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Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

21–30 of 764 posts

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#21

Yet despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth - both in the article and in the comments here in the various threads - people are still making excuses for continuing to use Apple/Google/Microsoft/et al products because the alternatives are a bit rough round the edges. These companies have repeatedly shown that they don't respect people's privacy and people have resoundingly responded that neither do they. I would…

I was looking into various differences among demographics which use and prefer apple products. Nobody rated any of the problems often thrown in here as a priority.

Majority of iPhone users are women and HN/reddit are primarily men dominated. It should be no surprise that apple caters to aesthetics over thermals and you see people complaining about that on these platforms.

Apple customers put status and prestige when deciding to purchase something above cost. They are rich. They care about environment that's why apple "care" about environment. They care about privacy which is why apple "care" about privacy.

So for them, it's reasonable to change the device than allow it to be repaired at some shady shop. It's consistent with their image. They can't compromise on privacy or safety because that's why they bought into apple ecosystem.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/26/apple-doe...

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#22
post #10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just turn off iCloud backup. It’s what I do.

And everyone you iMessage with? Both parties to the conversation have the plaintext and a key that will decrypt the whole conversation. Unless you are 100% certain that everyone you iMessage with has also done this, your conversations are still not reliably private. Even then, Apple can silently inject additional escrowed wiretap keys into the keylist for one or both participants, although this is an active attack an…

iMessage is not a security or privacy-first messaging app. It is a fun and usable messaging app with decent efforts towards privacy and no user tracking. The only messaging app that goes all the way with privacy is Signal, which I use for most of my communication. But Apple is focused on the user experience, and there are some fundamental trade offs with user experience that are not necessary for most users. Most users are never going to be subpoenaed by the police.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#23
post #13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you substantiate that the keys are backed up? Is messages in iCloud on by default? I remember being asked.

Your keys would be backed up in the cloud to ensure you can decrypt your restored imessage backup to a new device.

No - only the session keys for those messages need to be backed up for that.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#24

1. Disconnect Internet (if possible) 2. Open Terminal 3. Run `sudo vi /etc/hosts` 4. Type `G$` (go to end of file) 5. Type `i`, left arrow, enter 6. Type `127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com` 7. Press esc then type `:x` then press enter 8. Restart https://gist.github.com/nathanhleung/2ceeda4c743f2a1cf3d670c... Some updated procedure.

Open Terminal run

sudo echo 127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com >> /etc/hosts

restart

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#25
post #5
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok - so it’s complete bullshit. iMessage is end to end encrypted. There is no back door. The article is lying. On the other hand it’s true that iCloud backups are not encrypted. That’s a major problem. Worse in many ways since all your private documents, tax returns etc, are in there too. But let’s not lie about iMessage not being end to end encrypted. It certainly is. The problem is that the end is then backed up to…

iCloud Backup, on by default, backs up the complete plaintext iMessage history to Apple via the network, automatically, using Apple keys. It also backs up the device's iMessage keys, to Apple via the network, automatically, using Apple keys. That's called key escrow. The plaintext message content backup bypasses the end-to-end encryption entirely, providing the service-in-the-middle with complete plaintext. Apple is…

“Alternately, if Apple, via software changes, has caused the plaintext message content to be relayed back to Apple post-decryption, it is no longer end-to-end encrypted, as the service in the middle is no longer zero-knowledge, and has come into possession of the plaintext.”

Is just conjecture about something they could do, or is there some evidence that they have done this?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#26
post #7

Thanks for summarizing a bunch of changes that make me depressed about modern computing. Now Android, 'privacy apple' macOS, iOS & Windows all act in similar way. The only thing left is bad user experience linux.

I disagree with that, user experience in Linux is and in foreseeable future will be the most flexible of all and hence allows users to make it look exactly the way they like.

For comparison I would say Linux is like bootstrap that you can customize to make it look the way you want. iOS is like a paid theme you have bought over Themeforest with near to zero flexibility.

If you want a predefined good looking desktop, you can look at Manjaro ( that I am currently using and am pretty happy , my decent 16gb RAM with SSD system boots faster than my Macbook Pro 2019 and opens applications faster on cold boot as compared to Mac )

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#27
post #7

Thanks for summarizing a bunch of changes that make me depressed about modern computing. Now Android, 'privacy apple' macOS, iOS & Windows all act in similar way. The only thing left is bad user experience linux.

Why call linux a bad user experience when you are depressed at the state of what you can do on mac/windows?

Doesn't user experience account for what you can do on your device and with how much ease?

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#28

1. Disconnect Internet (if possible) 2. Open Terminal 3. Run `sudo vi /etc/hosts` 4. Type `G$` (go to end of file) 5. Type `i`, left arrow, enter 6. Type `127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com` 7. Press esc then type `:x` then press enter 8. Restart https://gist.github.com/nathanhleung/2ceeda4c743f2a1cf3d670c... Some updated procedure.

Open Terminal run sudo echo 127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com >> /etc/hosts restart

`sudo` can't affect `>>`. `>>` is the shell opening `/etc/hosts` before launching `sudo`.

  sudo tee -a /etc/hosts 

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#30

1. Disconnect Internet (if possible) 2. Open Terminal 3. Run `sudo vi /etc/hosts` 4. Type `G$` (go to end of file) 5. Type `i`, left arrow, enter 6. Type `127.0.0.1 oscp.apple.com` 7. Press esc then type `:x` then press enter 8. Restart https://gist.github.com/nathanhleung/2ceeda4c743f2a1cf3d670c... Some updated procedure.

> 5. Type `i`, left arrow, enter

I think it should be right arrow.

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