Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Apple Sells 60 Million iPhone Apps, Jobs Confirms Kill Switch

From Wired Blogs

In a rare gesture of openness, Apple has revealed data about iPhone application sales and confirmed the existence of a "kill switch" to disable malicious applications.

"Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull," he (Jobs) told the WSJ. An example of a malicious application would be one that stole users' personal information, Jobs explained.

Something like this seems like a good idea, until it is abused. I can't help but think about detention without trial, the PATRIOT Act and licensing journalists. They all presented as a solution to a problem and we are asked to trust the users. Sadly it's usually a misplaced trust.

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