[Einherji]

I agree 100%. First of all, I highly doubt that one of the largest tech companies in the world would blatantly _lie_ in their marketing material. Apple claims that fingerprint data never leaves the SoC and is not even accessible by the OS. I don't think they would say this if it wasn't true. Second, what use would the government have for a persons fingerprint anyway?

With regards to this iBeacon tech, my main concern is not being able to walk down the street without being bombarded by push notifications and offers from nearby retailers, although if used correctly this technology could enable a great deal of novel use cases that NFC can't due to it's short range.

Can we for once just be excited about a new piece of technology instead of hypothesizing how the government will misuse it?

[quchen]

> we for once just be excited about a new piece of technology instead of hypothesizing how the government will misuse it?

Not this year at least, no.

[malandrew]

Yup. I'd be happy if we all as an industry took a year or two to evaluate all our current technology and fixed as much as possible to make everything resistant to eavesdropping by intelligence agencies all over the world. Until I have confidence that I can trust the device in my pocket, I don't really want to be granting it even more privacy invading features ripe for abuse.