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Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

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Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#91

Post by astral303 »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #55
karpodiem wrote: post #54

fun little incident this morning - with my wifi off, I logged into iCloud.com to change my primary AppleID e-mail address from an .edu to icloud.com address ( https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/31/apple-id-third-party-em... Interesting location identification for the request origination - https://www.dropbox.com/s/v9rtg1igl73gf67/where.png?dl=0 Now, I've seen 2FA requests a couple hundred miles off, but this is _way_…

Or in actuality, it’s just sloppy IP geolocation.

Indeed, Occam's razor says poor IP geolocation. What are the chances that you are being monitored by NSA from Texas, or that the geolocation database is stale or wrong?

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#92

Post by Yetanfou »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #23
dingaling wrote: post #11

Apple itself may well have a pro-privacy stance regarding the data associated with their products & services, but if I can't even install a firewall on one of their phones then that doesn't protect my privacy much against malicious or deceptive third-parties. I don't much like Android as a system but at least I can strip it of Google services and install a firewall and feel reasonably private. It's not an ideal optio…

It does have a firewall. The configuration is static: no incoming connections. You might be thinking about not being able to have an antivirus? In which case, that is certainly a feature - not a bug. Allowing the privileges required to enable an AV to operate on iOS would severely degrade the security of your device. The losses would massively outweigh any potential benefits of having an AV.

Blocking incoming connections on a mobile device is less important than blocking outgoing connections given the threat model of a multitude of mobile devices running basically black-box applications which have access to a range of sensors. The main threat here is applications gathering data - of any sort, from positional to audiovisual to network traffic to (financial) transactional - and sending it off to their masters. The threat is, so to say, inside the walls already, not outside. The task it to make sure it does not communicate to the outside world.

iOS does not allow fine-grained control over outgoing network access. The assumption is that the user trusts the application to not do anything untoward, after all it was vetted by Apple before it appeared in the store. There are ways to get this type of control on iOS but since the first step you need to take is to 'jailbreak' the device this is not a real solution.

Android does allow this type of control through a multitude of firewall (i.e. Linux iptables) configuration applications. Android devices running version 3.x or earlier need to be 'rooted' to gain access to the firewall configuration, later versions (from 4.0) don't require rooting. The 'no-root' firewall works by routing all traffic through an on-device VPN (which can be instantiated without root access as of Android 4.0). This does mean the firewall application gets access to all network traffic, making that type of application a good target for those who wish to subvert Android network security.

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#93

Post by artimaeis »

exitreturn123 wrote: post #48

I work closely with Apple so need to post anonymously. I believed everything in this until something that happened in late July this past summer. In China, their fastest-growing market, China demanded all secure messaging and VPN apps be removed from the App Store and Apple complied.[1] So privacy matters, unless it's in your fastest-growing market. I intend to discuss with Tim next time I see him. 1: https://techcru…

I see what you're getting at but that decision has little/nothing to do with Apple's stance on privacy.

* iMessage still uses end-to-end encryption for messages in China.

* iPhones sold in China still utilize Secure Enclave for privacy/encryption.

* Aggregate data still uses differential privacy in China.

The government made a request of them which did not compromise their user's security, and they obliged.

Compare that to when the US government requested backdoor access pass Secure Enclave and they absolutely denied that request.

I agree that it's unfortunate for Chinese users that their government is placing additional limits on the available software in that ecosystem (as well as other ecosystems, I'm sure). But so long as the government is not asking Apple to compromise its users privacy I don't see any strong relation to corroborate the idea: "privacy matters, unless it's in your fastest-growing market".

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#94

Post by __abc »

exitreturn123 wrote: post #48

I work closely with Apple so need to post anonymously. I believed everything in this until something that happened in late July this past summer. In China, their fastest-growing market, China demanded all secure messaging and VPN apps be removed from the App Store and Apple complied.[1] So privacy matters, unless it's in your fastest-growing market. I intend to discuss with Tim next time I see him. 1: https://techcru…

Tell Tim I say hi and that I want my $5 he owes me!

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#95

Post by MBCook »

criddell wrote: post #86
MBCook wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because it’s far too valuable to them. If they sold it it wouldn’t be valuable for long. They do it ‘the other way’. You say “I want to buy some eyeballs like X” and they sell you access to the eyeballs. But they don’t give you the person’s information.

That's what I thought. So my private information isn't really shared with anybody, is it? I mean I guess if I were to place an ad targeted to black men that speak french and you answered it, I would learn that about you.

It’s shared with anyone inside facebook who want to use it for something. I’ve never gotten the impression there are strong internal privacy controls.

External companies? Perhaps if they partner with Facebook but not normal ad buyers.

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#96

Post by MBCook »

martinald wrote: post #83
beojan wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's business requires physical presence. Google's largely doesn't.

Yes. They also have all manufacturing there. I imagine if Apple did pull out it would be so embarrassing to the Chinese govt they would close the foxconn facilities too.

I hadn’t even thought of the manufacture angle.

If Apple were to pull out, even if the board didn’t fire Cook for that... would they be able to make phones? Is ANYWHERE on Earth capable of that other than China? I suppose you could buy all the parts from China and have them shipped somewhere else to be assembled but what would that do to the cost of the devices?

Would anyone buy an iPhone that starts at $1500 or $2000?

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#97

Post by jclay »

duality wrote: post #76
jclay wrote: post #49

Apple's position on privacy also led me to switch to iCloud recently. I migrated my mail and drive to iCloud (from GMail, Google Drive) for this very reason and while there isn't always a 1-1 feature parity, I prefer to know that my data won't be used to analyze and categorize me for the purpose of advertising.

What makes you claim (implicitly) that Google, Dropbox, etc. are selling data from your email or storage accounts?

I suppose I should clarify that I'm referring to the data being used to classify me into various (increasingly specific) categories and that resulting output being sold to the highest bidder in the form of a targeted advertisement. Dropbox I'm less familiar with, so I can't speak to their model.

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#98

Post by spike021 »

andreareina wrote: post #2

The iPhone is unbelievably fragile, before you look at the high price. Apple bends over backwards to deny the existence of design flaws, to the point of blaming users for doing it wrong. Despite this I am seriously considering an iPhone, their stance on privacy is the only reason.

The iPhone is unbelievably fragile, before you look at the high price. Apple bends over backwards to deny the existence of design flaws, to the point of blaming users for doing it wrong.

I'd say I _mostly_ disagree.

Many times over the years there have been "major" problems (i.e. antenna-gate and bendgate to name a couple). I've never experienced those issues, and I'm sure neither have many others. The iPhones through the years have been mostly solid for me in terms of hardware without significant design flaws.

Now, I don't try to claim iPhones are perfect, but I think this is an over-reaction.

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#99

Post by ForHackernews »

MBCook wrote: post #96
martinald wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. They also have all manufacturing there. I imagine if Apple did pull out it would be so embarrassing to the Chinese govt they would close the foxconn facilities too.

I hadn’t even thought of the manufacture angle. If Apple were to pull out, even if the board didn’t fire Cook for that... would they be able to make phones? Is ANYWHERE on Earth capable of that other than China? I suppose you could buy all the parts from China and have them shipped somewhere else to be assembled but what would that do to the cost of the devices? Would anyone buy an iPhone that starts at $1500 or $200…

> Would anyone buy an iPhone that starts at $1500 or $2000?

Probably, yeah. It doesn't seem like people mind paying $1000. It would just make it even more of a status symbol.

Are iPhones a Veblen good?

Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance

#100

Post by sigmar »

artimaeis wrote: post #93
exitreturn123 wrote: post #48

I work closely with Apple so need to post anonymously. I believed everything in this until something that happened in late July this past summer. In China, their fastest-growing market, China demanded all secure messaging and VPN apps be removed from the App Store and Apple complied.[1] So privacy matters, unless it's in your fastest-growing market. I intend to discuss with Tim next time I see him. 1: https://techcru…

I see what you're getting at but that decision has little/nothing to do with Apple's stance on privacy. * iMessage still uses end-to-end encryption for messages in China. * iPhones sold in China still utilize Secure Enclave for privacy/encryption. * Aggregate data still uses differential privacy in China. The government made a request of them which did not compromise their user's security, and they obliged. Compare t…

>* iMessage still uses end-to-end encryption for messages in China.

Do you think Apple would refuse to swap out the public keys if ordered to by the government? Have you ever wondered why iMessage doesn't allow out-of-band key verification?

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