I’ve been trying to figure out what the Google/Verizon announcement means.  It’s not easy to do, in large part because the announcement doesn’t precisely announce anything.  It’s titled a “legislative framework proposal.”  That is, on its own terms it’s not an agreement between two companies — neither is bound to do anything by it, which [...]

Game on. A featureless update released recently by TI blocks a hack that allowed owners to write their own programs for the company’s Nspire calculator. It’s not immediately obvious what rationale TI used to justify the block. It isn’t under pressure to protect the commercial interests of a partner service provider. And worst case, a [...]

It’s hard to know what to make of the Google/Verizon deal since until earlier today both companies have denied that there is one. And it’s hard to argue about net neutrality because it means so many different things to different people. I’ve got lots of reading to do to catch up on the newly released [...]

“Why did you walk around all day with rubber balls in your hands?” Orr sniggered again. “I did it to protect my good reputation in case anyone ever caught me walking around with crab apples in my cheeks. With rubber balls in my hands I could deny there were crab apples in my cheeks. Every [...]

Nick Bilton over at the NYT Bits Blog has the story of Internet security consultant Ronald Bowes’s recent Facebook caper.  Ron noticed that Facebook has a directory of its users, just like the old Bell Telephone White Pages.  I agree with Ron’s assessment that this is a very little-noticed feature: normally one searches on Facebook [...]

Control over tethered appliances basically comes in two forms: pre-approval of apps and kill switches. As this blog has documented, Apple has had a very heavy hand in screening apps, but — as far as we know — they haven’t ever used the iPhone kill switch. I was a little surprised to find that out, [...]

iPad security breach. Even closed systems can be vulnerable to exploitation.  A group of high-profile iPad owners, including President Obama’s Chief of Staff among 114,000 others, had their email addresses exposed by a web security group.  Although it was AT&T’s network that was compromised, Apple is shouldering much of the blame, since it denies iPad [...]

A few weeks ago Internet security firm McAfee released an update to its Windows PC customers designed to protect them against a newly detected virus threat.  Instead, for some, the update destroyed a legitimate, and crucial, system file.  Uncountable numbers of PCs – likely hundreds of thousands, even millions – were rendered unusable.  The University [...]

Google launches Government Requests tool. Google is now making public information on the requests it receives from government agents to remove content from its search results or reveal private user data. The Government Requests tool currently displays the number and type of requests by country for the last six months of 2009. In a bit [...]

I’ll be offline until about May 10.  In the meantime, um, keep it generative!  …JZ