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Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

schneier.com

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Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#31

Post by pserwylo »

TimGebhardt wrote: post #10

From high horse: Well one more reason Android is better than iOS. Coming down from high horse: Oh crap, my phone's software is programmed by an advertising company... Conclusion: My life is being bought and sold out of my control.

From under my tin foil hat: I know it probably isn't perfect, but I'm running Cyanogenmod, without Google's location services, browsing with Opera labs because it supports the Ghostery extension that blocks trackers while browsing and is easy to change the search provider to DuckDuckGo (though the default is always Google for some reason), only using Google maps as a fallback after OsmAnd offline maps and MapQuest for online apps.

I do miss Google maps, and have used it every now and again, and the GPS in my old Samsung Galaxy S may as well be nonexistent, so not using location services sucks. Opera renders some popular websites poorly (quite possibly not their fault) but it is good at other things. I also still rely on Google Play (fdroid doesn't have enough stuff, and I don't mind paying for some stuff) but alternatives like Amazon are probably just as bad. Overall its not so bad.

One day I'll try to use my phone without any of my Google accounts and see how I go.

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#32

Post by eli »

ralfd wrote: post #29

4 weeks ago: > "Apple adds new "Limit Ad Tracking" feature to iOS 6" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4545602 3 weeks ago: > "Google implements Apple's Ad Identifier for mobile tracking choice" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4581781 Both hacker news submissions have zero comments. Why is it that a month ago no one cared, but now everyone is grabbing his tin-foil hat? Also I am pretty sure at least some of the…

Well, it's got a different headline and a different (arguably more reputable) source.

But mostly probably luck. My impression is that if a story doesn't get votes for the minority of people who cruise the "new" section in the brief period of time where it's on the first page or two, it's dead.

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#33

Post by bwood »

ralfd wrote: post #29

4 weeks ago: > "Apple adds new "Limit Ad Tracking" feature to iOS 6" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4545602 3 weeks ago: > "Google implements Apple's Ad Identifier for mobile tracking choice" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4581781 Both hacker news submissions have zero comments. Why is it that a month ago no one cared, but now everyone is grabbing his tin-foil hat? Also I am pretty sure at least some of the…

> Both hacker news submissions have zero comments. Why is it that a month ago no one cared, but now everyone is grabbing his tin-foil hat?

A story not becoming popular on its first (or second) submission is not necessarily indicative of its importance. Relatively few people see new links, and the success of failure of these links in "going viral" is in the hands of relatively few. So no, it's not necessarily that no one would have cared about this a month ago and it's not an indication of hypocracy on behalf of this community; there are significant random factors that play into the exposure any particular topic or submission will receive.

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#34

Post by 0wza »

"For the last few months, iPhone users have enjoyed an unusual environment..."

Am I the only one who finds that humourous? An "unusual" environment? What exactly is "normal" about tracking people's movements in the name of convincing advertisers to pay you?

This briefly enjoyed environment should not be unusual. It is the one we've lived in for hundreds of years. It should be the norm. iAd should be _opt-in_ not opt-out. There are no valid arguments to the contrary that are not motivated out of just a tad bit too much greed, the unhealthy kind.

(Why do I say the greed is excessive and unhealthy? Because Apple has already sold a highly marked up device composed of cheap electronics and booked that revenue. But this is apparently not enough. The casualty of this greed is the consumer's basic notions of privacy. That price is arguably far too high for anyone to pay to any company in return for "helpful suggestions" of products and services they _might_ want, based on seller guesswork. Apple made a fortune selling iPods. They didn't need to track users' listening preferences to do it. There are limits to what is reasonable.)

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#35

Post by ashbrahma »

Apple actually messed up the IDFA for users that update from iOS 5 to 6 (over wifi). All these users are assigned an IDFA number of 0000000. Users that are on the new iPhone 5 or updated from iOS 5 to 6 via a network connection have a valid IDFA number.

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#36

Post by rooster117 »

Advertisers do not need to rely on the UDID(which is still widely used) to track you since all that matters is they have a unique key they can associate with the hardware. The MAC address does the same thing and there are a handful of other options that are close enough for what they care about.

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#37

Post by SeoxyS »

As somebody who actually has first hand knowledge of this issue (I wrote and designed the tracking for a major iOS ad network), I can say that this is an incredibly misleading article.

Here's what's actually going on:

- Apple has deprecated the UDID. We're still allowed to use it for a while, but in the long term it's going away.

- Apple has created a new identifier (the IFA), specifically for the use case of advertising. This identifier uniquely identifies a device across apps, but beyond that provides no information about the device or its user.

- This ID comes with strings. There's an option in Preferences to "Limit Ad Tracking." The terms and conditions specify that when this option is enabled, we still get access to the ID, but we are only allowed to use it for some specific purposes like conversion tracking (eg. making cost-per-action campaigns possible), and fraud detection (eg. preventing fake clicks). We are not allowed to use it to create profiles, or to improve our ad targeting algorithm. We are absolutely not allowed to divulge the information to third parties.

Without this, advertising wouldn't be possible. Some may think that that'd be for the best (myself included), but that's an entirely different argument, and you'd have to realize that the market would be very different (No free/freemium apps, and everything would be more expensive). You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I expected better from Schneier.

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#38

Post by revelation »

SeoxyS wrote: post #37

As somebody who actually has first hand knowledge of this issue (I wrote and designed the tracking for a major iOS ad network), I can say that this is an incredibly misleading article. Here's what's actually going on: - Apple has deprecated the UDID. We're still allowed to use it for a while, but in the long term it's going away. - Apple has created a new identifier (the IFA), specifically for the use case of adverti…

Thanks for giving us the information on "what's actually going on". But that makes it seem worse, even when you apparently can't see it from working in the field.

Apple continues to give apps access to the UDID; the recent leaks were apparently not as stark a reminder as some people thought.

The "Limit Ad Tracking" option seems wholly useless; another "X-Do-Not-Track". In this case, the user even expresses the wish to not be tracked, and Apple just continues to provide the data while telling the apps you checked a meaningless box. Apple is in no position to control what app developers do with the data after the fact; the only possible way here is to not disclose that data at all.

(Also, Google does just fine without a globally unique "advertising number". It can do so because people get actual value for the advertisements, and the advertisements are targeted. Apple is just providing this trove of data on the cheap to every hinterland app developer. Thats a huge mistake.)

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#39

Post by ralfd »

ralfd wrote: post #29

4 weeks ago: > "Apple adds new "Limit Ad Tracking" feature to iOS 6" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4545602 3 weeks ago: > "Google implements Apple's Ad Identifier for mobile tracking choice" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4581781 Both hacker news submissions have zero comments. Why is it that a month ago no one cared, but now everyone is grabbing his tin-foil hat? Also I am pretty sure at least some of the…

Addendum:

It is explained (from the developers point of view) in the WWDC 2012 session "Privacy Support in iOS and OS X".

https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2012/?id=710

The old UDID is splitted into three new API:

1. Application ID, which scope is the app and lifetime is till uninstallation of this app.

2. Vendor ID: scope is developer and lifetime is till uninstallation of all developer's apps.

3. Advertising ID (identifierForAdvertising or IFA): scope is the device and a new ID is created by "Erase all contents/settings" and it is not restored across devices (practically lifetime is lifetime of the device). This means when you start to use a new iPad it will have its own Advertising ID and not use that of your old iPhone, because the ID is not tied to your Apple ID account, but tied to a device.

It is noteworthy that after Apple banned the usage of the UDID some developers and ad networks started bypassing Apples privacy rules and made their own open source ID replacement:

https://github.com/ylechelle/OpenUDID/blob/master/README.md

But I don't know if this will be permitted in the future or you have to use Apples provided ID system (I would assume the latter).

Re: Apple Turns on iPhone Tracking in iOS6

#40

Post by LaGrange »

ljoshua wrote: post #30

It's always a quandary--I will most likely be seeing ads, so would I rather that they are targeted to me and possibly even helpful, or do I want to tighten down as much as possible all possible data dumps of me? I'm still trying to figure out when I want to turn off these sorts of things, versus when I'd rather keep them on.

Actually, even if I end up with ads when I wasn't at least sort-of looking for them (say, opening Yellow Books, doing a search), then I'd rather if they're not targeted — the less information they have the worse they are at hacking my brain.
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