Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15

lapcatsoftware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

751–760 of 1001 posts

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

#751

Post by thih9 »

Related:

    Settings -> Siri -> Apps (Siri app access) -> [an app] -> Learn from this app
This is on by default for all apps and it “Allows Siri to learn from how you use [an app] to make suggestions across apps”. I found no global setting for all apps.

More details: https://support.apple.com/en-mn/guide/iphone/iph6f94af287/io...

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

#752

Post by withinboredom »

mgraczyk wrote: post #724
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…

Would you mind giving an example of something bad that could happen to somebody as a result of Apple sending this data to itself? Something concrete, where the harm would be realized, for example somebody being hurt physically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, etc

Once upon a time, I worked for a pretty big company (fortune 500ish) and had access to production data. When a colleague didn't show up at work as they were expected, I looked up their location in our tracking database. They were in the wrong country -- but I can't finish this story here.

Needless to say, if an Apple employee wanted to stalk someone (say an abusive partner, creep, whatever), the fact that this stuff phones home means that the employee can deduce where they are located. I've heard stories from the early days of Facebook about employees reading partner's Facebook messages, back before they took that kind of stuff seriously.

People work at these places, and not all people are good.

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

#753

Post by necovek »

xp84 wrote: post #736
GlacierFox wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Yeah, this is an insane proposal. I know GP may be imagining a smart populace walking away from Big Evil Facebook and X with heads held high, but the other 99% of sites are also doing the same cookie banner stupidity because it is roughly mandatory due to useless EU law (unless you’re not engaging at all in advertising even as an advertiser ). So, no more accessing your bank, power utility, doctor, college, etc. That…

I am happy to learn what I may have been imagining: thanks for that!

The law has turned out to be useless, agreed — or at least, it has driven hard-to-navigate UX that we live through today. The intent could have taken us in a different direction with some care (i.e. mandating a clear, no-dark-pattern opt-out/opt-in ahead-of-time option a la DoNotTrack header that similarly failed): if web clients (browsers) were required to pass visitor's preferences and if the list of shared-with was mandated to be machine readable with an exact format (so browsers would create nice UIs), maybe we'd get somewhere.

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

#754

Post by ryandrake »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #497
ryandrake wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I do expect it to obtain my consent before generally accessing the network and sending bytes over the network. How would that make any difference in this case? Presumably, you'll have long-ago checked the "allow general access to the network" setting, so you've given consent to the "send my photo data" action. Heck, surely connecting to the internet in the first place is implicit consent that you want to send stuff…

If I were actually given the choice, I would not check any checkbox allowing an application broad, unfettered access to the network. But, in most cases I'm not even given that choice!

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

#755

Post by hn3er1q »

avianlyric wrote: post #602
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…

> So why didn't Apple just simply ask for user permission to enable this feature? That’s an interesting question. Something to consider, iOS photos has allowed you to search for photos using the address the photo was taken at. To do that requires the Photos app to take the lat/long of a photos location, and do a reverse-geo lookup to get a human understandable address. Something that pretty much always involves query…

> Do you consider this feature to be a violation of your privacy, requiring an opt-in?

I suppose in some sense it is, as it a reverse-geo lookup service, but it's also no where near to the front in the location privacy war.

Cell phone providers basically know your exact position at all times when you have your phone on you, credit card companies know basically everything, cars track driving directly, etc. etc.

I can see why some people would be up in arms but for me this one doesn't feel like missing the forest for the trees, it feels like missing the forest for the leaves.

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

#756

Post by withinboredom »

andybak wrote: post #666

Users of my (free, open-source) app seem surprised to learn that we've got zero insight into usage patterns. There are situations where a small amount of anonymous telemetry would be extremely helpful but I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole. Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that wo…

I can't remember where I saw this before. However, there was a site that collected analytics data client side in a circular buffer (or something), and there was a menu in the settings to send it back one-time or always, or download it yourself. If you experienced an error, they would pop up in a toast to share the analytics data with them so they could help fix the problem. You could, of course, decline.

That was probably the best system I'd seen, but I can't remember what site it was.

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

#757

Post by mgraczyk »

withinboredom wrote: post #752
mgraczyk wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind giving an example of something bad that could happen to somebody as a result of Apple sending this data to itself? Something concrete, where the harm would be realized, for example somebody being hurt physically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, etc

Once upon a time, I worked for a pretty big company (fortune 500ish) and had access to production data. When a colleague didn't show up at work as they were expected, I looked up their location in our tracking database. They were in the wrong country -- but I can't finish this story here. Needless to say, if an Apple employee wanted to stalk someone (say an abusive partner, creep, whatever), the fact that this stuff…

Your first story sounds like a good outcome.

I doubt Apple employees could deduce location from the uploaded data. Having worked at FB I know that doing something like that would very quickly get you fired post 2016

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

#758

Post by dangus »

Lammy wrote: post #378
dangus wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Completely missing the point, but you're right that I should have said “using or in possession” of the computer. The point is that they reveal your physical location to the network, so if they make requests while not directly in use then it's actually even worse. For context, stationary desktop machines comprise single-digit percentages of Mac sales: https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/03/06/macbook-pro-and-m... Eve…

Your Mac connected to your trusted home network when it want turned off? Wow, scandalous.

You can randomize your MAC address. Built in OS feature.

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

#760

Post by doctorpangloss »

avianlyric wrote: post #602
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…

> So why didn't Apple just simply ask for user permission to enable this feature? That’s an interesting question. Something to consider, iOS photos has allowed you to search for photos using the address the photo was taken at. To do that requires the Photos app to take the lat/long of a photos location, and do a reverse-geo lookup to get a human understandable address. Something that pretty much always involves query…

You’re right. But: Anyone in IT or tech, thinking deeply about the raw facts. They know it always boils down to trust, not technology.

The interesting thing is that Apple has created a cathedral of seemingly objective sexy technical details that feel like security. But since it’s all trust, feelings matter!

So my answer is, if it feels like a privacy violation, it is. Your technical comparison will be more persuasive if you presented it in Computer Modern in a white paper, or if you are an important Substack author or reply guy, or maybe take a cue from the shawarma guy on Valencia Street and do a hunger strike while comparing two ways to get location info.

Post reply on HN