Apple Says iOS 8 Update Keeps Data Private, Even From the Police

“Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data,” the company said on the new webpage. “So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

Christopher Soghoian, a principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Apple’s new privacy policy reflected the revelations of the government surveillance programs revealed in documents leaked by Edward J. Snowden. “The public has said they want companies to put their privacy first, and Apple has listened,” Mr. Soghoian said.

A message from Tim Cook about Apple’s commitment to your privacy.

A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.

Our business model is very straightforward: We sell great products. We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you. Our software and services are designed to make our devices better. Plain and simple.

One very small part of our business does serve advertisers, and that’s iAd. We built an advertising network because some app developers depend on that business model, and we want to support them as well as a free iTunes Radio service. iAd sticks to the same privacy policy that applies to every other Apple product. It doesn’t get data from Health and HomeKit, Maps, Siri, iMessage, your call history, or any iCloud service like Contacts or Mail, and you can always just opt out altogether.

Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

This topic was top of my list when I switched from Google and Android to Apple and iPhone.

Google wants to know everything and Apple wants to sell hardware.

#apple #google #privacynews

Ode to Stepfather

A young boy grows up with the influence of a tough stepfather figure.

This is also quite good. The bearded man may have harsh at times but he was there.

Only lasts about 15 minutes.

#podcasts

Thoughts on Music Formats – Marco.org

If you’re actively using a screen, music competes with everything else that screen can do — and these days, that’s a lot. You’re lucky if people listen to music at all anymore, and the most you can usually hope for is that they have it on in the background while doing some other activity that doesn’t provide its own audio. The most important music-discovery platform in the world is YouTube.

This is quite good. I’m about 50/50 on streaming vs. my local collection.

#music

US, Canadian jets intercept 8 Russian aircraft

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Two F-22 fighter jets intercepted six Russian military airplanes that neared the western coast of Alaska, military officials said Friday.

Lt. Col. Michael Jazdyk, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, said the U.S. jets intercepted the planes about 55 nautical miles from the Alaskan coast at about 7 p.m. Pacific time Wednesday.

The Russian planes were identified as two IL-78 refueling tankers, two Mig-31 fighter jets and two Bear long-range bombers. They looped south and returned to their base in Russia after the U.S. jets were scrambled.

At about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, two Canadian CF-18 fighter jets intercepted two of the long-range bombers about 40 nautical miles off the Canadian coastline in the Beaufort Sea.

In both cases, the Russian planes entered the Air Defense Identification Zone, which extends about 200 miles from the coastline. They did not enter sovereign airspace of the United States or Canada.

Jazdyk said the fighter jets were scrambled “basically to let those aircraft know that we see them, and in case of a threat, to let them know we are there to protect our sovereign airspace.”

In the past five years, jets under NORAD’s command have intercepted more than 50 Russian bombers approaching North American airspace.

NORAD is a binational American and Canadian command responsible for air defense in North America.

What the what is this all about?

Nark - where words come from

Reading “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” for my detective fiction class today, I came across this sentence, warning why most murderers will eventually give themselves away

#grammars

Millennium Falcon revealed in ‘Star Wars: Episode VII,’ with a Batmobile on board

Finally, the Star Wars footage you’ve been waiting for… or maybe not. Episode VII director J.J. Abrams is giving fans a huge tease of the return of the Millennium Falcon, but all isn’t exactly as it appears. The clip is actually a surprising mashup of Star Wars and Batman. Zack Snyder, who’s directing Batman v. Superman, has been mashing up the two films on Twitter for a few months now, and now Abrams’ production company is finally responding with an elaborate mashup of its own. Let’s just say that what follows is one of the last things we’d expect to see on the underside of the Falcon.

#movies #starwars #batman

Watching other people sing in their cars is the greatest!

#trafficnews

These could very well be my next pair of “goto” socks.

#photos #fashion

I’m not a better person for you, I’m a better person for me.

#advancedsoul

Big Brother is Bashful

#animatedGIFs