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iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

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Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#111

Post by abalone »

sneak wrote: post #83
abalone wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continuity data sync happens via iCloud. From the developer docs: "Handoff passes only enough information between the devices to describe the activity itself, while larger-scale data synchronization is handled through iCloud." Can't say for sure whether a p2p wifi connection would really be an good substitute but I'm skeptical and I bet Apple's thought it through. I know AirDrop works that way but it seems to take a…

Yes, I am aware that that is how they chose to implement it. It was not necessary to do it that way and the exact same user experience could be achieved without the data leaving the room. Continuity only needs to work within bluetooth (and therefore wifi) range. If Continuity didn't require bluetooth (e.g. for picking up a document on your mac that was started on your phone left in the car in the parking garage) then…

> the exact same user experience could be achieved without the data leaving the room

But you ignored what I noted about the performance of setting up p2p wifi vs. iCloud. Given that Apple does implement p2p wifi for AirDrop, it lends support to the theory that they had good reason to pass on it for Continuity.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#112

Post by snowwrestler »

flatdeviant wrote: post #100
xenadu02 wrote: post #22

Apple is not a "PRISM" partner; I thought we all agreed that this was when the NSA discovered goto fail and/or some jailbreak exploits.

Nope. PRISM has do to with "direct access" to Apple's servers. This is according to NSA's own documents, and Apple may either be aware and forced by law to lie (Yahoo-style [0]) or unaware of this (i.e. they got hacked by NSA). Nothing to do with SSL being broken, especially as iCloud didn't run on Apple software but on Azure and AWS back then[1], and therefore iCloud wasn't itself vulnerable to goto fail. [0]: https…

"Direct access" came from a Washington Post story and it has since been walked back. PRISM is a program operated by the FBI, through which they make FISA court requests of data companies (like Apple) and then share the results with the NSA.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#113

Post by amirmc »

quesera wrote: post #109
amirmc wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "... they have decided that the benefits are greater than the risks ..." My point is that they're not even aware of how things work and therefore are not at all in a position to comprehend what the risks really are, let alone make sensible decisions. The flaw in your reasoning is linking behaviour to knowledge. Just because people are behaving in a certain way doesn't mean that they are fully aware of the consequen…

The low-information customer you're describing is a totally different animal than the person we're discussing here. I agree with you as far as it goes, but OP is a security-conscious developer. Jennifer Lawrence has a different problem. Apple can't really help her either.

Per your original comment, we're only discussing two types of people.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#114

Post by amirmc »

dfc wrote: post #101
flatdeviant wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm amazed at the reaction And I'm baffled by yours, and others' in the thread. With the PRISM/Snowden revelations, Apple still refusing to encrypt their data center links, not using perfect forward secrecy, etc, the cloud simply doesn't seem like a good default. They could make this opt-in, as it's supposedly linked to Continuity, but it's very clearly unintuitive, as evidenced by others in this thread ( https://n…

I love it when people get all "incendiary" about a privacy issue in the post-Snowden world. I really do not understand what your privacy world view was in 2009. Did you think governments did not have intelligence agencies? Did you think every government employee was an angel? Did you think F500 companies regarded personal privacy sacrosanct? ?

Back then a reasonable person might have had faith in the rule of law, and in the oversight system and that targeted surveillance was the norm. It turns out there are secret courts, with secret interpretations of laws and indiscriminate mass data-collection. The tin-foil-hat brigade turned out to be right.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#115

Post by quesera »

amirmc wrote: post #113
quesera wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The low-information customer you're describing is a totally different animal than the person we're discussing here. I agree with you as far as it goes, but OP is a security-conscious developer. Jennifer Lawrence has a different problem. Apple can't really help her either.

Per your original comment, we're only discussing two types of people.

Pithy, but incorrect.

I said there are two kinds of people. This is superficially true of any binary criterion.

I was only discussing the kind of which the OP is a member.

The existence of that other, much larger, group is a very different problem to solve. Important, but not relevant for OP.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#116

Post by parasubvert »

flatdeviant wrote: post #96
parasubvert wrote: post #46

Given this feature has been around for well over a year with eg. TextEdit, I'm amazed at the reaction. This is exactly the behavior I want and expect from Apple as a user, it would surprise me if they DIDN'T do this.

> I'm amazed at the reaction And I'm baffled by yours, and others' in the thread. With the PRISM/Snowden revelations, Apple still refusing to encrypt their data center links, not using perfect forward secrecy, etc, the cloud simply doesn't seem like a good default. They could make this opt-in, as it's supposedly linked to Continuity, but it's very clearly unintuitive, as evidenced by others in this thread ( https://n…

This behavior is completely intuitive to anyone that's used a Mac for the past 5+ years - iCloud has an option for syncing documents and data. Mac OS has been preserving unsaved files since at least Lion, and on iCloud since at least Mavericks. You can opt out of the latter if you like. Or not.

I (and I believe most people) honestly could care less about the NSA. If they want to get at you, they will. Period. There is no technical solution to what is fundamentally a political problem. Most Americans WANT to be spied on, because terror. I don't like it, don't support it, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#117

Post by caycep »

patio11 wrote: post #31
kps wrote: post #18

Last I looked, iCloud was not HIPAA¹-compliant. Health-care workers who previously could have iCloud enabled, as long as they did not use it for HIPAA-covered documents, may be in for a big and expensive surprise. ¹ http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/

Although non-compliant activity with regards to e.g. spreadsheets containing patient data is extraordinarily widespread [+], you're correct, putting a spreadsheet with PHI on iCloud (whether you intended to or not) is a reportable breach. (Not a lawyer, but I have to care about this, for professional reasons.) [+] Say, emailing in the clear about PHI. This is extraordinarily common even among people who theoretically…

From what I can tell, I think a lot of people in healthcare view HIPAA as poorly written, and more or less a bureaucratic obstacle to doing their jobs effectively. Part of it also is that all the EMR solutions are so terrible that to try and do patient care entirely within a given EMR is so painful, people do the dropbox/email route to get around their limitations.

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#118

Post by IDrive »

Hi, I'm Thomas from IDrive Online Backup. If you're concerned about the privacy of your data while using OS X Yosemite, you might want to consider IDrive as a cloud backup service. We offer 256-bit AES encryption with a private key option so the key to your data is not stored anywhere but locally on your computer. Hope that helps!

Re: iCloud Uploads Local Data Outside of iCloud Drive

#119

Post by parasubvert »

whizzkid wrote: post #66
parasubvert wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you underestimate the momentum behind this trend: the vast manjority of users want it.

That is the horrifying part, right!?

What's horrifying about it? Many people have been wanting to store their stuff on the cloud for decades. In fact, geeks HAVE done it for decades with Rsync. Now it's happening for the masses.

One may not like this, because Snowden, but I don't think most people really are worried about that.

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