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> Just to be clear, any password-related data or personal information you've sent in Droplr has been over HTTPS.

Unless there was personal information in a file I shared using Droplr.

I'm not the person who raised this issue on your support site. I'd never even heard of Droplr until somebody shared this link with me for a laugh. While the title of my submission might not reflect it, I find the lack of comprehension and dismissive attitude of your customer service representative more off-putting than the original security flaw. He closed the ticket multiple times claiming that "the whole Droplr platform runs on HTTPS," when that clearly wasn't the case. Glyph was remarkably patient in re-opening and re-explaining the issue until the rep finally seemed to realize why he was wrong, whereupon the answer changed from "this isn't an issue, we already support the feature you're requesting" to "we're already aware of this issue but it's not a big deal," without even an acknowledgment that he'd so fundamentally misunderstood the request, let alone an apology for blowing him off repeatedly.


The only person in the wrong here is the customer service representative who's violating US sanctions against Iran by selling an iPad to an Iranian citizen.

e: can't read, see below.


Did you miss the "Sabet is a U.S. citizen" in the article?


There's no mention of her telling the clerk that she was a U.S. citizen. She told him "I'm from Iran". What's he supposed to do in that case? Can't blame him for not taking the risk. That's a serious federal law (and it's not unheard of for the feds to run sting operations, when it comes down to that).

The other guy was definitely trying to buy the device for an Iranian citizen.


The Federal Law says nothing about selling to a person who has no intention of bringing the item back to Iran, but simply has either a Farsi accent or was born in Iran. There was no mention of an Apple policy that requires its employees to ask "What is your citizenship?", but instead automatically assume nationality based on the comment "I'm from Iran." If the onus is on the consumer to clearly state his citizenship, then shouldn't there be a sign that lists the legal conditions of purchase?

I am most bothered by the fact that the Apple rep recognized Farsi and inquired further. So is it pure coincidence that the Apple rep knows Farsi or is every Apple retailer trained to recognize Farsi? And even if the Apple rep recognizes Farsi and inquires further, what if the consumer lies and says "no, I'm speaking Hindi", then what? Polygraph test? Bring in an interpreter? Call security to escort them out?

Apple is walking down a very slippery slope here.


Whoops. Yes I did.


However, it seems pretty clear that the Apple employee interpreted Sabet's words "I'm from Iran" as meaning "I am an Iranian citizen." This is a perfectly reasonable interpretation, and there's no indication that Sabet made any effort to communicate her citizenship.


> News sites with a better grasp of how the Internet works, like HuffPo or Mashable, are worth hundreds of millions.

I've been wondering - when all the old media inevitably die off, where are these aggregators going to find their content?


Most articles you see in traditional papers are not original. We're going from offline news aggregators to online news aggregators.


From AP and Reuters, who they pay for the privilege.


HuffPo and Mashable are no more aggregators than old media. Most of their content is original.


This tidbit from the interviewer made me laugh:

> Surely there’s an opportunity there for the global Linux community to influence laptop design for the betterment of everyone?

Yes, because Linux-influenced hardware has worked out so well in the past. Do we really want to reenact the Android catastrophe in the laptop space?


What Android hardware catastrophe? I'm not being facetious, I'm genuinely curious.


Perhaps he is referring to hardware fragmentation? Calling it a catastrophe seems a bit exaggerated given the enormous success of Android though.


"a bit exaggerated" or "wild distortion of facts" ?


A bit exaggerated. The direction Android has taken really rubs me the wrong way. The hot new phone is obsolete after 3 months and stuck with an old OS unless you root. It's not a trend I can appreciate the way I did when Android first surfaced.


"Catastrophe" is a word describing a grave disaster. I suppose you would characterize the IBM PC explosion as a catastrophe as well?


I never understand this argument. How is an Android phone more obsolete than an iPhone after 3 months? Technology progresses just as fast in both cases.


I think he was referring to the fact that many Android phones don't receive updates after the first few months, whereas iPhones are typically receiving updates at least 2 years after release.


Fair enough. I assumed he was talking about being obsolete hardware wise.

I'll agree that Android updates aren't exactly timely, but saying they're abandoned completely after a few months is a bit unfair.



And more importantly, by what theory is Linux being held responsible for it? I'm not genuinely curious, I'm just being facetious.


then again most drivers for the "android hardware" are proprietary.


Before you said Android, I thought you were going for the OLPC laptops. :-)


Ugh. Do we really need another one of these?


An omnibar that predates the omnibar.


"Yet when I step back and actually look at what I read every day I’m faced with articles that can be easily labeled as fluff."

Kind of like this blog post!


Yes, the post is pretty flimsy, but it does speak to the message of doing something VS reading news and pretending to be productive. Keeping up with HN, TC, etc. is easy to rationalize as a productive use of your time when it really is not.


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