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Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

reuters.com

561–570 of 649 posts

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#561
I guess you have to assume that any message in transit over a public network is public. Of course, you can use something like PGP to encrypt messages before sending them, provided that the recipient has your key. I know of a few people who do that.

Outside of that kind of thing, we're probably yelling everything out loud to anyone who wants to listen.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#562
post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to smoke weed? The tyranny of the masses is still a tyranny. I'd personally like to move to a state where all smoking, but at least weed smoking, is illegal. I really don't like second hand smoke, especially when it smells and hangs as much as weed smoke does.

It's already not legal to smoke in public for weed and in most places for cigarettes. Frankly I don't think outright prohibition addresses that any better than the existing system. Nor do I see how having bodily autonomy is necessarily a tyranny of the masses. In all seriousness, Utah sounds like your ideal so long as you stay outside of Salt Lake City. I'm glad to no longer be a resident

> Nor do I see how having bodily autonomy is necessarily a tyranny of the masses.

When it intrudes upon the bodily autonomy of others (e.g. second hand smoke, which I am constantly facing and suffering from in the Bay Area).

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Utah sounds like your ideal Not enough trees. Nor enough employment in my non-remoteable field. Public smoking is a concern, but the smoke will leak even if smoked inside of a home. With edibles and inhalers I don't understand why people thought it was a good idea to legalize marijuana smoking. > Nor do I see how having bodily autonomy is necessarily a tyranny of the masses. Generalizing the principle of the swingi…

Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do know that, right? I'm not detecting any humour markers...

> Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation.

Wish it stopped at just the smell.

Second hand weed is harmful.

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/secondhand-marijuana-smoke-w...

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#564
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We implemented APNS encryption for Firefox iOS without much trouble. Keys are negotiated out of band and message decryption is done in a Notification extension that allows you to pre process incoming notifications. Did not need any special entitlements. Source code on GitHub.com/mozilla-mobile

Maybe their keys are safer than yours? Not saying you are obviously compromised, but the simplest explanation after this news is that maybe they relay the authorization to NSA et al, and they OK'ed your case and not theirs for some reason...

The simplest explanation is not that Apple is colluding with multiple national government's intelligence agencies which all specifically agreed to a conspiracy against Firefox's mobile browser notifications.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if they fail in their refusal, we would not know. So you have to treat it as if they have already failed and plan accordingly.

This is really the conclusion of the debate over whether privacy protections should be legal or technological. The answer is both, which in particular means that they have to be technological. We need to prove their inability to defect with math because otherwise they can just lie about it. What you need from the law is the right for everybody to use that kind of technology by default.

Comment of the year (decade?), cannot upvote enough.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are instead life destroying penalties being handed out to whistleblowers. What a world we live in.

The good thing is we live in a democracy - if we don't like it, we can fix it at the voting booth.

No you can't. You only get to vote for the candidates on the ballot. And they'll get corrupted within a term, usually.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing there is no penalties for lying under oath anymore. That pesky rule of law was so long in the tooth.

Google tells me perjury is still very much a thing. Do you have a source?

Hard to tell sarcasm in the written word, but I think you were replying to some.

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your sense of smell is subjective, and not a good reason for legislation. You do understand that many tort suits, and outright laws, are over subjective harms, right? (trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries, etcetera) That laws such as disability protection laws exist? https://www.chemicalsensitivityfoundation.org/index.html

... None of your examples are like for like. Lots of people love the smell of cannabis. No one loves "trash in neighbors yards, loud sounds late at night, smells from chemical industries". Arguing in bad faith is lame dude.

Blatantly ignoring harms of secondhand weed is more lame:

Second hand weed is harmful. https://www.uclahealth.org/news/secondhand-marijuana-smoke-w...

Re: Governments spying on Apple, Google users through push notifications

#570

I'm surprised hyper-private services like Signal haven't foreseen this as a potential vector and given you options to eg. exclude different details from push notifications (or warned you to disable them altogether if you're worried about it)

Unless my memory is seriously off, Signal push notifications just tell your device to call and fetch. It’s not like they’re unaware and just sending you stuff in plain text.
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