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Safari is sending every search query to Apple

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Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#131

Post by eli »

TheLoneWolfling wrote: post #126
eli wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure it's still actually sending a hash, not a URL

The entity I'm primarily worried about tracking here is Google . And, pretty much trivially, if the URL was added to the blacklist, they have the corresponding URL to the hash. (Not to mention, even if they didn't, their core product is based around crawling webpages. I'd be highly surprised if they didn't have hashes of the URLs they visited.) And, even beside that, URLs are relatively low-entropy. Especially with t…

I think your fears are unfounded, but it's easy enough to turn off.

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#132

Post by cscurmudgeon »

mikeash wrote: post #96
threeseed wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you look under Privacy ? Sending my search term to Apple which then simply does a back end aggregated search and returns the results does not invade my privacy. Unless of course you have some evidence that Apple is collecting those search terms.

I completely disagree. Sending my search terms to Apple is an invasion of privacy. I feel like "don't share your info with other people" is such a basic aspect of privacy that I don't even know how to argue the point. I'm at a loss, as if you had said that trees are made out of meat, or that cars are delivered by storks.

Is sending your search query to Google for Google instant an invasion of your privacy?

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#133

Post by scintill76 »

threeseed wrote: post #86
scintill76 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If true, this is worth noting, but I don't think it completely redeems Apple. "We're going to make you untick as many boxes as possible, scattered through several dialogs, if you want to feel secure in the knowledge that your data won't be phoned home, no matter which particular place you're entering them." (Disclaimer: I'm generally anti-Apple and haven't used this version of the OS.)

What on earth are you talking about ? The preferences aren't scattered through several dialogs. It's simply open Safari, goto Preferences, click on Search tab and uncheck the requisite Smart Search feature.

... then, head on over to Spotlight, and disable its similar feature, apparently distinct but named the exact same thing.[0] And hope there are no other instances of this type of thing. That's what on earth I'm talking about.

People have pointed out that this option is kind of hard to find, even if you're looking for it (under Search, not Privacy.)[1] Also, if I chose the "Google" option, I might reasonably believe my searches were only being sent to Google, not Apple.[0] If this was a Microsoft computer, I'm pretty sure we'd all be angry if they had a default-on option phoning home Google queries!

Is [0] downvoted because he is factually wrong about the two options, or because everyone is determined to prosecute him to fullest extent of the HN downmod, for originally being sensationalist/mistaken and/or for having certain views on privacy?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8480364 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8480239

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#134

Post by scintill76 »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #132
mikeash wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree. Sending my search terms to Apple is an invasion of privacy. I feel like "don't share your info with other people" is such a basic aspect of privacy that I don't even know how to argue the point. I'm at a loss, as if you had said that trees are made out of meat, or that cars are delivered by storks.

Is sending your search query to Google for Google instant an invasion of your privacy?

Yes, if it was without consent or at least knowledge that it was happening.

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#135

Post by cscurmudgeon »

scintill76 wrote: post #134
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is sending your search query to Google for Google instant an invasion of your privacy?

Yes, if it was without consent or at least knowledge that it was happening.

Google automatically turned on Google Instant without explicit constent.

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#136

Post by jfoster »

andy_ppp wrote: post #23
jfoster wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps Apple internally already consider themselves a search engine. This might only be a temporary misalignment of user experience and data being sent to Apple.

Without the requisite user data or some fantastic and soon to be copied algorithm I would expect their search experience to start off about as well as Apple Maps. You can bet they are going to build it though and it'll look nice.

That might depend on whether they learnt anything from the Apple Maps debacle. They might approach something like that much more tactfully the next time they try it.

With the right expertise on the team and some decent exposure to real users prior to the wide release, they may be able to deliver something that people enjoy using. The micro-features that delight users are something that Apple has traditionally done well, and are also the type of thing that go a long way in a product like a search engine.

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#137

Post by ekianjo »

madeofpalk wrote: post #128
ekianjo wrote: post #74

The thing about Apple is the positive bias they always get on HN. In these comments: > Is there ANY evidence that Apple is collecting data. > I'm not sure it's a contradiction either, more of an omission, he doesn't specifically address search data in that interview > Doesn't seem like a data collection initiative. It seems more like a complementary search engine > Do they do autocompletion suggestions like Chrome? T…

I guess this is where the confirmation bias comes in. As someone who would consider themselves to be a realistic 'Apple apologist' (I like Apple, as a company and their products, and tend to assume the positive for everything they do), I see a large negative bias against Apple on HN.

Probably it depends where you come from. If you always spend time on MacFans kind of forums, then yeah, I guess the HN crowd can sound pretty negative to Apple. But in comparison with other stories out there on HN, I feel Apple always gets away with better feedback no matter what they do.

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#138

Post by scintill76 »

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #135
scintill76 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if it was without consent or at least knowledge that it was happening.

Google automatically turned on Google Instant without explicit constent.

Are you talking the Chrome omnibar suggestions, or google.com search bar? I'm not sure the difference matters. Anyway, a thoughtful person can probably tell that means their partial queries are being sent to Google ("knowledge that it's happening", as I said above), and adjust it if that bothers them.

With this Safari thing, it sounds like your queries are silently sent to Apple, in addition to Google or whoever your preferred search engine is. So, not only are they being sent somewhere without explicit consent, they are sent somewhere other than the place you explicitly consented to, in a way you won't see unless you dig into config dialogs/manuals and/or packet sniffers. Am I factually wrong on how this behavior works?

Am I being too flexible in ethical gymnastics to avoid condemning Google, while condemning Apple? It was hard to articulate the difference, so frankly maybe it's just that I like Google more. But I think it's fair to say that for me personally, Google Instant is more transparent and fair than how this Apple behavior sounds.

Also, to be honest, I haven't used Yosemite. I don't know if that invalidates my opinion. Maybe I should at least not form an opinion in this flame-fest of half-baked arguments from both sides.

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#139

Post by makomk »

ggreer wrote: post #107
pserwylo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure why you got down voted. I bought an iPod nano several years ago, because I quite liked the hardware/software that Apple made. However when I found out that they intentionally broke compatibility with 3rd party music software that isn't iTunes, I made the decision to never buy Apple products again. I don't feel that I'm particularly missing out by making this decision (although I am aware that many othe…

Can you link to an explanation of how Apple intentionally broke 3rd-party syncing with iPod Nanos? I don't know what kerfuffle you're referencing.

It's long enough ago that a lot of the technical information has dropped off the web (or in some cases been DMCAed offline by Apple[1]), but the short answer is they started authenticating the iPod Nano music database using a cryptographic MAC with a per-device key derived using a secret algorithm. Without the key, third-party software couldn't add or remove songs. They've got more aggressive about it with each generation too; for the 5th gen iPod Nano the code to generate the key had the same kind of obfuscation as their actual DRM code[2], and there's no open source support for the 6th gen because it's just too hard to reverse-engineer.

[1] http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/11/20/201246/apple-dmcas-ip...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20080901013029/http://www.bluwik...

Re: Safari is sending every search query to Apple

#140

Post by bo1024 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #82
bo1024 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not at all inaccurate. Might be alarmism, I don't know. But I think it just demonstrates the ways in which users' expectations about privacy are mismatched with the products they use. For example, your average non-tech-savvy user would never realize that an important privacy setting is in a search setting marked "suggestions". It's hard to say more without seeing the text of Apple's Privacy Documentation that is…

> For example, your average non-tech-savvy user would never realize that an important privacy setting is in a search setting marked "suggestions". Is this not clear enough? http://i.imgur.com/i1Zq3E4.png

It sounds like this is what the author of the article was reading. But there's nothing there about Safari.
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