
BlackBerry update bursting with spyware - vaksel
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/14/blackberry_snooping/
======
Elessar
What a dishonest title. An update from an Mobile Phone provider included
spyware purposely put there by said provider. This has very little to do with
the "BlackBerry update".

I know that this is how media gets its hits, by phrasing their articles in
such ways to draw your attention. So yes, use those creative juices and come
with suspenseful one-liners.

But I despise intentional attempts to mislead.

~~~
davi
_HN is an experiment. As a rule, a community site that becomes popular will
decline in quality. Our hypothesis is that this is not inevitable—that by
making a conscious effort to resist decline, we can keep it from happening._
<http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>

How can a site as large as HN motivate people to avoid repeating linkbait
titles? If you submit a toned-down, but more accurate title, it often falls
quietly off the New page... I don't see a solution.

~~~
grinich
Post interesting articles? If they're any good, you won't have to change the
title.

~~~
davi
Sure, this is the approach I try to take.

But there are chaff articles that get more attention than I (personally, yes
it's subjective) think they deserve, because the title is flashier than it
could/should be. In an ideal world, this wouldn't be rewarded by the group
dynamic. With a smaller community, people will learn to deprecate a 'flashy'
submitter's titles but that can't really happen in a community as large as
this one's. I think it's an interesting problem.

\--

edit, here's a recent example I participated in:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704348>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704664>

The flashy dupe got 19 points, vs. 8 for a deeper bunch of information I
posted in response. I'm not saying this because I care about the discrepancy
on a personal level -- it's just an easy-to-recall example of what I'm talking
about, because I participated in it. In fact, in this case, hey, maybe people
want the quick fix: "Ooh! Graphene! Cool!" Upvote, and move on.

But this verges on falling in this category:

 _The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but
shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or
videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto a
news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to be
quieter._ (<http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>)

------
arihelgason
Here's the source <http://iihs.net/registration.zip> (courtesy of
[http://www.blackberrycool.com/2009/07/uae-spying-on-
citizens...](http://www.blackberrycool.com/2009/07/uae-spying-on-citizens-
through-an-etisalat-blackberry-update/) )

Not very subtle to call the class "interceptor" !

------
arihelgason
I wonder how susceptible the iphone would be to this sort of snooping.

~~~
duskwuff
Less so - ironically, as a result of Apple's anti-piracy/unlock efforts. The
Blackberry spyware that's being distributed here depends on the user's ability
to apply arbitrary firmware updates, which isn't possible on the iPhone.

