Linked List: February 19, 2021

Friday, 19 February 2021

The Talk Show: ‘Peak Hubris’ 

Christina Warren returns to the show to talk about Apple Car, Apple TV, Clubhouse, and Bloomberg hamfistedly revisiting “The Big Hack”.

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Tim Berners-Lee Worries Australian Law Could Make the Web ‘Unworkable’ 

Anthony Cuthbertson, reporting for The Independent:

“Specifically, I am concerned that that code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web by requiring payment for linking between certain content online,” Berners-Lee told a Senate committee scrutinizing a bill that would create the New Media Bargaining Code.

If the code is deployed globally, it could “make the web unworkable around the world”, he said.

It’s a question dividing proponents and critics of the proposed Australian law: does it effectively make Google and Facebook “pay for clicks” and might it be the beginning of the end of free access?

I don’t know what this Berners-Lee guy knows about the web, but I agree.

Rich Mogull on Apple’s Updated 2021 Platform Security Guide 

Rich Mogull, writing at TidBits, on Apple’s 2021 Platform Security Guide:

As wonderful as the Apple Platform Security guide is as a resource, writing about it is about as easy as writing a hot take on the latest updates to the dictionary. Sure, the guide has numerous updates and lots of new content, but the real story isn’t in the details, but in the larger directions of Apple’s security program, how that impacts Apple’s customers, and what it means to the technology industry at large.

From that broader perspective, the writing is on the wall. The future of cybersecurity is vertical integration. By vertical integration, I mean the combination of hardware, software, and cloud-based services to build a comprehensive ecosystem. Vertical integration for increased security isn’t merely a trend at Apple, it’s one we see in wide swaths of the industry, including such key players as Amazon Web Services. When security really matters, it’s hard to compete if you don’t have complete control of the stack: hardware, software, and services.

Apple Cracks Down on Apps With ‘Irrationally High Prices’ as App Store Scams Are Exposed 

Guilherme Rambo, writing for 9to5Mac:

App Store scams have recently resurfaced as a developer exposed several scam apps in the App Store making millions of dollars per year. Most of these apps exploit fake ratings and reviews to show up in search results and look legit, but trick users into getting subscriptions at irrationally high prices.

It looks like Apple has started to crack down on scam attempts by rejecting apps that look like they have subscriptions or other in-app purchases with prices that don’t seem reasonable to the App Review team.

From the rejection letter sent by the App Store review team:

Customers expect the App Store to be a safe and trusted marketplace for purchasing digital goods. Apps should never betray this trust by attempting to rip-off or cheat users in any way.

Unfortunately, the prices you’ve selected for your app or in-app purchase products in your app do not reflect the value of the features and content offered to the user. Charging irrationally high prices for content or services with limited value is a rip-off to customers and is not appropriate for the App Store.

Specifically, the prices for the following items are irrationally high:

This is exactly the sort of crackdown I’ve been advocating for years. A bunco squad that looks for scams, starting with apps that (a) have high-priced in-app purchases and subscriptions, and (b) are generating a lot of money. Ideally Apple will crack down on all scams, but practically speaking, all that matters is that they identify and eliminate successful scams — and identify the scammers behind them and keep them out of the store.

Developer Kosta Eleftheriou has been righteously leading a sort of indie bunco squad for a few weeks, identifying a slew of scams (usually involving apps with clearly fraudulent ratings, too).

Nomination for Lede of the Year 

Ashley Parker, reporting for The Washington Post:

Usually, it takes at least one full day in Cancun to do something embarrassing you’ll never live down.

But for Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), it took just 10 hours — from when his United plane touched down at Cancun International Airport at 7:52 p.m. Wednesday to when he booked a return flight back to Houston around 6 a.m. Thursday — for the state’s junior senator to apparently realize he had made a horrible mistake.

Give Cruz credit for this: he’s brought the whole nation together in unity.

Pfizer’s Vaccine Works Well With One Dose 

The New York Times:

A study in Israel showed that the vaccine is robustly effective after the first shot, echoing what other research has shown for the AstraZeneca vaccine and raising the possibility that regulators in some countries could authorize delaying a second dose instead of giving both on the strict schedule of three weeks apart as tested in clinical trials. […]

Published in The Lancet on Thursday and drawing from a group of 9,100 Israeli health care workers, the study showed that Pfizer’s vaccine was 85 percent effective 15 to 28 days after receiving the first dose. Pfizer and BioNTech’s late-stage clinical trials, which enrolled 44,000 people, showed that the vaccine was 95 percent effective if two doses were given three weeks apart. […]

Pfizer and BioNTech also announced on Friday that their vaccine can be stored at standard freezer temperatures for up to two weeks, potentially expanding the number of smaller pharmacies and doctors’ offices that could administer the vaccine, which now must be stored at ultracold temperatures.

The U.S. needs to change its policy and get more shots into more arms as quickly as possible. Administer the second booster shots in the summer after a majority of Americans have gotten their first. The current policy is simply wrong, given the data, and is halving the rate at which we can achieve herd immunity.

Tucker Carlson Detects Other Suspicious Behaviors 

If we were to debate which newspaper is better, The New York Times or Washington Post, Alexandra Petri would be one of my top arguments in favor of the Post.

A bit of sad NASA-related news today, too:

Bruce Blackburn, a graphic designer whose modern and minimalist logos became ingrained in the nation’s consciousness, including the four bold red letters for NASA known as the “worm” and the 1976 American Revolution Bicentennial star, died on Feb. 1 in Arvada, Colo., near Denver. He was 82. […]

In a design career of more than 40 years, Mr. Blackburn developed brand imagery for clients like IBM, Mobil and the Museum of Modern Art. But he is best known for the NASA worm, which has become synonymous with space exploration and the concept of the technological future itself.

I’m glad he lived long enough to see NASA re-embrace his wonderful logo. It’s such a perfect mark — one that will always feel like a symbol of the future.

Update: NASA’s 1976 “Graphics Standards Manual” — 60-page document on how to use the logo. This is how you do it.