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If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

theguardian.com

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Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#131

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

jhanschoo wrote: post #100
landryraccoon wrote: post #25

I see a bunch of comments talking about how Apple is being self serving and not at all altruistic when they defend our privacy. And my response is - well duh. And this is supposed to be a problem how? Apple wants my money and nothing else. They aren't motivated to protect my privacy out of the goodness of their hearts. I am happy to pay money for more privacy. The fact that they only do this because they want my mone…

The relevance of criticism on Apple's privacy stance is in pointing out the limits of Apple's commitment to privacy. Companies like Signal are founded on privacy and encryption, but with Apple, privacy is a nice-to-have, limited to its other business objectives (like how Apple is "committed" to reducing waste to the extent it can sell dongles, chargers, and earbuds separately, but not in terms of repairability). You…

>and in protecting information from third parties without user consent

Is this true for every country where Apple operates? Especially where it's forced to host servers in? We know for certain that Apple cannot do its business in certain high value market(s) unless it offers unrestricted access to its customer's data.

But we don't see *privacy applicable to U.S. or X countries only disclaimer in any of it's marketing or promo materials. An uninformed Journalist or Human rights activist can be at severe risk due to this.

Especially when,

> Cook argued that people choose iOS specifically so they won’t have to make risky decisions with sensitive data.[1]

[1]https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/22/22448139/tim-cook-epic-fo...

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#132

Post by wyre »

esclerofilo wrote: post #89
igornadj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree, and would love to see a competitor to Apple in terms of privacy focus. I think the reason we don't see it from competitors is that Apple is years ahead of everyone else in terms of customer experience, and privacy is part of that experience, so they focus on it. You just have to look at how many different models of phones Samsung sell vs how many Apple sell to see how unfocused Apple's biggest com…

There are competitors: The Linux phones (pinephone, librem). In fact, privacy has been one of the selling points of desktop Linux forever. The problem is it doesn't sell, or at least it hasn't till now. This is what Apple is trying to change, basically convince people (through ads) that they need to care about their privacy, because they know it's a competitive advantage they have when compared to the other big compa…

Privacy was also a selling point of BlackBerry/RIM and was successful but it’s hard enough to convince people it’s worth switching over to Firefox from Chrome so I think you’re right.

It is interesting that Apple can market themselves as protecting our privacy if for no other reason than all their competitors do the bare minimum.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#133

Post by SilverRed »

emptysongglass wrote: post #79
slver wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mistake that many people do is requesting a systematic change, and then ignoring the systematic effects of it. Maybe in theory "more stores" sounds like "more good" to you as a consumer. But the large mass of consumers are not in a position to judge things like safety, performance, reliability, sustainability. They're only in position to judge things like "$3 is less than $4". So the systematic effect of multiple…

Except that we already know what that landscape looks like on Android and... it's fine. Everyone still uses the Play Store.

With the exception of FOSS/privacy nuts who use f-droid. And everyone is happy in the end. I think the only mainstream sideload app is Youtube Vanced which removes ads.

I switched to an iphone but I still keep an android phone around to run a couple of sideload only apps which violate the App Store and Google Play guidelines like the app that loads the hack payload on to my Nintendo switch on boot.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#134

Post by madars »

trapped wrote: post #72
theshrike79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Signal still leaks phone numbers to people, that's why I refuse use it for group chats. For encrypted 1-1 with people I already know it's fine though.

Care to share evidence before making such allegations.

https://community.signalusers.org/t/hide-phone-number-entire...

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#135

Post by slver »

dheera wrote: post #120
slver wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you like an OS that sends fake sensor data to apps, but you trust it to send real network data to you? What if it doesn't? What if the hardware sends fake network data to the OS? You clearly don't give a damn about your privacy, because everything you do can be subverted through any of those components. People who give a damn about their privacy write their own OS, apps and install it on their custom built hardwar…

> on their custom built hardware Sure, make your own phone, I'll very much support and admire you if you do. Until then, since I don't have that hardware engineering prowess, I'm at least a few steps ahead of any iOS user and at least have control over my OS and what my apps do. iOS users on the other hand just surrender their privacy management to almighty Apple and trust that Apple does no evil, and trust that the…

iOS is also better than nothing.

It's the best solution to people who have better stuff to do, but want relative security compared to Android.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#136

Post by chevill »

yosito wrote: post #98
supernova87a wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, if you're worried about that, I don't know how you get through life without being totally paralyzed. You live in the USA. All persons and companies are subject to whatever intelligence activities that we got a glimpse of which are happening. You adjust your life accordingly and live on. Because I don't know where else you can go that has the similar benefits of being a US citizen and the environment we enjoy. O…

> I don't know where else you can go that has the similar benefits of being a US citizen and the environment we enjoy I'm honesty surprised that in 2021 people still believe the US is the only good place to live/be a citizen.

>I'm honesty surprised that in 2021 people still believe the US is the only good place to live/be a citizen.

There are lots of great places to live but the US is one of the best and easiest places to live if you're a US citizen.

Unless a person's native country is a legitimately bad place to live, living where you are born is going be one of the best options for anyone. There are lots of good places in the world to live but for non-natives its frequently not a guarantee you'll be allowed to live there. Its also not a given that you'll have an easy time living the same quality of life as you could in your homeland. Or be able to find a job that pays well. More importantly, its not always easy for a person to integrate and be accepted by the community in another country.

If I didn't have a family that wanted to stay I'd probably consider moving somewhere else, but there would be a lot of anxiety and uncertainty about my future for a long time.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#137

Post by SilverRed »

quanto wrote: post #75

If Apple offers real privacy now, that's good for them and the consumers who are willing to pay premium for privacy. Two questions: 1. Is there a way to verify that Apple is not using or selling the user's data? 2. What is preventing Apple, after gathering all the users data, from changing its EULA/ToS and starting to sell the user data? Is an average user going to export all the data from Apple and jump to another p…

Nothing. So your options are to pick a company that openly tracks you and is funded on tracking. Or a company that tells you it doesn't track you, bases a huge amount of their marketing on that promise and is funded by selling you expensive devices.

One option is clearly better from a privacy perspective even if you have no control over what Apple does.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#138

Post by wyre »

dheera wrote: post #60
theshrike79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Signal still leaks phone numbers to people, that's why I refuse use it for group chats. For encrypted 1-1 with people I already know it's fine though.

Get a Twilio number and use it for pretty much everything. Twilio is awesome, I even have my Twilio workflow configured to receive "2FA" calls and hit the # key without my intervention, and I have it set up mess with unknown callers by putting them on hold indefinitely with music.

Wouldn’t using Twilio effect the security of 2FA?

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#139

Post by nxpnsv »

Tech has a long tail - if you generalize from the big players track record things may look grim, but that is ignoring the rest of the field. That is to say, no - it is not only Apple who defends our privacy - and yes you should dig deeper when thinking about these things.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#140

Post by dannyw »

theturtletalks wrote: post #129
jhanschoo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevance of criticism on Apple's privacy stance is in pointing out the limits of Apple's commitment to privacy. Companies like Signal are founded on privacy and encryption, but with Apple, privacy is a nice-to-have, limited to its other business objectives (like how Apple is "committed" to reducing waste to the extent it can sell dongles, chargers, and earbuds separately, but not in terms of repairability). You…

Apple's marketing is quite genius. They spun iOS being a closed system into a plus. You can't install your own apps. Safari is not fit for PWAs. Repairability is not encouraged. All of this is for your own benefit and privacy. Want those things? Go to Android and sacrifice your privacy. With this approach, Apple comes out looking privacy-focused, justified for their App Store fees, and their stance on right to repair…

It's more of an opportunity left by Google. If Google wasn't a spyware company masquerading as a search engine company, their team of brilliant engineers could create the most open, most reputable, most user friendly, and most privacy protecting system on the planet.
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