Is an iPad a Non-Programmable Computer?

As always, before I write anything, I need to add a disclaimer. I work for Intel and tweet under @intel_chris. However, these tweets and blog entries are simply my own opinions and not the official pronouncements of Intel in any way.

Before we look at that question, we need to define what it means. There are devices that perform computations that are not programmable. However, that isn't what I'm asking about, although it is close.

So, Sherman set the way-back machine to 1890, the time of Herman Hollerith and the census. It was a big task collating the answers from all around the country and it was done by using machines which sorted the punched cards into various slots.

If you look at old movies, you can sometimes see some of these machines. (More information and pictures at technikum29.) Early on in my career, I even used them.

Now, to perform their function these machines could be programmed, by the use of levers (in the case of the ones I used) or wires that could be connected or disconnects (in others). However, the key point is that the cards themselves could NOT affect the program, only the switches or wires could. Thus, although the machines could be programmed, from the point of view of the cards, they could not.

Modern computers keep the program in the same memory as the data. This is called the Von Neumann architecture. This architecture allows the program to be changed by sending data to the computer. It is an important advancement in what computers can do. However, it also allows computers to become infected with viruses. When a modern programmer wants a computer, this is what he wants, something he can send data to in order to reprogram. This is the kind of computer your PC or MAC is.

However, there is a "computer" in my house that I never reprogram. It's my TiVo. Inside the TiVo there is a computer that can be reprogrammed, and some people "hack" their TiVo's and change that program. However, I never do. I simply let the program run and do its thing.

Now, for those of you wondering, I do change the shows I watch and various things and that might seem like programming it. However, it isn't. It is configuring it. It's like the punch cards. Changing the shows I watch never changes the way the unit functions. Most importantly, changing the shows cannot introduce a virus into the TiVo. This is a non-programmable computer.

Of course, as I noted above the computer can be programmed. In fact, TiVo (the company) does so every once in a while. However, I never program it. More importantly, I have never heard of any virus writer ever sending malware to a TiVo.

The question worth asking is whether an iPad is more like a PC or MAC or more like a TiVo? If you don't Jailbreak your iPad (or your iPhone) I would argue that it is more like a TiVo. It provides certain services. Moreover, once you have a set of apps on your iPad, you don't reprogram it, until you add another app. Using an application on an iPad, even surfing the web, does not reprogram your iPad.

Compare this to surfing the web on a more normal computer. These computers are reprogrammed regularly. In fact, for the longest time, whenever you went to a new web site, there was a reasonable anticipation that the web site was going to use some new rendering software (e.g. a new version of flash) and would link you to a site to download it. That is one of the hooks many virus writers used to get you to load their malware onto your computer. You wanted to see Anna Kournikova and you were willing to reprogram your computer to do so.

On the iPad, one doesn't do that. One has a set of applications and they do their jobs. Moreover, Apple specifically vets all of those applications. At this level, an iPad has a virus-proof OS. If you never Jailbreak your phone, and you never download any apps that aren't approved, you should never get a virus.

Now, before everyone goes out and buys an iPad and says @intel_chris said it would protect them from viruses, let me add two caveats.

1. The fact that one programs an iPad at all, and more importantly, the fact that down deep within an iPad is a computer that can be programmed, means that it is possible to create iPad viruses. Someday, someone will do so. The more popular iPads become, the sooner that will happen. Moreover, things like Javascript embedded in web pages, are small programs, which means at some level your iPad gets reprogrammed a little by almost every web page it visits, but these programs are not supposed to persist after the web page is no longer being viewed.
   
   
2. Not all malware requires a virus be installed on your computer. In fact, spam and phishing emails are often not viruses at all. They simply get you to do something you shouldn't, e.g. order medication from a place you have never heard of, or send your banking information to a site that isn't your bank. In addition, even properly working web browsers have techniques (e.g. Javascript as mentioned above) that allow malware writers to put up deceptive web pages and surreptitiously collect information from you.
   

However, despite that I think that the iPad being a non-programmable computer is actually a good thing. For many jobs, we want something that just works and we really don't care how it works. For me, my TiVo is the perfect example of that. The fact that it is programmable, only rarely tempts me to do so. (Yes, I'm still a geek, so it does tempt me from time-to-time, but I can always find better more interesting things to program than it.) An iPad looks like another device that could act that way. Would I really want to program it, or just use it? I think for most people, just using it is the obvious answer.

If just using it has a side-effect of making us even just a little safer, that is a wonderful side benefit.

Is FaceBook A Utility

Disclaimer: These opinions are strictly my own. They do not represent the views of Intel.

Recently, Danah Boyd, @zephoria, posted an excellent article, "Facebook is a utility; utilities get regulated". If you haven't read it, you should (including the comments) and form your own opinion.

To me the real question and I believe Danah captured it well is what is the commodity the Facebook is selling. What does Facebook have a monopoly on? The answer to that question is the connectivity to its network and the private information that people have placed on it. It is that private information people want to protect. It is that connectivity they cannot afford to lose.

I will not argue with the other people commenting that Google is not as significant a near-monopoly as Facebook, nor that Facebook won't eventually be replaced by another network. In fact, I do not use Facebook that much. I prefer a different near-monopoly Twitter for most of my connections. I haven't also placed signficant private information on it at all.

However, Facebook has one attribute that some of its competitors do not, access to some of our private information. That is the information that Facebook wants to monetize. That is what has us upset. This is what people will clamor to regulate.

People do not care so much whether Facebook is a utility or not, except as it potentially exposes that private information without our consent to a much larger audience than we intended. If you read the recent polls on youth online behavior and attitudes, you will see that many of them assume that such protections against that kind of sharing are already in place. Moreover, the Facebook users who have been using the site for years also have that expectation, because that was previously the expectation set by the company.

The convenience of Facebook for reaching one's friends is hard to deny, although it does not seem to include those whom I would like to reach. In fact, the true "utility" of Facebook, what I would dearly love to have, is the universal email-address finder. The one which would allow me to find email addresses of long lost friends, and not just their home addresses and property value which I can find through scary services like Intelius. The hope that Facebook holds out is the hope of reconnection and the hope of staying connected.

Facebook is seeking to trade that for the price of our personal privacy. A price it hopes that others value more than we do. However, it has done that through what appears to many to be a bait-and-switch operation. That is what has people upset. It is not the bargain they signed up for. It is not what they were promised.

And, it is that private information that distinguishes Facebook from Google or Twitter for most people. Neither of those sites has ever asked to share information that I wouldn't naturally consider public. However, if I had a protected account on Twitter, where my tweets were construed as private I would be just as upset about having them monetized and potentially exposed. Similarly, the woman whose email name was shared to her abusive ex by Google when she joined Buzz had similar (and more dramatic) cause for upset. To whom we connect and who we are is private information.

Holding of private information is in some sense a sacred trust. It is the real reason why these companies are likely to get regulated, not their ubiquity.