Yeah. They are a smart company who has made some smart software. I really can't speak highly enough about them.

Let me +1 CrashPlan too.

I've tried a fair number of similar products, but only CrashPlan had the feature set that made me happy. With it, I can have multiple backup sets and have them going to a NAS, a friend's machine, a headless Linux box in another state that I control, and CrashPlan's own servers. With a key that I control, and a price even a cheapskate like me enjoys paying.

It is really worth checking out.

MAC address filtering is very loose security. MAC addresses arent private things, and aren't hidden when a computer is communicating. To build a list of MAC addresses that are allowed on the network (by simply seeing the machines that are on the network), and then change your machine's MAC to match is fairly trivial.

Not even remotely true. This is a third-party product using its own update mechanism. Apple has never been involved in the updating of Skype, nor is Microsoft involved when Skype is run on Windows.

People, and their ignorate hatred, truly amaze me.

I don't think you had all the things shut off that you think you did. For example, did you turn off Ping (Apple's social network wannabe, not anything ICMP related)?

http://www.geek.com/articles/apple/how-to-shut-off-ping-and-increase-battery-life-with-ios-4-3-20110321/

There's many of these first-party services, and countless third-party that could be involved. I won't pretend to like it (I don't at all, I too want my devices to fully sleep). But I also won't pretend that it is worse. Especially as a ping (ICMP this time) is unable to transmit anything remotely close to what Microsoft's HTTP method of checking network availability could.

But that isn't what's going on. Not even remotely. What he is describing is simply a device that automatically joins a network that you've already agreed to trust. Period. Full Stop. There's no, "trying to reach a specific Apple website, and being able to figure out if there's a portal that it needs to pass through". And as I and other's have already stated in this thread, there's easy ways to disable this automatic joining.

Further, iOS fully discloses this behavior in unmissable (save for the GP apparently) plain text in the WiFi preferences.

He's wrong. Flat out wrong. And so are all the mods that blindly modded him up to spread the ignorance.

I never said Mac OS X doesn't phone home. I was referring to the activity the misguided AC posted. Nothing is being transmitted to any central service in his "oh so evil" scenario. I don't know how you felt the need to bring Mac OS X into the discussion.

But, since you did bring up that OS, in today's networked world online dictionary's, network searches, widgets pulling data, and OS update checks are all expected functionality that users demand, expected behavior, and certainly not a big deal.

On the other hand, while Microsoft's behavior in TFA also isn't a big deal, it isn't expected.

How is that, "even worse?"

Its not phoning home to the mothership (Microsoft or Apple) unlike TFA. Nor can that be used to track your actions. You're simply connecting to discrete WiFi networks that you _already_ said you trust. Don't like it? Forget the network. And as far as the 3G connection goes, it is *gasp* a cell phone. That's how a *gasp* cell phone functions.

Geohot seems to think the things he would lose in a civil suit has value. You seem to think the things Geohot would lose in a civil suit do not. Regardless of your opinions, and mine, armchair quarterbacks like us don't have to live with the consequences.