Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#31

Post by shmoe » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

fieryscribe wrote: post #19

ben-gy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree - the average person is not capable of securely managing their own data, which is why they pick a consumer brand like Apple to do it for them - providing an option to do so would likely result in significant exposure of personal data at significant scale from botched DIY attempts. To test this theory, simply ask an average iPhone or Android user what encryption is. What you are saying here is the equivalen…

I don't find this so convincing. Most normal usera may not be able to secure things effectively and they can still use the existing iCloud / Google Play infrastructure. That doesn't mean that other users, who want to manage their own data for one reason or another, shouldn't get the opportunity. It's far more likely that building and maintaining this feature is not worth the development time for Apple and Google prod…

Exactly why it won't happen anytime soon, unfortunately.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#32

Post by mdoms » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #22

bravetraveler wrote: post #2

I guess 8 exabytes doesn't get the same number of clicks Edit: Not really trying to be facetious, but come on. Apple using a lot of storage at a lot of places isn't too surprising

I’m only here because I don’t understand why you would say 8 million terabytes instead of 8 exabytes.

Because an average reader knows what a terabyte because it's a common hard drive size. The typical reader doesn't know how to think about exabytes.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#33

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:14 AM UTC

adt2bt wrote: post #10

It’s a bit of an open secret among big tech that Apple is a huge user of storage on all major clouds. They manage encryption on their hardware and in return get cheap storage, higher availability and competition from their suppliers. Highly doubt Google has access to any iCloud data other than an estimate of the immense size of the service.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#34

Post by rootsudo » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:17 AM UTC

Ironic arbitrage, Apple sells it for X, pays google for Y.

The absolute state of things.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#35

Post by serf » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:23 AM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #32

hinkley wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m only here because I don’t understand why you would say 8 million terabytes instead of 8 exabytes.

Because an average reader knows what a terabyte because it's a common hard drive size. The typical reader doesn't know how to think about exabytes.

people deal with social media images and text more often than buying hard drives -- and that's (generally) handled in kilobytes.

my take : it's because numbers with lots of digits sell clicks easier -- up until scientific notation is needed, and then at that point the general readership can't fathom the number and generally doesn't care.

in other words, I bet 8,000,000 terabytes produces more clicks than '8 exabytes' and '6.4 x 10^19 bits' would have.

If I had been born a new-age journalist i'd have gone with 8,000,000,000,000 megabytes -- but only if that fit in the link/URL slug and headline for maximum click-bait exposure.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#36

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

cunthorpe wrote: post #12

SilverRed wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The files API on ios is open for anyone to use. You can run your own nextcloud server on your own hardware and it integrates in to the OS just like google drive or a plugged in USB would.

You can’t do backup or sync the Photos.app to a random cloud. The “integration” here is just that occasionally you can save to and load from your server. That’s all.

I don't think you can do the full device backup on anything but icloud and I agree that should change but your own storage has the same access as google does on ios. You can have your own photos app which automatically uploads everything in the photo roll and can delete photos to keep them in sync with your cloud.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#37

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #25

hinkley wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m only here because I don’t understand why you would say 8 million terabytes instead of 8 exabytes.

People use "terabytes" a lot (on the order of the size of a desktop hard drive), they don't use petabytes or exabytes.

Petabytes is a common unit for company scale data but I guess people reading random tech news aren't familiar with it yet.

It's also way beyond what we use in other units. Gigalitre is the biggest SI prefix I have seen outside of bytes.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#38

Post by SilverRed » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

rootsudo wrote: post #34

Ironic arbitrage, Apple sells it for X, pays google for Y. The absolute state of things.

You aren't just buying dumb storage though. Its a whole service and tools to utilize the service.

What Apple and Google are selling are different products. A fruit salad is different to what the fruit store sells and receives a higher price.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#39

Post by omegalulw » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

bravetraveler wrote: post #2

I guess 8 exabytes doesn't get the same number of clicks Edit: Not really trying to be facetious, but come on. Apple using a lot of storage at a lot of places isn't too surprising

8M terabytes isn't a big number tho. 1TB/person is fairly common these days and Apple has like 900M+ users.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#40

Post by fulafel » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 4:35 AM UTC

adt2bt wrote: post #10

It’s a bit of an open secret among big tech that Apple is a huge user of storage on all major clouds. They manage encryption on their hardware and in return get cheap storage, higher availability and competition from their suppliers. Highly doubt Google has access to any iCloud data other than an estimate of the immense size of the service.

> Highly doubt Google has access to any iCloud data other than an estimate of the immense size of the service.

They do of course have access to the ciphertext and access to traffic patterns, in crypto threat models traffic analysis tells the adversary a wealth of information.