What’s the big deal with the iphone ‘kill switch’
There has been a lot of coverage over the last week on the ‘discovery’ that Apple may be able to disable an application you installed on your iphone.
Hmm… what would computer users say if Microsoft installs a “kill switch” into Windows Vista? Or its mobile smartphones? Or if Nokia did the same?
Those ‘kill switches’ are already there in the form of CRL’s for nokia applets and also for vista device drivers.
The apps that are downloaded are digitally signed so Apple already has the means of disabling the application by revoking the signer’s certificate and placing it on a certificate revocation list (CRL).
It seems more logical that the url is (as pointed out by John Gruber) a means to stop errant or malicious applications from accessing your locaion via the core location api.
