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Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

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Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#71

Post by kbenson »

staunch wrote: post #7

> If you buy something from the App Store, we do know what you bought from the App Store, obviously. We think customers are fine with that. Users should also be able to install apps on their iPhones without Apple knowing what they're doing. Personal computing devices shouldn't have artificial walled gardens. But I agree with him on everything else and think he's a hero for what he's doing.

What he's saying is good, but it doesn't make him a hero. It costs him nothing to take this stance, and is actually helpful to him as one of the main competitors to the company he heads is deep in this specific issue, and it's a perceived weakness of theirs.

You aren't a hero for doing or saying something convenient that benefits yourself, regardless of whether it's good and/or true.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#72

Post by bottled_poe »

gozo wrote: post #55
larrywright wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that what Apple has done here is an acceptable tradeoff. The app store trades a small amount of privacy for a lot more security. Looking at Android's perpetual issues with this makes me think that Apple made the right choice.

So we have forgotten XcodeGhost already or the iCloud hacks?

Wasn't XcodeGhost a direct result of bypassing Apple's security model?

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#73

Post by fukusa »

staunch wrote: post #7

> If you buy something from the App Store, we do know what you bought from the App Store, obviously. We think customers are fine with that. Users should also be able to install apps on their iPhones without Apple knowing what they're doing. Personal computing devices shouldn't have artificial walled gardens. But I agree with him on everything else and think he's a hero for what he's doing.

With all due respect, he is not a hero. He is just the CEO of Apple. And Apple, even though it produces great products, profits from exploiting factory workers in countries where workers have less rights and where labour is cheap. If he was actively fighting this system of exploitation, that would probably make him a hero. Instead, he profits from it. That makes him not a hero but just another businessman. Furthermore, he is defending privacy only because it strengthens his business and weakens that of Google et al.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#74

Post by Amorymeltzer »

>If you're in our News app, and you're reading something, we don't think that in the News app that we should know what you did with us on the Music app — not to trade information from app to app to app to app.

I thought this was the most interesting quote in the article. I would've assumed the all Apple products would be colluding together, but Cook seems to be saying that isn't the case. That's actually a pretty big gift to consumers, but I wonder what it means up top. Does "Apple" get my news and mail info separately, or do the news app and mail app get their content and deal with it independently of mama Apple? It's a great sentiment - and I can't imagine he'd say it in this sort of interview without truth to it - but it's hard to imagine it in play.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#75

Post by hoorayimhelping »

jamieyy wrote: post #22

In that case, why are they supporting CISA? http://fortune.com/2015/09/24/tech-vendor-cybersecurity-bill...

This [1] is the letter linked to in the article that is evidence they support CISA, correct?

Maybe it's because I can't read legalese very well, but this looks like tech companies asking congress to codify our rights for the digital age, and to provide a well defined legal framework for those rights to exist within. I'm not really seeing support for sweeping powers of spying; it seems like they're asking for the opposite in fact. Again, I may be misreading that.

1: http://www.bsa.org/~/media/Files/Policy/data/09142015CongLea...

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#76

Post by qyv »

Amorymeltzer wrote: post #74

>If you're in our News app, and you're reading something, we don't think that in the News app that we should know what you did with us on the Music app — not to trade information from app to app to app to app. I thought this was the most interesting quote in the article. I would've assumed the all Apple products would be colluding together, but Cook seems to be saying that isn't the case. That's actually a pretty big…

The quote specifically says they don't share data between apps, but not that they don't collect data from all of the apps and correlate it behind the scenes. Perhaps it is an overly cynical point of view, but true to the spoken words.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#77

Post by kbenson »

api wrote: post #70
kbenson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would we do if we didn't have apple to protect us from our own ignorance? Apple is fallible. If developers can break out of app review constraints by using carefully included bugs[1] then the only solution is actively monitoring what the apps are doing. If that's the case, what value-add is Apple's walled garden? Just keeping out crappy programs? I think there are plenty of solutions for discovering what program…

I think you and the downmodders are shooting the messenger. I do not like walled gardens any more than I like taxes or drunk driving checkpoints. I'm just explaining why they are there and why many users actually prefer them, and I'm doing so to let people know there's a problem worth solving. Pretending the problem doesn't exist doesn't help. Computer security is just far too confusing and difficult for the non-tech…

None of the security and privacy arguments require a walled garden though. The real benefit is the fine grained control over what an application can do on your system. A set of fine grained controls and a a good set of defaults, or better yet the ability to subscribe to defaults as recommended by third parties. I Apple had controls much finer than those presented by Android with a set of sane defaults, and to that I could add what the EFF's recommends as defaults, we would all be better off, because Apple's best interests and my best interests are not always aligned.

I'm going to repeat that last part, because I think it's very important. Apple's best interests and my best interests are not always aligned. Why should they have ultimate control over what can and cannot be run on my phone.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#78

Post by javajosh »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #51
larrywright wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that what Apple has done here is an acceptable tradeoff. The app store trades a small amount of privacy for a lot more security. Looking at Android's perpetual issues with this makes me think that Apple made the right choice.

The security benefits come mostly from curated package management in general, not limiting the device to one particular repository (the App Store).

I don't think the public is sophisticated enough to understand the decoupling of these two ideas. But I also think that one day, probably soon, it will be.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#79

Post by mozumder »

randyrand wrote: post #52
mozumder wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the "spying" program that was revealed to have filters to filter out their own citizens communications? Seriously, why do people conveniently ignore this little fact? Why would these filters exist, as revealed in CLASSIFIED documents, if the government were interested in spying on its own citizens? If the government were interested in spying on you, they would just do it. They wouldn't need to build machines…

So they record/log every single phone communication in the US, only to filter out every single phone recording made in the US? That doesn't make sense. How can you tell who is talking on the phone anyway? And what if a US citizen was talking to a non-citizen? Regardless, the point is that backdoors - even if used 99% of the time correctly - opens up your phone and all its nitty gritty details of your life to adversar…

Anything can happen anytime in the future, but this is the discussion about what is actually happening. Maybe a giant seamonster comes up and swallows the earth whole? Who knows.

But, right now, there exists filters to filter out US citizens comms from NSA spying, as revealed in CLASSIFIED documents.

This is something Snowden's friends love to conveniently ignore, because it doesn't fit into their artificially constructed world-vision of the US government as giant evil monsters.

Re: Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

#80

Post by qyv »

martingordon wrote: post #23
sigmar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personal computing devices shouldn't have artificial walled gardens. I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. Requiring that all software on your device be signed by a single entity (i.e. apple) is horrifying when you think about where that might lead to in the future.

And where is that? Like he said, any back door for the good guys is a back door for the bad guys as well.

> And where is that?

To censorship[1].

[1]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33280133/apple-removes...

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