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iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

appleinsider.com

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Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#31

Post by lalos »

scarface74 wrote: post #14
lalos wrote: post #3

Next step is to download Lockdown, open source and on device firewall. It also offers a VPN with an in-app purchase (kinda confusing when you are setting it up), but for free you get the firewall only. Easy to enable and block known ad-trackers (including FB sdk and Google Ads). Highly recommend. It's also made by ex Apple engineers, in case that helps for building trustworthiness. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lockd…

So if I care about privacy, why in the heck would I trust yet another party with access to all of my internet communication?

It runs on device and it's fairly easy to analyze the traffic, you are not giving a third party all your access. You could proxy all the traffic through a Mac running LittleSnitch, read their code, inspect the VPN profile it installs on the device, etc. It will only have access to your internet traffic if you opt-in in the actual VPN tunnel service they sell, which is optional.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#32

Post by freehunter »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #27
freehunter wrote: post #24

On the other hand Apple has forced apps to use location data for purposes it should not be used for. Termius, for example, is my favorite iOS SSH app. But according to them, they can’t keep an SSH session running in the background unless they’re constantly tracking your location data. And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. I don’t want to give Termius my location. I don’t want them tracking me everyw…

>And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. On one hand I agree with you, that's crazy that your SSH program put that limit on there for clearly tracking purposes. But I guess I sort of disagree this is Apple's problem to solve. It's yours. Apple made the changes to inform and educate you the customer that an app that is abusing your trust. The solution is not to force Apple to police developers but for…

The reason I called out Apple is because they normally take a strong stance on misuse of permissions. I’ve had my own apps rejected for the justification “I need location permissions so I know where you are” in a mapping app where the use case is obvious.

If Apple is playing hands on, they deserve just as much blame.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#33

Post by Despegar »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #27
freehunter wrote: post #24

On the other hand Apple has forced apps to use location data for purposes it should not be used for. Termius, for example, is my favorite iOS SSH app. But according to them, they can’t keep an SSH session running in the background unless they’re constantly tracking your location data. And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. I don’t want to give Termius my location. I don’t want them tracking me everyw…

>And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. On one hand I agree with you, that's crazy that your SSH program put that limit on there for clearly tracking purposes. But I guess I sort of disagree this is Apple's problem to solve. It's yours. Apple made the changes to inform and educate you the customer that an app that is abusing your trust. The solution is not to force Apple to police developers but for…

>The solution is not to force Apple to police developers but for you to stop using Terminus.

The actual scalable solution is for Congress or states to pass GDPR-style privacy legislation (or CCPA if your politicians are captured by tech industry interests).

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#34

Post by lalos »

DavideNL wrote: post #29
lalos wrote: post #3

Next step is to download Lockdown, open source and on device firewall. It also offers a VPN with an in-app purchase (kinda confusing when you are setting it up), but for free you get the firewall only. Easy to enable and block known ad-trackers (including FB sdk and Google Ads). Highly recommend. It's also made by ex Apple engineers, in case that helps for building trustworthiness. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lockd…

This app is not a firewall, it's a 'DNS sinkhole'. Any app can easily circumvent this "firewall" by simply falling back to hard coded public ips of their servers if the domain lookup doesn't work. I'm not saying it's a bad app, but it's misleading to call their app a "firewall".

True, firewall is for inbound connection. Thanks.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#35

Post by derefr »

goalieca wrote: post #23
duskwuff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm a little annoyed that there isn't an option for "no really, always allow". I understand that there's good privacy reasons to keep asking -- but I'm quite aware that a weather app will need access to my location, and I'm okay with that.

You can choose the weather location manually. I have a list of cities and default to the one I live in. There’s absolutely no reason for the weather app to know my location down to the square metre.

When you choose a weather location manually, you actually get a less fine-grained report than the one you get from a GPS-resolved location. Basically, you get weather for "the closest weather station to the geographic centre of the named city" rather than "the closest weather station to you."

This can be a big deal if your city has a large altitude range, such that going a few miles east means the difference between clouds vs. fog, or rain vs. snow; or if your city is coastal, such that going a few miles inland can mean rain vs. sun, and can make a dozen degrees' difference in temperature. (And, in some cities, you have both problems. Yay Vancouver!)

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#36

Post by Xylakant »

goalieca wrote: post #23
duskwuff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm a little annoyed that there isn't an option for "no really, always allow". I understand that there's good privacy reasons to keep asking -- but I'm quite aware that a weather app will need access to my location, and I'm okay with that.

You can choose the weather location manually. I have a list of cities and default to the one I live in. There’s absolutely no reason for the weather app to know my location down to the square metre.

There’s two apps in germany that broadcast warnings of either dangerous weather conditions or other incidents (major fire or similar). I can configure both with a fixed location, but this is really a case where I want the app to geolocate me and warn me about dangers around where I am currently.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#37

Post by Terretta »

mikestew wrote: post #19
lalos wrote: post #3

Next step is to download Lockdown, open source and on device firewall. It also offers a VPN with an in-app purchase (kinda confusing when you are setting it up), but for free you get the firewall only. Easy to enable and block known ad-trackers (including FB sdk and Google Ads). Highly recommend. It's also made by ex Apple engineers, in case that helps for building trustworthiness. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lockd…

Just downloaded it, too. It does ferret out those ads in the NYT app that I can’t seem to get Pi-Hole to filter out. Seems it will save me setting up a VPN to the home network to use Pi-Hole when on the road, too. So far, it’s two thumbs up. I’ll give it a few days, but I’ll throw some money their way in-app purchase even I never use their VPN (though I’ll certainly give it a whirl).

If you like Pi-hole, consider nextdns.io and their iOS app, or their plenty other configs/apps as well.

Using the web control panel, pick from high level categories to block, or drill down and select from among the most common of dozens and dozens of block lists. Make one or more configs, so different family members or devices can be blocked differently.

With Lightweight apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and Chrome OS offering privacy and security benefits of DNS-over-HTTPS. Always-on on all networks automatically to automatically bypass network filtering and government censorship.

Their DNS hosts leverage latency-based routing to automatically use the DNS server with the lowest latency, or use a subset outside "Five eyes" locations.

https://nextdns.io

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#38

Post by saagarjha »

lalos wrote: post #3

Next step is to download Lockdown, open source and on device firewall. It also offers a VPN with an in-app purchase (kinda confusing when you are setting it up), but for free you get the firewall only. Easy to enable and block known ad-trackers (including FB sdk and Google Ads). Highly recommend. It's also made by ex Apple engineers, in case that helps for building trustworthiness. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lockd…

> It's also made by ex Apple engineers, in case that helps for building trustworthiness.

It really shouldn't. Plenty of Apple engineers leave the company to work on shady things.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#39

Post by lern_too_spel »

layoutIfNeeded wrote: post #26
freehunter wrote: post #24

On the other hand Apple has forced apps to use location data for purposes it should not be used for. Termius, for example, is my favorite iOS SSH app. But according to them, they can’t keep an SSH session running in the background unless they’re constantly tracking your location data. And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. I don’t want to give Termius my location. I don’t want them tracking me everyw…

Termius is lying. They could just as easily played silent audio in the background to keep the app from being suspended. Although in my opinion both practices should cause them to be rejected from the AppStore since they’re clearly misusing the APIs. Must be an oversight from the review team at Apple.

That option would mean the user couldn't listen to other audio in the background.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#40

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

freehunter wrote: post #32
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. On one hand I agree with you, that's crazy that your SSH program put that limit on there for clearly tracking purposes. But I guess I sort of disagree this is Apple's problem to solve. It's yours. Apple made the changes to inform and educate you the customer that an app that is abusing your trust. The solution is not to force Apple to police developers but for…

The reason I called out Apple is because they normally take a strong stance on misuse of permissions. I’ve had my own apps rejected for the justification “I need location permissions so I know where you are” in a mapping app where the use case is obvious. If Apple is playing hands on, they deserve just as much blame.

I don't disagree. They need to do have a consistent approach. Selective enforcement is not likely the thing here, it seems like sibling that this just got missed.

So, report to Apple, file a review, stop using it.

If Apple comes to the rescue and characteristically fixes it, great, if they don't - they've already made great steps in allowing you to make informed decisions.

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