSETTS. Each claims to be the location of the shot heard round the world, and it depends on whether you think the outrage of the British firing on colonists or the colonists being ballsy enough to shoot back later that morning is what the rest of the world took notice of. If you are going to try and sound smart, get your geography right.
I wonder if Apple could take another step on the system they have.
At the moment you get a blank request to use location services, plus I can go to location services see which app want location data, which ones are allowed, which one have made requests in the last 24 hours at any time and deny further info reaching that App. Yet the location services API allows a lot of fine grain control on part of the developer of how accurate the information is and how often. Why not give the user more info to make an informed choice?
To me the next step would be a simple 'more info' option to expand on that simple request. It only needs to be two Sentences one from Apple that would spell out in plan language what accuracy level of data has been requested. Something like "SuperTVProgramme app has requested a the location of your nearest cell tower and to be updated if your location changes by more 100km." another Sentence from the developer that they provide when they request saying why they would like that info. Maybe add a nice map that shows two dots one in blue with blue circle for what the app will be told and the other in another colour showing your GPS accurate position.
If the two don't seem to gel the user has more info to work from in making their choice. Even if the developer hasn't provided their half of the information the API provided side would still make it easier to make and informed choice. As the user would now be approving a finer grain of information the request would have to be popped up again if the request changed.
The point is not about MARS, it is about the Gov't requiring warnings and policy acceptance/awareness for everything. Most of these are either born out of litigation from some nitwit who spills a cup of coffee in a lap and believes a great injustice has been done because McDonalds hadn't warned her that Coffee was HOT!, or through some advocate in Congress that believes that the public is too stupid to think for themselves, thus requiring disclosure for every little thing.
The bottom line is that nobody is safer because of a few words printed on cups or through some legaleze that is presented before installing a program. Harm will be done. What has happened, however, is government finds yet another opening in which to exploit to gain just a little more control of you and business.
Tell me... How many warning stickers are plastered in your car? Can you tell me what they cover and can you honestly say that you are safer because there is a stupid white/yellow/black/red label on your visor? Where did all these come from?.... either litigation or government intervention.
The label warning you that your truck can tip over at high rates of speed in a tight turn DOESNT prevent the event from happening. Any rational person could see this as a potential issue before the label was affixed. However, we, the consumers pay extra for ever truck produced for these labels to be stuck, and for the legal teams required by every car manufacturer to ensure that they are in full compliance with Federal DOT and Highway Administration regulations REQUIRING that all vehicles proudly display the graphic of a stick figure being flung from a moving vehicle.
You may not see it, but this is just the beginning of the creation of a new governmental agency to regulate and monitor software producers and technology creators to "protect the unknowing public" from harm... Just as how OSHA, FDOT, Dept of Education, etc. were created.
... Bad things will come from those with the best of intentions.
Bad example. There's hot coffee, and then there way too d@mn hot coffee.
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
Now think about your 80 year old grandma receiving those burns. The woman was 79 when she got that surprise.
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That's easy to answer, as long as we are dealing with companies that are seriously interested in protecting themselves from having to deal with the negative fallout of a security breach on their devices.
Since we are talking about a phone in this case, it has the ability to bypass the iCloud if the software is written right.
However, Apple does have an interesting level of control over the level of security that Android-based phones will never have:
1. Apple has control over the hardware and firmware design of one phone per year. Compare this to approx. 33 Android phone manufacturers putting out multiple phone models per year. Other then the top seven, who is making these other phones?
2. Apple has control over their own iOS and iOS updates. Compare this to the Android market where flavors and versions abound with no certain upgrade path exists. This is especially serious if an exploit of one of the flavors or versions of Android should be found.
3. Apple has oversight of all of the App Store programs. If one should be found to have security issues, it won't (a) be allowed to get into the store, or (b) if it does make it past the vetting process, Apple can deactivate all copies sold. Compare this to no oversight of the myriad of Android applications that are for all the various phone models, and android flavors & versions, written by programmers, some of which are not licensed to write Androiapplications. The door is wide open for abuse and there is no way to easily or certainly deactivate malware applications.
It seems to me that Google and Android phone manufacturers have a lot to fear the day serious exploitation malware is discovered. Once the platform is felt to be unsafe by the public, it may never regain market comfidence...especially by the government and enterprise customers.
Sony are gaming accounts, credit card numbers related to kids gaming accounts. It's not really an example of Apps spying on people and reporting home but it's a good example of how peoples' credit can be exploited through lax corporate treatment of sensitive information.
People don't do a lot of online banking or bill paying from their Playstation accounts.
I don't want to hype the consequences but if something like the Sony disaster were to befall smartphones it would be quite a lot worse. Just think about what people use their smart phones for, as opposed to their online gaming account.
Yes, it's in their self interest to do this whether or not Al Franken is involved.
But the lawyers in congress are all for attorney full employment acts, so that all their law school buddies can rake in all the profits that would otherwise go to computer nerds and small developers. Why leave any money on the table for us non-lawyers?
Could not agree more Getting all bent out of shape over Apple's App Store, but no worries when it comes to The Patriot Act and ATT handing over all your voice and Data to the NSA.....
"Oh man... the ******** piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it." Apocalypse Now....
But the lawyers in congress are all for attorney full employment acts, so that all their law school buddies can rake in all the profits that would otherwise go to computer nerds and small developers. Why leave any money on the table for us non-lawyers?
I thought the did that by allowing patents to be extended well beyond intent and ensure creative people never made a profit.
Wait... yes the App store has been skirting that aim. So I guess they need the two fronted attack.
Our caring and concerned politicians pulling another undercover publicity stunt...
I wonder why...
I wonder why...
Agreed. I could hardly put the current powers that be in the transparent or accountable camp.