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Apple’s approach to privacy

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Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#21

Post by Eric_WVGG »

diafygi wrote: post #17

> Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a “backdoor” in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government access to our servers. And we never will. Did Apple ever provide any insight into what access the Prism program had? They denied knowing about it[1], so either they are lying or it was a mole. Did they ever follow up with an investigation or conclusi…

isn’t there a third possibility, that they could have used an exploit akin to Heartbleed?

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#22

Post by Tangokat »

Apple is in a good position in the market to do this, but it is just really hard to trust any US company. They say they will never give anyone access to their servers but how can they make that promise when they don't make the laws?

As an aside I am finding it really difficult to delete my iCloud account, in fact it seems that is impossible.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#23

Post by caractacus »

diafygi wrote: post #17

> Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a “backdoor” in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government access to our servers. And we never will. Did Apple ever provide any insight into what access the Prism program had? They denied knowing about it[1], so either they are lying or it was a mole. Did they ever follow up with an investigation or conclusi…

If you were paranoid, it wouldn't take much to conclude that "worked with" and "allowed" could mean that this doesn't imply that there weren't or aren't backdoors or access that occurred without Apple's knowledge or approval.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#24

Post by cryoshon »

Remember this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tra... in which the location history of users was tracked and offloaded to the user's PC when synched? I get that the "problem" was allegedly fixed, but there's absolutely zero reason to trust anything Apple says here. The potential of getting hit with National Security Letters with built in gag orders invalidates any conception of trust between users and groups that handle their data.

There could also be hardware or software backdoors/exploits that Apple has no clue about-- I would say almost certainly, given how inventive the NSA has been with both of those angles.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#25

Post by forrestthewoods »

tedd4u wrote: post #5

Apple says "Less than 0.00673% of customers have been affected by government information requests." That's approximately 1 out of every 14,000 -- seems like a lot to me!

How many customers does Apple have? How many people total is that? It's 6730 per 100,000,000 (hundred million). I think Apple has sold like 700 million iphones. But actual customers is less. So there have been maybe 20,000 or so government information requests?

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#26

Post by themartorana »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #10
themartorana wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When national security requests come with built-in gag orders, little-to-no oversight, and are probably easier to issue/get than warrants (no pesky judges or explaining to do) why would one ever use a warrant again?

Low-level enforcers don't have easy access to such orders.

We don't know that. We do know that the FBI, NSA, and other federal agencies are overly anxious to support local law enforcement - by providing wartime hardware and weapons, as well as support in spying. We know local police patrols use Stingray devices, disrupting cell service and sweeping up private communications without a warrant - that's just a single instance.

We have no idea how easy it is for local law enforcement to pick up the phone and request "support" by having a NSL issued.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#27

Post by cryoshon »

dubcanada wrote: post #7
donut2d wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

His tin foil hat told him so...

What's with the tinfoil hat accusation? It's 100% reasonable and supported by an abundance of information that US corporations are being pressured in multiple ways from the surveillance state in order to hand over their user data, whether or not their users are suspected of any crime.

Sure, maybe he is speculating without anything specifically to support his thought, but come on, it's plausible. We know that "they" have no decency or limits on what they'll try to exploit.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#28

Post by chinathrow »

tedd4u wrote: post #5

Apple says "Less than 0.00673% of customers have been affected by government information requests." That's approximately 1 out of every 14,000 -- seems like a lot to me!

Also, the NSLs do not count against the "government information requests", if I interprete the report correctly.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#29

Post by neuralspark »

jbob2000 wrote: post #18
muddi900 wrote: post #14

Wasn't the Fappening because of a iCloud hole?

No, it was because celebrities are normal people and tended to use the same password for multiple services. One service was compromised, which compromised every other one because the passwords were the same.

It's also much easier to find the answers to account recovery questions when the target is a celeb.

Re: Apple’s approach to privacy

#30

Post by mikro »

tedd4u wrote: post #5

Apple says "Less than 0.00673% of customers have been affected by government information requests." That's approximately 1 out of every 14,000 -- seems like a lot to me!

It also says that 94% of requests are "Device requests - Law enforcement seeking a stolen device."
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