Having read thousands upon thousands of remarks on this growing scandal, it has become clear to me that many understand it doesn’t matter, but few if any have been willing to actually say it. Speaking candidly, if that’s still allowed, that’s the way it always goes when someone of institutional significance launches a campaign to defend an indefensible intrusion into our private spaces. They make a mad dash to the supposed high ground, from which they speak in low, solemn tones about their moral mission before fervently invoking the dread spectre of the Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse, warning that only a dubious amulet—or suspicious software update—can save us from the most threatening members of our species.
Suddenly, everybody with a principled objection is forced to preface their concern with apologetic throat-clearing and the establishment of bonafides: I lost a friend when the towers came down, however… As a parent, I understand this is a real problem, but…
An excellent and scathing takedown of Apple’s planned backdoors.
The people who have talked about the technical problems, myself included, are not “missing the point” and I disagree with waving away the technical and procedural details. IMHO it is important to talk about both the technical vulnerabilities as well as the slippery slope mission creep.
Point taken, but really apple crossed this line a long time ago. This just another affirmation that apple controls the devices and not the consumers who buy them.
I would like to request a single omnibus Apple, Google, Facebook, and/or other big tech firms suck post detailing all the stories that week; so that the rest of the week we can get a greater variety of other news.
jockm,
It’s long been the case that the giants dominate the headlines at the expense of everything else, unfortunately. Everyone’s free to submit news of course, but the majority of my submissions don’t get posted, which kind of discourages me from putting much thought or effort into it. Sometimes there are things I’d really like to discuss but they’re off topic for articles, it’s a conundrum, haha.
At the end of the day though it’s Thom’s blog.
Which is a shame because it used to be a news site