Apple is Evil

Don’t get me wrong -- Apple isn’t particularly more evil than a lot of other tyrannical behemoths;  it has a lot of competition in that department.   But with the news of the iPhone6 with i0S8 offering semi-unbreakable encryption with no law-enforcement back door, it has brazenly allied itself with criminals.

Already the new phone has led to an eruption from the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey. At a news conference on Thursday devoted largely to combating terror threats from the Islamic State, Mr. Comey said, “What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to hold themselves beyond the law.”

He cited kidnapping cases, in which exploiting the contents of a seized phone could lead to finding a victim, and predicted there would be moments when parents would come to him “with tears in their eyes, look at me and say, ‘What do you mean you can’t’ ” decode the contents of a phone.

“The notion that someone would market a closet that could never be opened — even if it involves a case involving a child kidnapper and a court order — to me does not make any sense.”

Apple declined to comment. But officials inside the intelligence agencies, while letting the F.B.I. make the public protests, say they fear the company’s move is the first of several new technologies that are clearly designed to defeat not only the N.S.A., but also any court orders to turn over information to intelligence agencies. They liken Apple’s move to the early days of Swiss banking, when secret accounts were set up precisely to allow national laws to be evaded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/technology/iphone-locks-out-the-nsa-signaling-a-post-snowden-era-.html?_r=0

If that kidnapping scenario should come to pass (and that is not in the least far-fetched;  we’re in the middle of one right now in Charlottesville), and someone dies because of Apple’s giving the finger to law enforcement, they will be in the position of Dr Strangelove, whose very clever Doomsday Machine  had unanticipated consequences.   Only, these are easy to anticipate.   Felony accomplice before the fact?  Apple execs in handcuffs, or assaulted by an enraged mob?

(Justy to clarify, in case it isn’t obvious:  It’s fine that everything on the phone is encrypted, bravo; fine that a court order should be required to obtain the keys to unlock the encryption.  What is not fine, is that the keys should nowhere exist.)

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To get hold of a perp’s cell, you usually have to catch the perp;  and that cuts down on the number of times a “ticking bomb” scenario could arise.  But there are plenty of possible scenarios in which law enforcement would have a legitimate reason to access the contents of a cellphone, even one that did not belong to the criminals or their accomplices.

Thus, to stray no farther than the University of Virginia case already mentioned. …

[To be continued]

 

For some schadenfreude:

http://www.euronews.com/2014/09/26/launch-of-iphone6-staggers-from-disaster-to-derision/

For Cato the Elder’s take on other evil Apple antics:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/08/flash-apple-declares-bankruptcy.html

[Disclosure:  Writing this on a Mac … ]

La sauce au jars

One of the less endearing media manifestations of vox pop is the game of Blame Obama -- for just about anything:  the weather,  your messed-up lovelife, the fall of the Roman empire …  Well, turnaround is fair play;  so although this one, targeting Gingrich, may be a mite far-fetched, still, let us dunk him in this vat of gander-sauce, and see how he likes it.

As the Obama administration continues to unsuck its health care website, one questions lingers: How did this important government project get so screwed up? If you ask technologist Clay Johnson, the insurance exchange's problems began, in a way, in 1995, when "Congress decided to lobotomize itself."

Johnson was referring to a specific action lawmakers took then: They killed a tiny federal agency called the Office of Technology Assessment. Established in 1972 as Congress' nonpartisan in-house think tank, the OTA studied new technologies and offered recommendations on how Washington could adapt to them. But then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) turned off its lights.

"An OTA review might have prevented some heartburn and embarrassment" associated with the Healthcare.gov rollout, argues Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), an astrophysicist who has previously introduced legislation that would resurrect the agency.

Warning Congress about problems with Healthcare.gov—and explaining them—would have been right in OTA's wheelhouse. The office, Rep. George Brown (D-Calif.) dryly remarked in 1995, was a "defense against the dumb." During its 24-year existence, the agency developed a reputation for sharp, foresighted analysis on the problems of the new information age: It called for a new, reinforced tanker design a decade before the Exxon-Valdez spill; emphasized the danger of fertilizer bombs 15 years before Oklahoma City; predicted in 1982 that email would render the postal service obsolete; and warned that President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (better known as "Star Wars") would likely result in a "catastrophic failure" if it were ever used.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/office-technology-assessment-gingrich-obamacare

For further dish about Gingrich, and his various Gingrettas, click here.

Google to go for the Superbowl

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In a move that surprised some naive observers, though long anticipated by the well-informed, Google today announced  that it would be fielding an NFL team this season.   Their spokesperson explained:

“Face it -- whatever we choose to turn our hand to, we do better than anyone else.  It stands to reason that the same applies to football. 

“That we shall be winning the trophy is a foregone conclusion;  to add some spice, our stated goal is rather to have an undefeated season, with no turnovers.”

The teammates in question are being developed in Google’s genetics lab.  The question  whether it was quite cricket to use genetically enhanced players  was dismissed with a wave of the hand.  “Ever since they let that android on springy-sproingy high-tech blades  run in the Olympics, there are no standards.  Anything goes.  Anything will go.”

Stunned by the news, Amazon retaliated immediately, vowing that they too would enter the gridiron, and show those Google wannabes how the thing is done.  “We come to play football,” they said. 

Asked how Amazon could possibly hope to compete against the Google Foot-bots®, they replied that their teammates would have a superior esprit de corps, since they would all be melded together in a multi-man gay marriage -- a cause especially dear to Amazon CEO Jess Bezos.

The response from Apple was muted.   It did not indicate any immediate intentions to field a team, but noted that, since Apple holds the patent on all non-spherical shapes for balls, there could be royalty issues.

Digitizing into Oblivion

[Update 15 Jan 2012]
Read it and weep:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-offers-praise-for-a-donors-business.html?_r=1&hpw
Truly, this guy is scum.

[Update 28 April 2012]  No but -- for real.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/opinion/collins-a-very-pricey-pineapple.html?src=me&ref=general

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A new movement  within, or we might say against, education, conveniently combines increased profits for tech companies (and perks for the bureaucrats who award those contracts) with the broader attack against unions in general and teachers in particular.    It downgrades the pesky human factor, and provides students instead with a digital simulacrum or cybernetic prosthesis.   This teaching-style is ideal for raising a generation of autists.  Your can read all about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/technology/idaho-teachers-fight-a-reliance-on-computers.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

A comment on the human costs here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/01/word-of-week-to-downromney.html

Now, folks, I am no Luddite.   I majored in math with a minor in physics, and took biology, astronomy, and chemistry-for-chem-majors as well.  While editor-in-chief at Franklin Computer/ Franklin Electronic Publishers, I crafted electronic reference products for schools.  The Web is wonderful;  I burn frankincense before Wikipedia in little jade bowls.   But I sense a scam here.

For one thing, the effects of such technology-driven juggernauts  are visible in my own very large public-sector workplace -- one which is extravagantly well-funded in some ways, unbelievably underfunded in others  -- mostly in ways that inconvenience the workforce . 

Some of these technology ‘upgrades’ obviously waste money and may be the result of sheer inertia or even kickbacks.  As when the old photocopiers that worked just fine (and which are decreasingly needed as the office is now largely paperless)  are replaced by monstrous behemoths, split for some reason into two different units connected by cables that eat up floorspace (itself at a premium  since we're crammed-in like pickles in a jar), and which jam all the time.  Or, thousand-dollar “smartboards” that nobody uses.

Tellingly in this context, one of the (by far) lower-cost items -- books -- have come in for particular budgetary axing, and ideological attack.

Judging by our old holdings, we once had a respectable if not world-class collection  in such areas as languages and mathematics.   (As, a multi-volume masterpiece on Yemeni tribal poetry, written in French by an eccentric Swedish count, based on his travels in the nineteenth century.  Or, the Gesammelte Abhandlungen of Hermann Weyl.)  These treasures were spread principally over three locations:  the main campus, the research campus, and the school.

Then they closed the libraries at the school and at the research facility.  The books went into boxes, maybe some into the dumpster, I don’t know.

Then the remaining library was starved for funds.  It has not been able to buy new books for years; key journal subscriptions have lapsed.

Lost in the stacks

The last time I visited the remains of our main library,  the comfy chairs had been stacked in a corner with a sign “Do Not Move”.   The map-room had been roped-off:  “No admittance”.    And the librarians had a haunted, hunted air -- it felt like Fahrenheit 451. 

Though the fact has absolutely not been publicized, and is to be presented rather as a fait accompli, our last remaining library is in fact scheduled for the chopping block.   The books might just be pulped. (I’ve been working with a sister institution to see if it will house the refugees.)   And a nervous librarian told me that, in the mean-time,  “We’re not supposed to use the word ‘library’ anymore.” 

What, I said, uncertain of having heard aright.  Some new taboo?  That-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named ?

“We’ve been told to say ‘data delivery portal’,” or something like that.  And printed matter (what our grandparents referred to as “books”) is to be replaced by software.   The new system is already in beta, only it’s a strange kind of beta, since none of the library uses are aware of it and hence are not trying it out, and indeed the librarian had been warned that she was not to let people know of its existence.  Feeling as though I had stumbled into some paranoid thriller set behind the Iron Curtain, I followed her as, in a hush, she penetrated to the rear of her ill-lit cluttered office, and she demonstrated how it works.

I wanted to browse recent issues of the American Mathematical Monthly.  The system, it seemed, wasn’t really set up to do that, but you could seek a particular article if you already knew its title and so forth.  We tried a few, and most had only the title and perhaps an abstract, with “Text Unavailable”.  But finally we found one that said Click here for full text.  We clicked.  No text.

I raised a skeptical sexagenarian eyebrow.

She shrugged helplessly.  “That’s what it does.  I’ve told the development team several times, but they say they are satisfied with the way it works.”

Well of course they are !   On-time and under-budget!  The actual utility of the product doesn’t matter -- none of the people who sign off on  or enforce these things  do actual research.

And the kids will look great for the photographers, posed before the rows and rows of screens.

Two options confront us.

(1)  Fight this thing.

(2)  Shut up and drink the Kool-Aid, and sing this merry tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ&NR=1

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There are many well-thought-out experience-based Readers’ Comments on the NYTimes article.  Samples:

I see that most readers were not fooled by this computer snake oil. I am a former computer industry engineering director, now a college professor and also a faculty advisor for "Mastering Physics" one of the best (the best?) online learning systems for physics. I STILL think the teachers are right. My students do use Mastering Physics, but if I had smaller classes I would use it less. There is something about working with pencil and paper in math and science that involves you with your thoughts in an intimate way that no computer can. The famous mathematician Ramanujan used a slate and chalk because he had no pencil and paper. Our students would probably be OK to use a tablet computer if they treat it like Ramanujan's slate. I agree with others that having a computer on invites multi-tasking and distraction. I also note that my students treat online homework like a computer game. They guess at answers rapidly and see what sticks rather than carefully working out solutions and then entering a final result. The Mastering Physics software attempts to guide them through the solution process, but it is still much better if they can accomplish the work without a guide.

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I am a former 3rd grade teacher from a low income school in NYC. I was an education major years ago when it really was a serious subject with courses in developmental psychology, philosophy, etc etc. I wanted to teach and took it seriously. Of course we had no computers then, but I know I would have embraced them and used them well. However, I went into teaching because I wanted to help kids learn and they knew that. I became attached to lots of the kids, and them to me.

Many years later, I got a calll from a psychiatric facility that a former student of mine was hospitalized. He told the nurse that he remembered me and that I said I would help anyone of my students if I could. The nurse put him on the phone, and we chatted a while, and he calmed down. What an honor for me (and he was not the only student I ever heard from, there have been many).

Now I know this is emotional and intense but I ask, how many students would remember a computer or an online instructor who never saw them in person, and would have done this??

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Technology in the classroom is a nuanced issue, and the Idaho legislature has approached it with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. In my experience with technology in the classroom (which includes a high school that required laptops), the results were definitely a mixed bag.

Unrestricted laptop use in class encouraged online chatting, and I can honestly say that I do not remember anything from my two online undergrad courses.

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There are also a few posts, diametrically opposed, saying, basically, “Gleichschaltung!  Get with the program!!”  But, interestingly, though all the posters’ names are different, they each manage somehow to slip in the name of a certain ostensibly-not-for-profit company (that is for accounting and reporting purposes;  doesn't mean the insiders don't get rich)  that stands to benefit from this scam.  Additionally, since online content increasingly involves advertising, you can figure out cui prodest.  (There is a precedent in Chris Whittle's ad-infested classroom videos.)

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[Update 5 Jan 2012]

Another pertinent reader comment:

As a proud ex-Boise Brave, a student at the only high school in the state that consistently listed as one of the top 500 (or whatever the listing is) schools in the nation, I have one question:

How is the state with one of the worst internet speeds/cellphone coverages, where apparently BEARS TAKE OUT THE INTERNET, supposed to handle this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/downloads-are-slowest-in-idaho-stud...

Same deal at our language campus:  It was without Internet access for weeks, owing to some stupidity on the part of Verizon (which denied all responsibility).

So, if you use the Web as a teaching auxiliary, fine, wonderful;  but have a back-up plan.  (When I give a talk at work, I always bring paper handouts,  in case the computer doesn’t work, which is often the case.)

[Update April 2012].  Tetelestai.
The volumes have been carted offsite  to what we can only call a Konzentrationslager for books.
The vandals who accomplished this  are hopping about, scratching their armpits, and awarding each other  promotions.