If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times:the iPhone will be the downfall of modern civilization as we know it.And, not just because it promotes that crazy Rock music that's all the rage with those teen-aged Greasers in their high-tops and leather jackets. It's much worse than that, says Apple. It could even promote drug trafficking.

According to Apple, "each iPhone contains a unique Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID) number that identifies the phone to the cell tower. With access to the BBP via jailbreaking, hackers may be able to change the ECID, which in turn can enable phone calls to be made anonymously (this would be desirable to drug dealers, for example...". That's a lot of acronyms that seem to suggest that, allowing users to change their ECID via the BBP could leave us all SOL, FUBAR, and possibly DOA.

But, it gets worse: "More pernicious forms of activity may also be enabled. For example, a local or international hacker could potentially initiate commands (such as a denial of service attack) that could crash the tower software, rendering the tower entirely inoperable to process calls or transmit data. In short, taking control of the BBP software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer – to potentially catastrophic result. The technological protection measures were designed into the iPhone precisely to prevent these kinds of pernicious activities..."

Though this makes no sense, whatsoever, to most people, the use of the word "pernicious" twice in the same paragraph should be very very frightening to anyone who knows the definition. (Pernicious [\pər-ˈni-shəs\] : highly injurious or destructive : deadly)

The co-founders of Apple changed the world by soldering parts together in their garages. If they say it's going to end, we might want to take them seriously. It seems to me that the message is clear: Fight the iPhone hacking, drug-dealing, bandwidth-hogging hippies over there, or we'll have to fight them over here in our own backyards.

Is there an app for that?

Don't believe me? Read more @ Wired (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/jailbreak/)

In an ironically Orwellian move, on July 17, 2009 Amazon.com remotely deleted illegally-sold copies of George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" from its customer's Kindle e-book readers.

This issue is unique to electronic goods, so it's important to parse the words carefully. The books were indeed sold illegally through, and by, Amazon.com. The legitimacy of the purchases, however, does not seem to be in question. The Kindle owners made a legal purchase, of an item that was not legal for Amazon.com to sell in the United States.

The electronic books that Amazon sold are in the public domain in Canada and Australia, but not in the United States. Effectively, works in the public domain belong to the public. What can be confusing, however, is that something in the public domain--or free to use-- in one country, may not be public domain in another.  Naturally, an Amazon.com purchaser might simply assume--considering that Amazon requires their billing address to make a purchase--that the item they were purchasing was neither free, nor illegal to purchase

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10290133-23.html

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske.

According to Wired:

The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts. That’s largely because the FCC had little to do with average citizens for most of the last 75 years, when home transmitters were largely reserved to ham-radio operators and CB-radio aficionados. But in 2009, nearly every household in the United States has multiple devices that use radio waves and fall under the FCC’s purview, making the commission’s claimed authority ripe for a court challenge.

Wired: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/fcc-raid/

Wired
Judge: Copyright Owners Must Consider 'Fair Use' Before Sending Takedown Notice

"A federal judge rules that copyright owners must first consider "fair use" before sending takedown notices to online video-sharing sites like YouTube requiring removal of clips. Universal Music argued it could send a takedown notice even if a posting qualified as a fair use of a copyright."

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http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/topheadlines/~3/370400972/judge-copyright.html

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