Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Re-Thinking apple - oh yeah, one more thing...

A follow-up to my last post...

The recent news regarding apple is another thing for me to seriously consider (i.e. the government is trying to get them to break into a dead terrorists encrypted phone and they are refusing).

Once upon a time I had this dream, of a single card you could carry in your pocket, which could serve as your cash, your debit cards, all your credit cards, your insurance card, your drivers license, your passport. one card that would do it all, no more bulky wallets nor more hunting through piles of membership/rewards cards...

The smart phone is hovering near the edges of that dream. You can handle credit card pay through your phone now, some membership programs now send their special offers/rewards coupons directly to mobile phones....

Our phones are holding an increasing amount of extremely sensitive data: Financial data, health data. Friends' data...

A device with that much of my information NEEDS to be impregnable.

And the simple fact is - if the government has a back door, so does everybody else. So, I am watching this case to see whether technology will take a step forward, or backward. I am encouraged that Apple has said no, they won't decrypt it. I would feel much better if they said no, they CAN'T decrypt it.

But that being said, how this all shakes out could have a significant influence on my views on apple, in spite of my dislike for the 'cult of apple' and for the personal restrictions...

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