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In August last year, the AFP obtained a warrant under section 3LA of the Crimes Act to unlock a gold-coloured Samsung phone found in the centre console of the man’s car when he was pulled over and searched.
The man supplied the password for a laptop also in the car, and a second phone did not have a pin to unlock, but when asked about the gold phone, he answered “no comment” and would not provide a password for the phone.
He later claimed it wasn’t his phone and he didn’t know the password to access it.
The federal court last month overturned the magistrate’s decision to grant a warrant forcing the man to provide assistance in unlocking the phone.
The decision was overturned on several grounds, notably judge Richard White found that the Samsung phone was not a computer or data storage device as defined by the federal Crimes Act.
The law does not define a computer, but defines data storage devices as a “thing containing, or designed to contain, data for use by a computer”.
White found that the phone could not be defined as a computer or data storage device.
“While a mobile phone may have the capacity to ‘perform mathematical computations electronically according to a series of stored instructions called a program’, it does not seem apt to call such an item a computer,” he said.
“Mobile phones are primarily devices for communicating although it is now commonplace for them to have a number of other functions ... Again, the very ubiquity of mobile phones suggests that, if the parliament had intended that they should be encompassed by the term ‘computer’ it would have been obvious to say so.”
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 20 2019, @05:37PM (7 children)
I agree with the judge: shouldn't force access to phones. As a tech-head, I think he's on very shaky grounds calling a smartphone "not a computer."
I'm on the verge of trying (again) to run a full desktop on a smartphone - the Nexus 5 wasn't quite up to it, even though it clearly has the power, the desktop OS support isn't there the way it is in less powerful devices like a Raspberry Pi.
I really wish that my present existence followed the fork where Nokia succeeded in bringing Qt/Linux to the smartphone market - not sure who all in Microsoft would have had to die to make that happen, maybe not more than a dozen or so...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday August 20 2019, @06:24PM (6 children)
As I understand it, Nokia had internal infighting between the Symbian phone division and the other Smart Phone / devices division. Both competing for resources. Symbian brought in the money, but didn't have the future that the other OS division had. This infighting ultimately brought the company down the point where it was ripe for Ballmer to pick it. With the help of Nokia's own Stephen Elop, who, ta da!, formerly worked [bgr.com] at Microsoft.
But at my age, memory fades, and I get distracted by the feet of young people upon my lawn.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday August 20 2019, @07:12PM (5 children)
That sounds like what I remember from the time... still more fun to believe that Microsoft was to blame (and without Elop...)
Nokia was a huge monster, not surprising they ended up eating themselves, but Qt on smartphones would have been so very very cool, especially for C++ programmers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 20 2019, @09:11PM (4 children)
Microsoft was to blame for the ultimate demise of Nokia. Even for planting Elop there in the first place -- if you accept that conspiracy theory.
Once Nokia was acquired, they still had a successful business.
Even though Elop was never going to permit Android; Microsoft could have wised up and realized that Android is winning and that to make money Nokia needs to embrace Android. But Nooooooo. Pushing the dead Windows Phone 6, er . . .uh, Windows Phone 7 . . . ooops I mean, Windows Phone 8, was more important than actually making money.
Windows Phone 7 and 8 were dead before they ever launched. First they broke compatibility with 6. No surprise there. They were moving from dumb or, somewhat enhanced dumb phones, to smart phones with touch. All new APIs, etc. And it had to be dot NET. But then, for Win Phone 8, they broke APIs again. After trying to convince developers to invest in Win Phone 7, which was obsolete at the time it launched. Devs seemed in no big hurry to embrace Win Phone 7, let alone Win Phone 8. I don't care how nice the phones are nor how pretty, nor how wonderful Nokia's hardware was (and it was according to many). Nokia's wonderful hardware would SINK due to running a Microsoft OS.
Ballmer had totally missed the smartphone, tablet, mobile devices boat / train, etc. When iPhone came out, Ballmer made fun of it as not serious and business would never use it, etc. Just like almost missing the internet in 1995, because too focused on . . . The Desktop Monopoly. And things will always be as they are now. Just lay back and watch the monopoly money roll in. Nothing could ever change, even as years and years pass with people pissed off about monopoly pricing. And ignoring that the hardware was quickly approaching the price of a Windows license. Once Windows costs more than the hardware it runs on, stick a fork in it. And I've shifted to small computers here, not phones.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 21 2019, @01:31AM (3 children)
$150 buys me a small computer, with a 3 megapixel touchscreen display, 64GB flash and 16GB RAM, 8 reasonably fast cores, built in 16 hour battery, bluetooth, wifi, 4G data modem, GPS, accelerometer, gyro, three cameras, HDMI out, fingerprint reader, oh and a phone. It's just too damn bad that Linux distros haven't stretched to support the phones the way they did the RasPi. I've started thinking I'm going to learn Kotlin so I can make programs for this 4G capable Android 9 smartwatch I picked up for $100, but who has the time?
I've been buying NUCs without OS for the last 8 years or so, just installed Ubuntu 18.04.3 on a 2008 vintage iMac (on which iOS had taken a total planned obsolescence dump), but, still, there are two laptops and one NUC in the house with Windoze 10 on them because occasionally it is easier to just have one of those things around because whatever you're trying to do is just easier there. Those occasions are getting much further and farther in-between, but they still arise once in a rare while.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by number11 on Wednesday August 21 2019, @03:24AM (2 children)
Android is a Linux distro, sort of. Trouble is, the phone stuff is proprietary. Nobody is going to open-source it. Certainly not the chip makers. And one can even make an argument for that... fully open-sourced, one could change the IMEI, clone phones, and do a lot of mischief. Yeah, they can do some of that now, but with OSS any bozo who could figure out how to compile would be able to.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 21 2019, @10:07AM (1 child)
I've only scratched the surface of Android, but the blood that has come out so far is classic treadmill: version 22 and up you need to do X, version 24 and up you need to do Y, etc. etc. If you want your app in the store, plan to update it every 3 months at a minimum to keep up with the latest requirements.
All I'm trying to do is integrate a map, a GPS location, and an MQTT message system for a family tracking app that actually updates location fast enough to practically track down family members, something Google Maps should have an option for in the first place, but every couple of versions of Android they throw a new wrench in it for some excuse or another, all perfectly valid for the billion user base, but B.S. if you really do want to share that info with family members. It's no wonder there's not a decent free version in the store, and the ones I have tried seem to be flaky.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21 2019, @02:07PM
So many are flaky. The eco system is complete bs