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

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171–180 of 395 posts

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

#171
This is why I don't trust things like email to Apple. Email is a universal thing: whether I'm on my computer, an iDevice (I've owned several), an Android device (I've owned a few), or something entirely different (who knows what the future holds?) iCloud is great for backing up iOS specific things (many apps rely on it for syncing between your devices, etc) but for those things which merely consume "universal" things like mail and photos, I rely on universal solutions.

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

#172

I know everyone is rushing to decry Apple and their draconian behaviour ("first they took my unsigned apps, now they want in my email? TO THE PITCHFORKS!") but the likelyhood is someone has fiddled with the spam filtering and they've broken something. If the first thing you jump to is some conspiracy you're ignoring the simple rule of technology that behind every good wild goose chase is a member of staff who's quick…

Spam should never be deleted. Plus when e-mail is sent OUT (not coming in) it is blocked. No way to defend this. No spam filter should ever work like that, even if set up overly broadly.

Spam should never be deleted, it should be triaged and left to the user to deal with but it's definitely possible someone has screwed up. What I'm saying is it's probably a fuck up, what I'm not doing is defending it.

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

#173
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has always been against Porn on their devices. It's no surprise they're against it on their services as well. Of course this could be a really poorly working spam filter, but I'm inclined to believe this isn't the case.

Apparently they're also against criticism of their products, but not against forging network traffic, which is why you get fake 404's if you try to visit "The Best Page in the Universe" from an Apple Store. Interesting sense of morality they have...

That's probably just done via host file (or otherwise at the DNS level) for filtering undesirable sites. It's rather sensationalist to call that "forging network traffic". I don't even know if you can reasonably call it "censorship". What Apple does with the internet in their own stores is both inconsequential and also totally their own business.

In contrast, deleting email based on content is neither inconsequential nor their own business.

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

#175
post #88
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend's iPhone has been complaining about iCloud storage being full with some cryptic lockscreen message and she has no idea what it's complaining about or how to fix it. The "just works" narrative is a lie.

If it's anything like my friend, it's because their phone has every single photo they've ever taken, it's set to do an iCloud backup, and it's over 5 GB. Very easy to do.

Or it is possible if someone gets a new phone and doesn't restore off the current backup in iCloud it will make a separate one which will go over 5gig.

To be fair most services have to force you to do something one you have ran through your free space.

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

#176

One more reason why you should run your own mail server. I guess if it would take less time more people were doing it (I'm not either at the moment).

Really, running your own email server is a bad idea for most people.

Even on HN it's only good as a learning exercise or for a small number of people who have the use for it.

The problem isn't with the length of time it takes to set it up. The problem is with making sure you have all the quirks sorted out so your mail can get delivered through other people's set ups.

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

#177
post #18
post #14

I tested this on my @me.com account, and it's exactly how it works. Email containing the words "barely legal teens" is simply dropped. I find it obscene to an Orwellian extent that Apple actually seems to think that no valid email would ever contain the words "barely legal teens". I wonder what other things Apple thinks are not worth talking about? I have no trust in Apple's email services any more.

Microsoft has been doing this for decades. Ever try to collaborate on a web project using MSN Messenger? Every message you sent that contained 'index.php' was mysteriously dropped. It IS Orwellian, but you should not be surprised. The big communication services all seem to have their own little moral or technical hacks they use to keep your discussion limited and away from certain topics / words.

Proprietary IM networks are just that. Email is based on standards, with RFC's defining behavior. Moreover, proprietary IM is based on a some level of membership in that network. Email is open and often involves individuals outside of Apple's iCloud network, users who haven't agreed with Apple to any terms of service or the like.

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

#178

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?

It's a term of the pornographer's art. I had a friend from college who wrote for Larry Flynt's Barely Legal magazine for a while. She went on to bigger but arguably less respectable things (political blogging).

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was when Mac users used to mock Windows for being a GUI perched on top of a character-based operating system. They generally dropped that line when Mac OS X became a GUI perched on top of a character-based operating system. Oddly, Mac users have also stopped mocking Windows users for having Intel processors, for not using SCSI and whatever else made Macs special before they turned into a variant of Windows PCs..…

Pah. I'm old enough to remember DOS users mocking mac users for using GUIs and mice.

Actually, some DOS users would mock Windows users for the same reason... ;-)

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was when Mac users used to mock Windows for being a GUI perched on top of a character-based operating system. They generally dropped that line when Mac OS X became a GUI perched on top of a character-based operating system. Oddly, Mac users have also stopped mocking Windows users for having Intel processors, for not using SCSI and whatever else made Macs special before they turned into a variant of Windows PCs..…

Every OS has chauvinistic users, but there's nothing to be gained by trotting them out for strawman arguments.

Sense of humor failure?
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