[ale] Ouch. Stay away from proprietary technology.

[Lightner, Jeff]

I've stayed away from Apple since its early days specifically because it is all proprietary.

However, I think the comment about security that locks you out of your own device is unfair.    There are quite a number of security mechanisms that do this (e.g. if you lose passwords or encryption keys).   Some of them MAY be reversible but in general you're going to have a bad day.

Anyone using fingerprint security solely is asking for trouble though.   The courts have already decided that you can be compelled to swipe your finger but can not be compelled to reveal passwords.  (They deem the latter part of your 5th amendment right not to testify against yourself but the former they don't see as "testifying" much as they don't see compelling you to give up your blood sample as "testifying".   I don't really agree with that view - to me anything that requires YOU to provide something to be used against you is in fact testifying.


From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of Steve Tynor
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2016 2:12 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] Ouch. Stay away from proprietary technology.

Disabling the fingerprint recognition upon detecting this sort of "tampering" seems like a reasonable thing to do. Bricking the phone, not so much.

Steve
On 2/5/16 12:31 PM, James Sumners wrote:
The key bit is this:

"The issue appears to affect handsets where the home button, which has touch ID fingerprint recognition built-in, has been repaired by a "non-official" company or individual. It has also reportedly affected customers whose phone has been damaged but who have been able to carry on using it without the need for a repair."

I don't think it's a crybaby, "you didn't let us fix it", thing. It seems pretty clear from that description of the problem that Apple is trying to prevent tampering with the fingerprint scanner, i.e. it's a security thing.

On Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 11:26 AM, Charles Shapiro <hooterpincher at gmail.com<mailto:hooterpincher at gmail.com>> wrote:
Apple bricks phones repaired by unauthorized shops.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

-- CHS


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James Sumners
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