It helps when you don't have an ads business branch.
Apple did until last year though.
...which failed due to their strict privacy rules making the ads less effective than advertisers wanted.
Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
121–130 of 144 posts
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#122The 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 unbelievable fragile.
This is such a handwavy statement.
Fragile, compared to the competition? Can you point out any objective measure that supports "Unbelievably" fragile?
All modern phones are fragile. Some slightly more than others.
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#123I 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…
You make a/the compelling counter-argument.
I still think there is a market driver (China TAM) that motivates the behavior as much as anything here. I guess we'll see if the slope is slippery or not.
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This also shows that if we care about the preservation of privacy, we can't depend on technology to solve the problem on its own. No matter how well-engineered software might be, it's ultimately subordiate to national and international law. A company can refuse to cooperate up to a point, but a government can always force it to either comply or cease doing business. The Verge's recent technology survey showed that at…
No matter how well-engineered software might be, it's ultimately subordiate to national and international law.
For now. I argue that there will be a technology corporation more powerful than the reach of any nation-state within 50 years.
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple's documented history of working with the NSA to undermine the privacy of its users: PRISM. Tim Cook struck that deal with the NSA and remains CEO today.
It is not true that Tim Cook struck a deal with the NSA. Nor is it true that Apple has worked with the NSA for PRISM. NSA likely exploited the SSL vulnerability in iOS 6.0 (released Sept 2012, NSA added Apple Oct 2012) and got access to snoop on Apple's data. After pulling the phrase "participate knowingly" out of thin air, Washington Post was forced to walk back that statement: "Hours after the news broke, and every…
How did you arrive at the conclusion that it was an SSL vulnerability that constituted inclusion in PRISM? There are zero-days discovered all the time.
Are you really suggesting that prior to Sept 2012 there were no critical zero-day vulnerabilities to which the NSA had access? Surely by your reasoning, Apple should have been included in PRISM years prior. And yet, it wasn't until after Steve Jobs died that Apple began to participate.
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#126I 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…
They need to comply with laws in all markets in which they operate. We can disagree with those laws and speak out against them but it is not our place to decide laws for others. But should Apple pull out of the market in protest? I think that iPhones being available is probably better for China than no iPhone as a protest over the law requiring all VPNs to have a valid “license”. Definitely there is a line that can’t be crossed (i.e. if the chinese government forced Apple to enable GPS tracking of all citizens I would expect them to say no) but to me this does not cross that line. People can still compile and install the app on their phone themselves (though it is harder than if it were on the AppStore). What is happening in China is so tragic and I truly hope things change in the near future so they can reach their full potential as a nation.
let’s not forget, in China the government controls the entire internet. If Apple didn’t want to take down the listing, they could easily pull down the entire AppStore (if not all Apple services) with one phone call, just as they did with facebook.
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#127I 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…
[deleted]
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
This also shows that if we care about the preservation of privacy, we can't depend on technology to solve the problem on its own. No matter how well-engineered software might be, it's ultimately subordiate to national and international law. A company can refuse to cooperate up to a point, but a government can always force it to either comply or cease doing business. The Verge's recent technology survey showed that at…
No matter how well-engineered software might be, it's ultimately subordiate to national and international law. For now. I argue that there will be a technology corporation more powerful than the reach of any nation-state within 50 years.
I agree with you. I'd even bet that in 10-20 years, the primary purpose of nation-states will be technology management, if that isn't already the case. Administration by software seems inevitable, with the main problem being ensuring that the software is acting in our interests. We'll likely encode policies into something like Ethereum contracts once we have more reliable infrastructure.
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can’t do that. It’s China. It’s one of the largest markets on Earth and Apple is a public company. Cook would immediately be fired by the board. They’d put someone new in, and that someone new would comply with China’s demand. And no one would be better off. As Cook says at least Apple does the best they can and holds the line on other things like encrypting iMessage.
> You can’t do that. It’s China. It’s one of the largest markets on Earth and Apple is a public company. Cook would immediately be fired by the board. They’d put someone new in, and that someone new would comply with China’s demand. Somehow, that didn't happen when Google effectively withdrew from China.
How much of Google's revenue came from China?
Re: Forget iPhone X–Apple's Best Product Is Its Privacy Stance
#130Reading about all of this is so surreal for me as a German. I read about these "great" policy and all I can think is ... "so, they do the minimum required" .. what's there to praise? Then I remember how US (companies) tend to think about privacy and get very sad. Stronger penalties for anyone breaking relevant privacy rules cannot come fast enough.
In everything that keeps happening in the US with regard to leaks and advertisers watching you and Facebook profiling you... I’m not sure it’s fixable. Until a large chunk of congress, and probably the R chunk due to their privacy law stance, gets a TON of embarrassing stuff leaked to the public or better yet ‘shared’ when they weren’t expecting it... I don’t think anything will change. We won’t get real laws to prot…
I fear that R chunk will only pass legislation to exempt themselves.
Mass surveillance is too enticing to give up so easily.