Identity Theft - there's an app for that.

From what I've read, this is not an exploit that involves the carrier, but can be done via someone *simulating* the carrier with their own transmitter and acting like a cell tower. So, the idea of turning this off at the carrier does no good, when the bug is in the iPhone itself.

I'd like to be able to get a shell prompt on the phone, and kill -9 smsd (or whatever runs there). or start the gsmd that is running on the phone in a "disable-sms" mode. Something like that.

Unfortunately, in order to remain legal (non-jailbroken), I can't.

With no fix for this, I (along with everyone else who has one) am effectively a sitting duck for this kind of exploit. Now, I'm not going to worry about it until it happens to me. But... if it does happen, I will then dump AT&T, and also go with a Pre. I would encourage anyone who finds themselves in that position who can do that, to do exactly that.

The sad thing is, it *is* a comfortable phone. I like the UI. I'm used to it, and I really don't have a problem with the thing. But I've also been recently disgusted with the kind of locked down mindset that apple has taken with the thing.

At least for me, waking up and finding a hijacked phone would be the last straw.

Back in the 70s, I always thought Frank Rizzo was a little "out there" when he had all of the Philly police vehicles painted bright blue like this one.

Now, with this new finding, over 35 years later, it all starts to make sense.

Heh. Been there, done that. Unlike most normal meeting, at least it took a week, and you knew about it well in advance.

FWIW, I've heard the term "suck-and-fuck" referred to as the "group-grope" as well.

Tell me about it. I want that high pitched whine I get each time the moon is on this side of the planet to finally... go.... AWAY!

Somebody, anybody - Please, make... it... stop.

Mod parent up.

Let's hook up a million cars to the grid and watch it collapse into cloud of greasy black smoke.

Agreed. I currently own an iPhone, and am otherwise happy with it. But the way these guys lock down their platform will stifle the development of decent applications. As more and more interesting apps become available for open platforms like the Palm Pre, you will see Apple begin to lose market share.

By the time my battery starts to fail and I have to exchange the iPhone for another one, the number of available useful apps for other platforms might make me switch to something like the Pre.

Oracle buying Sun, might be good for Sun, but it would suck for everyone else. Recently, we've had dealings with Oracle for various things, and their unbelievably arrogant sales team literally talked and priced themselves out of a sale. They said they'd be able to beat SAP (for SFA, financials, etc) and ended up coming in at almost twice the price. And once you get on one of their pre-sales lists the SE's never stop bugging you. Way too aggressive. If they get to distribute the Sun JDK, in a year you'd have to give them your life story in order to download it, with a load of nagging sales calls following your download. So, like the tag says "noooooooo...".

If they have a shred of tolerance, everyone who uses XBOX live should:

s/$/\-lesbian$/

for their gamer tag (or whatever they call a handle on their system).

Are they going to shutdown a million users?

At least not yet. Give it time, though. I can see some doofus thinking it a good idea to WiFi-enable a pacemaker, and storing historical data on it, or putting a piece of flash memory on it and use it as a built in thumb drive. Or worse, allowing it to receive commands that allow one to control the voltage leads in order "To facilitate treatment".

Interestingly enough, I (a "lapsed" Catholic) had a friendly discussion with one of my Jewish friends back in early September, and he mentioned that you don't need to actually believe in God to be a Jew. He said he didn't, but still considered himself Jewish. Surprised the crap out of me. I always thought that Judaism was a "religion", but apparently it is more of a shared culture than anything else. He was saying that many of his friends, and even his friends' parents do all of the rituals, keep kosher, etc. but are either agnostics or atheists. There's apparently provision in the Torah for people who are "doubters" (I forget the exact terminology he used). This is different from Catholicism, being Muslim, or Protestantism, where the "believing" part is a prerequisite.

Yeah, right. Wait until you turn 42 and then do this. "Hold it 8 inches from your face", my arse. Just a blurry blob at that distance to my 48 year old peepers.