The thinking is that if your phone is taken from you then it’s harder to hack after it reboots, which is completely true.
Law enforcement has recently encountered this new feature from iPhones they’ve confiscated. The phones that law enforcement have been storing were inexplicably rebooting after 96 hours.
When you turn on your iPhone, after it’s been completely powered down, or reboot it, your keys are still encrypted. Entering your six digit PIN unlocks the keys.
This is why, after you turn a phone on, but don’t unlock it, phone calls or text messages don’t display the names of who they’re from on the Lock Screen - rather the notifications simply show the phone number of the sender. The iPhone can’t decrypt a lot of things, like your address book, until you enter your PIN after turning it on or rebooting.
Once you unlock your iPhone for the first time, all the keys are decrypted and kept in memory until the next time you reboot the phone.
You cannot be a patriot unless you respect the Constitution while following the law. Supporting someone who doesn’t follow these principles would be unpatriotic. Our Constitution is what makes America, America.
You can love America yet still not respect America by being a selfish scofflaw. Knowingly parking your car in a handicap spot and paying the fine shows a lack of respect for the law compared to simply parking legally. It’s not ok to break the law, even if you’re willing to pay the price.
A man can love his wife yet still not respect her.
A man can be a seemingly great parent, citizen, worker, etc. But if he constantly cheats on his wife, then there is neither respect nor commitment to the marriage. Infidelity violates the fundamental principles of marriage.
Let’s break down the difference between principles and values.
The Constitution embodies America’s principles. It is the supreme law of the land.
Laws implement the Constitution’s principles as America’s values.
Think of principles as the lay of the land. They are virtually unmovable.
Think of values as implementing principles. Laws codify principles as values.
If you think of terrain features on the surface of the Earth as principles, then a map represents values. There are different kinds of maps.
Some maps highlight roads and highways for automobile drivers; certain maps focus on terrain, with contour lines for hikers or mountain climbers; some show water depth and hazards for sailors and divers; while other maps point out towers, radio beacons, and buildings for pilots.
All of these maps depict the same geographic area (principles) but they highlight different features (values).
Having a map for the wrong area is not helpful no matter how much you want it to work in your favor. A map of New York City does you no good in Los Angeles. The values a drill instructor instills in recruits during boot camp differ from those a parent imparts to a toddler, yet both align with the principles of the Constitution.
If a law conflicts with the Constitution, then the law either needs to be struck down or else the Constitution needs to be amended. Maintaining a law that conflicts with the Constitution is toxic and dysfunctional.
Oliver North: A Personal Journey in Ethics
Shortly after I enlisted in the Marines, news of the Iran–Contra Affair broke in the fall of 1986. The following year, Congress held hearings to get to the bottom of the matter. It was concluded that Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North – a highly decorated Marine officer who attended the Naval Academy – illegally sold arms to Iran and funneled that money to support the Contras. The Contras were Nicaraguan rebels fighting against the Sandinistas who were the political group in control of Nicaragua. The Sandinistas had policies aligned with the Soviet Union and were considered a Cold War threat to the United States. Contras good. Sandinistas bad.
During the Iran-Contra Hearings in Congress, LtCol Oliver North, as the key witness, was hailed as a celebrity for standing up to Congress, looking them in the eye, and taking full responsibility for the affair.
This seemingly brave and bold sense of patriotism and accountability would have a big impact on me, personally, when I attended the Naval Academy a few years later.
In the 1980s, I, too, hailed Oliver North as a hero, until I learned the fundamental flaws in his unethical and illegal practices.
This doesn’t mean that North didn’t accomplish truly patriotic acts that contributed to the nation’s well-being before or after the Iran-Contra Affair. But it does mean that his actions that led to this affair were misguided – a vigilante patriotism devoid of checks and balances.
During the hearings, Oliver North was asked if he received any ethics training while at the Naval Academy. After answering in the negative, a mandatory semester course was required for all Naval Academy Midshipmen (students). This ethics course was the most impactful class I took at the Academy. Second only to the Naval Academy’s course, Law for the Junior Officer.
Taking this ethics course gave me a clear understanding of North’s legal and ethical violations. Not only did he break the law, but he also lied to Congress about it. It is important to keep in mind that North’s power and authority as a military officer was bestowed upon him by Congress – the very institution he intentionally deceived.
This is the equivalent of a child being given permission by their parents to go outside to play until a curfew time. But, while out and about, the child commits vandalism and returns home late. Then, when questioned by their parents, they lie about coming home after curfew and also deny the vandalism.
The People empower the government and the government empowers certain people with authority to act on behalf of the government. In my Naval Academy ethics course, I learned how to follow a clear line of power, authority, and justice. This line originates with the Constitution and flows through the three branches of government by way of laws, codes, policies, regulations, and ethics, ultimately defining the actions allowed or restricted for both citizens and the government.
At the Naval Academy, many things we learned could be effectively summarized in soundbites.
What’s the most important leadership trait? Set the example.
When asked in an engineering class at the Academy, "Why is something a certain way?"—like, "Why are there two turbines instead of one in a ship’s steam cycle?"—the answer was simple: Because it’s more efficient.
Unethical behavior can also be succinctly summarized as a sound bite: Committing or soliciting an illegal act or the intention to deceive or not let the whole truth be known (with a few, clearly defined exceptions).
In leadership, I learned that followers look to a leader to provide stability and make them feel as safe as possible, while setting an ethical example. This applies to all levels of leadership, regardless if it’s a parent showing up on time to safely drive their kid home from school, or a military officer leading troops into combat, or a political leader announcing new policies.
We look to our leaders for safety, but before someone can lead, they must first learn to follow. A great leader cannot be a poor follower.
Politicians are leaders. In politics, we can question a political leader’s policies. However, we should never question a political leader’s patriotism. They must respect the Constitution and the rule of law above all else.
Additionally, any organization that allows a leader, no matter how talented, to operate under rules that apply only to others will create a toxic environment where someone is considered “above the law.” Formally documenting any unwritten rules will go a long way to creating a healthier environment.
It seems that explosives were planted in the pagers and two-way radios – it wasn’t merely an exploding battery. This means that the attacker had to gain physical access to the pagers in order to plant both the explosives and the electronic circuitry that triggered it.
It’s astonishing that none of these explosives appear to have been detected by any measures, including airport screening equipment. Obviously, TSA will be looking at this vector.
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| L to R: TRS-80 Model 1, Commodore PET, Apple ][ |
Most will respond with, "The word 'strawberry' contains two ‘R’s." Obviously, that's wrong – the correct answer is three.
This is the difference between knowing and understanding.
AI models tokenize words. Tokenization is the process of breaking down a stream of text, such as sentences, into individual words and then assigning values to each word in multiple dimensions. An AI model doesn't break down a word into letters, so current models don't use introspection to know what letters make up a word. While an AI model could break down words into letters, the juice is not worth the squeeze when it comes to memory and storage requirements.
In the world of AI, this seemingly confidence, yet random guess, is called a hallucination.
During an initial call, the fake company asks you to complete a software development exercise by downloading a project from GitHub. The project, which contains a ZIP file, has a seemingly benign non-executable file named something like “readme․pdf” except that the dot, in the filename, isn’t a simple dot/period but rather a symbol that looks like a period such as U+2024. In other words, the OS doesn’t see a file extension (PDF in this example).
When the developer double clicks on the file, it executes. Typically, on Linux, a user must manually chmod a downloaded file to set the executable flag (i.e. chmod +x readme․pdf). However, since this filed was embedded in a ZIP file, the executable meta data can be preserved. Also, a password is sometimes added to the ZIP file so even smart virus protection software can’t scan the ZIP file.
This is a Homograph Attack using Unicode Deception. Two things to be suspicious of this attack is the zipping of small-sized files and the password on a ZIP.
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| Vision Pro demo area with eyeglasses Rx reader |
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| January 10, 2007 |
The first iPhone was announced 17 years ago, today, approximately 41 minutes into Steve Jobs's MacWorld Keynote address. This is the reason that Apple ads display 9:41 AM in their marketing materials.
At the time, I was working as a software engineer at the Apple Online Store. Like everyone else, I was surprised and amazed at the product announcement.
The next day, I printed out a color image of the iPhone, glued it to corrugated cardboard, and sent photos of me holding it to friends joking that I had an actual iPhone and pointing out that the photo wasn't photoshopped. (The iPhone wouldn't ship until six months later.) My coworker and I even took photos of us holding the cardboard cutout in front of 1 Infinite Loop.
I wouldn't see an actual iPhone in the wild until sometime later when I was in a meeting and Tim Cook walked in, pulled it out of his pocket and flashed it at us while saying, "This is so cool." We were all champing at the bit to get our hands on one.
