Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 944

The Messy History of Tech's Finger-Chopping Fears

Congratulations to Marc Rogers of the security firm Lookout, who managed to get half a dozen websites to carry his weird quote about thieves cutting off fingers to access new iPhones protected with a fingerprint scanner. Turning a long-standing fear into a marketing opportunity is as American as apple pie — but Rogers isn't the first to offer the concern.

This is a dumb idea, as Will Oremus notes at Slate, in the least Slatepitch-y article in history. "Is it possible that some deranged nut might chop off your fingers in order to gain access to your iPhone?" Oremus writes. "Sure … It’s also possible that he might chop off your arm to steal your purse, chop off your legs to steal your Nikes, or chop off your head in order to grab your necklace." It is also possible that if presented with the threat of losing a finger or turning off fingerprint sign-ins, rational people might choose the latter.

But that didn't stop the Huffington Post UK and The Independent and The Mirror and Metro and The Guardian UK from running with the story. Given that those are all British publications, maybe the rampant fear of knife crime played some role, who knows.

What we do know is that fears about amputation in order to access biometrically-protected devices are not new. In May 1998, after Science News ran a story about the possibility of using physical identifiers as a way of accessing an ATM ("Private Eyes"), Skylar Barclay Sudderth of Brownwood, Texas, wrote in, offering apparently one of the first such worries.

If automatic teller machines (ATMs) someday permit presentation of a body part for authentication purposes, then ruthless muggers will no longer be content with taking your wallet, watch, and jewelry—they’ll cut off your finger or rip out your eyeball in order to fool the fingerprint analyzer or retinal scanner and gain complete access to your bank account.

Her recommended alternative? Personal identification numbers — the security system Apple uses on its phones now.

In March 2005, the BBC reported on an incident suggesting that Skylar's fears were coming true. Thugs in Malaysia stole a car requiring the driver's fingerprint. Meaning they had to steal the finger, too.

The attackers forced Mr Kumaran to put his finger on the security panel to start the vehicle, bundled him into the back seat and drove off.

But having stripped the car, the thieves became frustrated when they wanted to restart it. They found they again could not bypass the immobiliser, which needs the owner's fingerprint to disarm it.

They stripped Mr Kumaran naked and left him by the side of the road - but not before cutting off the end of his index finger with a machete.

In 2007, concern about such immorality nixed fingerprint scanners at Parliament, according to the always-questionable Daily Mail.

Plans to use fingerprint scanners to control entry to the Commons have been abandoned over fears that terrorists could cut off an MP's finger to get inside.

Security advisers have warned that a suicide bomber would have no compunction about removing a politician's finger to fool scanners.

In an effort to counter car thieves and terrorists with a similar lack of qualms, scientists invented systems requiring the finger be attached to a living person — though those are obviously too complex to fit in the base of an iPhone. Such systems will not yet be in place by the time the documentary Minority Report becomes reality. (Scroll down.)

What we are more concerned about — and this is based on a lot of scientific evidence that we can't get into right now — is that criminals will in fact sever the heads of iPhone owners, lugging the ghoulish trophies around in bowling ball bags until they need to use the phone. Why they need the heads isn't clear, but we've reached out to some experts that we're confident can come up with a reason.

       

Bethenny Frankel May Be in Trouble

Today in show business news: Bethenny Frankel's new talk show isn't doing so well, Sons of Anarchy is a huge hit though, and Downton Abbey gets ready to rule Britain all over again.

The rollercoaster that is reality star turned walking brand Bethenny Frankel's career may be heading for a drop. Her new talk show, called Bethenny for some mysterious reason, premiered on Monday to not-so-great numbers. And then, on Tuesday, it took another dip. As Deadline puts it, ratings-wise Bethenny "was off by a tenth in each category from its so-so premiere." That's not a good sign. It's not a terrible sign, some second-show dip was to be expected, it always is. But this can't continue. She needs some kind of bump or the future of her fledgling talk show may be seriously in trouble. If her show does get canceled, what comes next for Bethenny Frankel? Another Bravo show? Is she done with that whole road? The fact of the matter is, she probably doesn't need to do anything if she finds herself out of a job. She's made such a fortune off her margarita drinks that she could probably sit back, drink a few, and, I dunno, raise her kid in peace and quiet for the next twenty years. That's probably not what she wants to do, but she could. Which is nice! That is probably a nice option to have. To work solely because you want to. We should all be so lucky! [Deadline]

On the opposite end of the ratings spectrum, FX's Sons of Anarchy premiered its penultimate season last night and it was a boffo success. The show averaged 5.87 million viewers in its initial broadcast, with a strong showing in the all-important (meaning, the only ones who matter) 18-49 demographic. What's more is that, according to The Hollywood Reporter, once DVR and On Demand viewings and whatnot are factored in, "the network expects the episode will rank as the top-rated single telecast in FX history." In its sixth season! That is impressive. I guess people just really love this show. Funny that a network primarily aimed at dudes would have success with a series about a tough biker gang and their gnarly adventures. What about that premise appeals to men who watch Anger Management and Justified? I just don't get. (Though, to be fair, with shows like The Americans and American Horror Story flourishing on the network, it may be tough to argue that FX is still a network for guys. I mean, it's no Esquire Network.) Whatever the reason, Sons of Anarchy is a big deal for the network. Too bad it's ending next year. Maybe a spin-off is in order? [The Hollywood Reporter]

Speaking of cultishly watched shows, we now know when it will be time to block all your British friends on Twitter and Facebook and, I don't know, Habbo? (I hope for your sake you don't have any friends on Habbo, or have Habbo at all.) The date is September 22. That's when ITV will debut the fourth season of Downton Abbey in Britain, meaning you can either figure out some illegal download or cover your ears and go la-la-la-la until the show premieres on PBS in January. It's hard to endure the wait, so we wish you luck. Though, all you have to do is ignore all of Britain. How hard can that be? You didn't pay attention to Girls Aloud, so now just don't pay attention to this. You can do it! [Deadline]

Speaking of Downton Abbey, one of that show's stars has landed a plum movie role. Jessica Brown Findlay, who [SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT] played Lady Sybil on the show until she croaked last season, will play the female lead in Frankenstein, a new version of the tale told from Igor's perspective. Brown Findlay will play a trapeze artist who is rescued by Daniel Radcliffe's Igor and the two grow close. James McAvoy is playing Dr. Frankenstein, while Austin Mahone is currently in talks to play the monster. (No, just kidding, but you should post that on Habbo to freak all your friends out.) [The Hollywood Reporter]

And speaking of British drama, ABC has bought a pitch for a show about "a regular girl who falls in love with the heir of a political dynasty, becoming a modern-day princess. But what seems like a fairytale quickly unravels. The plot echoes the real-life story of Britain’s Princess Diana." Oh my. And after the warm reception Diana got just last week. What good timing! Look, this good be interesting, something like the strange and canceled-too-soon Kings, or it could be a disaster, like, well, Diana. We'll have to wait and see. [Deadline]

       

Syria's Threatened Cultural Legacy

While the humanitarian situation in Syria is of critical importance, the risk of losing ancient historical sites is also an issue that has to be addressed. There are six Syrian cities, including Damascus and Aleppo, listed on the UNESCO (the cultural branch of the United Nations) World Heritage List; in a letter to President Obama several cultural preservationist groups, including the United States Committee of the Blue Shield, asked the president to keep those sites in mind in the event of a military attack. 

The letter reminded the president of his obligation to protect Syria's cultural heritage, as laid out during the 1954 Hague Convention. The groups also asked the president to issue executive orders asking federal agencies to "encourage and enter into agreements with any allies and any rebel forces with which it coordinates, including the Free Syrian Army, to ensure protection of Syria’s cultural heritage" and to ensure that looted artifacts aren't easily distributed.

So far the damage has been dishearteningly severe. In June of this year, the Associated Press reported that UNESCO listed all six of Syria's World Heritage sites on a danger list, noting that several mosques and citadels have been damaged and an "illicit trade in Syria's rich archaeological heritage has flourished" over the last two years.

UNESCO expert Francesco Bandarin told the Agence France-Presse that artifacts were already popping up in Beirut. "On some markets, there is a real influx," he said. The image below shows a damaged minaret (left side) and what it looked like before. 

[image error]

From the Associated Press:

The minaret of a famed 12th century Sunni mosque in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo was destroyed Wednesday, April 24, 2013, leaving the once-soaring stone tower a pile of rubble and twisted metal scattered in the tiled courtyard. President Bashar Assad's regime and anti-government activists traded blame for the attack against the Umayyad mosque, which occurred in the heart Aleppo's walled Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The world has learned, to an extent, from similar looting and military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. The Iraq National Museum was able to save several artifacts by hiding key works and blocking off the museum's entrances with cement bricks. Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's antiquities chief, told the Associated Press that Syria's government also managed to stash away the country's most valuable relics.

As for the antiques still out in the open, there's not much America can do. Based on current laws, the U.S. will attempt to prevent stolen artifacts from entering the country. But in the event of a strike (assuming recent diplomatic developments fail) the U.S. has a history of firing at or near historic landmarks. 

       

When Y.A. Book Titles Get Naughty

Here's a new rule to keep in mind if you are a YA novelist looking to book appearances enlightening youngsters at middle schools: do not use the word "ass" in the title of your book, particularly if it is preceded by the words "kick" and "your."

This practical lesson is brought to you by way of the writer Meg Medina, who recently authored an anti-bullying novel by the name of Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass. It seems Medina is the one who has had her ass kicked by one Cumberland Middle School in Virginia, which uninvited the author from an anti-bullying event after noticing the A-S-S word in the title of her book. Quelle horreur!

Medina, to her credit, is not apologizing—she insists, rightly enough, that the whole point of the book's title is to highlight the abusive language often used by bullies. Just as retweets aren't endorsements, book titles aren't—well, let her explain it:

The title is bold and troubling, and it suggests exactly what’s inside. Besides, we can fret all we want about the word ass, but that word isn’t the real trouble, is it? What’s hurting our kids is the savagery on their phones, and Facebook pages and in their classrooms.

Says the superintendent in question, cleverly employing the passive voice, "it was decided bullying prevention could be taught without using unacceptable language."

Medina is one of several authors to attract national attention for school censorship woes in recent weeks. There was, memorably, the case of the book banned from a middle school in Queens because of masturbation—and Toni Morrison, of course, is always facing down such squeamishness.

In most such cases, press surrounding the censorship drama serves up plenty of free publicity for the author—even if his or her books won't be filling the shelves of the English classrooms in question.

       

'Derek' Is Ricky Gervais's Bizarre Kindness Campaign

With his new show Derek, out tomorrow on Netflix, Ricky Gervais is making the pitch that he's actually a kind person, despite his reputation for nastiness. But the the show—while being abundantly sweet, saccharine even—is such a jumble of mixed messages that at times it's hard not to find Gervais's supposedly good intentions suspect. 

Derek tells the story of a group of people working as caretakers at a home for the elderly, with a focus on the titular character played by Gervais. In the press tour leading up to Derek's release, Gervais has made a pointed effort to put the person who created Derek at odds with the man who dreamed up jerky David Brent of the U.K. version of The Office. Basically, Gervais wants to use Derek to make you think he's a nice guy. "What seems to be surprising to people is that I have a kind streak," he said at a screening last week, according to Variety. In a profile of Gervais in The Hollywood Reporter last month, Lacey Rose writes: "Gervais is betting that his audience is ready for a kinder persona that eschews laughs for introspection and, in certain cases, tears, as it grapples with helplessness and death with a humanity not often seen in Gervais' work."  

The sincerity of that "kind streak" came under fire when the pilot aired in Britain in 2012. (The rest of the show aired in Britain in early 2013.) Though he makes Derek practically divine, a good man with a good heart who just cares about people around him, Gervais also gives Derek hunched shoulders, a shuffling walk, and a jutted-out chin that is constantly in motion. Derek appears to have some sort of mental handicap, though it's never defined. Back when the show first premiered in Britain, Christopher Stevens, writing as the father of an autistic son in the Daily Mail, called Gervais hypocritical. In his work outside of the show, Gervais has faced backlash for using the word "mong," a derogatory term for a disabled person. "He sniggers on Twitter about ‘mongs’ and then pretends that Derek is a sensitive, enlightened look at disability and prejudice," Stevens wrote. Gervais has argued that Derek isn't disabled at all.

Throughout the show, other characters—especially the home's manager Hannah—praise Derek for just how good a person he is. Those outside Derek's comfortable, and comforting, world ask if Derek is autistic or if he should even be working there. They are cartoonishly cruel characters, monsters for pointing out Derek's obvious, well, difference. And yet Gervais's own characterization seems intended to make the viewer gawk. It often feels like he's trying to have it both ways. 

There's nothing really subtle about Derek, nor the show named after him. The humor, when there is any, tends to be broad, even crass. For instance, in one episode the character Kev, an unemployed lout who has latched himself onto Derek and his friends, farts and poops his pants. In another, Kev strides into the home with a grotesquely obese woman on his arm bragging about all the sex they had. 

When the show wants to strike a poignant note, it turns sappy. In one episode, following a party, a montage of the elderly residents of the home falling asleep after a party is interspersed with vintage-looking video of youthful frolicking. By the last episode, which swaps out the show's usual overbearing piano score with the Coldplay song "Fix You," even Kev has some wisdom to share on the meaning of life. It's all so blunt that you wonder whether Gervais—a man known for his biting, caustic wit—really wants us to be taking it all that seriously. Though Gervais has said that Derek is him "[leaving] behind the veil of irony," the show is so obvious you can't help thinking that perhaps some of the sweetness is ironic. And if that's the case, then what's the point?

 

       

Good God, That's Jim Ross' Music: The Greatest Calls of a Wrestling Great

WWE announcer and color commentator Jim Ross retired after over 30 years of calling sports broadcasts. He may not be a hero in conventional circles, but for some there was no one better on the mic. Here, we offer a retrospective of some of his best calls. 

Today some are calling him "one of the best announcers in any sport ever," while others prefer something simpler: "legend." Jim Ross was a wrestling announcer, sure, but he worked during wrestling's in the mid-to-late 90s when the business was never bigger. And it was during that time that Jim Ross' voice ingrained itself in the minds of children, teenagers and 20-somethings alike. 

No Jim Ross moment is more well known than his infamous call during the 1998 pay-per-view King of the Ring when the Undertaker, a soldier for the undead, threw Mankind, a deranged mental patient type, off a structure tastefully-titled the "Hell in a Cell": 

That video, and that call, would live on in Internet reverie forever. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people have remixed it over top of other videos. It provides the perfect reaction to anything shocking and short. You remember Miguel legdropping some poor girl at the Grammy's this year? Of course that got the Jim Ross treatment.

Listen here, from a match between his close friend "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and Dude Love at 1998's Over the Edge pay-per-view, as Ross reacts to a shocking kick-out from Austin leading into a storming comeback. He has all the excitement of Gus Johnson on his best day with a better ability to call what's happening in front of him. Watch the rest of the video when the Undertaker (who was lurking at ringside) starts inciting chaos. Ross captures the excitement and confusion of the moment beautifully. Start the video around 28 minutes, 20 seconds: 

And when things suddenly changed in front of the audience's eyes, like a beloved character became evil, no one was better at making a shocked call that Jim Ross. Here, at Wrestlemania X-7, man of the people Steve Austin turned on his fans and teamed up with evil, corporate boss Vince McMahon to win the championship belt. Ross famously said Austin "sold his soul to the devil" (start the video around 28 minutes, 28 seconds): 

Ross has also received glowing praise for his work on the 2009 Wrestlemania 25 pay-per-view match between Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker, two legends long past their best years. Careers were on the line, and Ross's commentary helped build the final moments of the match up so much that even the most jaded fans were jumping out of their seats. Here, beginning around the 31 minute mark, is the end of that match: 

He was also never afraid to hide his love for colorful candy, either, making him even more beloved to the teenagers watching at home: 

[Top photo by Mshake3 via Wikimedia Commons]

       

Obama Will Pledge to Consider Syria Compromise in Tonight's Speech

President Obama will tell the nation (again) on Tuesday night that his administration will consider a plan partially supported by the Russians to avoid a military strike in Syria. It's the latest shift in a somewhat frenetic reshuffling of the U.S.'s response to a chemical attack in Syria. That plan, on Tuesday, became slightly more complicated to implement as the details emerged on what the Russians would, and wouldn't support in order to avoid a strike on the country. That plan would involve Syria giving up its chemical weapons to international control. But Russia and Syria would like the U.S. to take the option of a strike off the table entirely. 

It doesn't look like Syria will get that exchange from the President tonight. According to NBC News, Obama is planning on "using conditional language and saying that an attack may be required." The New York Times has a great run-down of the challenges facing Obama as he prepares to sell a response to Syrian chemical weapons use to a skeptical American public, again. For one thing, they note, a majority of Americans do not believe that a Syrian strike would benefit the U.S., and don't think the president has outlined America's goals in that regard clearly enough. You can watch the speech, expected to run about 15 minutes, below. It starts at 9 p.m. EST: 

  JOIN THE LIVE CHAT VISIT WHITEHOUSE.GOV

 

Earlier on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton accepted the 2013 Liberty Medal, and briefly addressed Syria in her acceptance speech. As summarized by Reuters, Clinton said:

"How do we provide both security and liberty at home and abroad?" Clinton asked, saying that the Syrian government's chemical weapons use "violates a universal norm at the heart of our global order" and that the United States holds a unique capability and obligation to respond." 

       

Richard Dawkins Defends 'Mild' Pedophilia, Again and Again

Richard Dawkins defended "mild pedophilia" in an interview this weekend. And while the quote itself is quite jarring, especially to those who look to Dawkins for his influential writings on atheism (but haven't noticed some of his other strange stances), it's far from the first time that the scientist has launched a defense of the behavior — or talked about his own abuse at the hands of boarding school teachers. First, here's what Dawkins said to The Times magazine, as condensed by the Religion News Service: 

Referring to his early days at a boarding school in Salisbury, he recalled how one of the (unnamed) masters “pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts.”

He said other children in his school peer group had been molested by the same teacher but concluded: “I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm.”

“I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today,” he said.

He said the most notorious cases of pedophilia involve rape and even murder and should not be bracketed with what he called “just mild touching up.”

His reasons for defending the behavior seem to focus on three points. First, that "hysteria" over a fear of pedophilia is overblown by society; second, that instilling a child with fundamentalist religious beliefs is actually a worse way to abuse a child; and third, that he personally overcame childhood sexual abuse, meaning it must not be that big of a deal for anyone else who was subjected to similar behavior.

In April of this year, Dawkins compared two forms of what he sees as priestly abuse in an interview with Al Jazeera: sexual and theological. This exchange became pretty well-circulated in the conservative press. 

He said: 

There are shades of being abused by a priest, and I quoted an example of a woman in America who wrote to me saying that when she was 7 years old, she was sexually abused by a priest in his car.

“At the same time, a friend of hers, also 7, who was of a Protestant family, died, and she was told that because her friend was Protestant, she had gone to hell and will be roasting in hell forever.

“She told me, of those two abuses, she got over the physical abuse; it was yucky, but she got over it. But the mental abuse of being told about hell, she took years to get over. " 

This line of thought goes back at least to 2006 for Dawkins, when he wrote "we live in a time of hysteria about paedophilia, a mob psychology that calls to mind the Salem witch-hunts of 1692," in his popular book the God Delusion. He continued: 

All three of the boarding schools I attended employed teachers whose affections for small boys overstepped the bounds of propriety. That was indeed reprehensible. Nevertheless, if, fifty years on, they had been hounded by vigilantes or lawyers as no better than child murderers, I should have felt obliged to come to their defence, even as the victim of one of them (an embarrassing but otherwise harmless experience). 

The Roman Catholic Church has borne a heavy share of such retrospective opprobrium. For all sorts of reasons I dislike the Roman Catholic Church. But I dislike unfairness even more, and I can’t help wondering whether this one institution has been unfairly demonized over the issue, especially in Ireland and America… We should be aware of the remarkable power of the mind to concoct false memories, especially when abetted by unscrupulous therapists and mercenary lawyers. The psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has shown great courage, in the face of spiteful vested interests, in demonstrating how easy it is for people to concoct memories that are entirely false but which seem, to the victim, every bit as real as true memories. This is so counter-intuitive that juries are easily swayed by sincere but false testimony from witnesses. 

There's more. In 2012, a few conservative publications finally noticed what Dawkins wrote in 2006, and dredged it up. Dawkins then defended pedophilia, again, in defense of those earlier remarks: 

I was myself sexually abused by a teacher when I was about nine or ten years old. It was a very unpleasant and embarrassing experience, but the mental trauma was soon exorcised by comparing notes with my contemporaries who had suffered it previously at the hands of the same master. 

The following quote, from the same defense, drives home what's so off about Dawkins's argument here, beyond the knee-jerk recoiling of the idea of defending a pedophile. Dawkins, a scientist, relies on anecdotal evidence and speculation to "prove" his point: 

Thank goodness, I have never personally experienced what it is like to believe – really and truly and deeply believe ­– in hell. But I think it can be plausibly argued that such a deeply held belief might cause a child more long-lasting mental trauma than the temporary embarrassment of mild physical abuse.

Anecdotes and plausibility arguments, however, need to be backed up by systematic research, and I would be interested to hear from psychologists whether there is real evidence bearing on the question. My expectation would be that violent, painful, repeated sexual abuse, especially by a family member such as a father or grandfather, probably has a more damaging effect on a child’s mental well-being than sincerely believing in hell. But ‘sexual abuse’ covers a wide spectrum of sins, and I suspect that research would show belief in hell to be more traumatic than the sort of mild feeling-up that I suffered.

Dawkins gave the Times interview that put him back in the news this week in relation to his autobiography, by the way, comes out later this month. 

       

If It Wants Your Fingerprint, the Government Won't Need Your New iPhone

Your iPhone knows who you call. It knows where you are. And in the newest versions, it will know your thumbprint. Given revelations about how the NSA can access Apple devices, should you be worried about it having that biometric data?

No. No no no no no no. Come on. No.

To be fair, most of the suggestions we've seen that imply there's something to be worried about are either jokes or slightly better jokes or suggestions that worrying about this is dumb. The New York Times explained some legitimate concerns about the technology, which involves tapping the phone's home button with your thumb; The Washington Post had a more alarmed take. In case you are sincerely worried about it, allow us to articulate why you shouldn't be.

Getting data from the iPhone isn't easy.

Apple's iOS, the operating system that controls its mobile devices, is based on a version of Unix. For years, the company emphasized the security advantages of Unix in its marketing material, with good reason. On its developer site, the company explains how its "sandboxing" of applications leverages the security of Unix to ensure that apps only have access to a subset of the utilities available on the device. Think of it this way: If I take you into a building and lock you in an apartment in that building, you can roam around the apartment, use the shower, whatever. But you can't roam around the building. If you want to break everything in the room, go nuts. The building is safe. What Apple does is lock apps in rooms with access to some plumbing.

This isn't optional, as software engineer Isaac Schmidt from TenDigi confirmed to The Atlantic Wire by email. "[S]andboxing is a concrete constraint of the operating system," he said, "(as opposed to a 'rule' given to developers from Apple and enforced by the honor system)."

Speaking to All Things Digital, Apple vice president Phil Schiller confirmed that the thumbprint tool wouldn't be among the plumbing available in an app's room. Not yet — probably not ever. This is why you probably don't need to worry about malicious apps getting hold of your thumb print, either.

There are two ways in which developers might break out of the room, or at least access more plumbing.

The first is if the phone is "jailbroken," a procedure that allows a user to install applications from outside the Apple approval process. In that case, the doors to the rooms are left unlocked, and an application has broader access to the building at large. "Although jailbreaking the phone doesn't explicitly deconstruct the 'sandbox' architecture of the OS," Schmidt told us, "it does effectively mean that all bets are off in terms of assurances of what installed software can and cannot do any still be able to function/execute. So while fences remain on a jailbroken device, there is no longer anything to prevent you from jumping over them."

What's more, a jailbroken phone can look like its operating under the normal iOS, but if your phone isn't jailbroken, someone seeking to have those doors unlocked would need to jailbreak it first.

Probably. The second way to get out of the room is if the NSA hacks it. According to Der Spiegel, the NSA has successfully accessed iPhones.

Under the heading "iPhone capability," the NSA specialists list the kinds of data they can analyze in these cases. The document notes that there are small NSA programs, known as "scripts," that can perform surveillance on 38 different features of the iPhone 3 and 4 operating systems. They include the mapping feature, voicemail and photos, as well as the Google Earth, Facebook and Yahoo Messenger applications.

[image error](Images from an NSA slideshow like the one at right certainly won't help nervous customers.)

It's not clear if this is a regular app that is leveraging all of the possible pipes iOS makes available, or if it is otherwise a system that allows the NSA to roam around the phone. The hard count of 38 suggests the former. What an NSA hacked phone looks like isn't certain (though two Guardian employees found a weird, probably unrelated app on their phones). What is clear is that installing the NSA's surveillance tool / system / whatever requires syncing the device with a computer, adding yet another level of difficulty for the NSA.

We'll get to why that matters in a second. First, to dispel another rumor.

Your print isn't leaving your phone.

There was some concern that Apple would upload your scanned thumbprint to the cloud; that is, to the internet. At this point it isn't, and there's no reason to think it would. (Why would you need your password, which is in effect what this is, remotely?)

All Things Digital confirmed this, too. "All fingerprint information is encrypted and stored securely inside the A7 chip on the iPhone 5s." And there you go.

There is the issue of PRISM. The vaguely understood data-sharing agreement between Apple and the NSA is focused on the transmission of possibly-encrypted data over Apple's servers. The NSA, according to leaked documents, asks Apple (and other companies) for a peek at the traffic moving past. 

Your fingerprint, though, isn't traveling anywhere. Is it possible that the NSA could ask Apple to upload a user's fingerprint from the phone so that it can be transmitted to the agency? Sure. But that likely wouldn't be a request that comes through PRISM; it would probably require a separate warrant. Not impossible, but, given the burden of demonstrating need for a warrant, not as easy as a few keystrokes. 

There are trillions of better ways to get your thumbprint. Gajillions.

There are cases in which law enforcement has grabbed a cup someone used once in order to test for DNA. You leave DNA around in far fewer places than you do your thumbprint.

People seem to forget that the NSA is a spy agency. It has people who, unlike Edward Snowden, get out of the office. If the agency wanted to get your thumbprint, it could have one of those people do so in an hour. Have someone follow you out to eat, snag your fork as it heads back to the kitchen when you're done. Done. Easy. You touch a glass door as you walk through. You leave your desk for the day. You leave thumbprints in hundreds of places all the time.

If the NSA wanted to grab your thumbprint, it could do so trivially. (Assuming you're not an American. The NSA, of course, isn't allowed to do this sort of surveillance on Americans, subject to a variety of qualifications and "except"s and so on that aren't worth getting into here.) Not without time and effort — but none of these options are free of time and effort. Having a guy pick your soda bottle out of the garbage is probably harder than getting access to your laptop to install malware on your phone, but not a whole lot.

What is the NSA going to do with your thumbprint, anyway?

Movie fans can probably imagine the NSA stealing your thumbprint, printing out a recreation of it from wax, and then slipping it onto a glove to carry out some nefarious activity. But unless you own a biometric lock at your house or office (which not many people do), that's not going to do much good. (If that even works, which seems unlikely.) Of course, you do have one biometric lock — on your iPhone. But the NSA wouldn't need to hack your iPhone to get your thumbprint so it could access your iPhone.

Maybe you're worried the NSA wants to confirm your identity. It seems unlikely that the NSA's acquisition of your thumbprint from your phone could be used to establish reasonable doubt when matched to an anonymous thumbprint at a crime scene. If it wanted to compare the phone print to your known thumbprint, well, that means the government already has your thumbprint. So it sort of doesn't matter in that case either.

So stop worrying.

Look, there are legitimate concerns about how the government and, particularly, the NSA conducts its surveillance. The boundaries of where and when that happens are still emerging and certainly suggest reason for caution.

Your new gold iPhone is not the key to a lock the government has been dying to pick. It is easy to hear a combination of things that have been remotely linked to dangerous situations and get nervous — iPhone, biometric, hacked, thumbprint, gold. But work your way back up the system of trails and you see that you've gotten pretty far from reality.

Now are you carrying your laptop across the border? That you should worry about.

       

Jason Sudeikis and Kirsten Dunst to Start a Romance

Today in show business news: Jason Sudeikis and Kirsten Dunst try their hand at romantic comedy together, Bethenny Frankel's new show may be in trouble, and don't worry, there will be another Step Up movie.

Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine. Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher. These are recent romantic comedy pairings that have not worked. In fact, the romantic comedy is, with a few exceptions, in a general state of disrepair at the moment. So might a new pairing help revive it? We thought the entirely winning combo of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in Going the Distance might do it, but it didn't catch on for some reason. But now come Kirsten Dunst and Jason Sudeikis, who have just signed on to star together in a romantic comedy called Sleeping With Other People, to be written and directed by Bachelorette auteur Leslye Headland. That is an interesting group of people! Headland and Dunst did good things together in Bachelorette (though it was nowhere near as good, nor as dark and bruising, as Headland's original stage play). And Jason Sudeikis recently charmed in his first true leading role in We're the Millers. So this could work. The plot doesn't sound all that promising — "a good-natured womanizer ... befriends a remorseful serial cheater. Their platonic relationship reforms their chronic infidelity but sparks an inconvenient romantic attraction to each other" — but, whatever, a lot of romantic comedy concepts sound silly on paper. It's all in the details and, of course, the chemistry. Which could be an issue. Maybe it's just me, but doesn't Jason Sudeikis seem a lot older than Kirsten Dunst? They're only about six years apart, but still. Kirsten Dunst is the little girl from Interview With the Vampire! Jason Sudeikis is that guy who plays game show hosts on Saturday Night Live. It's a little odd. But, still, let's hope they can make it work. At this point any romantic comedy success would be welcome. And that Hugh Grant/Marisa Tomei movie is still a ways away. [Deadline]

Bethenny Frankel's new talk show and its official premiere yesterday, after a successful try-out run last year, and, well, the numbers ain't great. The former Real Housewives of New York star's show, obscurely titled Bethenny, debuted to numbers on par with the premieres of The Jeff Probst Show and Ricki Lake last year. Both of which are, y'know, gone now. So that is not good! There is a ray of sunshine, though. Deadline points out that in terms of demographic numbers, Bethenny did pretty well. In the desired demo, women 25-54, the show "was up double digits from its lead-in and the time period’s average last September." So the show will hold on to that, wave that in everyone's faces while desperately hoping that more viewers show up before everything goes kablooey. Because if things do go wrong, then in some ways Jill Zarin has won, and we cannot let that happen. [Deadline]

Celebrate by getting down and getting funky, because there will be another Step Up movie. A fifth Step Up movie. How about that. So we've done the original formula, with Channing Tatum and his future wife, Jenna Dewan. There's Step Up 2: The Streets, which was about the streets. Then there was Step Up 3D, which was obviously in 3D. And then Step Up Revolution, which was about the American Revolution dancing flash mobs. So what will the fifth one be? Step Up Space? Some sort of Richard Branson joint? Or it could always be set in another country. Tokyo Drift already stole Japan. (Step Up and Fast & Furious are the same movies just with different moves.) Where else is cool right now? Brazil? Rats, F&F already did that too. Plus two actors from earlier Step Up films are returning so it can't be entirely different. Maybe they open a Step Up School? That sounds fun. Step Up Academy. You get a lot of new young blood, plus it's like Glee. Maybe the kids fight to the death. I dunno. What do kids like now? Probably that, I think. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Michelle Monaghan is the final lead cast in Ryan Murphy's HBO sex pilot Open. She joins Scott Speedman, Anna Torv, Wes Bentley, and, excitingly, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Monaghan, who's been making a pleasant go of it in the movies for years now but for some reason hasn't moved much beyond wife/girlfriend/woman in trouble roles, will play Grace, a "recently engaged gynecologist." Speedman plays her fiance. So now that it's all cast, shooting can begin! Everyone take your clothes off and learn this song, Mr. Murphy will be will you in a moment. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Speaking of Ryan Murphy, here's a 30 second teaser thing for American Horror Story: Coven in which we get some early hint, a sliver of a hint, at the plot. Thrillingly, it looks like Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett are the head witches in charge, while folks like Taissa Farmiga and Gabourey Sidibe are their apprentices. We have to wait about a month to find out for sure, though. But everyone loves witches, right?? This should be good.