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A translation of the open letter from advertising companies to Apple: September 14, 2017 We're just now realizing what this means. An Open Letter from the Digital Advertising Community "Community" means we're down to earth and neighborly. The undersigned organizations are leading trade associations for the digital advertising and marketing industries, collectively representing thousands of companies that responsibly…
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Unless I can build and install a completely custom version, it isn't open enough to be safe.
Can't trust the OS without all the code. Can't trust the code if you can't trust the compiler. Can't trust the compiler if you can't trust the CPU. Can't trust the CPU if you can't trust the microcode. Can't trust the microcode unless you've visually inspected the die. You can't win. Make compromises that are reasonable.
When it's so easy to use a community-vetted Linux distribution, I think "reasonable" gets shunted down a layer.
It's not all or nothing. Every reasonable step counts.
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A lot of macOS is open source. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15251891 https://developer.apple.com/opensource/
Unless I can build and install a completely custom version, it isn't open enough to be safe.
But at its logical conclusion, this idea puts up some serious practical barriers. Even if you only use an OS that you’ve personally audited, and even if you’ve gotten past the potential Thompsonian compiler issues, you’re still left with a minefield of possibly-adversarial pieces of software that might interfere with your computing experience.
Have you audited your BIOS/UEFI firmware [0]? Your CPU’s microcode [1]? Your WiFi/Bluetooth adapter’s firmware [2]? Your HDD controller’s firmware [3]?
I acknowledge that I’m advancing something of a “slippery slope” argument here, but I still care about the question. Where do you draw the line? Obviously being able to audit all of it yourself perfectly would be awesome. But to me that just seems impossible. So how much is enough?
EDIT: beaten by astrodust!
[0] https://www.pcworld.com/article/2948092/security/hacking-tea...
[1] https://www.dcddcc.com/docs/2014_paper_microcode.pdf
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Conveniently, some parties like mostly Google but also Facebook and Twitter have both a big presence in the tracker space and also a site users often visit directly. Their information is going to get much more valuable.
Do Google ad tracking cookies actually live on the google.com domain? Seems like an ethical violation of some kind if so.
> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…
I wonder if Apple is protecting its customers from everyone except Apple. I really can't trust any closed-source OS, and very few closed-source applications.
Seems awesome. Hope Firefox does something similar.
A translation of the open letter from advertising companies to Apple: September 14, 2017 We're just now realizing what this means. An Open Letter from the Digital Advertising Community "Community" means we're down to earth and neighborly. The undersigned organizations are leading trade associations for the digital advertising and marketing industries, collectively representing thousands of companies that responsibly…
> When Apple first announced the limitations to cross-website tracking in June, the company said the changes are meant to improve trust with users, explaining that “users feel that trust is broken when they are being tracked and privacy-sensitive data about their web activity is acquired for purposes that they never agreed to.” This! I switched from Windows+Android to the Apple ecosystem in 2015. Because I love so ma…
Apple could care less about the privacy of its users. https://www.cultofmac.com/230358/everything-you-need-to-know...
If I understood the workings of the intelligent tracking prevention correctly ( https://webkit.org/blog/7675/intelligent-tracking-prevention... ) then this looks painful for ad networks which don't serve their ads from a domain with lots of organic traffic. Google and facebook should be fine given that lots of users go there at least once a month.