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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

#841

Post by eleveriven »

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…

Maybe the solution lies in radical transparency: explaining exactly how and why telemetry would help, then letting users decide. But even that requires trust...

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

#842

Post by eleveriven »

jl6 wrote: post #562
rmbyrro wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the main criticism is about sending private and sensitive data to Apple without consent and warning

I imagine Apple might argue that no private information is sent thanks to the use of homomorphic encryption. But Apple’s explanation rings hollow without the user having the ability to verify that this system is working as described.

Users have no meaningful way to verify that their data is genuinely protected

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

#843

Post by RedComet »

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…

The cookie banners are an example of malicious compliance.

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

#844

Post by ThouYS »

Argonaut998 wrote: post #577

I think I just noticed a similar thing for search that I'm pretty sure was not there before IOS 18. Going into Settings -> Search there's an option now for "Help Apple Improve Search", enabled by default. >Help improve Search by allowing Apple to store the searches you enter into Safari(!!), Siri and Spotlight in a way that is not linked to you. Searches include lookups of general knowledge, and requests to do things…

thanks man

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

#845

Post by asadotzler »

lapcat wrote: post #651
heartbreak wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't do that. My Photos library contains camera snapshots and screenshots, nothing else.

you started out suggesting it wasn't possible and when presented with a common case showing it was not only possible but likely, you moved the goal posts and now say "well, I don't do that." Weak sauce.

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

#846

Post by ghjfrdghibt »

sgammon wrote: post #803
ghjfrdghibt wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I've not read them, I don't see why I would as I'm not an apple customer. But I do wonder if apple are in charge/control the encryption keys to your encrypted data...

They are not, that is what makes it secure and why you should read the manual.

So no third party, including law enforcement can access data held by apple? Including apple? At any point?

I'm asking these questions because I'm definitely not going to read the manual, for the reason I've already said, you seem to have read the manual, and I find it hard to believe. I'm only aware that apple offers advanced protection on your uploaded data, which you have to opt into, which might be what you're talking about...?

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

#847

Post by pkkkzip »

KerrAvon wrote: post #715
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.

This is incredibly naive and curiously defensive.

If this was a feature on its own then it would not be popular.

Citing national security, some danger will justify its existence.

Apple alone does not control and dictate what goes in, once you reach their level of size and wealth that exceed even developed countries, you ultimately cannot be the controller of your destiny purely as a profit orientated corporation.

ex) Meta, Microsoft, Google

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

#848

Post by avianlyric »

j45 wrote: post #809
benwaffle wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple chose to implement things like OHTTP and homomorphic encryption when they could easily have done without it. Doesn't that count for something?

Nope. It's still taking the user's data away without informing them, and saying trust us we super good encrypted it. Apple is building a location database, for free, from user's photos and saying it's anonymized. It's not a service I want, nor one I authorize. Nor are my photos licensed to Apple to get that information from me. Encryption is only good relative to computational power to break it available to the many,…

> Apple is building a location database, for free, from user's photos and saying it's anonymized.

Where on earth did you get that from? The photos app is sending an 8bit embedding for its lookup query, how are they going to build a location database from that?

Even if they were sending entire photos, how do you imagine someone builds a location database from that? You still need something to figure out what the image is, and if you already have that, why would you need to build it again?

> Encryption is only good relative to computational power to break it available to the many, or the few. > Determined groups with resources could find ways.. This results in no security or encryption.

Tell me, do you sell tin foil hats as a side hustle or something? If this is your view on encryption why are you worried about a silly photos app figuring out what landmarks are in your photos. You basically believe that it’s impossible for digital privacy of any variety is effectively impossible, and that you also believe this is a meaningful threat to “normal” people. The only way to meet your criteria for safe privacy is to ensue all forms of digital communication (which would include Hacker News FYI). So either you’re knowingly making disingenuous hyperbolic arguments, you’re a complete hypocrite, or you like to live “dangerously”.

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

#849

Post by asadotzler »

scratchyone wrote: post #432
FireBeyond wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No? There’s literal billboards linked on this thread that say “what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” Apple patting itself on the back.

I'm sure you know that the point of that billboard is to state that your iPhone protects your privacy. That is generally true, Apple is by far the most privacy-focused major phone and software company. Advertising isn't literal, if we're going to be pedantic here the photons emitted by your iPhone's screen technically leave your iPhone and definitely contain private information.

It's not pedantic to call out misleading advertising unless you're a shill for the ones doing the misleading.

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

#850

Post by avianlyric »

hn3er1q wrote: post #755
avianlyric wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I very much agree with your position. There are legitimate questions to be asked about this feature being opt-in, although we may find that you implicitly opt-in if you enable Apple Intelligence or similar.

But the argument that this specific feature represents some new beachhead in some great war against privacy strikes me as little more that clickbate hyperbole. If Apple really wanted to track people’s locations, it would be trivial for them to do so, without all this cloak and dagger nonsense people seem to come up with. Equally, is a state entity wanted to track your location (or even track people’s locations at scale), there’s a myriad of trivially easy ways for them to do so, without resorting to forcing Apple to spy on their customers via complex computer vision landmark lookup system.

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