What is YOUR Level of Paranoia?

A Houston lawyer is suing Apple alleging that Apple’s Facetime bug (still not fixed) that allowed people to eavesdrop even if you do not answer the call, allowed a private deposition to be recorded.

If you are among the geek crowd you probably know that the most paranoid person around, Edward Snowden, required reporters to put their phones in the freezer (not to keep them cold, but rather the metal box of the freezer kept radio waves out) when they were talking to him.

The lawyer is calling the bug a defective product breach and said that Apple failed to provide sufficient warnings and instructions.

I am not intimately familiar with Apple’s software license agreement, but assuming it is like every other one I have seen, it says that they are not responsible for anything and it is completely up to you to decide if the software meets your needs.

That probably conflicts with various defective product laws, but if that strategy had much promise you would think some lawyer would have tried that tactic before.

But the problem with the iPhone and the lawsuit do point out something.

We assume that every user has some level of paranoia.  Everyone’s level varies and may be different for different situations.  We call that your Adjustable Level of Paranoia of ALoP (Thanks James!)

YOU need to consider your ALoP in a particular circumstance. 

You should have a default ALoP.  Depending on who you are, that might be low or high.  You will take different actions based on that.

In this case, if the lawyer was really interested in security, he should not have allowed recorders (also known as phones and laptops) into the room.  He also should have swept for bugs.

That is a trade-off for convenience.  But, that is the way security works.  Low ALoP means high convenience.  High ALoP means lower convenience.  Ask anyone who has worked in the DoD world.   If you work in a classified environment you cannot bring your phone into the building.  They have lockers to store them in if you do.  If you ignore that rule you can lose your clearance or even get prosecuted.

Bottom line is that you need to figure out what your ALoP is for a particular situation and make adjustments accordingly.

Suing Apple will not solve this attorney’s problem.  There will be more software bugs.  I promise this was NOT the last one.

But the lawyer will get his 15 seconds of fame before the suit is settled or dismissed.

Source: ABC 13.

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