Apple's iCloud+ “VPN” • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#111

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #40

Jiocus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use a VPN for other reasons (downloading Ubuntu ISOs mostly). This made me smile. Good one. For context, copyright trolls recently tried to extort torrent users for downloading and sharing Ubuntu ISOs.

If you want to give context, a link to the story would be nice: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/fake-dmca-takedown-n... Importantly, OpSec (the company doing this torrent-dmca-for-hire stuff) says the DMCA itself was spoofed > OpSec Security’s DCMA notice sending program was spoofed on Wednesday, May 26, 2021, by unknown parties across multiple streaming platforms.

...who names their company "OpSec"? Are they actively wanting to be made fun-of at the next defcon?

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#112

Post by basisword » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

I'm currently running the beta and this doesn't work on my router (provided by one of the largest ISP's in the UK). When I go to settings it displays a message that the router is unsupported by private relay. Hopefully it's something they can fix before launch but if not I wonder how many other routers are unsupported?

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#113

Post by nuker » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

I hope it'll not bring captcha hell, as Google does for using VPNs. Twitter is simply blocking my VPN provider. eBay sends scary email every time I login.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#114

Post by res0nat0r » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

Is this like Cloudflare Warp then?

https://1.1.1.1/

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#115

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

bitcurious wrote: post #38

Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it a two-hop onion network is still trivially breakable with (two) warrants, especially since both Apple and Cloudflare/etc., are US companies. Which would make it a VPN in the duck-type sense.

[deleted]

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#116

Post by Mindwipe » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #37

mtsr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally down to the terms for content that networks (BBC in this case) buy licenses to. The IP owners don't want the networks to allow the whole world access to that content for the price that the network is willing to pay to show it to their region.

But also, and mostly, in reverse. The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming, and rather than offer that to the world for a subscription fee, they choose to offer it to select partners (previously mainly PBS, now Netflix and Amazon) for a licensing fee, or sometimes in a coproduction arrangement. This is big money, up-front, with no need to build out a global delivery system or deal with millio…

> The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming

The BBC is complete license owner of virtually zero programming. Almost all (as in 99.9%+) of their content uses substantial third party copyright works where the cost implications of selling internationally still apply (just the music rights alone will drive you mad, and it's far from uncommon for BBC content that is shown in the UK to have a different soundtrack to the internationally sold version to the likes of Netflix due to the licensing cost and complexity).

It is also worth noting that the BBC makes a lot less than people think, especially if you consider BBC studios to be a quasi-separate production entity now (which it is!).

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#117

Post by herbstein » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:14 PM UTC

867-5309 wrote: post #41

krageon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but UK residents do typically pay for the content whereas those outside the UK are unable to. In essence, what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid for, but nobody else can have it anyway". It's unreasonable and there is no need to make excuses for this behaviour.

totally agree. I had no end of shit trying to watch BBC News channel from abroad. I'm a UK national, I own a house in the UK, I pay UK taxes, I pay your stupid TV licence fee, you're broadcasting live over 3 separate CDNs, just let me watch the fucking news. I eventually subscribed to an illegal IPTV service for that one sodding channel. I don't even need the other 17,000 channels. the BBC drove me to it

Completely off-topic: great choice of name. That number is burned into my mind, and will be forever

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#118

Post by gjsman-1000 » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #108

mariojv wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also almost certainly an authentication mechanism in place, even if you were to reverse engineer the API. You'd need a bunch of paid iCloud accounts to have a DDoS be at all feasible with this service. Additionally, Cloudflare themselves, one of Apple's third party partners, offer DDoS protection services. Because they see all the exit traffic, they'd be able to detect the DDoS and block it.

That's why this concern seemed weird to me; the exit nodes ARE the DDoS protection services. I can't see Cloudflare putting themselves in the position of needed to protect their clients from themselves ...

Otherwise, by the poster’s logic, why hasn’t CloudFlare been a DDoS vector?

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#119

Post by thih9 » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:16 PM UTC

What's are the differences between a VPN and an onion router approach? Could anyone explain or link to an article?

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#120

Post by jameshart » Wed, Jun 16, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

toxik wrote: post #110

jameshart wrote: post #90

Interesting. I thought I recalled talking about this on HN previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10355868 _-__--- on Oct 8, 2015 | parent | favorite | on: Verizon revives "zombie cookie" device tracking on... Tor as an OS-level feature may not spark the best reaction. It's been given a bad name ("deep web," silk road, etc) in mass media and many people don't understand it enough to think of it as anything…

An even more impressive prediction in 2015, a time when Apple was not positioned as some type of savior of user privacy.

I’m not so sure. If you read back up that thread, the thought that triggered it was from qzervaas:

   Apple's already shown they don't like this behaviour with their randomised MAC addresses in iOS 8+.

And elsewhere in the thread people called out the fact apple had already introduced support for ad blocking. So Apple’s privacy-positive posture was already in the air.

I think there is a sense in which privacy was already a differentiator for Apple in iOS (as contrasted with Google’s motives in android in particular of course) - so this did feel like a not completely implausible way they could go to double down on that differentiator.