AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes • Hacker News Board

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#471

Post by cmeacham98 » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

wonnage wrote: post #394

cmeacham98 wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've always been able to change AirDrop to contacts only. This "feature" just makes it harder to send AirDrops to people who want to receive them.

Assuming that anyone with airdrop set to everyone wants to receive your files is just wrong

What else would be the interpretation of the "Everything" setting, especially at a large gathering like a protest?

Also, it's not like they just receive the file without consent, last I used an iPhone there was a popup allowing the other user to accept/decline the file.

So it's less like "anyone with airdop set to everyone wants to receive your file" and more like "anyone with airdop set to everyone wants to be asked if they want to receive your file".

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#472

Post by akvadrako » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

lovvtide wrote: post #412

rchaud wrote: post #213

Time for a new operating system (if we didn't already hit that mark with the 2013 NSA leaks). Apple, Google, Samsung, Huawei: they all exist at the pleasure of the state. Please ignore their glitzy PR-laden presentations about protecting people's privacy and upholding human rights. They will sell you out in a second if it's convenient. On the mobile side of things, we need, at the barest minimum: - a web based OS wit…

I would add: - The ability to send push notifications without replying on GCM/APN - Support for mesh networking (multiple low power peer connections) - Convenient "lockdown" mode that encrypts your phone's contents for international travel - Included hardware wallet/keystore for signing all data that you upload to social media

Push is already possible with https://unifiedpush.org/. Apps use a local API and you choose the push provider.

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#473

Post by sam0x17 » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

grumple wrote: post #276

sam0x17 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Typical users do not have the same motivations as programmers. This is actually very untrue in my experience. I can't tell you how many "normal users" ask me whether there is an open source equivalent they can use so they don't have to pay for X, for example, and many have shown interest in doing what they can to optimize their setup and/or reduce their financial burden by getting smarter about how things are set u…

> I can't tell you how many "normal users" ask me whether there is an open source equivalent they can use so they don't have to pay for X I don't think I've ever had a non-dev ask me about "open source". Asking for free alternatives, sure, but it's very rare that I'd recommend open source alternatives for whatever normal people are doing.

I've had many people come to me asking for "that open source office thing instead of word"

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#474

Post by gorkish » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:19 PM UTC

bitwzrd wrote: post #414

dymk wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only iPhones had a way to turn off its cellular radio, some kind of “airplane mode” or something

Why should we possibly believe that any software switches actually fully disable anything? If there isn't a hardware killswitch, there is no reasonable expectation that the cellular radio is actually disabled... There are trustworthy sources claiming that the NSA still tracks devices that are completely "powered off". No reason to believe that the CCP doesn't have that ability as well.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm just pointing out that there is a tangible benefit to end-user privacy that is enabled by this change inasmuch as the features are advertised to work and inasmuch as I personally have investigated how they operate.

Certainly the CCP has other means to surveil their dissidents, and at a certain level of paranoia, leaving the cell phone behind might be a good idea. However that is a completely separate topic that does not deserve to be convoluted with this discussion.

It seems in the fervor to lambast Apple, very few people seem to be fully considering that the original feature is extremely problematic. People will often enable 'Everyone' when they need to exchange a file with someone, but forget to change it back. If you need any more evidence that this is so, I invite you to go into a public space and scan for Airdrop targets.

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#475

Post by keotuk » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:20 PM UTC

kgermino wrote: post #244

droopyEyelids wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, anyone who rides public transportation in a major metropolitan area has probably experienced perverts airdropping them pornography, and this would fix that issue.

Do you ride public transportation in a major metropolitan area? This is not a thing I've ever even heard of happening (I'm sure someone has done it) in the real world

It happens enough that the UK government want to outlaw it. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cyberflashing-to-become-a...

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#476

Post by lern_too_spel » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #107

xvector wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn’t position themselves as some savior of mankind and human rights. They don’t market grandiose claims about privacy and ethics like Apple does. I’m a bit more okay with Google because at least they aren’t lying through their teeth and hoping their customers are dumb enough to believe them.

> Before Google China's establishment, Google.com itself was accessible, even though much of its content was not accessible because of censorship. > Because of its self-imposed censorship, whenever people searched for prohibited Chinese keywords on a blocked list maintained by the PRC government, google.cn displayed at the bottom of the page (translated): In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part…

What are you quoting? Google stopped doing that more than a decade ago, and "Do no evil" was never part of its motto.

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#477

Post by noncoml » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #368

jsnell wrote: post #8

This seems to have been announced a couple of weeks ago, so we don't need to just trust the tweet: https://www.macworld.com/article/1377200/apple-to-limit-aird... Having it open to everyone for only a limited amount of time actually kind of seems like the right thing, but it's hard to come up with a legit explanation for why they rushed that change to China first.

Of course the zero-covid protests were also around a couple weeks ago..

But it wasn’t until today that Musk decide to start a propaganda war against Apple.

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#478

Post by mym1990 » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #125

exabrial wrote: post #58

* Apple is not a green company * Apple is not a free speech advocate * Apple builds their products with unethical labor

Neither is Tesla. Musk does not give a shit about the free speech of left-wingers. Tesla's also even more in bed with China than Apple is; both in terms of exploitative labor practices and China owning their demand. And electric vehicles are just a way to greenwash suburbs. EDIT: Nevermind, I got confused with another thread that was talking about Tesla. Leaving this comment up for posterity.

Musk showed some true colors with the Twitter debacle, my interest in buying a Tesla went from an 8/10 to a 0.

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#479

Post by hindsightbias » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

blamazon wrote: post #260

baxtr wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry. That’s not convincing. How can a 10min limit suppress protests? You’re not answering the question, just telling a story.

Okay. Let's make it more concrete. Imagine theres a bus full of people and you want to invite them to a protest, discreetly. Before state: some of them have airdrop set to open always and you can just airdrop to them. Move on to the next bus. New state: some of them may have had airdrop set to open always, but it timed out. You cannot airdrop it to them. Protest quashed. I'm still telling the same story but perhaps t…

So presuming airdrops are logged, a trivial mechanism for implicating a lot of people in a crime against the state is now more complicated.

Re: AirDrop is now limited to 10 minutes

#480

Post by sneak » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

hellfish wrote: post #461

kelnos wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is Apple being Pro-CCP with this change? I don't think Apple is Pro-CCP, Apple is Pro-Being-Able-To-Do-Business-In-China, which means doing whatever the CCP tells you to do, even if it means compromising your ethics.

Quoted post unavailable.

Apple's "home constituency" if anything is China; approximately 100% of all Apple devices are made in China by Chinese nationals. Apple is more a Chinese company than an American one, in practice.

The CCP ultimately controls Apple as thoroughly as any US federal government lawmaking body or regulator.

I wouldn't be surprised if the CCP starts demanding that Apple start making changes to their worldwide software and not just the stuff released in China...

They really have Apple by the balls.