Because Apple confirmed it was the case, security researchers confirmed their claim by investigating the hacking circles responsible for this stuff, and Apple wasn't the only one whose platform was hit (Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, and others were also affected). All of which has been readily-accessible public knowledge for over a week now.

https://www.nikcub.com/posts/n...

You do realize that they already have credit card numbers for over 500 million customers, right? And practically anything at all is more secure than what the US uses right now for retail payments. Based on what they said in the keynote, the phone stores your information in a dedicated hardware chip that's separate from the rest of the system, never transmits it to Apple or the retailer, makes use of one-use codes for actually making the payment, and secures it all behind a fingerprint scan. Given that my current options are either cash or a plastic card that can used by others if it's ever copied, memorized, stolen, or skimmed, this seems like a step in the right direction.

(also worth noting: the nude pics things affected pretty much all of the big tech players, not just Apple, and stretches back for years, though it obviously only just came to light in the last week or two when the images actually leaked into the general public)

No mention of it whatsoever in the keynote, which suggests it's either:
A) Still being worked on (the device doesn't come out until 2015, after all), so it's not known what the final version will be.
B) Horrific, so they'd rather put the info out quietly later instead of mentioning it now.

I'm a major Apple fan, and even I don't understand what the pitch is supposed to be. It does do some things differently or better than the phone, and it also does some things the phone can't do at all (e.g. measure your heart rate throughout the day), but by and large, I just don't get it yet.

It kinda reminds me of the iPad, where you could tell that they thought they had something special, but that they hadn't yet figured out what all it could do or why it would appeal to people. The advertising focused more on the emotions and feel of the device, rather than on specific use cases. A year later, and the ads were more focused, as was the language they used to describe it in keynotes and other communications.

I think they believe the same thing is true here: they believe they've created something different that developers can use as a platform to make all kinds of cool new things using the cool new sensors it has, but they don't know what those things will be. But they're clearly excited by it, so maybe they know something I don't.

I get the sense that I'll either need to get my hands on one or else listen to a lot of people who have their hands on them before I'll have any concept at all of whether or not it even might serve a purpose in my life. The most exciting feature for me was mentioned in a throwaway line right at the end of the keynote, where they rattled off a handful of random uses some of them have had for it, and mentioned controlling an Apple TV from it: something other devices can already do, of course, but I'd love to see a watch that can interact with smart devices around the home (e.g. locking and unlocking doors, turning on/off lights, dimming the lights when I sit down in the media room, etc.), including something like my media center. But I don't know which, if any, of those things it can do or will be able to do in the near future.

As things stand now though, it's definitely a, "Well, that's neat, but *shrug*" for me.

Hopefully someone brings out a system like that soon.

You're completely correct, but you're missing a key point: the derivative wasn't based on the original, but rather on an illegally reverse-engineered version of the original, and now the company that owns the original owns the derivative, as well as the legal responsibility to stop using the illegally-included code in the derivative.

Basically:
1) A community-built derivative (Bukkit) is dependent on an unlicensed, illegally reverse-engineered version (henceforth, UIREV) of the original (Minecraft Server).

2) The derivative is being distributed with the UIREV, but the UIREV is stolen and thus isn't (L)GPL'd, which means it legally cannot be included in the project.

3) For a number of years, everyone chose to ignore that inconvenient fact.

4) Instead of C&Ding the derivative, the original company hires the derivatives devs and buys the rights to it, but doesn't tell anyone it bought the rights.

5) Two years go by.

6) Drama ensues between the community and the company over something unrelated, and a lead contributor to the derivative tries to pull the plug on it.

7) The company keeps the derivative alive by revealing that it owns the rights.

8) The contributor figures that now is a good time to point out that the derivative has been operating illegally this whole time.

9) The contributor demands that the company fix the issue by replacing the illegal code with code that is properly licensed under the (L)GPL.

10) The company says, "no".

11) The contributor demands that the company remove his code from the derivative.

12) The company points out that he gave up his rights to his edits at the time that he contributed them.

More or less, the DMCA claim is likely unfounded, since he likely did give up any rights he had to the code he contributed. Moreover, IANAL, but it would appear to me that the only entity which would have any legal standing for asserting in court that the derivative is infringing on the (L)GPL would be the one whose proprietary code is being illegally included...and they're the ones who own the derivative now, so they have no reason to do so.

I watched the video at the link. There definitely were some tricky camera angles at play that made them look closer than they actually were, but there was one shot from immediately behind one of the daredevils, and that one seemed to me to make it pretty clear that they actually were rather close. I also thought it was rather telling that there was only one shot from that angle, whereas there were loads from higher up the cliff with a telephoto lens. Seemed almost to me like the camera guy decided to get the hell out.

That's actually a good suggestion, but something I just now realize I forgot to state was that I was thinking of a subscription, not a per-episode service. I have iTunes and Amazon Instant, but I've never been keen on having to buy stuff that I only ever plan to watch once (and in many cases it's stuff that I'm only marginally interested in and keep on a second screen while surfing on the first screen). I'd consider renting, but it's rare that TV shows offer rentals (especially while the show is still ongoing), and when rentals are finally offered, the prices are oftentimes virtually identical to purchasing.

The pics were apparently circulating over a week ago in some parts of the Internet, and were, by all indications, collected over the course of several months from a variety of sources (i.e. not all of the celebrities are in the Apple ecosystem; a number of them use Android). The "iBrute" exploit code didn't become available until earlier this week.

There's actually a fairly detailed breakdown of this and similar attacks already available, most of which rely on various social engineering techniques, basic detective work, or turning (ex-)friends of the celebrities against them to get malware installed or procure more intimate information (sometimes in exchange for receiving their own copies of the pics).

Finally, pointing out that they're not responsible for the data being compromised is not the same as blaming the victims. As the article I linked mentions, in many cases these celebrities may not have ever fallen for a phishing attack or given their password to "tech support" over the phone. The only error they may have made was in keeping poor company.

Bingo. What he described is not something that needs to be legislated, nor should it be. After all, there's nothing special about the mobile industry, so why wouldn't this extend to microwaves, dishwashers, refrigerators, cars, and other devices under warranty? As soon as we put it in those terms, we realize that it makes little sense to do so, since it's ridiculously expensive to keep stock on-hand in many cases.

As you said, that Apple is able to do so is a competitive advantage that differentiates them, and it's one which is largely afforded them by their slim product line and large stock of units on-hand for selling.

Precisely. As the saying goes, if the service is free, you're the product. I'll tolerate that for some things, but if I'm paying for a service, I expect to be treated with the dignity and respect associated with being the customer. Anymore, I've been seeking out for-pay alternatives to free services (e.g. Feedbin for RSS after Google Reader was cancelled, Fastmail for e-mail after leaving Gmail, etc.). If someone set up a for-pay alternative to Hulu that didn't show ads, I'd likely sign up for it.

Are they really though? By every indication I've heard, Hulu's viewership has been steadily dropping for a few years now (from 24M monthly unique viewers to 19M to 12M between mid-2010 and mid-2012, which prompted the media companies owning Hulu to try and sell it just last year. And that's Hulu total viewership, not just for Hulu Plus. And those numbers seem to make sense to me, given that the commercials have been becoming more intrusive and frequent, while the blackout periods before episodes become available have been less consistent and more inscrutable as time has gone on (of the shows I watch on there right now, one is next-day, one is eight days later, and one appears to be one month later, though I had to figure that last one out on my own, since they never actually specified it anywhere, so I may be wrong). And Hulu Plus merely promised to offer more of the same. Not exactly a great value proposition for a cord cutter.

The latest numbers I can find for Hulu Plus are that they're hovering around 6M subscribers as of about four months ago, which is a modest improvement from last year (5M), but still puts them at only about 10% of Netflix's subscriber base. The dual revenue model of ads + subscriber fees does mean that they make more revenues per subscriber, but it seems as if they might be stalling out a bit as people get a taste of what it's like to cut the cord and don't want to see any more ads.

I read the quote below. I don't think I'm being off-base when I suggest that it could be fairly paraphrased as, "You better let us take what we want and not turn this into a large-scale war. We have nukes, have been taking steps to protect ourselves from other nuclear powers, and are reminding you of those facts for your own good, because it'd be a shame if something happened to you guys if you decided to go toe-to-toe with us."

I'll admit, it's not phrased as a threat, but within the context of the surrounding quote, it's quite evident that it is, even more so than when it's pulled out by itself, I'd say.

Hah, yeah, we all miss things like that occasionally. I know that I've missed that someone was an AC before.

I keep seeing this group being painted as in-the-know patriots who have a monopoly on sanity in the midst of chaos, but in trying to look up information on them, I'm finding as much stuff that's damning as encouraging. For instance, in 2010 they said that an Israeli pre-emptive military strike against Iran was imminent, since Israel was worried about losing their justification for war when news got out that Iran had not restarted their nuclear weapons development. And while they did take issue with the pretext for war in Iraq, they also said that one reason the US shouldn't attack Iraq is because Saddam Hussein was likely to use chemical weapons against the invading US forces.

Here's their Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They may be ex-intelligence officers or whatnot, but their track record seems to be rather hit-or-miss to me. I see no reason to take what they're saying here at face value, though I do think that what they're saying should be considered, albeit, with a grain of salt.