Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#181

Post by Mikeb85 » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 2:58 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #93

"On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data" This is key. The way we engineer software and services can have a major impact on the war against overly invas…

Yet the page says "less than 0.00385% of customers had data disclosed due to government information requests."

So they ARE giving data to the government at their request...

BTW, that percentage of say, 100 million customers (which I'm sure Apple has, probably more) is 3850 people, not an insignificant number...

Anyhow, I personally wouldn't trust anyone anyway. Google, MS and Apple are all American corporations, and need to comply with US law, no matter how asinine.

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#182

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 2:59 PM UTC

sixothree wrote: post #166

ceejayoz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iCloud does not encrypt data stored on IMAP mail servers Well, no shit. If they did that I'd log into my Gmail web interface and see encrypted gobbledygook instead of my emails.

Like how when you use a password to open an encrypted zip file it's all gobbledygook inside?

Google isn't going to let iCloud embed a decryption UI into their webmail tool.

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#183

Post by rendezvouscp » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:08 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #181

downandout wrote: post #93

"On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data" This is key. The way we engineer software and services can have a major impact on the war against overly invas…

Yet the page says "less than 0.00385% of customers had data disclosed due to government information requests." So they ARE giving data to the government at their request... BTW, that percentage of say, 100 million customers (which I'm sure Apple has, probably more) is 3850 people, not an insignificant number... Anyhow, I personally wouldn't trust anyone anyway. Google, MS and Apple are all American corporations, and…

Unless I’m doing the math wrong, 0.00385% of 10 million is 385.

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#184

Post by kabouseng » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:15 PM UTC

abritishguy wrote: post #156

kabouseng wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on the sim card, but on the base band processor it very probably will work, since the base band on many cell phone cores share the memory with the application processor.

Well it certainly doesn't work like that on an iPhone.

Please illuminate me then as to what the iPhones processor architecture looks like, seeing as iPhones also use Qualcomm basebands, same as most Android devices...

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#185

Post by Mikeb85 » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:15 PM UTC

rendezvouscp wrote: post #183

Mikeb85 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the page says "less than 0.00385% of customers had data disclosed due to government information requests." So they ARE giving data to the government at their request... BTW, that percentage of say, 100 million customers (which I'm sure Apple has, probably more) is 3850 people, not an insignificant number... Anyhow, I personally wouldn't trust anyone anyway. Google, MS and Apple are all American corporations, and…

Unless I’m doing the math wrong, 0.00385% of 10 million is 385.

Yeah, my math was bad, too early in the morning (that was pre-coffee). Anyhow, they have way more than 10 million customers (likely more than 100 million too).

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#186

Post by JetSpiegel » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:15 PM UTC

wes-exp wrote: post #179

pikachu_is_cool wrote: post #139

I don't need to read this. Everything on the iPhone is proprietary software. As it has been proven countless times, there is an 100% probability that there are backdoors everywhere on this device. This entire blog post is a lie.

And software built by volunteers, like OpenSSL, has proven to be so much more secure. It's not like heartbleed left practically the entire internet vulnerable to abuse. Oh wait, yes it did.

A bug is not a backdoor. Unless you are implying the OpenSSL devs left the bug there on purpose.

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#187

Post by abritishguy » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:24 PM UTC

kabouseng wrote: post #184

abritishguy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it certainly doesn't work like that on an iPhone.

Please illuminate me then as to what the iPhones processor architecture looks like, seeing as iPhones also use Qualcomm basebands, same as most Android devices...

The baseband processor has no access to the parts of memory it is not meant to, possibly some of the early iPhones did but currently they are properly isolated.

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#188

Post by subdane » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:26 PM UTC

krisgenre wrote: post #165

rsynnott wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like the flaw in the argument, yeah. iCloud isn't mandatory, of course, but most people do use it, so peoples' photos and things will be in The Cloud, anyway. Possibly several The Clouds; Google+ on iOS keeps badgering me to enable automatic photo uploading.

Hmmm.. Isn't it way easier for the feds to peek into the cloud for my data without even me knowing so that I'll keep giving them the data then to confiscate my phone and investigate it? To me, it seems like this passcode thing is a good way to keep my data safe from thieves but from the govt.? don't think so.

This. In the coming years it will be increasingly convenient and perhaps mandatory to have your data on iCloud - if you want to backup, restore or find your devices. The latest iCloud upgrade allows for 1TB of data - it's easy to imagine having your entire laptop, phone, ipad up there in the near future. So physically preventing access to a single device is not nearly as important as protecting your entire digital life in the cloud. This announcement by Apple is a good sign, but it feels like the real battle for privacy from govt snooping will be in the cloud.

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#189

Post by paxswill » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:33 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #181

downandout wrote: post #93

"On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode. Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data" This is key. The way we engineer software and services can have a major impact on the war against overly invas…

Yet the page says "less than 0.00385% of customers had data disclosed due to government information requests." So they ARE giving data to the government at their request... BTW, that percentage of say, 100 million customers (which I'm sure Apple has, probably more) is 3850 people, not an insignificant number... Anyhow, I personally wouldn't trust anyone anyway. Google, MS and Apple are all American corporations, and…

Their detailed report[0] is pretty clear, and defines what they mean for the categories they're reporting. According to that document, they had 20221 device data requests, and they provided data for 12146 of those requests (some of those requests have many individual devices). For account data, they received requests for data from 2803 accounts, and provided some data for 1333 accounts.

0: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/government-information-re...

Re: Apple – Privacy – Government Information Requests

#190

Post by mrottenkolber » Thu, Sep 18, 2014, 3:55 PM UTC

abritishguy wrote: post #128

imaginenore wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then NSA forces Apple I to issue the OS update that breaks all your efforts.

That sort of order is out of scope of anything a US court can order, and I believe that an Apple employee would leak it before they complied with such an order.

How is that out of scope? Haven't they been doing exactly this for at least five years? Miscrosoft backdoors et al?

And I think an Apple employee is that last person that would leak anything. They work for Apple after all, starting to work there surely takes some abandonment of principle.

In the end, why would anybody feel assured by what someone believes someone else would do?

Edit: Why is imaginenore downvoted so heavily? His concerns seem rather rudimentary.