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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

#711

Post by diggan »

nfriedly wrote: post #688
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…

u-Block Origin's annoyances filters take care of the cookie banners, giving the best of both worlds: no banners and a minimal amount of tracking. (The "I don't care about cookies" extension is similarly effective, but since I'm already running u-block origin, it makes more sense to me to enable it's filter.)

> u-Block Origin's annoyances filters take care of the cookie banners, giving the best of both worlds: no banners and a minimal amount of tracking.

Word of caution though, that might silently break some websites. I've lost count of the times some HTTP request silently failed because you weren't meant to be able to get some part of the website, without first rejecting/accepting the 3rd party cookies.

Usually, disabling uBlock, rejecting/accepting the cookies and then enabling it again solves the problem. But the first time it happened, it kind of caught me by surprise, because why in holy hell would you validate those somehow?!

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

#712

Post by mp05 »

aeyes wrote: post #220
RandallBrown wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

One time in Paris I received a crème brûlée that strongly resembled the face of Jesus Christ, so naturally I took a picture before devouring it.

Last night I was able to find the image using the single word "creme". Definitely saved the story.

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

#713

Post by asdff »

talldayo wrote: post #685
snowwrestler wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was. First by the md_worker processes that mysteriously started pinning all of my CPU cores after a git clone. Then by the realization that MacOS had built a full-text index of millions of lines of source code (it only took a few hours of my Mac being too hot to touch). A lot of Apple's defaults are just plain bizarre. Why the hell is Spotlight seeing source code mimetypes and feeding it to the search index?

For real! When I search for a term the last thing I want is some esoteric plist file but I’ll return dozens of those hits. Is there a way to exclude these I wonder? Limit it to what I have in the default home directory structure lets say and not go into my launch agents.

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

#714

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

dan-robertson wrote: post #289
amatecha wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally all Apple needed to do was not have it enabled by default. Sending stuff over the network without asking is why trust in Apple is reduced further and further.

Not enabling something by default is pretty close to not having it at all. Accessibility is a reasonable exception where it makes sense to have the features even though they are off by default. I mostly think the reaction to this article is overblown because it appeals popular ideas here about big tech. I think one should be wary of Apple’s claims about privacy: the reason is competition with Google and so they want…

> Not enabling something by default is pretty close to not having it at all

And I care "why" exactly? It was turned on by default on my phone without my consent, it's a privacy violation, nothing else matters in that case.

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

#715

Post by KerrAvon »

mrshadowgoose wrote: post #306

Is this just a smokescreen around slowly sneaking CSAM scanning back in after the pushback last time? The "default on" behavior is suspect. [1] https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-commun...

No, it is not. Whatever their other failings, Apple doesn’t think that way.

The cynical reason: consider that you can’t plan engineering features of this scale without written documentation, which will always surface in court.

The prima facie reason: Apple genuinely wants to provide useful features requiring server participation.

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

#716

Post by ProllyInfamous »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #85
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #48

At this point, Mac Mini M4's are cheap enough and capable enough to just purchase two: one for off-line use, another on-. Perhaps this is marketing genius (from an AAPL-shareholder POV)? ---- I'm laughing at the insanity of all this interconnectivity, but an NDA prevents me from typing the greatest source of my ironic chuckles. Described in an obtuse way: a privacy-focused hardware product ships with an undisclosed p…

Can you be more clear?

Computer are inexpensive enough to own both on- & off-line hardware.

----

Even privacy-focused hardware manufacturers will allow undisclosed usage tracking (in order to continue existing, themselves). In my example, the OEM delivers a physical product which allows users to make tangible objects, at home. Every time you launch the hardware's control software (to make more controversial objects), it phones home.

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

#717

Post by GlacierFox »

necovek wrote: post #644
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…

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 st…

"All it takes is for 50% of the internet users to stop visiting web sites with them..."

You've written that like it's a plausible and likely scenario.

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

#718

Post by 0_____0 »

It sounds like Apple Photos "phones home" by fetching some indices? It doesn't sound like photo data leave the device, but I think Apple's issue is they should have been more clear about how this feature worked and what data is and isn't transmitted.

If it works how I think it works, I actually don't see an issue here. I don't think anyone here expects there phone to not "phone home" to check for OS updates by default?

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

#720

Post by ProllyInfamous »

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.

Yes, this is what I'm saying.

Particularly among "controversial" product manufacturers.

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Entirely unrelated: I recently visited my favorite hometown (Austin) museum, UT's Harry Ransom Center. Their P.E.N. exhibit has an exposé on how various mid-20th Century authors were in fact funded by The Ford Foundation (a known CIA "investment vehicle"), including Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World). One of the exhibits features multiple author signatories adamently denying this CIA-funding, over the 1950's decade... ultimately this conspiracy theory ended up being true/revealed. Adds an entirely new dimension to The Savage's [BNW's main character] decision to hang himself.

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