Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 140 posts

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#41

Post by evgen »

darawk wrote: post #35
evgen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple can make a very good case that your vision of freedom is in opposition to privacy. By preventing certain things you categorize as 'freedom' Apple can provide stronger security and privacy protection, they can limit the ability of untrustworthy developers to sidestep protections, they can make it incredibly difficult to set up side-channels that leak privacy, and they can set OS-mediated protections of device in…

> Apple can make a very good case that your vision of freedom is in opposition to privacy. By preventing certain things you categorize as 'freedom' Apple can provide stronger security and privacy protection, they can limit the ability of untrustworthy developers to sidestep protections, they can make it incredibly difficult to set up side-channels that leak privacy, and they can set OS-mediated protections of device…

It is also trivial to convince technically unsophisticated users to over-ride these security settings to get some ephemeral (and probably not even true) benefit. On the front page of HN today was another story describing how Facebook harvested a large chunk of contact info and text messages because people _gave it permission to do so_ when the app asked for it. Expecting these same users to be sophisticated enough to know what they are actually opting out of in this case strikes me as being a bit delusional.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#42

Post by millstone »

bobcallme wrote: post #33

What about the data that Apple collects in macOS 10.13 users? Anonymous data collection is not really anonymous. IP addresses and other logs leak lots of identifiable information even with all of the collection settings toggled off in various preference panes. It is kind of hypocritical for Tim to criticize a practice that Apple currently engages in (you can't claim otherwise once you jump down that rabbit hole).

What data collection are you referring to? Apple collects crash log data if you opt-in, which can contain logs. It also collects "device analytics" using differential privacy (not containing logs); this is stronger than anonymized data because it retains some privacy even if it is de-anonymized, and is also opt-in. Is there another practice I'm not aware of?

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#43

Post by evgen »

darawk wrote: post #36
yalogin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not conflating two separate issues here? How is letting you install your own OS helping with improving privacy? In today's world can you really decouple hardware and software if you want strict controls over data and hence privacy?

I'm not conflating the issues. What i'm saying is that Apple acts like they care about privacy, because it's in their strategic interest to do so. However, truly caring about privacy tends to go along with caring about freedom. Apple does not care about freedom, as evidenced by their device locking. Ergo, Apple cares about privacy only insofar as it benefits them to do so.

> truly caring about privacy tends to go along with caring about freedom

Only in your opinion. A non-free system whose vendor has an incentive to protect privacy may also provide even stronger privacy protection for the masses than a system that meets your version of 'freedom'.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#44

Post by millstone »

darawk wrote: post #2

Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues like this. Until then, he's just looking out for his own interests, as far as i'm concerned.

Of course Google will tell you that cigarettes cause cancer and climate change is a threat: they don't sell tobacco or drill for oil! They're just looking out for their own interests.

Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#45

Post by darawk »

evgen wrote: post #41
darawk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple can make a very good case that your vision of freedom is in opposition to privacy. By preventing certain things you categorize as 'freedom' Apple can provide stronger security and privacy protection, they can limit the ability of untrustworthy developers to sidestep protections, they can make it incredibly difficult to set up side-channels that leak privacy, and they can set OS-mediated protections of device…

It is also trivial to convince technically unsophisticated users to over-ride these security settings to get some ephemeral (and probably not even true) benefit. On the front page of HN today was another story describing how Facebook harvested a large chunk of contact info and text messages because people _gave it permission to do so_ when the app asked for it. Expecting these same users to be sophisticated enough to…

So make it difficult and explicit. Or shit, just don't go out of your way to make it impossible. Android threads this needle extremely well. Installing a different kernel is not something a casual user can be tricked into doing. It requires a restart, and a moderately complex sequence of clearly dangerous actions. There is no epidemic of people being 'tricked' into installing alternate Android kernels.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#46

Post by darawk »

evgen wrote: post #43
darawk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not conflating the issues. What i'm saying is that Apple acts like they care about privacy, because it's in their strategic interest to do so. However, truly caring about privacy tends to go along with caring about freedom. Apple does not care about freedom, as evidenced by their device locking. Ergo, Apple cares about privacy only insofar as it benefits them to do so.

> truly caring about privacy tends to go along with caring about freedom Only in your opinion. A non-free system whose vendor has an incentive to protect privacy may also provide even stronger privacy protection for the masses than a system that meets your version of 'freedom'.

> Only in your opinion. A non-free system whose vendor has an incentive to protect privacy may also provide even stronger privacy protection for the masses than a system that meets your version of 'freedom'.

This isn't a "version" of freedom. It is what freedom literally means. You can say you're willing to sacrifice some freedom to gain privacy, sure. But from a technical perspective, that's a totally false choice.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#47

Post by devmunchies »

millstone wrote: post #44
darawk wrote: post #2

Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues like this. Until then, he's just looking out for his own interests, as far as i'm concerned.

Of course Google will tell you that cigarettes cause cancer and climate change is a threat: they don't sell tobacco or drill for oil! They're just looking out for their own interests. Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.

Exactly. Apple has lots of opportunities to monitize the App Store by profiting from user data.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#49

Post by kerng »

It makes a difference having a CEO that is so vocal about this, it changes what everyone in the org does and sees as "right". It's a good thing.

At Facebook the understanding seems to be more Orwellian community like, spearheaded by Mark Zuckerberg. They envision and build a future where everyone is under surveillance at all times - so collecting a bit more doesn't matter, more to the contrary. Last week there was a story that FB internally also does surveillance on employees and they know what employee click and hover over on, and they monitor their messenger conversations. And it's all okay in their world view. Good to see some balancing conversations.

I believe Apple took even a toll and fell a bit behind the last few years in regards to eg. Siri as they take personal data more of a liability rather than an asset. So, much respect from my side to Apple and Tim Cook for this. And I'm really not much of an Apple fan, but reconsidering with statements like this one.

Re: Tim Cook says Facebook's collection of user data 'shouldn't exist'

#50

Post by macspoofing »

r00fus wrote: post #25
macspoofing wrote: post #14

Apple's non-investment in cloud is starting to pay off. Hey Tim, how about letting app developers and browser makers use a non-safari rendering engine on the iPhone?

Tim has watched War Games apparently. iCloud exists but facilitates storing only core data and otherwise is a sync mechanism. Social aspects of iCloud are what's "missing" so even a large breach wouldn't result is 100x users being exposed. The most galling part of the FB failure was that the people breached weren't the ones who installed the misbehaving app. And society at large paid for it.

>And society at large paid for it.

What's the cost again? I'm still experiencing cognitive dissonance over the fact that this is news here on HN. What Facebook was doing was common knowledge (for the last 8 years?). I assumed all those spammy facebook apps, like candy crush, had access to the entire social graph of facebook (not just US) or at least built it up over time. All those stupid "Log in with Facebook" apps almost always asked for your friend information.

Post reply on HN