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Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

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Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#171

Post by hkailahi »

At the moment, this thread seems more like a YouTube comment section than a HN one. Though it's not exactly surprising given that Tim Cook's speech is obviously aimed at Google/FB.

Let's start with the facts. Apple makes its major money in hardware. Google makes its major money in search. Obviously, iOS has to be able to compete with Android in order for iPhones to sell well. Google offers services like Google Now and Google Photos that can be tailored in a more personal and effective way. How? They collect as much data as they can get away with. Consumers get to have services that should be better suited to them because of this.

If Apple wants to compete, it seems that there are two options:

1. Start mass collection and become a better Google.

2. Reject Google's model, and build iOS around privacy and non-invasiveness.

That's what this is. I do think Apple will either make a search engine focused on privacy or buy one (e.g., DuckDuckGo). Personally, I am happy that Apple and Google are competing in this way.

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#172

Post by [deleted] »

cromwellian wrote: post #93

This is marketing folks. Apple's behavior towards Google changed dramatically after Android starting getting traction, and this sudden pivot towards pro-privacy is an Apple's attempt to damage the reputation of it's biggest competitor. Apple hasn't been consistently speaking with the same voice on privacy, both before or after Snowden, and Tim Cook's comments IMHO look cynically designed. Apple collects plenty of per…

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#173

Post by CHY872 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #161
CHY872 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a software problem, how are they supposed to check that they fixed it without being able to boot the computer?

Why do they need the password to boot? Especially why do they need to write it down?

If you have full disk encryption enabled, the system won't boot if you don't give it the password. They write it down because you can't expect a tech to remember 16 digits of alphanumeric password for each client, as it looks bad when they have to phone up the client asking what their password is when they forget it.

Writing down passwords is bad because other people can find them. If they're kept safe, there's no issue.

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#174

Post by fpgeek »

etchalon wrote: post #148
davidcgl wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So their interests are more aligned with yours. Exactly how does a company that makes money through selling you products have its interests more aligned to yours?

Because that company makes its from me, directly. It has to cater its products to ME, and not to advertisers, or enterprises, or anyone else.

Comcast also makes most of its money from users directly. Yet, somehow, the incentives are not aligned. Why is that? How might that apply to Apple?

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#175

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

mirimir wrote: post #150
peteretep wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes; even if that's not true for Apple stores, plenty of resellers.

Can one setup a pseudonymous Apple account, funded via Bitcoins?

That's just moving goal posts. Not sure why you even want an Apple account if you want to maximize privacy.

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#176

Post by weland »

zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #86
stephenr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schmidt (and Google) are extremely pro-privacy and against sharing information with the government. Privacy doesn't mean "don't share my data with the government". > They spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to prevent governments from gaining access to their data Funny how you say "Google are extremely pro-privacy" and then describe the vast amassed personal information of users as "their data", referr…

You seem to think that "pro-privacy" is equivalent to "don't collect any private information". It's not. Not at all.

That's exactly what privacy means. When I'm dancing naked in my house, I don't care if the guy holding the IR camera across the road is a government employee or a company's employee. All I care is that he has a camera.

If some private data of mine (including, but not limited to pictures of my genitalia) ended up someplace other than on a medium I own, that data is no longer private. I.e. it was a privacy breach.

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#177

Post by MichaelGG »

maqr wrote: post #91

> For years we’ve offered encryption services like iMessage and FaceTime because we believe the contents of your text messages and your video chats is none of our business. Sounds great, but take note that it's none of their business today and we know they can be compelled to spy on their users by NSLs. They control the key infrastructure with their closed-source software that runs on their closed-source hardware. If…

If anyone manages to make a messaging app that both has strong security and is user friendly and supports features users expect, they will become very rich. Seeing as no one has even proposed a solution in theory, it's most likely unsolvable. I'll bet if you can formulate it clearly enough, you can even prove it so.

Look at say, Dark Mail. After all that hype, their design is "uh basically SMTP+TLS, or PGP if you're paranoid". The only thing that comes close is PGPfone and similar things (ZRTP). And that's because when you call someone, there's an obvious and built-in verification system, voice. (Note: doesn't work as well with deaf people or async comm).

So pointing out Apple fails here? Yes, sure. Expecting anything different? Seems very unlikely. Either they'd break all user expectations, or they'd get an NSL/court order to break the whole system in order to comply with a wiretap.

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#178

Post by anon1385 »

nemothekid wrote: post #139
threeseed wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you completely misread what I said. The downside of a company collecting data is the risk of what happens if that data leaks. There was an example of a very popular site here in Australia being hacked 3 years ago that only just notifed customers (of which I was one). Credit card numbers and other PII data was stolen. I had to dig through credit card transaction list and there is still the ongoing concern of i…

The risk of you being personally targeted and hacked is greater than Google being hacked. The only entity I'm concerned about that might access Google's data is the US government. OTOH, If you don't trust Google with your data, I don't see how you can trust anyone else - at that point you might as well be writing your own PGP implementation.

This is a rather strange comment since we already know for sure that Google has already been hacked by both the British[1] and Chinese[2] governments. And of course the US government access information from Google without hacking: they just make legal requests, even when that means Google is breaking the law in other countries that they operate in.

The difficulty of compromising Google is to a large extent offset by the juiciness of the target. Google actually get compromised more often than the average savvy home user (which for most people I know is zero, compared to several times for Google). Not because Google is less competent, but because they are a hugely valuable target.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSCULAR_(surveillance_program...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#179

Post by ac29 »

sbuk wrote: post #134
ac29 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's funny how Google advocates always "bash" apple for being "closed source" when this company ships the most popular Unix in the world... and all of their products, even the watch, are based on it. Android ships far more units than OS X/iOS and their derivatives do.

Android is not UNIX - it's GNU[0]/Linux-based, which is UNIX-like. iOS is also not UNIX, which is based on OS X but not UNIX Certified. OS X is UNIX. [0] G NU's N ot U nix

I stand corrected. You appear to be technically correct that OS X is "Unix" [0] not Unix-like or a Unix clone like Linux-based operating systems. Legal precedent established in the SCO-linux cases [1] seems to confirm this technicality.

I think the distinction is pedantic, but I think we can agree that Android is the most widely shipped OS based on a Unix-like kernel.

[0] http://www.opengroup.org/csq/search/t=XY1.html

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_controversie...

Re: Apple’s Tim Cook Delivers Blistering Speech on Encryption, Privacy

#180

Post by Aissen »

threatofrain wrote: post #170

Apple collects tons of user data, and I'm sure they use some of it to provide machine-learning backed services, and I'm sure they'll come out with much nicer products to compete with Google in the future, also enhanced by machine learning techniques. The difference that Tim Cook wants you to believe in is that Apple doesn't directly make money from your data, they just use it to improve their product; alternatively,…

Actually, there's another alternative. Provide all these "insights" with offline, data-on-computers-you-own systems. The intelligence can be carried with you, without internet. This is traditional computing. Apple or Microsoft, or even any other competitor could provide that. They just need to sell you this software (oh and also build it first).
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