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Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

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141–150 of 493 posts

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes. Of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is ridiculous. I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick th…

Apple's using my electricity and my silicon to call the cops on me. We have no idea what hashes they're checking images against; we can't see the raw data, and we can't see the hashes, and we can't see what they're sending to their servers. There is no technical reason why this needs to exist. If they want to scan iCloud photos for something, they can do that on their servers. iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted. Law…

> iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted

Yet. Have you considered that this might be a necessary precursor to making iCloud e2e?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#142

To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…

What would they have to do to lose your business? Literally get you arrested?

You're financially supporting the creation of an Orwellian dystopia.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reasonably confident that Google listens to every conversation I have within earshot of my phone. It isn't uncommon to find things in my news feed that are related to things I have no interest in but a friend or coworker had just mentioned to me in passing.

What do you say about the people who have tested this and found nothing?

There's a good chance I'm wrong, but it certainly seems like that's what's going on. I haven't seen anyone's testing of this, but it is also possible their methodology is flawed.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes. Of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is ridiculous. I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick th…

> I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. They aren't, but the blame is misguided. This isn't a problem with Apple. What is Apple going to do if they do detect something identified as CSAM on your device? Refuse to sell you another? Oh well. The real worry is what other parties will do if they get ahold of the information. That is what needs to be fixed. Apple is exposing the und…

Apple have said what they're going to do. If the number of hash hits reaches 30, then they'll scale the image down and send it off to their manual review team. If they confirm it's CP, then they call the police.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#145

To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…

What would they have to do to lose your business? Literally get you arrested? You're financially supporting the creation of an Orwellian dystopia.

Every other cloud provider has scanned since 2013. We're already in the Orwellian dystopia.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At work you have the same IP. Your coworker may have googled what he was taking about. This is a much easier explaination than a constant mic monitoring for arbitrary phrases

There are a lot of people at this company, and my news feed doesn't diverge enough to account for all of their varied google searches.

No, but it would be easy to tell that you associate with your co-worked by correlating Bluetooth beacons, which many apps do for exactly this purpose.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#147

To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…

What would they have to do to lose your business? Literally get you arrested? You're financially supporting the creation of an Orwellian dystopia.

If you're uploading your photos to someone else's computer, you've already accepted this state of things. It's a trade-off for convenience.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the fringe, good luck using banking apps Tried that yesterday on CalyxOs with anonymous MicroG account and my banking app works fine. No problem with contactless nfc payments.

Aren't anonymous microG accounts illegal though? (Or at least a violation of the TOS.) Also you can't use any paid apps with this method.

Maybe a violation of TOS, but I guess it's one of these things that would not be enforced at all. Same way as Oracle can't do much about Google using Java or Microsoft doesn't do anything about Wine.

Regarding the second point - that's true. I've heard there are some plans to add payments to the Aurora store/F-Droid (which are alternative app stores) but right now you can't use paid apps.

I consider this to be a plus though - gives me a chance to switch to open-source / self-hosted apps.

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