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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

#211

Post by bolognafairy »

freedomben wrote: post #191
parasubvert wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Agreed, but surely you see a difference between an open source implementation that is out for audit by anyone, and a closed source implementation that is kept under lock & key? They could both be compromised intentionally or unintentionally, but IMHO one shows a lot more good faith than the other.

No. That’s your bias as a nerd. There are countless well-publicised examples of ‘many eyeballs’ not being remotely as effective as nerds make it out to be.

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

#212

Post by latexr »

cortesoft wrote: post #99
talldayo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is happening, is that people make tradeoffs, and decide to what degree they trust who and what they interact with. People aren't making tradeoffs - that's the problem. Apple is making the tradeoffs for them, and then retroactively asking their users "is this okay?" Users shouldn't need to buy a new phone to circumevent arbitrary restrictions on the hardware that is their legal property. If America had function…

They can just not enable the feature if they don't want this?

The feature is enabled by default. That’s the only reason we’re having this discussion at all.

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

#213

Post by dangus »

Lammy wrote: post #114
threeseed wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> letting the feds see every time you use the product This does not happen.

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.

If every app and system is making network connections by default without the user's knowledge or intervention then it doesn't really prove that you are using the computer at all.

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

#214

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

geococcyxc wrote: post #21

Another setting that surprised me with being turned on by default apparently on macOS 15 is System Settings - Spotlight - "Help Apple Improve Search": "Help improve Search by allowing Apple to store your Safari, Siri, Spotlight, Lookup, and #images search queries. The information collected is stored in a way that does not identify you and is used to improve search results."

I love the, "help do x" options. Help? Your market cap is over $3tn. Help yourself! And stop asking how my call quality was.

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

#216

Post by dangus »

amelius wrote: post #135

Why does Apple keep insisting that I want anything to do with them after I bought the device? Let go of the freaking tether. And let me choose my own photo editing service provider.

You literally can choose your own photo software. You don't have to use Photos at all. Just get another app.

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

#218

Post by schappim »

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…

For context, @scosman is self-described as “Formerly Apple Photos” in his Twitter bio.

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

#219

Post by naruhodo »

varenc wrote: post #130

This whole thing is reminding me of the outrage over Apple and Google's privacy preserving 'Exposure Notification System' system from the Covid years. It defies intuition that they can alert you to exposure without also tracking you, but indeed that's what the technology lets you do. Similarly here, it feels like the author is leaning into a knee jerk reaction about invasion of privacy without really trying to evalua…

I would love to evaluate the privacy of these technologies.

Someone reply with a link to the source code so I can see exactly what it is doing, without having to take an internet rando's word for it.

Better yet, let me compile it myself.

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

#220

Post by aeyes »

RandallBrown wrote: post #196
paxys wrote: post #183

So basically - You take a picture. Apple encrypts it and uploads it to their server. The server matches the (still encrypted) picture to a database and tells your device "this picture contains the Eiffel Tower". Later when you search for Eiffel Tower on your device the photo pops up. Is the complexity and security risk really worth it for such a niche feature? It's also funny that Apple is simultaneously saying "don'…

Is this a niche feature? I use this kind of search very often in my photos.

What are some example keywords? I have never searched for landmarks, I only search for location.

How many landmarks are there to justify sending your data off? Can't the database be stored on the device?

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