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Aperture’s EOL And The Consequence Of Livining in a Golden Cage

Apple discretely manage software lifecycles to push users into buying new, its new, expensive hardware.

A recent news is that is going to dump Aperture, its photo management pro app, announcing in the meantime the availability of a “photo” application in the next iteration of OSX. True, Apple shall not drop the support for the new OS versions, but for how long? This uncertainty ? will force people to either stay stuck to older machines or move to Adobe Lightroom, the (currently only) competitor. In either case this will cause financial and time issues for Aperture’s user-base.

Aperture is nothing but the last Apple-made software to meet this ? or a similar fate. Final Cut Pro X latest version, so Pages, Numbers and Keynote, just to name a few, only work with the current OSX version, Maverick.

True, compared to the consequences of Microsoft XP dismissal, the Apple choice looks a trivial issue but on the long term it shouldn’t, since managing the lifecycle of its applications as well as the backward compatibility, Apple is able to force its users into buying new expensive hardware. Furthermore, for those who choose not to upgrade, the software old-versions might not be anymore permanently available through the AppStore and cannot be locally downloaded. So why a professional user should enter into this uncertain – or, on the contrary, safe-but-costly, world?

This is the consequence of living in a Golden Cage: stay comfortable as soon as you can afford it. And when (“when”, not “if”) you don’t anymore, just get lost and give room to the next, wealthy-at-the-moment, occupier of your place in the Golden Cage.

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Why Do We Blog (or Tweet, or Whatever…)?

Secure your presence online, get traffic on your website or social network profile, target potential customers and talk about them so you can be noticed and – hopefully – hired… The Internet is full of (often) contradictory advices on how to exploit the communication tools to increase the business and get new clients.

Of course there is nothing wrong in using marketing techniques like these, especially by complying with the McCann-Ericson motto: “Truth Well Told”. Nevertheless I find unfair to use this “Trojan Horse” approach: pretending to be nice – or talking about some specific issues – ? just because of the chance to be spotted and hired.

When, together with Stefano Chiccarelli, I wrote Spaghetti Hacker I couldn’t even foresee its success: 10.000 copies sold back in the late nineties, when the Internet wasn’t so available and with no support of a PR agent. We got media coverage, conference invitations and – yes – a fair share of business. And the tide, after almost twenty years, is still high since we (Stefano and I) both meet people praising for the book.

Well, we didn’t write the book because we were following a marketing strategy or to enter into somebody else’s radar. We just felt we had something to say about a topic we care, and that was – and still is – largely unknown: the Italian hacker culture. In other words, Spaghetti Hacker was a sincere, straight-to-the point message to whoever was interested in understanding what was going on in the then newborn Italian Internet.

So, where’s the point of this post?

Answer: sincerity and transparency: if you blog/tweet/post for marketing purposes, please do not pretend to be born on July, 4th.

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Stop Apple and Google To Take Over Our Cars

Google just announced its “Android Auto” platform, while Apple already did ? it with Carplay. Both platforms require an Internet connection and, it is just matter of time, will become more and more deeply interconnected with the car control system.

But software do fail. It fails because there’s no such thing as a bug-free software, it fails because people do mistakes, it fails because the software house’s roadmap not necessarily matches the final users’ safety.

And I don’t care about the usual PR stunts such as “as soon as we discovered the bug we did our best to fix it the fastest way” or “since the xyz library is licensed and proprietary we can’t keep responsibility for the way the software behave” or, finally, “if you just read the EULA you will find that it is clearly stated that we don’t take any responsibility for blah, blah, blah…”

This is a price we cannot afford to pay.

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A Homicide Investigation And The (Still Alive) Data Retention Regulation

The young girl homicide investigation I’ve talked about in a previous post reveals other interesting information, this time about the Telcos’s role in supporting the public prosecution service through the traffic data retention.

The media are reporting (italian only, sorry) that more than 120.000 single mobile calls are under scrutiny spanning from a few months before the kill. But since the fact is more than three years’old, these data aren’t even supposed to exist since the Data Retention Directive forbade its preservation once the (maximum) two-years term expired.

So, hopefully for the justice and the family of the poor girl, at the beginning of the investigation the public prosecutor, as required by law, did issue a traffic data “freezing” order or, better, seized it as dictated by the Italian Criminal Rule of Evidence.

As in the case of the DNA-based evidence, the collection of traffic data without complying the Rule of Evidence might allow the defense lawyers to challenge the reliability of these information especially because the original traffic data have (or should have been) destroyed once collected by the public prosecution service, thus preventing the possibility of double-checking during the trial their actual evidence “weight”.

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DNA Clandestine Collection, Data Protection and Rule of Evidence. Jeopardizing an Homicide Investigation?

After a three years investigation the public prosecutor of Bergamo (a city near Milan) arrested the alleged author of the homicide of a young girl. The suspect has been found thanks to a massive DNA analysis that involved about 18.000 residents of the area, that led, after the skimming of the majority of the genetic profiles, to only two “candidates” .

To obtain the genetic samples to be compared with those found on the crime scene, the investigators faked a routine traffic control check-point, asking the suspect to pass the alcool-test. Further more – as the media say – the investigators were able to collect “organic fluids” from the suspect’s mother unbeknownst to her.

In this way of investigating the homicide there are two issue that haven’t been taken into account so far: what do the investigators do with the 18.000 DNA samples that they’ve collected and, more important, if a “clandestine” DNA sample collection legal under the Italian Rule of Evidence and Data Protection Regulation.

About the first issue: hopefully the “de facto” biobank should be destroyed once no more useful for the investigation, but neither public information is available nor the Data Protection Authority told a word about it. If this is not the case, this 18.000 samples will be used as a comparison for all the future investigation, meaning that those resident who voluntary gave out their samples will be routinely “investigated” unbeknownst to them.

About the second issue: the suspect’s mother has not been charged since there is no evidence of her connection with the crime. So, as a citizen not charged of anything, should have been told by the investigators that they were collecting her genetic sample.

As per the suspect, the available information don’t reveal whether the clandestine genetic sample collection has been ordered BEFORE he was officially charged by the prosecutor or AFTER his official involvement in the case as the potential perpetrator. This might lead to the possibility for the defense lawyer to object the genetic evidence be part of the trial on the basis that both samples have been collected in a wrong way.

Frankly, as this homicide is a major case in Italy, I doubt that neither a judge nor the Data Protection Authority (very aggressive against SPAM and Social Networks misuse) ? will “buy” this objection, even if – as I think – has some merit.

So, provided that the defense lawyers follow this path, the trial will take years to end, because of the legal issues involved with the genetic evidence (think of the Kercher murder, that is still re-tried after having gone up to the Supreme Court and back to the Court of appeals) thus allowing a culprit to stay out of jail longer than he deserves, or an innocent to be acquitted much too late.

As somebody said, big cases make bad justice.