Mark Sigal's Blog - The Network Garden: iPhone Universe: Network Borders, Kill Switches and the Core Location

WHAT I'M READING NOW

Professor Richard E. Foglesong: Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando
This is the first book that I am reading via the Kindle reader on my iPod touch. Great book that shows how Disney maneuvered its way into establishing Disney World as it's own pseudo government, free from the oversight and controls of traditional city, county and state control. Hardly, a slam piece, it shows how centralized planning can lead to a better, more fully conceived product (think: Apple), but also shows the pitfalls for eager cities and states willing to agree to any and all pre-conditions to secure major corporate patronage.
Robert B. Cialdini: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)
One of my recurring interests is better understanding how to influence the actions of others. This book looks at the psychology and underlying trigger mechanisms, such as reciprocity, that drive people to act in the way that you want them to. Relevant to people in sales, marketers and pretty much anyone who wants to turn the gravity of persuasion to their advantage.
George Friedman: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century
Provocative, enjoyable, compelling read that makes the somewhat counter-intuitive argument that the next 100 years is destined to be the American Age (US), replacing the European Age, which has been the locus of gravity for the past 500+ years, and that our emerging counter-challengers will be Turkey, Mexico, Japan and Poland - not China or India.
Jessica Livingston: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
Not since I read Accidental Empires many years ago have I had so much joy and insight reading about the AHA moments, the blood, sweat and tears, the mistakes, the victories and the lessons learned in the birthing of tech startups like Apple, Lotus, Hotmail and a couple dozen other seminal companies. If you are an entrepreneur or want to know what being one feels like, this is a must read.
Ian Williams: Rum: A Social and Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776
The history of rum, with the exotic spirit as a key character in the founding of the United States. Next book in my Chatopic group, and a fun read so far.
Pip Coburn: The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn
I have been ruminating a lot about the relationship between user experience and user adoption. Coburn is one of my favorite writers/analysts from back in the days of Red Herring, and this book focuses on the user experience/user-centered approach to solutions thinking. Personally, Inmates are Running the Asylum is a better book.
Lynn H. Nicholas: The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War
I actually just saw the DVD and blogged about it. Brilliant and compelling. Captures the shocking scale and systematic way that the Nazis sought to plunder the world's great art as part of their plan on world domination and re-making humanity, art and culture. Wow!
Alan Moore: Watchmen
Just finished this graphic novel, written by same author of V for Vendetta, one of my favorite all time movies. Watchmen is being released as a major motion picture early 2009, and this novel is a classic to many, but to me it fell a bit short of the promised target. Why? Characters interesting but not compelling, story arcs came together in a bit uninspired fashion, and left with a bit of a EH sensation.
Chogyam Trungpa: Crazy Wisdom (Dharma ocean series)
For serious Buddhist devotees, Trungpa is the late great master; a real gift. This series of books is derived from seminars he led, so beauty is that you get Trungpa's synopsis, then Q&A from audience and then of course your own interpretation; a great way to triangulate on complex topics. This is my second time reading, as this is a time for Crazy Wisdom (search for my post on the topic).
Barton Gellman: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency
This is a classic, IMHO. Really gives a good sense of how government works and how Cheney drove executive branch to reclaim lost power (of that branch). Cheney's depth of detailed knowledge on everything - policy, law, protocol, people and process is pretty impressive. Raises all sorts of questions on the delineation between him and Bush, and how that defines culpability. Total behind the scenes on key events, not partisan or editorializing but very strong analysis and excellent narrative from many of the key players.

This is fascinating. In ‘It’s a Core Location Blacklist,’ John Gruber of Daring Fireball provides some crisp analysis on the recent chatter that Apple has a backdoor 'kill switch' to shut down apps running within the iPhone 2.0 Universe if it deems it fit to do so.

Says Gruber:

"So there may well be some sort of kill switch that Apple can deploy to remotely disable an app that’s already installed. But this list is not it.

Apple has no reason to hide such a configuration in a sneaky place. If it’s “tucked away in a configuration file deep inside” the Core Location framework, doesn’t it seem more likely that this list has something to do with, say, Core Location? Even the URL of the file in question hints at this:

https://iphone-services.apple.com/clbl/unauthorizedApps

An informed source at Apple confirmed to me that the “clbl” in the URL stands for “Core Location Blacklist”, and that it does just that. It is not a blacklist for disabling apps completely, but rather specifically for preventing any listed apps from accessing Core Location — an API which, for obvious privacy reasons, is covered by very strict rules in the iPhone SDK guidelines."

Personally, what Gruber is putting forth makes total sense. I would build upon his logic and throw two thoughts out there. One is that if it’s going to realize its potential for commerce and enterprise adoption, the iPhone Universe needs to be a safe and secure place. It just does. You don’t want your phone, your data and/or your wallet exposed to be readily hacked.

Thus, kill switches (total application shutdown) and core location blocks make perfect sense. Think of it as the cable descrambler box. Apple is implementing a service layer that requires a special key to access certain core functions. These are either functions internal to the device and/or those that connect to network functions.

It’s their form of Border Control, and as I believe that governance is part of the equation, I say hurrah!

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