That would only apply to the rightful owner of the software (on the phone), not to a thief.

Theft doesn't automatically release an owner from his obligations under a license, so the license remains in effect until it expires or is terminated under its terms, or until invalidated by a court. And even if the license terms allow Apple to unilaterally terminate the license for some reason (including their determination of a possible theft), their act of bricking the phone in response seems to fall squarely in line with concerns about self-help.

Legitimate theft that a licensee reports is a completely different matter, and it should be easy for both user and provider to agree to brick the phone until it's recovered.

There are two states, Maryland and Virginia, under which remote disablement of software is allowed under UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act. Even then, bricking, or "self-help" as UCITA calls it, has some limitations, and it's not allowed in "mass market transactions" such as those involving non-negotiated licenses. The intent was to address shrink-wrap licenses, but a cell phone contract is similarly non-negotiable. This sounds like an "invention" that can't really be used in most of the US.

UCITA and its self-help provisions have been an issue for a long time, and a lot has been written about it that's probably applicable here too.

The USPS doesn't offer many hackable interfaces for information thieves worldwide to view mailed articles. Use of certified mail provides a degree of accountability for its handling.

There is no perfectly confidential way to get a document, whether paper or bits, from one's fingers to somebody else's eyes. You're free to judge the risks differently and make the decision that best suits you. I'm still mailing my returns the old-fashioned way.

This self-respecting slashdotter doesn't e-file for two reasons.

First, there is no technical need for an intermediary to receive and forward my data to the IRS. Nobody seems to acknowledge that involvement of intermediaries means there are more interfaces that might be hacked to reach my data. No thanks.

Second, the reason that there are even intermediaries is that (and I wish I could cite a source for this but it's too long ago, mid-1990's) when the IRS originally proposed that taxpayers file directly, the software lobby successfully argued that removing the intermediaries would result in the loss of jobs. The government didn't want to cause job loss, so it caved and now requires those intermediaries.

My tax filings are on paper to protest the idiocy.

The magnifying glass is scorching only the Western Hemisphere because it's been placed in a geosynchronous orbit. NASA is rumored to be preparing to reposition it to LaGrangian Point L1 to provide a greater degree of stability, provided that they can account for positional oscillation resulting from the moon revolving around the Earth. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum is preparing to return the Hubble Space Telescope's COSTAR lens to NASA for refurbishing and redeployment to correct LENS' focal length for its new location.

Aside from being able to put away our asbestos suits, another direct benefit of placement at L1 is a smaller footprint in the sky, letting more of the sun's light reach Earth.

I haven't wtfv (watched the video), but 4-D can be represented in 3- and 2-D using projections, just like we regularly watch 3-D images projected into 2 dimensions (TV, video games).

Think of a cone, a 3 dimension shape. In the 3-to-2 dimension projection, that cone can look like a triangle, a circle, an ellipse, or an ellipse with a point, all depending on how you rotate it.

Now imagine that there's a 4-D shape whose projection changes appearance as the shape is rotated about its fourth-dimensional axis. There's no reason you can't have one projection of it that shows a cube, and another of the same object that shows a sphere.

It's tough to conceive of what this shape looks like since we can't see or experience it in four dimensions. But it's still possible to develop enough of a concept of the shape to recognize its various projections, learn how they're connected, and eventually be able to navigate it.

Projecting a shape from 4 to the 2 dimensions of a screen will lose an awful lot of information, but we seem to be good at developing a 3-D concept based on motion and visual cues.

Interesting stuff.