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Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

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Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#71

Post by gruez »

Yeul wrote: post #56
crest wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple shouldn't be allowed to lock down APIs between system components to give themselves a competitive advantage, but that doesn't mean Meta should be allowed decide if they're getting that access. Let Apple offer users the option: allow once, allow permanently, refuse, or fake empty responses without telling the app.

You mean like on Android? Hell nowadays you can choose "approximate location" instead of tracking people. App permissions have come a long way.

>You mean like on Android? Hell nowadays you can choose "approximate location" instead of tracking people.

Apps can and do detect this and deny access certain features. For instance the mcdonalds app won't give you offers if you choose approximate location.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#72

Post by gruez »

bilbo0s wrote: post #69
hnburnsy wrote: post #61

Here are some of Meta's ask according to Apple... https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/DMA-Interopera... AirPlay Continuity Camera App Intents Devices connected with Bluetooth Apple Notification Center Service iPhone Mirroring CarPlay Connectivity to all of a user’s Apple devices Messaging Wi-Fi networks and properties

Wow. I mean, where does a company get the balls to demand total access like this to the phones, networks and data of every phone in the US? These companies have zero fear of us as a people. (They have zero respect for us as well, but that's another issue.)

I'm not sure how you read the above list and got the impression that meta wanted "total access like this to the phones, networks and data of every phone in the US". "Connectivity to all of a user’s Apple devices" probably means mDNS access for device discovery, rather than root access on all devices or whatever. Same for "Wi-Fi networks and properties". They probably want a list of wifi networks so they can connect to them, rather than low level access so they can run packet captures or whatever. Yes, even the limited access described above presents privacy issues, but there's no need to be hyperbolic and characterize it as "total access".

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#73

Post by dvdkon »

gruez wrote: post #70
twoodfin wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. Otherwise it'd be an easy way around the "Ask App Not To Track" prompt.

>Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. This is going to be irrelevant in the EU once sideloading gets popular.

Thankfully the EU also has legislation that makes "share data to use" tactics illegal, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#74

Post by riversflow »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #50
gwbas1c wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let Apple offer users the option That's easy to say, and much more difficult to implement than it sounds. Careful: There's a lot of nuance in how these kinds of options are presented to the user. Depending on how they're designed, "the general public" will default to yes or no; or get frustrated / overwhelmed with pedantic permission dialogs. Thus, part of "Let Apple offer users the option" is a commitment to study…

The thing is, at some point users must become comfortable with "pedantic permission dialogs." Users must take responsibility for knowing how software works and the motivations of its creators. Trying to outsource those decisions to corporations and government simply isn't working. Since computer users (I include phone users in that definition) can no longer trust software developers (Apple, Meta, etc.) to be ethicall…

> Trying to outsource those decisions to corporations and government simply isn't working

I don’t follow. What is wrong with the status quo?

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#75

Post by gruez »

dvdkon wrote: post #73
gruez wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Apple routinely rejects apps that try tactics like this. This is going to be irrelevant in the EU once sideloading gets popular.

Thankfully the EU also has legislation that makes "share data to use" tactics illegal, so this shouldn't be a problem.

How are you going to enforce this against app developers outside of the EU?

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#76

Post by bilbo0s »

br0wnr1c3 wrote: post #66

I think one of my personal issues with allowing Meta to access these private APIs is that they may not take "don't allow" for an answer. I have WhatsApp to talk to some family and I recently disabled allowing all contacts in iOS 18. WhatsApp now has a persistent notification at the top of messages to "Allow All Contacts". If Apple allows users to choose whether or not to give Meta access, and users choose "no", Meta…

Here's the thing, take a look at just a bit of what Meta is demanding:

*AirPlay Continuity Camera

*App Intents

*Devices connected with Bluetooth

*Apple Notification Center Service

*iPhone Mirroring

*CarPlay

*Connectivity to all of a user’s Apple devices

*Messaging

*Wi-Fi networks and properties

Now ignoring the obvious societal dangers in this request. (I mean really? Should you be using a Meta headset while you're driving?) The scope of data that they are asking for is breathtaking. All the data, wifi, messages and notifications of not only every iphone in the US, but all of the user's other devices as well. To potentially include their cars.

We need to really think deeply about how we set up access to Apple data and APIs. Requests like this are putting me more in the "deny all requests" camp. If tech companies can't be at least a little more reasonable, then I don't think they should have access to our data.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#77

Post by gruez »

jlokier wrote: post #43
oefrha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to contact someone in Europe so I started using WhatsApp. It does work without granting access to contacts, but it seems I can't even assign a name to a number without the contacts permission, so thousands of messages later the contact is still a bare number. Really scummy behavior. I probably would have caved if I had a number of contacts. And no iPad app, wtf.

WhatsApp on Android has the same behaviour. Most of my conversations show as a bare phone number because I decided not to give it all my contacts. However, WhatsApp groups show a name, so that's a workaround if you are using WhatsApp with someone you know well: Make a group for the two of you. When a friend went to install WhatsApp for their iPad, they succeeded! Then they said it wasn't working properly. Unfortunate…

>WhatsApp on Android has the same behaviour. Most of my conversations show as a bare phone number because I decided not to give it all my contacts.

It was actually worse (at least as of a few years ago) because they didn't allow you to manually input phone numbers. You either need the other party to message you first, or use a wa.me deeplink (eg. wa.me/12125551234).

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#78

Post by silvestrov »

gruez wrote: post #75
dvdkon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully the EU also has legislation that makes "share data to use" tactics illegal, so this shouldn't be a problem.

How are you going to enforce this against app developers outside of the EU?

Facebook likes getting some of that sweet money from EU advertisers.

EU can block payments from EU to Facebook.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#79

Post by saurik »

mort96 wrote: post #57
crest wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple shouldn't be allowed to lock down APIs between system components to give themselves a competitive advantage, but that doesn't mean Meta should be allowed decide if they're getting that access. Let Apple offer users the option: allow once, allow permanently, refuse, or fake empty responses without telling the app.

Users will be faced with a dialog saying "to use Facebook, you must accept XYZ", and their only options will be to accept or to not use the app. Facebook will detect empty or fake data and lock the user out unless they acquiesce.

I have often used phones without bothering to comprehensively fill out an address book, and should everyone be required to own random network devices or even to take a lot of photos? The only data I can think of which maybe you could "detect" is fake would be the user's extremely course location, but that's only because you might be able to guess at it yourself, at which point the device's data isn't even relevant anymore.

This idea that apps are going to strong arm data out of users seems like one of those talking points which sounds good but doesn't pen out, but somehow simultaneously is used to prevent users from being able to increase either their freedom or their privacy. The status quo sucks, and is in the best interests of both overlords: Facebook knows if it has permission or not, and Apple can claim the only reason they won't abuse this knowledge is if you allow them curation control.

Re: Apple and Meta go to war over interoperability vs. privacy

#80

Post by gruez »

silvestrov wrote: post #78
gruez wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you going to enforce this against app developers outside of the EU?

Facebook likes getting some of that sweet money from EU advertisers. EU can block payments from EU to Facebook.

Different threat model. You're thinking of big tech companies like Meta, who are big enough to warrant regulatory attention. I'm thinking of fly-by-night shady app developers that make flashlight/weather/"security"/IoT/game apps, that fly under the radar because they're too small.
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