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Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

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Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#441

Post by bsder »

adarsh_thampy wrote: post #20

Apple's strategy is simple. They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy. That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.

> They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions.

The cynical part of me sees this as an "Oh Shit!" reaction to businesses starting to circumvent the App Store.

If Apple can make everybody on a iPhone dependent upon their single-sign-on, they can threaten businesses with access to it later.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#442

Post by autoexec »

Asmod4n wrote: post #437
autoexec wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that the system integration is so wonderful, it's that they make it extremely difficult to work outside of it for no reason. A few years ago I had a friend who wanted a song put on her iphone. I've never used one but I assumed I could do exactly what I've done with every other phone/MP3 player in the universe and just connect it to my laptop via USB and move the file over to some folder called "music" or som…

Just ask Siri to play that song? Or search for it in the music app? Or was it from some Indy Band which only publishes on its own website? Then yeah, best bet to get it into a iPhone would be a browser with a download manager and Files App support. (iOS 13 will add a download manager to Safari)

The MP3 was a cool solo I recorded that my friend wanted to bring to her singing coach, but it could have been anything. An MP3 from some random CD that's never been available on the itunes, or maybe just one she wasn't interested in buying even if it were available. What you choose to listen to on your devices isn't any of Apple's business.

Streaming isn't a solution for getting media on a device either. It's a nice convenience in a lot cases, but because you're dependent on someone else to make the content available, and someone else to carry it, streaming is always uncertain and you should never assume it'll be available to you even when it has been in the past. As much as I love streaming media, it can't beat having a DRM free local copy you can keep, copy, convert, etc.

The point though is that getting an MP3 on a popular cell phone at any point over the last 3 years shouldn't be complicated. It shouldn't involve logging into accounts, needing to install bloated and intrusive software (itunes installed a service to always run in the background and set itself to start every time the OS was started) or syncing entire musical libraries (and god knows what else) anywhere. It should have been a drag and drop operation, but the internet is full of horror stories about people losing their music collections, collections being merged with other people's libraries, and requests for itunes alternatives just so people can get media onto their expensive devices.

I'm sure if she only ever used an apple computer with apple's itunes software always running on it, and no one else but her ever used it, and she paid for every piece of media she ever put on her device by using the itunes store everything would have worked wonderfully, but any deviation from that very narrow 100% apple-everything set up turns even the simplest things (like putting an MP3 on a cell phone) into an ordeal with 100% unnecessary apple-imposed complications and roadblocks.

The fact that it would have actually been easier (and probably faster) for me to install and setup a web server to host the file so that she (if she had the right browser) could download it to her phone really shows how fucked up the entire process is.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#443

Post by gundmc »

elliekelly wrote: post #424
gundmc wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify your comment? I don't see anything I would classify as a footnote in either linked policy.

Certainly! I contemplated explaining a bit further about Google's footnotes but thought I might sound crazy. Google actually takes the extra step of obscuring the footnotes to look like hyperlinks. For example, if you click "ads you'll find most useful" under "We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use our services" you'll see that it pops out as a footnote rather than linking you to a n…

Ah! Thanks for expanding on that.

It looks like the PDF version is available at the top of your linked page under the link "Download PDF" (https://www.gstatic.com/policies/privacy/pdf/20190122/f3294e...). The footnotes are all tacked on to the end of the document there, but they're hard to make use of out of context.

It's frustrating that the footnotes contain both important disclosures like "we assign you a unique identifier to track your activity if you're not signed in to a Google account" but then use the exact same format to say "a device is a computer that can be used to access Google services." Makes it harder to identify the important bits.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#444

Post by ridgeguy »

asutekku wrote: post #246
galangalalgol wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except now you don't have control over your own device. I don't think they are orthogonal goals. Give me root on my iPhone and I'll switch for the privacy. Leaving gapps off an Android install is becoming crippling.

Why do people actually want to root their phones? What kind of advantage does it give to the general user, who flaunts the fact you can do that on android? What can you do now, increasing the usability of a phone, that you couldn’t without a root? Honest question, because I have absolutely no idea.

> What kind of advantage does it give to the general user, who flaunts the fact you can do that on android?

As a member of one segment of the cellphone user population, I'll say none, really.

The ability to root your phone, IMHO, simply makes it yet another device that sucks up admin time.

Life is too short. This is the major reason I'm a participant in Apple's walled garden. I don't want to mess about more than necessary with a device that I regard as a tool. If my hammer required admin time, I'd dump it.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#445

Post by fastball »

iamnothere wrote: post #382
fastball wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. A much better idea would be to have "security researcher" phones that Apple could sell to such, which would be rooted and tracked.

How could you verify that these phones run the same setup as regular phones? The only way to make companies fix bugs which may be difficult to find, expensive to fix, and potentially embarrassing is to make it easy to locate exploits on real hardware. Otherwise the only people with the resources to do this are government-backed entities like NSO Group, Vupen, etc, who somehow always ensure that exploits get into the…

It would literally be the same phone with the same software, but rooted.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#446

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

ignoramous wrote: post #401
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this different than any other industry? Most start-ups fail, security industry or otherwise.

Sorry I wasn't elaborate. What I was trying to say was SilentCircle had the money, the people, the pedigree, the vision and yet failed. Privacy is a hard sell and one of the reasons is that it is expensive and comes at a cost of inconvenience, unfortunately, given then way BigTech has shaped its offerings over the years. puri.sm may yet execute well and take-off but privacy remains a seriously hard problem to tackle…

I still don’t see how this suggests security is not a lively, profitable industry. The same anecdote could apply in spades to food startups, telecom startups, sports analytics startups, makeup startups and dozens of other types of businesses.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#447

Post by elliekelly »

gundmc wrote: post #443
elliekelly wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly! I contemplated explaining a bit further about Google's footnotes but thought I might sound crazy. Google actually takes the extra step of obscuring the footnotes to look like hyperlinks. For example, if you click "ads you'll find most useful" under "We want you to understand the types of information we collect as you use our services" you'll see that it pops out as a footnote rather than linking you to a n…

Ah! Thanks for expanding on that. It looks like the PDF version is available at the top of your linked page under the link "Download PDF" ( https://www.gstatic.com/policies/privacy/pdf/20190122/f3294e... ). The footnotes are all tacked on to the end of the document there, but they're hard to make use of out of context. It's frustrating that the footnotes contain both important disclosures like "we assign you a unique…

You know, it’s only just occurred to me that all this time I had been googling to find a pdf of their policy but I never actually looked on their page. Thanks! What a major facepalm on my part.

And it is frustrating for sure. Not all footnotes are bad but all the bad stuff is usually in the footnotes!

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#448

Post by geofft »

behnamoh wrote: post #416
geofft wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite at odds with my experience with my iPhone, so I'm confused. I don't have an iCloud account. I'm not sure what "basic functions for a smartphone" I'm unable to use, but, I don't want my photos backed up to iCloud - I'll handle that on my own, for the photos I actually want somewhere other than on my local device. Everything otherwise seems to work. I don't use iMessage. I've ticked the little box that sa…

I think the GP meant that without an Apple ID, you basically can't install apps to begin with, and most of the OS's apps also require an Apple ID to work to their fullest. However, I don't share the same degree of skepticism as the GP.

I definitely have an Apple ID. But I don't have iCloud enabled, and without it, having an Apple ID doesn't bother me.

My Apple ID isn't my normal email address and that hasn't been a problem: people don't contact me through it and Apple doesn't force me to publish it to others.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#449

Post by geofft »

kvark wrote: post #436
geofft wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite at odds with my experience with my iPhone, so I'm confused. I don't have an iCloud account. I'm not sure what "basic functions for a smartphone" I'm unable to use, but, I don't want my photos backed up to iCloud - I'll handle that on my own, for the photos I actually want somewhere other than on my local device. Everything otherwise seems to work. I don't use iMessage. I've ticked the little box that sa…

I find Apple extremely annoying when you disable iCloud: they keep reminding you to enable it on every occasion (updates, freeing up space, going through photos, etc).

Hm, is that a matter of personal taste? I get the prompt for each major version update, but since it takes a few clicks to get back in after an update, one more doesn't bother me. I don't get it on point releases. There's a message about iCloud photo backups when looking at space usage but it's not even a popup/dialog, you can scroll right past it. So it doesn't bother me.

Looking harder, I think what's happening is I do have iCloud, I just don't use it. I don't have automatic backups of photos, I don't have iCloud Drive (what it prompts me for on software updates), etc. Everything is unchecked except Find My iPhone. I haven't had any downside from having iCloud in this active-but-unused state.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#450

Post by deanCommie »

geofft wrote: post #362
tfha wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem that I have is that it's privacy built on a closed source platform that works extremely hard to wall users in and create substantial vendor lock-in. As someone who has tried multiple times to dip their toes into the Apple world, I can tell you that it's highly hostile to users who try to pick and choose how much they want to be an Apple citizen. If you don't agree to sign up for Apple cloud on the…

This is quite at odds with my experience with my iPhone, so I'm confused. I don't have an iCloud account. I'm not sure what "basic functions for a smartphone" I'm unable to use, but, I don't want my photos backed up to iCloud - I'll handle that on my own, for the photos I actually want somewhere other than on my local device. Everything otherwise seems to work. I don't use iMessage. I've ticked the little box that sa…

Lock-in is more than just "not giving you the chance to opt out ahead of time"

It's also "give you the chance to opt out LATER after you've invested some time into it."

Most people don't change defaults. So if they buy an iPhone, they are going to go all in on iMessage, whether they've heard of those horror stories of people losing messages or not.

Then, if they ever think they could switch to another OS, they experience the friction you describe, and decide it's not worth it after all.

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