The People -vrs- Apple

Its all starting to unravel, just as I said that it would. All of the back and forth concerning the encryption of the San Bernardino terrorist has been overblown hype. Apple has dug in on a position that makes no sense, due to the fact that someone will break the encryption with or without their help. For years there have been revisions to software and operating systems, breaches in security protocols, and updates to updates. This is the nature of technology. Hackers have jobs to do, too.

Knowing this, Apple was only putting on a PR Show, designed to make it appear that they’re customers could rest easy because the encryption was unbreakable even with the considerable pressure of the Federal Government. But for that pressure, in all likelihood, Apple would have sent down a security update as a plug to some unknown, unstated issue that their engineers would have discovered and eliminated the vulnerability. So even as the FBI is working to crack the code, Apple is working to make it a moving target -as they should be. Most likely the suspect phone is offline and frozen in the past, unable to receive any new updates.

It was never that the Feds couldn’t get in, they only wanted Apple to lower the bar, and inhibit the prohibition that limited the number of attempts to “guess” the password. No doubt they have located a hack that has found a way around that molehill, and they just need time to test it on a number of like products, because they’re potential guesses on the suspect phone have already peaked, and they dare not be wrong. If the next attempt wipes the phone, they will be forced to waterboard some Apple execs in order to recover from that mistake.

UPDATE
So now what?
The Feds are reporting that they have broken into the suspect phone and bypassed Apple’s encryption without their assistance – just as I said it would. Now that their much heralded security encryption has been embarrassingly hacked by outside forces, how does Apple convince their customers to trust the total security of their operating system.

In all likelihood Apple’s black ops engineers have been busy trying to crack their own encryption since day one. Whatever chinks they find in the armour will be quietly patched and updated through normal system updates with little to no fanfare.

Everything has changed except our way of thinking.

Oscars

     There may not be any good answers for the controversy surrounding the 2016 Academy Awards. Yes there is a racial component, although I am hesitant to go all out and invoke the word racist.
The very concept of the Oscar awards seems to in direct opposition to charges of racism. As far back as I can recall, and as far back as research suggests, Oscar has always leaned towards Artsie Fartsie story telling. Big budgets and box office block busters have never been the stuff of Oscar. Block Buster themes, effects and cinematography are themselves higher forms of art, and are welcome in the lap of the Academy. The voters tend to be marbleized, credentialed old stuffy white guys. There may be a built in racist component to their way of thinking, but it is more likely that they just don’t like the kind of movies that would be focused on minorities.They probably don’t like their message and certainly would reject anything critical of the old world in which they have always dominated. They probably are unable to vote for a movie such as Straight Out of Compton, mainly because they either refused to watch it, or went to sleep in the process.
Forcing their hand or replacing their voting block with members that do not treasure the purity of the Academy itself will never net the results anyone who cares would find to be acceptable. It would water down the process, and cause members to just chose a black – any black in order to shut them up.
It will be like forcing the Vatican to embrace abortion.

 

 

The Right To Remain Breathing

I was listening to a radio news report and the woman on the street was on the scene outside of a gun show. A tough guy came out, with a load of recently purchased ammo. The girl with the Mic asked him what he was going to do with all of that ammo?

“Well, I used to take it out to the desert and do some target shooting, he said. But now that it looks like the government might be trying to take our guns away, I guess I’m just going to stock up.”

Now that sounds like a pretty good idea, if he figures that government overtures against the 2^nd amendment might drive up the price of bullets, and he’s planning on corning the market with his investment, and sell his stocked up ammo at sweetheart deal prices.

But the inflection of this tough guy’s voice indicated that he was stocking up in case Obama’s government soldiers marched up to his door and demanded that he turns over his precious penises. Maybe he was just showing off in front of the lady, or maybe this is the reason that we call them gun nuts. If his inflection meant that he was planning to stock up on ammo, in case he had to fight it out with the government. The United States  Government. Trained soldiers, snipers and marksmen, with belts full of guns, and truckloads full of ammo would be standing at his door with time on their hands. Enough ammo and time to last them for the rest of his stocked up bullets and second amendment life.  He could conceivably have enough stockpiles to last him for days, weeks, maybe even months. In the end he and his second amendment rights would end up a bloody mess, sprawled all over the floor of his barricaded house. He and his national gun lobby should have negotiated a better, more survivable deal.