Well, the Google privacy policies have been consolidated, which means less piecewise freedom for people who use one or two Google products. I, for example, use Mail and (barely) use Search. I don't need to agree to things about Google+!
And jailbreaking Apple devices, while possible and, in some cases, easy, has never been encouraged by or even considered by Apple. In order to jailbreak, you have to find exploits in the software. This is opposed to free software, where you are able to do anything you want with the phone's software from the start--no exploits, no jailbreaking, just freedom.
I love this article for its irony, intentional or no.
The author cites perfect examples of why the software industry is exactly like Hollywood with its products. Word? Need a license key. Can't open or save ODT files without annoying popups. Apple? Don't even try to partition the system or it will break, and don't use the software on non-Apple hardware. Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about privacy policies?
Of course, the biggest problem is that none of those instances of software are even accessible (fully) by their users. The user can't change the software, they can't even use the software in every capacity.
So I guess the real question is, why are we still acting like Hollywood?
In the past two years, they decided to remove my major (Computer Science) completely from the curriculum for new students (so current sophomores are unable to join the department except to minor), they cut tens of professors from the faculty, and they cut down on several other costs.
In the same time period, they spend tens of thousands of dollars redesigning the main website, several more thousand redesigning the internal student-facing website (based on Blackboard and Moodle in a bizarre zombie formation), and upgraded several nonfree services they provided (Outlook Web Access, Blackboard, Datatel). They also bought and paid for the construction of a park just south of campus, which cannot be feasibly used by students but serves to essentially advertise the university. They also purchased additional radio ads, several front-page ads in the LA Times, and well-placed billboard advertisements.
Higher education in America has made its priorities clear, I think.
How can you in one post extoll a free/open internet, and after it post links to nonfree sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+? Start walking the walk.
* Actors can act in non-Hollywood movies and TV shows. In fact, they can act in Creative Commons-licensed stuff, too. Why is that a problem?
* Progress? Hulu and Vevo place the same digital content we were once able to own and manipulate into chains. We are no longer even allowed to watch it at our leisure.
* Great works still happen without big industry.
I think this author doesn't understand that YC isn't attacking the idea of movies and TV shows--they're attacking the moronic copyright-related actions of the industry.
Also, rather than supporting the MPAA/RIAA industry, try checking out the Blender Foundation, Jamendo, and similar sites that stream or support free content that is licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
And of course, since software is as big an issue as creative content, it should be said that the FSF is having a donation drive currently: https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom
Yesterday was a huge victory for the Internet. We fought valiantly to stop an unjust legislation that should never have even been written.
But we haven't done enough. Head to the link above (or to https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom) to join the Free Software Foundation in their fight to not only stop unjust laws, but to prevent circumstances that lead to them. Our duty as citizens is not just to fight the unjust laws when they come up, but to fight against an unjust system!
We can get Congress to vote down SOPA/PIPA, or alternatively get the next Congress to repeal it, but there's a fundamental flaw in the way that we, the consumers, do business. Yes, our Congress is taking severe steps in the wrong direction, but we contributed significantly to that direction as well.
The permanent solution is not to stop one law or even a multitude of laws in perpetuity. The permanent solution is to change the methods by which we create (and allow to be created) copyrighted material. That means encouraging the use of Creative Commons and Free Software licenses like the GPL, Apache, BSD, and WTFPL (to name a few). We, as consumers, need to make shifts that not only deny these laws to affect us to our detriment, but also deny the companies supporting these laws the money to push them through.
In short, America and the rest of the world contributed heavily to these actions by Congress. Even as these laws get voted down, we must start to take steps that prevent them from happening again.
I saw this in the paper yesterday, but I was immediately disappointed to see that their primary forms of switching away from cable not only required cable Internet connection (because let's face it, DSL and others have no way to stream that quickly), but also required nonfree software (Silverlight for Netflix, Flash for Hulu). The world can offer so much more to these people who have been wronged by corporations, but for some reason, they keep moving from one bad corporation to another! Even the Occupy movement, who are supposedly protesting against the influence of corporations, are using nonfree, corporation-run sites to spread their propaganda. Why are people so blind?
But that argument is also flawed--free software in web applications is possible through other forms of revenue generation. Advertisements, services related to the product, in-app purchases....none of those options are precluded simply because the company chooses to respect their users. In fact, those options become a lot more prevalent, since there's no longer any payment for the service. But since the users saved that money, they will probably pay more for the extras--and they'll certainly be happy that they're allowed to change the product. This will also benefit the original site, since they get the changes made by everyone else.
The point of the vulnerability was, it wasn't even designed to be malevolent. The application simply had a hole that every application had, under certain circumstances, and he was demonstrating it. I imagine that he was as interested in fixing his app as every other developer is!
> The main thing to take away from all of this is that iOS apps aren't as secure as we once thought
Really? Because the main thing I took away from it was that Apple and Microsoft both have this power, to essentially tell people that they can't use a piece of software in a certain way. They also have the power to stop someone from understanding the vulnerabilities of their own devices.
This is why I use Replicant and Trisquel GNU/Linux.