|
I read the link and it seems rather mild. Having SW to lock down a phone you agreed to in a contract to use a certain way is not that terrible.
Having data on video phone calls for marketing as long as they are not listening in and watching is not great, but not really an invasion of your privacy. All you cell phone calls are monitored by the carrier including which tower you are using. This just seems like another bit of data in that stream.
I'm not sure either of these issues would have prevented me from upgrading my phone to OS4. (The video one surely wouldn't as my 3GS phone isn't capable of that.)
If you think this is bad, does anyone remember Alan Poindexter? (Admiral in the Reagan admin.) He was manager of a Pentagon Program for Total Information awareness. From wikpedia:
"From December 2002, to August 2003, Poindexter served as the Director of the DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO). The controversial mission of the IAO was to imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components, and prototype closed-loop information systems that will counter asymmetric threats (most notably, terrorist threats) by achieving total information awareness: enabling preemption; national security warning; and, national security decision making."
"The Information Awareness Office (IAO) was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in January 2002 to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying surveillance and information technology to track and monitor terrorists and other asymmetric threats to national security, by achieving Total Information Awareness (TIA). This would be achieved by creating enormous computer databases to gather and store the personal information of everyone in the United States, including personal e-mails, social network analysis, credit card records, phone calls, medical records, and numerous other sources, without any requirement for a search warrant.[1] This information would then be analyzed to look for suspicious activities, connections between individuals, and "threats".[2] Additionally, the program included funding for biometric surveillance technologies that could identify and track individuals using surveillance cameras, and other methods.[2]
Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by Congress in 2003. However, several IAO projects continued to be funded, and merely run under different names.[3][4][5]
I wouldn't get too worked up about your iphone. There is a much more accurate database and tracking of what you do that is available. The iphone is nothing in comparison.
|