The Groundswell vs. The Brand?
One of the main stories this week is the alleged “kill switch” for iPhone applications discovered by Jonathan Zdziarski. His summary as of Thursday was:
“With a little DNS spoofing, I fed my own list into the iPhone and effectively killed (by name) applications that attempt to use the GPS. It looks like that’s all it’s set to do right now, but I may just not have found the “vaporize” switch. Think about it: if you know about a malicious piece of software that invades your privacy, how irresponsible is it to let the application continue to run, even without GPS? It indeed would still have access to the microphone, camera, screenshots - not to mention a worldwide mobile network to transmit data on. This leaves only two viable possibilities: either it is an anti-malware solution, and has a switch somewhere to vaporize any app, or it’s not an anti-malware solution and is really designed to kill applications that interfere with Apple’s business model, such as unsanctioned traffic navigation software (which is apparently restricted from the AppStore). Either way, the idea that Apple can choose what functionality my applications should have frightens me.”
I’m very interested in this and will be following it closely. Regardless of what the switch is intended to do, it is there. Even if Apple doesn’t intend to use it to safeguard their business model, they can use it to do so. Depending on consumer reactions, there is the potential that we’ll see “The Groundswell” go up against “The Brand.” And if that happens, there will be a lot to learn in the fallout.
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