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Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

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

#271

Post by AbjectFailure »

zepto wrote: post #141
jrockway wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There’s little point in E2E encryption if snooping is moved outside of either end. This measure is only necessary for implementing E2E in iCloud insofar as it allows the feds to do the very thing I want E2E to prevent them from doing in the first place.

It’s as if USPS invented a new type of envelope that is physically impossible to open for anyone whose name is not written on the outside of it. Just one caveat: before they’ll give you any of these envelopes, you must allow them to read the letters being put inside.

If your concern is someone intercepting your mail before it gets to its intended recipient, this is great news. If your threat model involves federal agencies reading your mail, you’re no better off than you would be without these fancy new envelopes.

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

#272

Post by nottorp »

zepto wrote: post #141
jrockway wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Necessary ... for the US government? Definitely not for me.

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

#273

Post by merrywhether »

pshirshov wrote: post #230
scoopertrooper wrote: post #71

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…

> if someone has that level of access to your phone, they could upload real CP and maybe even upload it to your Facebook for good measure. Many messengers, including Whatsapp, save all the incoming pics into camera roll by default.

And if you have iCloud Photos turned on, those images are already being uploaded and then CSAM-scanned on Apple’s servers. The chain is just being configured differently, but this risk is already active.

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

#275

Post by nottorp »

tpush wrote: post #114
carnitas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hashes all of your photos offline and then pinky promises to only check the hashes against the official on phone database when the user initiated an upload. The problem isn’t about wackos it’s about governments forcing Apple to do things with this new weapon

> Apple hashes all of your photos offline [...] No, only the ones designated for upload to iCloud. > [...] it’s about governments forcing Apple to do things with this new weapon Governments can already force Apple to do any kind of scanning, "weapon" being built already or not.

> > Apple hashes all of your photos offline [...]

> No, only the ones designated for upload to iCloud.

How do you verify that?

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

#276

Post by howinteresting »

0x000000001 wrote: post #262
howinteresting wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple also runs ads everywhere on its really expensive phones, mind. They're ads for other Apple products. https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/02/17/the-paywalled-garden-ios-... A Google Pixel has far fewer ads than an iPhone these days.

I have never seen the iOS show me an ad. I've seen some third party apps, but not the OS or core apps.

The linked post has plenty of evidence, it might be worth going through it.

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

#277

Post by pshirshov »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #258
pshirshov wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I believe that, for example, anticorruption activists and gay people in Russia who may be subjected to state-imposed surveillance won't agree with you. Apple won't leave even the russian market in case the government demands to expand capabilities of the system. And they will never leave chinese market. > macOS doesn't scan I'm afraid I have some bad news for you: "Fe…

> Apple won't leave even the russian market in case the government demands to expand capabilities of the system. And they will never leave chinese market. Who will? Google? Microsoft? HP? Dell? Huawei or Xiaomi or Lenovo (lol jk)? Which computer or phone manufacturers or service providers refuse to do business in Russia and China?

JFYI Google left China. Not sure about Russia. Anyway that's not an excuse for implementing such a neat surveillance tool.

Fortunately for now you have some escape hatches.

I believe that it would be a smart move for everyone to stop paying for nooses for their own gallows and start investing into privacy. There are some realistic ways to do it, just buy a damn Fairphone for a no-brainer start.

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

#278

Post by jdgoesmarching »

bengale wrote: post #208
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #91

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.

Yeah I can't decide on this one. Part of me thinks this can't be happening, and that someone would have realised. But there's been a couple of occasions that go beyond the "creepy coincidence" ads to something that I was speaking with my wife about that day and neither of us had put into the internet, suddenly we get ads for it.

People really aren’t capable of conceptualizing how intimate normal data collection and analytics are capable of being. You think your phone is listening because you assume that’s the only way the ads can know so much, and ironically the truth is far more invasive.

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

#279

Post by nottorp »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #144
randomdata wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Again, how can you verify that's what they'll do?

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

#280

Post by therealmarv »

redisman wrote: post #135
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26

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…

I find it funny how many people pick a random Chinese phone in their bid for privacy (???)

What I think is funny: There are more privacy for consumer laws for Chinese tech companies in China than for US tech companies in USA! It's wild west essentially in USA in this regard. I'm sure what Apple is doing is also against the European Union's GDPR privacy laws. US is missing out here...
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