Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

fix-macosx.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 137 posts

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#121

Post by lotu »

eropple wrote: post #116
Bud wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what kinda did "imply a change in functionality", though? This text that you see, writ large, when you open Spotlight: "In addition to searching your Mac, Spotlight now shows suggestions from the Internet, iTunes, App Store, movie showtimes, locations nearby, and more. To make suggestions more relevant to you, Spotlight includes your approximate location with search requests to Apple." Seems pretty clear to…

But that's the thing: you don't see that text when you hit cmd-space and immediately start typing, as somebody trained to use Spotlight is naturally going to do. Therein lies the problem. It's not that they added the feature--sure, go nuts. It's that they enabled an internet-facing feature without the courtesy of something modal to ensure that a user who has been trained-- by them --to just go will understand the ram…

I just tested this out on my Mac. When I type comand space and then begin typing text actually stays for about a second befor results are shown. This gives you enought time to notice the text. If you then back space the text will reappear. This really feels like apple is going the extra mile to make sure that people understand what is going on.

Really what would you do with the UI to make this feature prominit enough to the user?

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#122

Post by csirac2 »

deadweight3 wrote: post #109
GrantS wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each his own, but I just want to point out that your examples of web searches and email require that SOME third party be involved because they are, by definition, attempts to reach a computer somewhere else on the internet. In contrast, searching the local files on one's own computer or launching applications on one's own computer are private, local events that need not be shared with any third party. Inherently p…

Everything you put on your computer should be assumed to be public the moment you connect to the internet. With air gap jump technology starting to become proven, you should assume that all digital content is public. To think otherwise is hubris and stupidity all wrapped up with a tiny little bow. Every company and government agency has been compromised to one degree or another, and targeted attacks are 100% effectiv…

Is this where we are now? Patting Apple & friends on the back for sneaking in just a little bit more data scrapage, because surely the only people who think they have a choice are just idiots?

I'd rather be an idiot who gets angry about his TV phoning home to report every DVD and .avi file I've played (in the clear, for no apparent reason: there are no ads, recommendations or features of any kind on the set itself) than a defeatist who equates the futility of circumventing state surveillance with the futility of paying attention to one's outbound internet traffic.

I should have an active choice in how and who I expose my data. If LGe, Apple and friends can't be bothered asking people if they actually want their habits recorded, let alone bother to encrypt said data, expectations on storing, securing and using that data aren't exactly high.

It's not an irrational thing to weight the risk of state surveillance rummaging through my gmail to be a little less than some stupid home computer/router/NAS "feature" exploding and blowing me wide open to identify theft and financial fraud.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#123

Post by atmosx »

If someone wants a fine grained control of outgoing connection on OSX, I'd propose to use LittleSnitch[1]. It's extremely stable, well made, worth it's money IMHO. I've used since version 1.x upgrading happily on every version.

That said, it takes time and some Googling to make sure that every connection initiated from your system is legal but for security aware users is a very interesting managing and reporting tool.

[1] http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#124

Post by flippyhead »

ljfuller wrote: post #49
kingnight wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could this be considered overthinking it? A domain, a python script, to effectively achieve tapping a couple toggles in sys prefs? And this is quite difficult for the average non terminal using person. > This site _criticizes_ Apple for certain privacy-invading features of Mac OS X and teaches users how to fix them. So, obviously, the site is not approved by Apple. Snark!

Howdy. Author here. By way of introduction, I'm also the author of PLCrashReporter ( https://www.plcrashreporter.org/ ), ported Java 6 to Mac OS X (a.k.a Soylatte), and -- this might lower some folk's estimation of me here -- started the MacPorts project almost 15 years ago at Apple, along with co-workers Jordan Hubbard and Kevin Van Vechten. That slightly snarky disclaimer you quoted actually has a serious backstory…

> transparently capturing traffic in a Yosemite VM so that we can start nailing down exactly what is being sent from the myriad of daemons

I'd love to see this.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#125

Post by eropple »

lotu wrote: post #121
eropple wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing: you don't see that text when you hit cmd-space and immediately start typing, as somebody trained to use Spotlight is naturally going to do. Therein lies the problem. It's not that they added the feature--sure, go nuts. It's that they enabled an internet-facing feature without the courtesy of something modal to ensure that a user who has been trained-- by them --to just go will understand the ram…

I just tested this out on my Mac. When I type comand space and then begin typing text actually stays for about a second befor results are shown. This gives you enought time to notice the text. If you then back space the text will reappear. This really feels like apple is going the extra mile to make sure that people understand what is going on. Really what would you do with the UI to make this feature prominit enough…

Modal dialogue box with two buttons: Enable Internet Searching and Disable Internet Searching. Make it a choice. Pretty simple.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#126

Post by deadweight3 »

csirac2 wrote: post #122
deadweight3 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you put on your computer should be assumed to be public the moment you connect to the internet. With air gap jump technology starting to become proven, you should assume that all digital content is public. To think otherwise is hubris and stupidity all wrapped up with a tiny little bow. Every company and government agency has been compromised to one degree or another, and targeted attacks are 100% effectiv…

Is this where we are now? Patting Apple & friends on the back for sneaking in just a little bit more data scrapage, because surely the only people who think they have a choice are just idiots? I'd rather be an idiot who gets angry about his TV phoning home to report every DVD and .avi file I've played (in the clear, for no apparent reason: there are no ads, recommendations or features of any kind on the set itself) t…

You do have a choice, thats why there is the ugly text with the learn more link. They really went out of their way to ensure you were informed. Anything less than acknowledgement stinks too much of either the tech cults, or unfounded paranoia. The first icon presented is Safari, so if you don't read and don't look at icons, then okay... But that's not Apples problem. If it's a feature you don't want to use, don't use it, you can turn it off without a python scripts. I tire of these stupid games.

Theft and financia fraud? Do you search for you account numbers and passwords in spotlight???

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#127

Post by eropple »

mikeash wrote: post #102
eridius wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A flippant response to a flippant response. But thanks for the hyperbole there. Really, this thread just looks like a bunch of paranoid conspiracy nuts, thinking Apple is out to steal your searches. I get it, privacy is important. I don't disagree. But you're* acting like they installed a keylogger on your computer (in point of fact, someone on IRC accused Apple of making "something that sends all of their local quer…

You see it as conspiracy nuts, but I just see a bunch of people complaining that it's not explained well enough. I see no comment on motivation at all. By the way, there's a perfectly good English word that means "plural you minus you personally," which is "they."

I don't even care, personally, what their motivation is. I care that they didn't ask before jamming it in there. I trusted Apple to not do invasive things as opt-in, I don't now.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#128

Post by ljfuller »

flippyhead wrote: post #124
ljfuller wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Howdy. Author here. By way of introduction, I'm also the author of PLCrashReporter ( https://www.plcrashreporter.org/ ), ported Java 6 to Mac OS X (a.k.a Soylatte), and -- this might lower some folk's estimation of me here -- started the MacPorts project almost 15 years ago at Apple, along with co-workers Jordan Hubbard and Kevin Van Vechten. That slightly snarky disclaimer you quoted actually has a serious backstory…

> transparently capturing traffic in a Yosemite VM so that we can start nailing down exactly what is being sent from the myriad of daemons I'd love to see this.

I'm working on the necessary sslsplit support here: https://github.com/fix-macosx/sslsplit

I've just about wrapped up support for correlating connections with the local responsible program (see branch macosx-process-info); I also need to put some thought into how to handle non-TCP traffic.

I'll be posting Yosemite setup instructions later today; my plan is to collect a corpus of data from a default installation. One thing I could really use help with is providing a web-based visualization of that data.

Re: Disable sharing of Spotlight searches with Apple

#130

Post by csirac2 »

deadweight3 wrote: post #126
csirac2 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this where we are now? Patting Apple & friends on the back for sneaking in just a little bit more data scrapage, because surely the only people who think they have a choice are just idiots? I'd rather be an idiot who gets angry about his TV phoning home to report every DVD and .avi file I've played (in the clear, for no apparent reason: there are no ads, recommendations or features of any kind on the set itself) t…

You do have a choice, thats why there is the ugly text with the learn more link. They really went out of their way to ensure you were informed. Anything less than acknowledgement stinks too much of either the tech cults, or unfounded paranoia. The first icon presented is Safari, so if you don't read and don't look at icons, then okay... But that's not Apples problem. If it's a feature you don't want to use, don't use…

What prompted me to reply was when you said "Regardless, it doesn't matter. It's simply ignorant to bitch about this, when the NSA literally intercepts all of this and exploits or introduces exploits into the software you use".

When RealPlayer was grilled for bundling spyware which harvested the exact same data, why did their excuses ("hey we mentioned this in the EULA, plus you could've scrolled through the features and disabled it at install-time") not create the same placated reactions Apple seems to be achieving here?

"Opt-out of some part of this avalanche of b.s. information-leaking features serving little to zero actual benefit to the user" has always been a stupid, sleazy trend to monetize the very basics of computing and whilst I respect that most people don't give a damn and/or don't have the energy to give a damn, it's a user-hostile design pattern.

Post reply on HN