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

81–90 of 140 posts

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

#81

Post by IAmEveryone »

woweeeee wrote: post #80
kerng wrote: post #49

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…

operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right?

> operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right?

By that logic, your landlord could install a camera in your bedroom. It’s their property after all, right?

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

#82

Post by improbable22 »

darawk wrote: post #68
improbable22 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that they make it hard is what guarantees that there's a large pool of people with stock iphones. And this pool is too big a market to ignore, which is why I can have good apps, even from companies I don't trust, and deny them permissions I don't want to grant. I think Apple understands this. The freedom you desire has ecosystem effects which I don't want. You may quibble about precisely how hard is hard eno…

I see no reason to think that making this possible would alter their ecosystem at all. It would always be a small minority of users. A small minority that developers could always just ignore. Developers on Android don't bother to think about custom Android kernels, unless they're specifically targeting that user niche.

I'm not too sure what exact freedom this minority of users is after. Does granting the ability to load a custom kernel require zero engineering effort from Apple? Including doing it in a way which won't leave the door open for the FBI, and whoever else, to break in?

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #81
woweeeee wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right?

> operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right? By that logic, your landlord could install a camera in your bedroom. It’s their property after all, right?

[deleted]

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

#84

Post by darawk »

glhaynes wrote: post #71
darawk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. My point is only that self-interest explains more variance here than caring about privacy. They may genuinely care about privacy to some degree - just as i'm sure Google and Facebook do. They both just care about profit more, and for Google/FB, those things come into conflict. For Apple they don't.

Your stance seems unfalsifiable. If a company did exist that cared more about their values than profit, how would you recognize it? But more importantly: who cares? We’re not judging whether Tim Cook oughta get into heaven. People seem highly driven by the profit motive, arguably more than by most other motives. If Apple’s goals are aligned with mine and motivated by profit so they’re likely to be careful to keep fro…

It is falsifiable, i've explained elsewhere my reasoning, but i'll repeat it here: The same basic moral orientation that would motivate one to care about privacy would also motivate them to care about freedom. Apple's policy of not giving you sovereignty over your device is anti-freedom. However, the thing that explains both behaviors is self-interest. It's to Apple's strategic interest to focus on privacy, it's not to their strategic interest to focus on freedom. Therefore, the most likely explanation for their behavior is their strategic self-interest, and not any moral orientation towards privacy.

It's also been brought up by others that Apple discards its privacy morals when it comes to China. Which is another point in the "probably doesn't actually care about privacy" column. Occam's razor says the simplest explanation is most often true. The simplest explanation here is self-interest.

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

#85

Post by starsinspace »

millstone wrote: post #42
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?

Not OP, but back when Yosemite came out, there was a lot of buzz about privacy issues, such as:

https://github.com/fix-macosx/yosemite-phone-home

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/mac-o...

Don't know what came out of these things in later OS X versions.

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

#86

Post by darawk »

evgen wrote: post #69
darawk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It is not a false choice from either a technical nor a philosophical perspective. There are positive and negative freedoms/liberties and each leads to different results when applied to a real world situation. You view freedom as a negative liberty (e.g. absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints) so anything that hinders your usage of a device in a manner you desire is contrary to your view of 'freedom'. Others ma…

> If I view a computer as a means of accomplishing some other goal and not a tool that I need to think about much or to modify, but where the existence of such liberties can negatively impact my goal then your version of freedom makes me less free.

How, exactly? Are you saying that the burden of potentially unlocking your device in error, even if Apple makes that a convoluted, explicit process makes you less free? If i'm misunderstanding your argument, let me know. If i'm not, I think we both know it's totally silly.

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

#88

Post by joesb »

turboturbo wrote: post #5
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.

If a company’s business model is aligned with statements by its CEO, I would consider those statements more valid, not less. Apple is putting its money where Tim Cook’s mouth is. That’s a good thing.

If the CEO of a tobacco company say cigarettes do not cause cancer, should should consider this statement valid?

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

woweeeee wrote: post #80
kerng wrote: post #49

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…

operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right?

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by nso95 »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #81
woweeeee wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right?

> operating devices owned by an employer is strike one. It’s not your personal property. You didn’t buy it from the store, you give it back when you quit or get fired, right? By that logic, your landlord could install a camera in your bedroom. It’s their property after all, right?

You pay for your apartment, it’s reasonable to expect privacy.
Post reply on HN