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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

#641

Post by lapcat »

brians wrote: post #637
lapcat wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would work only if you've already given the Camera app permission to geotag your photos, which I haven't, so it may be a nonissue.

It works if you use the Photos app to look at any image with a geo EXIF tag. But thank you for one more demonstration that even the HN crowd can’t reliably give or deny informed consent here.

And how, pray tell, do geotagged images magically get into your Photos library?

I actually couldn't get Photos address search to work right in my testing before writing my previous comment, even with a geotagged photo that I just took. So I'm not sure whether I have some setting disabled that prevents it.

The only match was via character recognition of a printed form that I had photographed.

To be clear, I meant that it was a nonissue for me, because I don't geotag my photos (except in that one test). Whether it's an issue for other people, I don't know.

One of the problems with iPhone lockdown is that it's a lot more difficult to investigate how things work technically than on the Mac.

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

#642

Post by mihaaly »

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…

It looks sensible assuming that Little Snitch has some high level manager agent inside Apple manipulating the company making these kind of sneaky attacks on customers' privacy that drives the sales of Little Snitch. On the end they will also make them to buy Liitle Snitch for lots of millions or billions for elimination so they can attack customers freely afterwards. Little Snitch hidden agents are smart!

I do not assume that Apple managers are that degenerate idiots pushing through trust eroding marginal idiocy like this.

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

#643

Post by diggan »

mvkel wrote: post #629
jchw wrote: post #292

What I want is very simple: I want software that doesn't send anything to the Internet without some explicit intent first . All of that work to try to make this feature plausibly private is cool engineering work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with implementing a feature like this, but it should absolutely be opt-in. Trust in software will continue to erode until software stops treating end users and their data…

This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. Even more dialogs that most users will blindly tap "Allow" to will not fix the problem. Society has collectively decided (spiritually) that it is ok signing over data access rights to third parties. Adding friction to this punishes 98% of people in service of the 2% who aren't going to use these services anyway. Sure, a more educated populous might tip the scales…

> This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners.

The only thing I've found awful is the mindset of the people implementing the banners.

That you feel frustration over that every company has a cookie banner, is exactly the goal. The companies could decide that it isn't worth frustrating the user over something trivial like website analytics, as they could get that without having to show a cookie banner at all.

But no, they want all the data, even though they most likely don't use all of it, and therefore are forced to show the cookie banner.

Then you as a user see that banner, and instead of thinking "What a shitty company that don't even do the minimal work to not having to show me the cookie banner", you end up thinking "What a bad law forcing the company to inform me about what they do with my data". Sounds so backwards, but you're not the first with this sentiment, so the PR departments of the companies seems like they've succeed in re-pointing the blame...

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

#644

Post by necovek »

mvkel wrote: post #629
jchw wrote: post #292

What I want is very simple: I want software that doesn't send anything to the Internet without some explicit intent first . All of that work to try to make this feature plausibly private is cool engineering work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with implementing a feature like this, but it should absolutely be opt-in. Trust in software will continue to erode until software stops treating end users and their data…

This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. Even more dialogs that most users will blindly tap "Allow" to will not fix the problem. Society has collectively decided (spiritually) that it is ok signing over data access rights to third parties. Adding friction to this punishes 98% of people in service of the 2% who aren't going to use these services anyway. Sure, a more educated populous might tip the scales…

Nope, collective indifference to subpar user experiences has gotten us those lousy cookie banners.

Web sites could legally use cookies for non-tracking purposes without cookie banners but considering people have not stopped visiting sites despite the fugly click-through cookie banners makes them a failure.

All it takes is for 50% of the internet users to stop visiting web sites with them, and web site authors will stop tracking users with external cookies.

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

#645

Post by necovek »

diggan wrote: post #643
mvkel wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. Even more dialogs that most users will blindly tap "Allow" to will not fix the problem. Society has collectively decided (spiritually) that it is ok signing over data access rights to third parties. Adding friction to this punishes 98% of people in service of the 2% who aren't going to use these services anyway. Sure, a more educated populous might tip the scales…

> This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. The only thing I've found awful is the mindset of the people implementing the banners. That you feel frustration over that every company has a cookie banner, is exactly the goal. The companies could decide that it isn't worth frustrating the user over something trivial like website analytics, as they could get that without having to show a cookie banner at all.…

Seconded: and we need to have worthy competitors spring up without those bad practices and lousy cookie banners, and people to flock to them.

Once that happens, the "originals" will feel the pressure.

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

#646

Post by jasoneckert »

miki123211 wrote: post #586
jchw wrote: post #292

What I want is very simple: I want software that doesn't send anything to the Internet without some explicit intent first . All of that work to try to make this feature plausibly private is cool engineering work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with implementing a feature like this, but it should absolutely be opt-in. Trust in software will continue to erode until software stops treating end users and their data…

Opt in doesn't work, it never did. The vast majority (>95%) of users does not understand what those pop-ups say, seems fundamentally incapable of reading them, and either always accepts, always rejects, or always clicks the more visually-appealing button. Try observing a family member who is not in tech and not in the professional managerial class, and ask them what pop-up they just dismissed and why. It's one of the…

When looked at from another angle, opt-in does work.

By adding that extra step forcing users to be aware of (and optionally decline) the vendors collection of personal data, it adds a disincentive for collecting the data in the first place.

In other words, opt-in can be thought of as a way to encourage vendors to change their behaviour. Consumers who don't see an opt-in will eventually know that the vendor isn't collecting their information compared to others and trust the product more.

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

#647

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

mvkel wrote: post #629
jchw wrote: post #292

What I want is very simple: I want software that doesn't send anything to the Internet without some explicit intent first . All of that work to try to make this feature plausibly private is cool engineering work, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with implementing a feature like this, but it should absolutely be opt-in. Trust in software will continue to erode until software stops treating end users and their data…

This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. Even more dialogs that most users will blindly tap "Allow" to will not fix the problem. Society has collectively decided (spiritually) that it is ok signing over data access rights to third parties. Adding friction to this punishes 98% of people in service of the 2% who aren't going to use these services anyway. Sure, a more educated populous might tip the scales…

I use Firefox focus on android and Firefox with ubo and others..

On desktop and Firefox app, I only browse through private browsing so cookies are mostly irrelevant as session ends as soon as all windows close.

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

#648

Post by heartbreak »

lapcat wrote: post #641
brians wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works if you use the Photos app to look at any image with a geo EXIF tag. But thank you for one more demonstration that even the HN crowd can’t reliably give or deny informed consent here.

And how, pray tell, do geotagged images magically get into your Photos library? I actually couldn't get Photos address search to work right in my testing before writing my previous comment, even with a geotagged photo that I just took. So I'm not sure whether I have some setting disabled that prevents it. The only match was via character recognition of a printed form that I had photographed. To be clear, I meant that…

> And how, pray tell, do geotagged images magically get into your Photos library?

By saving them from any source other than the camera app you’ve configured to not use geo-tagging.

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

#649

Post by lapcat »

lapcat wrote: post #328
Schiendelman wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both of you had it turned on from past OS installs - it's bundled under other search metadata, the config isn't new to 18. And "it's on and I don't remember agreeing" is absolutely not evidence. This is super common - nobody remembers what they enabled a year ago.

> I think both of you had it turned on from long past OS installs. It's a brand new feature of iOS 18 and macOS 15. It did not exist in iOS 17 or macOS 14. Moreover, my macOS 15 volume was a totally fresh, clean install on a test Mac.

By the way, Enhanced Visual Search is also enabled by default in the Xcode iOS 18 simulator.

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

#650

Post by snowwrestler »

chikere232 wrote: post #522

As trivia, on mac os, the photoanalysisd service will run in the background and look through your photos, even if you never open Apple Photos. It can't be disabled unless you disable SIP (system integrity protection) which requires a complicated dance of reboots and warnings. It will reenable if you turn SIP back on. It seems Apple are very passionate about analysing your photos for some reason, regardless if you you…

You may also be shocked to learn that Spotlight looks through every single file on your Mac.
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