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Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

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Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#51

Post by lloeki »

snowwrestler wrote: post #30
digitalengineer wrote: post #11

Scanning and auto-deleting your email, combined with the Gatekeeper technology wich houses the possibility of Apple telling me what Apps I can or can not run makes me seriously start to wonder the direction Apple is headed... Edit: Gatekeeper is OSX technology. It allows users to only install Apple certified Apps on your mac , not your phone. It's fairly new and possible to turn it off (for now at least).

It's easy to temporarily disable Gatekeeper, install what you want, and then turn it back on. In no way does it prevent you from running what you want on your own computer. The point is to put another wall against unintended installs (aka exploits), and corrupted/infected versions of known-good software.

> It's easy to temporarily disable Gatekeeper, install what you want, and then turn it back on.

Please don't. Just right click and choose open. You will be able to open it, and whitelist the app in the process.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#52

Post by scott_s »

cryptoz wrote: post #37
scott_s wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's so surprising I tried to find evidence of it online, but I couldn't. Partly because "index.php" is such a common thing that Google won't use it for a search term, which is ironic. Can you point to anything corroborating that?

There are a whole bunch of banned words. There used to be a whole slew of sites that indexed all of the things Microsoft wouldn't let you talk about. Here's an article about it in the Inquirer: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1041509/microsofts-... Edit: that article appears to be mostly user names. Here's a forum thread to get you started: http://www.amsn-project.net/forums/index.php?topic=157.0

Thanks, interesting - all I found in my searches where the user name bans, which are standard.

This is different from what Apple is doing, as it seems to be file-name based, to avoid phishing. I still think it's completely misguided.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#53

Post by taligent »

jonknee wrote: post #34
rm999 wrote: post #9

Everything about icloud - from the terrible design to the clunky interface - is as Steve Jobs liked to say, "shit". I have icloud and I'm not even sure what it's for; is it a backup service, an e-mail provider, or a way to find my phone? None of these have much in common, so the fact that they're all bundled together really confuses me. And its name is a bit of a misnomer, you can't even do standard cloud stuff like…

Cloud is a hip word. Amazon's got a cloud. Google's got a cloud. Apple couldn't be left with just an iTools/.Mac/MobileMe now could they? I think Apple's inability to run web services is going to really come to pass in the near future. Everything is moving towards that way and Apple is still left in the "just sync with iTunes" world.

Apple does actually know how to run web services.

They run the world's largest media store and one of the world's busiest online stores in addition to iCloud. Just because MobileMe was a piece of junk doesn't mean they are completely clueless.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#55

Post by NicoJuicy »

jonknee wrote: post #34
rm999 wrote: post #9

Everything about icloud - from the terrible design to the clunky interface - is as Steve Jobs liked to say, "shit". I have icloud and I'm not even sure what it's for; is it a backup service, an e-mail provider, or a way to find my phone? None of these have much in common, so the fact that they're all bundled together really confuses me. And its name is a bit of a misnomer, you can't even do standard cloud stuff like…

Cloud is a hip word. Amazon's got a cloud. Google's got a cloud. Apple couldn't be left with just an iTools/.Mac/MobileMe now could they? I think Apple's inability to run web services is going to really come to pass in the near future. Everything is moving towards that way and Apple is still left in the "just sync with iTunes" world.

Apple's cloud is based on Amazon and Azure... Apple doesn't have an "own" cloud.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#56

Post by haroldp »

qeorge wrote: post #8
sp332 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should send the messages to your spam folder, then.

It could be server side spam filtering (not all spam messages make it to your spam folder with any provider - the worst offenders are often just thrown out). Just saying it is possible that this is an over-aggressive spam filter vs. Apple taking such an invasive measure. Although, Apple has done similar crazy things before, so who knows.

That is the wrong way to run a mail server. I know how common it is at big providers, but it's still wrong.

You should REJECT a message if you won't deliver it. If it was a legit message inappropriately REJECTed, then the server that's relaying it can generate a bounce back to the sender, and something can be figured out.

Dropping a message on the floor like that, after you have promised to deliver it is almost always the Wrong Way.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#57

Post by taligent »

sp332 wrote: post #29
qeorge wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be server side spam filtering (not all spam messages make it to your spam folder with any provider - the worst offenders are often just thrown out). Just saying it is possible that this is an over-aggressive spam filter vs. Apple taking such an invasive measure. Although, Apple has done similar crazy things before, so who knows.

Isn't that generally done on the receiving end? In this case, the message is simply never sent.

It depends what email account he sent it to. It seems like at least Apple and Google are both using F-Secure.

So it could be a bug in their definitions files.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#58

Post by jonknee »

taligent wrote: post #53
jonknee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cloud is a hip word. Amazon's got a cloud. Google's got a cloud. Apple couldn't be left with just an iTools/.Mac/MobileMe now could they? I think Apple's inability to run web services is going to really come to pass in the near future. Everything is moving towards that way and Apple is still left in the "just sync with iTunes" world.

Apple does actually know how to run web services. They run the world's largest media store and one of the world's busiest online stores in addition to iCloud. Just because MobileMe was a piece of junk doesn't mean they are completely clueless.

For most of its existence it was the only store compatible with the far and away market leader for audio players. The store did not win because of its technical chops. To boot their media store is still almost completely cut off from the web (they did try and juice some SEO and have landing pages, but iTunes likes to pop up most of the time). They sure love relying on iTunes...

iTools/.Mac/MobileMe and iCloud were all pieces of junk. As was Ping. As is GameCenter. And iMessage.

They have a lot of work to do.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#59

Post by unreal37 »

petercooper wrote: post #20

Why do they mention "child pornography"? Maybe I'm wrong but isn't "barely legal" meant to mean 18 year old adults and not "nearly legal"? Or is it just a common code phrase child pornographers use I wasn't aware of?

That's a good point. Barely legal is still legal, and why is Apple even blocking emails that contain those words?

It might have to do with spam filtering. Trying sending an email that talks about Cialis.

Re: Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

#60

Post by tolmasky »

Its hard to know what to be more amazed about: the fact that with one boneheaded filter Apple now seems creepier than Google in terms of respecting your privacy (one of the few things they could boast about), or the fact that it still seems to be amateur hour over at iCloud. Think about it for a second: they are literally pushing code into production that amounts to if (contents.indexOf(bad_phrase) != -1) delete_email();. How is the takeaway not anything other than "Of course Siri and Maps are a disaster, they can't even filter email in a more complex fashion than 1993."
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