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Writing about the Coleman data leak is going to be tough to do without sounding like a paranoid extreme left winger or an extreme right winger. Let me assure I’ve alway been disappointed with both parties and I am a confirmed independent.

With that out of the way, lets get on with the paranoia:

The Main stream media is definitely reporting untruths about this story. They are saying that the data leak was the result of a hacker and that federal crime has been committed. This is entirely untrue. the only person that’s even saying this is Colemans attorney, well I’m sure some extreme supporters are saying this too.

What really happened.
The developers running colemans site asking for donations to his legal fund screwed up the site. It left the website down for an extended period of time.
While investigating Adria Richards stumbled across the websites database completley unsecured. she did this with a web browser and nothing else. This is not hacking. This is “surfing the internet”.

links:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19912.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=Adria+Richards&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://butyoureagirl.com/2009/01/28/did-norm-coleman-fake-his-own-website-death/

http://washingtonindependent.com/33674/norm-colemans-donor-database-exposed-campaign-claims-political-motives

Are you considering developing an application for the I Phone or Google’s “G-Phone” (Android). There is an obvious risk you may want to consider. They just may reject your software sraight away, or may approve it at first, let people install it on their phones and tyhen yank it off them and reject your program months or years later.

Sound far-fetched? It does, I know. But I have first hand knowledge that Apple especially, are quite fickle. They often deny apps and sometimes they approve apps, let you promote and distribute it ad then reject it later. this is especially true if you are improving or fixing something they have screwed up.

They seem quite republican in that they never admit they screw up and are very hostile towards anyone who implies their devices aren’t perfect in some way. There’s quite a lot of dysfunctional emotion in the process.

Here’s the latest story of someone getting ganked because their product “looks an awful lot like Apple’s Cover Flow feature”:
Link, Link 2

It looks like the backlash is building and developers are banning together and are rebelling:
iPhone: Big trouble in the App Store

Apple seems to be the worst offender. Any application that makes users work flow go faster, connect to I tunes less limit the personal info that Apple gets etc is denied. They are quite often dis-honest about the reasons why as well.

Free software can be a great thing, don’t get me wrong, you can make money by giving things away free. But it seems the trouble might not be worth it to most.