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Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

reuters.com

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Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#101

Post by Despegar »

mch82 wrote: post #71
meester_ben wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Apple is intentionally leaving iCloud data insecure" ... if you'd done some research you would know that iCloud backups are not end-to-end encrypted. That means you have a choice: backup to iCloud for the convenience and give up some privacy, or turn off the iCloud backup. It would be nice if Apple was more forthcoming with that fact but there is some onus on the customer these days to understand what's private and…

Doesn’t that page show everything as end-to-end encrypted, except email messages on the server? If “backup”, photos, messages, contacts, calendars, iCloud Drive, notes, and safari data (and a few more) are end-to-end encrypted what else is there?

I mean if you scroll down a little more you'll see what data is actually end-to-end encrypted.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#102

Post by [deleted] »

clarkmoody wrote: post #73

Beyond HN and tech circles, is there any detectable groundswell of demand for privacy? When you talk with friends & family about privacy, does anyone care? When average people care about privacy, the large players will respond. Until then, pressure from the state can be accommodated without irking customers, so Big Tech will play along.

[deleted]

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#103

Post by proidgeree1 »

andreasley wrote: post #84
celeritascelery wrote: post #10

But it is nice that you have the option to not backup with iCloud. They are not storing the information whether you like it or not as a lot of companies do.

While Apple doesn't force its users to use iCloud, they also don't provide an alternative way to do full backups of iOS/iPadOS devices over a network. Yes, you can plug an iPhone into a Mac, but that doesn't scale.

You can set local auto backup over wifi in itunes right?

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#104

Post by djsumdog »

metafunctor wrote: post #6

What the... I was under the impression that iCloud backups are end-to-end encrypted. This is a HUGE problem.

You ever read the reviews for the MEGA app? Everyone complains that there's no password reset feature. MEGA is fully encrypted so you literally can't reset your password. It says this when you first crate an account and get a recovery key.

I don't think the general public would understand end-to-end encrypted backups. It would probably hurt their company if all backups were totally unrecoverable.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#105

Post by commandlinefan »

clarkmoody wrote: post #73

Beyond HN and tech circles, is there any detectable groundswell of demand for privacy? When you talk with friends & family about privacy, does anyone care? When average people care about privacy, the large players will respond. Until then, pressure from the state can be accommodated without irking customers, so Big Tech will play along.

I seem to recall when Jennifer Lawrence (a famous actress you may have heard of) had her icloud storage hacked and leaked all over the internet, there was a bit of a murmur online and even offline about it.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#106

Post by inetknght »

celeritascelery wrote: post #14
inetknght wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how that works at all. You can buy something you need because you need it and that's not at all a vote saying you like the management of how it was produced.

It’s a vote whether you claim it is or not. If you need something but don’t want to support the company, buy it from someone else. And if you can’t find a company that you want to support, then you’ll see it’s just like real politics. You don’t get to only vote for the parts of a candidate you like, you vote for the whole package.

> It’s a vote whether you claim it is or not. If you need something but don’t want to support the company, buy it from someone else.

Again, that's not how that works at all. I can name hundreds of items that I've purchased in the past year where there aren't meaningful competitors. I can name dozens of contracts I've entered into where management changed after the contract was signed (sometimes years afterward). Of course then I'm screwed because I'm still stuck in that contract.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#107

Post by dudus »

clarkmoody wrote: post #73

Beyond HN and tech circles, is there any detectable groundswell of demand for privacy? When you talk with friends & family about privacy, does anyone care? When average people care about privacy, the large players will respond. Until then, pressure from the state can be accommodated without irking customers, so Big Tech will play along.

General public are generally ignorant about risks in the tech they use. That doesn't mean they don't care about their privacy.

There's an assumption that laws and safeguards are in place so technology in general can be trusted and transacted on.

In other words they trust in us "the tech circle" to police ourselves and assert security and privacy. It's not circle jerk about privacy. It's a duty we have by being in the frontlines.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#110

Post by pdimitar »

panarky wrote: post #5
minikites wrote: post #4

Some companies are better than others but there's absolutely no reason to believe any one of them would ever be on "your side" for any reason. You can vote for who makes decisions in government, but you can't vote for who makes decisions in companies.

You vote every time you decide to buy or not to buy.

You vote if you actually have a choice.

What choice is there beyond Apple or Google in terms of smartphones? And I mean actual, ergonomic, everyday convenient choice -- my mother will firmly refuse me if I said "I'll buy you a phone but will have to tinker a full weekend to make it half-privacy-aware". And even if she was on board, she'll just yell at me if she can't do a basic task (this is a controversial topic around here but heavily modded and supposedly Google-less Android is absolutely not as useful as a Pixel or vendor-modded Android).

So...

Google is an ad company. There's nothing they won't do to get to your data. And of course, being a huge company, they will lie about it at Congress hearings, lobby against punishments, make PR campaigns to mislead the general public, cover up their work with China until they are caught, etc. They already did all of these, many times.

Apple is seemingly a good citizen but do we really know what they do behind closed doors? As an Apple user I am still a realist and I know the answer to this question is a firm "No".

We seriously have no adequate choice. I like my iPhone; I don't play games on it (well, a few brain-teasers and a bunch more serious like chess but you get the idea), and I read a lot of stuff on it: work- and hobby-related. Social media gets almost zero attention from me. So smartphones can be very useful if you don't get hooked on BS.

And so I ask you again -- what actual choice do we have? How can we really vote in a way that will make a difference?

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