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Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

lapcatsoftware.com

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Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#151

Post by thefounder »

scosman wrote: post #11

"I don't understand most of the technical details of Apple's blog post" I do: - Client side vectorization: the photo is processed locally, preparing a non-reversible vector representation before sending (think semantic hash). - Differential privacy: a decent amount of noise is added the the vector before sending it. Enough to make it impossible to reverse lookup the vector. The noise level here is ε = 0.8, which is q…

The best you can hope is integrity and security until your information reaches the destination but to assume that Apple or the U.S government cannot decipher the information you sent it or use it against you(i.e. set a person of interest as "landmark" and find out who's iPhone matches that "landmark) you must be foolish.

It's no longer a conspiracy. I think we are all over past that time(i.e with Snowden and Wikileaks). We live in a surveillance world and "They're guarding all the doors and holding all the keys".

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#152

Post by Lammy »

threeseed wrote: post #124
Lammy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Anything that makes any network request is by definition a privacy leak. The network itself is always listening, and the act of making any connection says that you are using the computer, and where, and when.

And so in this context. You are saying that every network request is going to a target controlled by the US government.

Or their friends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#153

Post by emchammer »

Msurrow wrote: post #40
Gabriel54 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the explanation. However, I think you do not address the main problem, which is that my data is being sent off my device by default and without any (reasonable) notice. Many users may agree to such a feature (as you say, it may be very secure), but to assume that everyone ought to be opted in by default is the issue.

I think it does address the main problem. What he is saying is that multiple layers of security is used to ensure (mathematically and theoretically proved) that there is no risk in sending the data, because it is encrypted and sent is such a way that apple or any third party will never be able to read/access it (again, based on theoretically provable math) . If there is no risk there is no harm, and then there is a d…

Hypothetical scenario: Theo de Raadt and Bruce Schneier are hired to bring Apple products up to their security standards. They are given a public blog, and they are not required to sign an NDA. They fix every last vulnerability in the architecture. Vladimir Putin can buy MacBooks for himself and his generals in Moscow, enable Advanced Data Protection, and collaborate on war plans in total confidence.

Where are the boundaries in this scenario?

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#154

Post by kemayo »

Gabriel54 wrote: post #13
scosman wrote: post #11

"I don't understand most of the technical details of Apple's blog post" I do: - Client side vectorization: the photo is processed locally, preparing a non-reversible vector representation before sending (think semantic hash). - Differential privacy: a decent amount of noise is added the the vector before sending it. Enough to make it impossible to reverse lookup the vector. The noise level here is ε = 0.8, which is q…

I appreciate the explanation. However, I think you do not address the main problem, which is that my data is being sent off my device by default and without any (reasonable) notice. Many users may agree to such a feature (as you say, it may be very secure), but to assume that everyone ought to be opted in by default is the issue.

I'm not sure I agree -- asking users about every single minor feature is (a) incredibly annoying, and (b) quickly causes request-blindness in even reasonably security-conscious users. So restraining the nagging for only risky or particularly invasive things makes sense to me.

Maybe they should lump its default state into something that already exists? E.g. assume that if you already have location access enabled for Photos (it does ask!), you've already indicated that you're okay with something about this identifying being sent to Apple whenever you take a picture.

My understanding is that Location Services will, among other things, send a hash of local WiFi network SSIDs and signal strengths to a database Apple maintains, and use that to triangulate a possible position for you. This seems loosely analogous to what's going on here with the compute-a-vector thing.

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#155

Post by wejick »

dan-robertson wrote: post #25

To me it seems like a reasonable feature that was, for the most part, implemented with great consideration for user privacy, though maybe I’m too trusting of the description. I mostly think this article is rage-bait and one should be wary of ‘falling for it’ when it shows up on hacker news in much the same way that one should be wary when rage-bait articles show up in tabloids or on Facebook. It seems likely to me th…

One thing particularly not clear to me is weather ios scan all data in the phone and send it to be part of public index or not. I see from how the feature works from the UI it seems it's not. If the feature activated by user action does this still constitute as phoning home?

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#156

Post by StanislavPetrov »

scosman wrote: post #11

"I don't understand most of the technical details of Apple's blog post" I do: - Client side vectorization: the photo is processed locally, preparing a non-reversible vector representation before sending (think semantic hash). - Differential privacy: a decent amount of noise is added the the vector before sending it. Enough to make it impossible to reverse lookup the vector. The noise level here is ε = 0.8, which is q…

>There are other tools to provide privacy (DP, homomorphic encryption), while also using services. They are immensely complicated, and user's can't realistically evaluate risk.

It is simple for any user to evaluate risk the risk of their data being breached on 3rd party servers when their data isn't being sent off the device - there is none. It is only when corporations insist that they are going to send the data off your device whether you like it or not that evaluating risk becomes necessary.

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#158

Post by iammattmurphy »

griomnib wrote: post #150
scosman wrote: post #11

"I don't understand most of the technical details of Apple's blog post" I do: - Client side vectorization: the photo is processed locally, preparing a non-reversible vector representation before sending (think semantic hash). - Differential privacy: a decent amount of noise is added the the vector before sending it. Enough to make it impossible to reverse lookup the vector. The noise level here is ε = 0.8, which is q…

I’m deeply familiar with all of these techniques, the core issue here is informed consent which they have not obtained. Furthermore, Apples privacy stance is generally a sham as their definition of “human rights” doesn’t extend to China. Which either means Apple doesn’t respect human rights, or they don’t view Chinese people as human.

That's not really fair; Apple's in a sticky wicket when it comes to the Chinese government, and they're not the only ones.

The Chinese government are debatably inhuman. They've literally censored the word "censorship." (Then they censored what people used euphemistically for censorship--"harmonious.") It's funny from the outside but also a miserable state of affairs in 2024.

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#159

Post by [deleted] »

JustExAWS wrote: post #52
latexr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that is relevant to my point. You seem to be trying to catch people in some kind of gotcha instead of engaging honestly with the problem at hand. But alright, I’ll bite. Yes, I always start with clean installs, both on iOS and on macOS. Sometimes I even restart fresh on the same device, as I make sure my hardware lasts. I don’t sync bookmarks, I keep them in Pinboard and none of them has any private or remote…

No I am trying to say with a connected device using online services, the service provider is going to have access to your data that you use to interact with them. To a first approximation, everyone in 2024 expects their data and settings to be transferred across devices. People aren’t working as if it is 2010 when you had to backup and restore devices via iTunes. If I’m out of town somewhere and my phone gets lost, d…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

#160

Post by parasubvert »

echelon wrote: post #142
dylan604 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is also no guarantee that Apple isn't lying about everything. Other than their entire reputation

Maybe your threat model can tolerate an "oopsie woopsie". Politically exposed persons probably cannot.

If you don't personally write the software stack on your devices, at some point you have to trust a third party.
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