
If Apple can disable third party apps remotely, who’s iPhone is it, anyway? - pbnaidu
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20080806/if-apple-can-disable-third-party-apps-remotely-who%e2%80%99s-iphone-is-it-anyway/
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gm
Seriously people, with Apple having the history it has, is anyone surprised by
this? Honestly, anyone? This is like someone writing a blog post complaining
that there are no clones for Apple hardware, or getting a cease and desist
after posting a picture of some theoretical apple hardware product...

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ardit33
I agree. Apple = evil.

And metaphorically speaking, the devil can look good, it doesn't have to ugly
and have horns.

Talking about evil, I bought a Mac Mini, and iPod touch, which was suposed to
be free, with student discount, and never recived it (the voucher). I emailed
customer support, nothing yet.

The only thing I have is going back to one of their stores, and start
complaining until somebody resolves the issue.

$300.00 they owe me back, is a lot of money.

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nickd
If used responsibly, I don't understand why this is a big deal. In my opinion
it's a pretty smart thing to have in place (Though I would hope they would put
some verification into the process in the future as not to be spoofed).
Imagine if a malicious app did get out of hand. Every trash blog is drooling
to write that very article. Apple's already had a perfect opportunity to use
it in the very way we're all worried about (Netshare) and they haven't. If
just makes me think that it's only purpose is to block applications that are
malicious to the enduser and nothing else. I guess only time will really tell.

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tptacek
It's your iPhone, but until you disconnect it from AT&T's network and stop
running Apple's software, Apple owns the runtime.

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Hexstream
whose (I'm surprised that's the actual title of the article!)

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evgen
If Mozilla can disable third-party extensions remotely, whose browser is it,
anyway?

[Anyone care to explain the difference between FireFox and the iPhone
regarding how each product deals with rogue extensions?]

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axod
Is "Apple bashing" the new "Why twitter doesn't scale"?

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iigs
"Apple bashing" isn't the new anything. Semi-informed
yay/boo-{apple,commodore,ibm} thing has been going on since at least the mid
'80s when you could buy software on floppy disks at your local Wal-
Mart/K-Mart, and probably before that but I wasn't old enough to witness it.

The most notable thing about the article in question is that the author seems
surprised and concerned that this functionality is there and that there isn't
a huge banner on apple.com about it.

RIM has access to the SSL keys used to encrypt traffic between Blackberry
handsets and the BES (I don't recall if they do Handset-RIM and RIM-BES crypto
or the keys are just escrowed). There are allegedly Nokia handset firmwares
that allow silent keying of the microphone, and OnStar has been used by the US
government in the same way allegedly, as well.

For science sake people, know what decade you're living in. Network providers
aren't going to sell you a device that they can't remotely manage. Unless
you're bringing a device to the network yourself it's definitely "owned" in at
least the script kiddie sense by the carriers.

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a-priori
About RIM's security: if you run a BES, you alone control the keys used to
encrypt data between the Blackberries and your BES. Even though the messages
pass through RIM's servers, all they know is the routing information to get it
to your BES.

I remember something recently where (I believe) the Indian government demanded
RIM hand over the keys to the BESes run by private Indian corporations. RIM
said they could not, because they did not have them.

Edit: Here's an article describing their security in more detail:
<http://seclists.org/isn/2008/May/0119.html> (apparently, the encryption I'm
talking about is an add-on feature -- news to me)

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STHayden
Almost any device that connect to a network these days is really just
something you are renting.

