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UK carrier O2 has confirmed that Apple has placed it under a gagging order to prevent it from publicly revealing how many iPhone handsets it’s sold to date.

The company’s head of media relations, Simon Lloyd, told Register Hardware that it’s a stipulation within the company’s sales agreement with Apple that O2 can’t release any such details until the Mac maker says so.

Lloyd would only say that O2’s UK iPhone sales in the two weeks up to Christmas period were “in line” with its expectations.

That low, eh?

(full show here)

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What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy – forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance – realized they were under a serious attack, and mounted every piece of defense they could muster. For the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle.

And it was… nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is “thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief”. And shove some poor artists in front of them to deliver the message. Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding.

So now we know what the enemy has, and that they have absolutely nothing in terms of intellectual capital to bring to the battle. They do, however, have their bedside connections with the current establishment. That’s the major threat to us at this point.