Blog

• From privacy to accountability at IAPP

I’m co-moderating a retreat with John Palfrey about the future of privacy, and one of the morning provocateurs was Hal Abelson.  He mused back on the days of SAFE — a campaign against a U.S. government proposal for a “Clipper Chip” that would permit, with a warrant, the government to gain access to encrypted data without the permission of the keyholder(s).  Hal supported SAFE, but today said that the best ways to implement the values of privacy aren’t so much in worrying about who has access to what data, but how the data is used.  If that’s the case, I asked, have you rethought your support of SAFE?  To my surprise, Hal said yes: at least in a place under the rule of law, the ways to protect privacy are through process rather than through technology that cannot be broken, even if the process is followed.  That’s a very interesting shift from the days when Hal and I were among five people teaching a course on the legal and technical architectures of cyberspace. Read more »

• Disabling the iPhone kill switch

After praising the iPhone as wholesome as warm bread, Colbert takes to task the iPhone for its “kill switch” (”It actually kills you!”).  In the meantime, Gizmodo reports that there’s a “BossPrefs” app to disable it, joining the more labor intensive method of tricking the iPhone into thinking that the Apple update server is found on the phone itself.  (Hat tip: Patrick Meier.)  Both require that the phones be “jailbroken” — untethered from Apple’s control — currently a somewhat unstable and scary process that many have nonetheless tried.  A jailbroken phone can run apps from sources other than the iPhone apps store; hence the ability to install BossPrefs despite its absence there.

Of course, to completey untether the iPhone from Apple can greatly reduce its functionality — and it gives Apple the practical option to reassert control over jailbroken phones by forcing owners to decide between complete isolation or a return to the sandbox.

I’ve got an iPhone myself now and love it — and don’t find myself yet prepared to try to jailbreak it …

…JZ

• The iPhone kill switch

It’s been clear from the start that information appliances like the iPhone, tethered to their vendors, would have a kill switch — that’s just a subset of the vendor’s (in the case, Apple’s) ability to reprogram any aspect of the phone from a distance at any time.  In a world of third party apps, that means that Apple could kill any app, too.  After some breathless reporting caused by the discovery of a Web page meant for consultion by iPhones that lists bad apps, and debate about whether the switch was more modest — say, only to say which apps wouldn’t be allowed to use the iPhone’s GPS functionality, as a way to protect user privacy — Steve Jobs confirmed that any app can be killed.

This isn’t exclusive to Apple, of course.  Microsoft offers a monthly “malicious software removal tool,” which unobtrusively goes through a PC to remove malware.  Presumably it would become much less popular if Microsoft, or someone regulating Microsoft, tried to use the tool to remove software that people liked; no one seems to have tried to get Microsoft to kill anything yet, though, and such attempts are limited since any new app can immediately be installed on a PC — including one that shuts down a Microsoft app-removal tool.

On the other side of the spectrum, when Facebook kills an app the app is naturally not only unavailable to new users, but disabled for current ones, too.  So Superwall or Secret Crush can go from millions of users to zero in a heartbeat.

So far Apple hasn’t seemed to try to kill any apps already residing on users’ phones.  Instead, it has “merely” yanked apps from the Apps Store, which is the only place to acquire them. Recently Apple got rid of the “I Am Rich” app, which cost the maximum $999.99, and simply featured a glowing red gem on buyers’ screens.



iPhone I Am Rich app

Eight people apparently bought it, with several receiving refunds.  (”Category: Lifestyle.”  Heh.)  The app’s author doesn’t yet know whether he’ll get the money from the rest, minus Apple’s 30% vig.

So should we care?  Apple likely wouldn’t kill apps people like — they make money along with the authors.  And people think of an iPhone as a more unified device, expecting all of it to work at high quality, so gatekeeping might help keep malicious or poor quality apps away.

On the other hand, people don’t know what they’re missing — and firms can be very bad, despite their own economic interests, in recognizing the value of truly novel contributions from outsiders that might take awhile to catch on.  Who would have invested in Wikipedia at the beginning?  And if Wikipedia required an incumbent gatekeeper’s approval or permission to get started, it might have failed to receive it — or languished at the bottom of a list of to-dos amongst hundreds of other apps and services awaiting review.

The iPhone apps model is powerful, and it’s serving some useful purpose in shielding people, prospectively and retroactively, against bad code.  It’s so powerful we may see it extended to PC-like platforms, too, with the thirty-year run of open season for new software drawing to a close.  Without ways of managing that open season without a central gatekeeper, chances seem strong that most will accept — even demand — one.

–JZ

• What’s with the sheep?

Followers of Herdict’s progress may have noticed by now that our chosen icon is the sheep.  “What’s up with the sheep?” they might ask.

“Herdict” is a portmanteau of “herd” and “verdict” – used to mean “the verdict of the herd.”  Since the goal of Herdict Network Health is to gain insight into what the world – that is, the herd – is experiencing in terms of web accessibility, we’ve chosen to go with a sheep to represent you, the herd.

Now, you might be thinking, “Wait a minute…who are you calling a sheep?”  To many, the sheep is considered to be an unintelligent species content to simply run with the flock.  On the contrary, sheep tend not to follow the herd when no natural predator is present.

While considering web inaccessibility and online censorship  as a predator might be a bit farfetched, when faced with it, it makes sense to join the herd.  And the more folks who do so, the better the picture we are able to paint of the network.

For example, if you, User A, is in Morocco and finds YouTube blocked, you will probably want to know if others are having the same problem.  With Herdict, you can see – in real time - if others are reporting the same phenomenon, giving you a better sense of possible reasons of why the site is inaccessible.
In other words, Herdict presents your verdict, allowing you, the user, to take control of the process and try to determine what’s going on.

-Jillian C. York

• Protect your PC, Protect our Network, Protect the Internet: JOIN Herdict

This fall the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (and JZ’s new home) will unveil Herdict, a suite of programs that gathers data from users around the world about their PCs’ performance and ability to access websites. Herdict aggregates this information and aims to provide a real time picture of users’ PC health and web accessibility. Read more »

About Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University, and co-founder of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.