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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

#231

Post by walterbell »

varenc wrote: post #121
walterbell wrote: post #16

> On macOS, I can usually prevent Apple software from phoning home by using Little Snitch. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't allow anything like Little Snitch on iOS. On Android, NetGuard uses a "local VPN" to firewall outgoing traffic. Could the same be done on iOS, or does Apple network traffic bypass VPNs? Lockdown mentions ads, but not Apple servers, https://lockdownprivacy.com/ . Apple does publish IP ranges for diff…

An iOS "local VPN" could definitely block all traffic to Apple IP ranges. But it lacks the ability to associate traffic with the originating process/framework. Like if, for example, I wanted to only allow iMessage to talk to Apple but nothing else. This is what Little Snitch and other software gives you on macOS/Linux/etc. But even blanket blocking of all Apple IP ranges probably wouldn't do anything here. As documen…

Apple's "enterprise networking" guide lists 3rd-party CDNs as subdomains of apple.com, which usually resolve to akamai or cloudflare subdomains. This allows those dynamic IPs to be blocked via dnsmasq ipset rules. In theory, they could use similar subdomain resolution for the OHTTP relays.

Since iOS was derived from macOS, perhaps Apple could restore the link between network traffic and process.

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

#232

Post by sumedh »

kemayo wrote: post #154
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'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 P…

"asking users about every single minor feature is (a) incredibly annoying"

Then why lie and mislead customers that your data stays local?

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

#233

Post by rkagerer »

ryandrake wrote: post #119
Gabriel54 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response your second question, opt in would look exactly like this: don't have the box checked by default, with an option to enable it: "use this to improve local search, we will create an encrypted index of your data to send securely to our servers, etc..." A PhD is not necessary to understand the distinction between storing data locally on a machine vs. on the internet.

Exactly. It's the height of arrogance to insist that normal users just can't understand such complex words and math, and therefore the company should not have to obtain consent from the user. As a normal lay user, I don't want anything to leave my device or computer without my consent. Period. That includes personal information, user data, metadata, private vectors, homomorphic this or locally differential that. I do…

This, 1000x. Thank you for voicing the absurdness of their approach to 'consent'.

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

#234

Post by 1shooner »

nixpulvis wrote: post #229

I'm disappointed in the discourse around Homomorphic Encryption and Differential Privacy here. As someone who briefly studied adjacent subjects these tools excite me more than they scare me. We trust TLS with our SSNs and CC numbers, hopefully one day we can trust secure multiparty computation too.

>We trust TLS

Is this really an apt comparison? I understood the trust in TLS to be built on open RFCs and implementation stacks. Even then, whenever I send private data, I take specific steps to verify I am using that trusted stack. That is not the experience described in the article.

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

#235

Post by simondotau »

ryandrake wrote: post #143
simondotau wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average smartphone is probably doing a hundred things you didn’t knowingly consent to every second. Should Apple insist that every end user consents to the user agent string sent on every HTTP request?

> The average smartphone is probably doing a hundred things you didn’t knowingly consent to every second. You've succinctly identified a (maybe the ) huge problem in the computing world today. Computers should not do anything without the user's command/consent. This seems like a hopeless and unachievable ideal only because of how far we've already strayed from the light. Even Linux, supposedly the last bastion of use…

> You've succinctly identified a (maybe the) huge problem in the computing world today.

And getting downvoted for saying it, which is a fascinating incongruity.

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

#237

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#238

Post by KennyBlanken »

kemayo wrote: post #154
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'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 P…

Especially for a company which heavily markets about how privacy-focused it is,

1)sending my personal data to them in any way is not a "feature." It's especially not a feature because what it sets out to do is rather unnecessary because every photo has geotagging, time-based grouping, and AI/ML/whatever on-device keyword assignments and OCR. I can open up my phone right now and search for every picture that has grass in it. I can search for "washington" and if I took a picture of a statue of george washington that shows the plaque, my iPhone already OCR'd that and will show the photo.

2)"minor" is not how I would ever describe sending data based off my photos to them, regardless of how much it's been stuffed through a mathematical meat grinder.

3)Apple is usually very upfront about this sort of thing, and also loves to mention the most minor, insignificant, who-gives-a-fuck feature addition in the changenotes for "point" system updates. We're talking things like "Numbers now supports setting font size in chart legends" (I'm making that up but you get the point.)

This was very clearly an "ask for forgiveness because the data we want is absolutely priceless and we'll get lots of it by the time people notice / word gets out." It's along the lines of Niantic using the massive trove of photos from the pokemon games to create 3d maps of everywhere.

I specifically use iOS because I value my privacy (and don't want my cell phone data plan, battery power, etc to be a data collection device for Google.) Sending data based off my photos is a hard, do-not-pass-go-fuck-off-and-die line in the sand for me.

It's especially shitty because they've gated a huge amount of their AI shit behind owning the current iPhone model....but apparently my several generation old iPhone is more than good enough to do some AI analysis on all my photos, to upload data for them?

Fuck everyone Apple who was involved in this.

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

#239

Post by notyourwork »

user3939382 wrote: post #230
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…

> This is what a good privacy story looks like. What a good privacy story looks like is that my photos aren’t sent anywhere in any way shape or form without explicit opt in permission.

Do you not sync to iCloud?

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

#240

Post by do_not_redeem »

ok_dad wrote: post #221
naruhodo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You had better build your own silicon chips and phone hardware as well in that case.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
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