If Apple can disable third party apps remotely, who’s iPhone is it, anyway?

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20080806/if-apple-can-disable-third-party-apps-remotely-who%e2%80%99s-iphone-is-it-anyway/

by pbnaidu • 18 years ago

5 10 18 years ago

coolest-gadgets.com

gm• 18 years ago

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...

ardit33• 18 years ago

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.

tptacek• 18 years ago

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

Hexstream• 18 years ago

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

axod• 18 years ago

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

iigs• 18 years ago

"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.

a-priori• 18 years ago

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)

STHayden• 18 years ago

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

evgen• 18 years ago

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?]

nickd• 18 years ago

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.

If Apple can disable third party apps remotely, who’s iPhone is it, anyway?

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