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

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 348 posts

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

#321

Post by snom320 »

Oletros wrote: post #301
plg wrote: post #266

In addition to the comments already here, I think this comes down to trust. Which companies do you trust? Which CEOs do you trust? Eric Schmidt: "If You Have Something You Don't Want Anyone To Know, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing It." [1] Mark Zuckerburg: "They trust me — dumb fucks." [2] Tim Cook: "I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their busin…

Schimdt quote is taken out of context and it is not the whole quote.

Even with the context, it's pretty bad. And it's not like his other quotes on privacy paint a better picture.

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

#322

Post by snom320 »

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,…

IMO, the main difference is that Apples gives you more choice in the matter. I can still choose to not enable iCloud, and only sync my iPhone / iPad to my computer. Also, for some data collection Apple explicitly asks you whether you want to share the data to improve its service (location data and crash report data, for instance)

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

#323

Post by snom320 »

gwu78 wrote: post #311
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,…

"Apple collects tons of user data..." I gateway all my devices through one computer running a stripped down kernel. Through this host I monitor all attempted network connections. I block ads and of course this means I block Apple. Apple devices are like beacons, attempting to contact a variety of Apple servers from the moment you turn them on and continuing to "phone home" incessantly 24/7 until you turn them off. Th…

Have you analyzed this traffic to see what it is? I would expect some of it to be stuff like NTP, checks for internet connectivity and app store updates.

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

#324

Post by sangnoir »

stephenr wrote: post #314
sangnoir wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what "Apple-is-better" people on this thread do not get. They are suggesting that the Apple IR camera is good because it improves the user "experience by syncing with itunes to play a song with the right tempo as you dance" as opposed to the Google IR camera which will result in sun-burn cream ads. What the typical person would want is no IR camera at all.

Apple collects far less personal data than Google/etc. In this stupid analogy, Apple don't even have an IR camera.

> Apple collects far less personal data than Google/etc

Agreed.

I don't know if we are disagreeing. Or perhaps you disagree with the notion that the ideal situation for privacy is when no personal collection is done?

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

#325

Post by magicalist »

jakobegger wrote: post #99
magicalist wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm tempted to flag your comment for the baseless and distracting claims it makes, but I'm going to hold off since it is essentially self-parodying. I am curious about the "You lot are a bunch of god germans" thing, though.

I understand the sentiment. As a long time Mac user it just gets tiring to hear again and again that Macs are overpriced junk from people who have never used a Mac before. But I also didn't understand the god germans line.

I guess. As another very-longtime Apple fan, there comes a certain point when you have to let go of the persecution complex because 45% of it is in your head and another 45% is because you picked a particular online echo chamber that amplifies those posts.

MCRed's post is flagged now so I can't copy/paste from it, but I wasn't kidding with the self parodying bit. When you're lashing out with the exact same arguments you're accusing others of using you need to 1) evaluate whether they have similar motives to your own in making them and 2) if that means those arguments are just as bullshit coming out of your own keyboard as you are claiming they are coming out of theirs.

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

#326

Post by 72deluxe »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #262
72deluxe wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pay for the browser? Are you talking about Safari and the fact that buying Apple hardware has subsidised the Safari development to some extent?

Comes with the OS installations which I pay for.

Thanks, I did wonder. I think we forget quickly how much software we get in OSes now (unless it's iOS where you need to download a Calculator app.....)

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

#327

Post by magicalist »

plg wrote: post #266

In addition to the comments already here, I think this comes down to trust. Which companies do you trust? Which CEOs do you trust? Eric Schmidt: "If You Have Something You Don't Want Anyone To Know, Maybe You Shouldn't Be Doing It." [1] Mark Zuckerburg: "They trust me — dumb fucks." [2] Tim Cook: "I’m speaking to you from Silicon Valley, where some of the most prominent and successful companies have built their busin…

Actually I trust Schmidt more after that particular quote because he was warning about the Patriot Act before pretty much anyone but privacy advocates cared:

> "People are treating Google like their most trusted friend. Should they be?"

> "I think judgment matters. If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act. It is possible that information could be made available to the authorities."

But as I said below, that never got play back then, so we get the incomplete quote everywhere. It took Edward Snowden to make the tech blogs finally change narrative.

Also I'm not sure how an obviously poor sampling of quotes demonstrates much of anything. Even if you were doing some squishy sentiment analysis your study would still be thrown out for poor coverage.

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

#328

Post by magicalist »

anon1385 wrote: post #155
magicalist wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analytics uses first-party cookies for the site's domain, not your google cookie(s). And you'll have to take them at their word, but they don't combine it with some IP address trickiness or whatever (though that would be a pretty bad idea if you want decent profiles anyway): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en

That is just a Terms Of Service change away. Such legal changes aren't even unlikely: Google already changed their Terms of Service in the past to allow them to combine information from separate sites and services, which they didn't explicitly claim to do before[1]. The 'reassurances' provided in Google's Terms of Service don't mean jack shit when they have the power to change the terms in the future to whatever they…

That would only work going forward. You wouldn't be able to merge the data retroactively.

And why would they do that is the question. Again, since they don't serve google cookies on analytics this would be virtually useless. An IP address isn't much to go on. Even a 5% misidentification rate would lead to horribly polluted data about users very quickly.

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

#329

Post by sangnoir »

anon1385 wrote: post #178
nemothekid wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 risk of you being personally targeted and hacked is greater than Google being hacked

> 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.

With that fact established, the question still stands: who do you trust to not get hacked by the British and Chinese governments? The point GP was making was Google's security is pretty robust and if it's not sufficient, you'd be hard-pressed to find another service provider who can do better securing the data.

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

#330

Post by bwilliams18 »

toxican wrote: post #253
hkailahi wrote: post #171

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 an…

Doesn't the bulk of Google's money come from advertising, rather than search?

The money comes from advertising that is placed on searches.
Post reply on HN