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Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

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Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#151

Post by yamtaddle »

smoldesu wrote: post #136
wingerlang wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm only picking things up passively but as far as I have read, it is because the App Store does not track you across OTHER COMPANIES apps and websites. If they only track you within their own Apple ecosystem, they don't need to ask for permission (same as other apps).

Facebook kept their shadow profiles to themselves, but that didn't make it any less gross. Defending Apple's data collection on the basis that "they don't share it" is like defending a guy taking creepshots of you in the bathroom because he doesn't look like the sort of person who would cause you trouble.

The sharing's not what makes it "tracking", by Apple's definition, it's collecting data on other companies' sites and apps. As in, following you around wherever you go. Tracking.

It's the difference between Wal-Mart recording you with camaras in their stores, and recording you with camaras in all stores... and at the public park, and in your home, and....

FWIW I think a whole hell of a lot more than what Apple calls "tracking" ought to simply be illegal, but they've been pretty clear about what they mean by the term, and their definition does make sense, and that is one of the worse behaviors among the spyware industry (which is basically all software, at this point, which, WTF, how did norms change so incredibly fast?)

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#152

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

drooopy wrote: post #67
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It would be like Microsoft saying "explorer.exe? Policy A only covers the OS, and that is clearly not part of Windows! - so therefore you are covered by Policy B." This made me remember a long time ago when I ran Windows I used to disable explorer.exe by editing a certain registry key. Not sure if this still works today, but it did back then. This reduced distraction as only one window could be maxmized at a time. A…

I remember that back in the windows 95 days i used the same trick to load progman.exe instead of explorer.exe during boot. I was too used to the Windows 3.1 desktop environment...

IIRC, I think I used taskmgr.exe as a substitute program launcher instead of explorer.exe's "Start" button and menu. I, too, was originally a Windows 3.11 for Workgroups user.

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#153

Post by withinboredom »

gcanyon wrote: post #149
withinboredom wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally the definition, it's in the name. If it can be used to personally identify you in any way, it's PII. Yes, IP addresses are PII and there's nothing that prevents you from storing PII for reasonable amounts of time (i.e., to process a packet, a purchase, or fulfill a contract). Where you get into trouble with various laws is when you store them for other purposes (such as in logs) and use them in ways…

I think the point being made is that there are two classes of information: 1. That which helps distinguish a single human being as distinct from another. 2. That which provides you with some useful knowledge about that human being. Knowing an IP address can distinguish user A from user B, but unless you know something else about A vs. B, what's the point?

I'm not sure what point you're making.

Knowing an IP address is useless information, until you have a database linking IP addresses to geolocation. Knowing my address is useless information, until you have a map. Knowing my name is useless, until you have Google. Knowing my user id is useless, until you have a leaked database (or other vulnerability).

These are all PII, because they're useless until you have some other information, and then they deanonymize you.

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#154

Post by simonh »

smoldesu wrote: post #133
simonh wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think who the data is shared with, whether or not you know or consent to it, and how it is propagated is a significant factor in privacy concerns?

Not if we can't hold Apple accountable for that information, no.

That’s exactly the point. We can hold Apple accountable. That’s what’s happening with these investigations of what data they are holding and how it’s used. If the data was shared far and wide that would be difficult or even impossible.

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#155

Post by yencabulator »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #95

> I am also shocked by the granularity of information in these storefront analytics. It is relevant to Apple’s recommendation engine if I listened to an album or song and whether I finished it, but it is hard to see what value it has in knowing my track playback to the millisecond. Not surprised. As soon as it was possible to get this kind of information about app usage (thanks, Internet!) of course management wanted…

> Data collection is treated as a Big Deal and "Privacy" will grill you on every single byte that you want to collect.

I find this optimistic view hard to reconcile with the article. It seems collecting personally identifying data is the default mode. For example:

> I have a spreadsheet of the nearly nine hundred times me and my DSID ignored Apple’s attempts to upsell me on Apple One

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#156

Post by BLKNSLVR »

hellfish wrote: post #91
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this can be explained by simple denial; Apple's reality distortion field, or some variation on "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Maybe not salary, but a foundational world view, much like religion. I mean, people on HN will argue that it's wrong to block ads, a point of view that only makes sense to me through the lens of the above quo…

> I mean, people on HN will argue that it's wrong to block ads I've never seen this attitude here. Not once. Do you have any examples?

Not that I can find in any hurry, and it's also worth my mentioning that occurrences are decreasing, and I'm not sure if that's because there are fewer people legitimately taking the ad-defensive stance, or whether there's a 'chilling effect' caused by (in my opinion) the increasing volume (in both definitions of the word) of arguments against ads.

My memory also tells me that most of the pro-ad stances on HN have been cagey; justification within a certain set of privacy-respecting or customer-service-improvement ideals.

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#157

Post by glitchc »

withinboredom wrote: post #153
gcanyon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point being made is that there are two classes of information: 1. That which helps distinguish a single human being as distinct from another. 2. That which provides you with some useful knowledge about that human being. Knowing an IP address can distinguish user A from user B, but unless you know something else about A vs. B, what's the point?

I'm not sure what point you're making. Knowing an IP address is useless information, until you have a database linking IP addresses to geolocation. Knowing my address is useless information, until you have a map. Knowing my name is useless, until you have Google. Knowing my user id is useless, until you have a leaked database (or other vulnerability). These are all PII, because they're useless until you have some oth…

There's a lot of confusion here. You need to read the GDPR carefully. The GDPR is the only source that explicitly mentions IP, and even they distinguish IP as "personal data", not "personally identifiable data." No other privacy legislation on the planet considers IP to represent any kind of PII.

I will reiterate my point. It is impossible to operate the internet or any other network where a server must distinguish between two or more client without some kind of identifier for session management. Just think about it.

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#158

Post by _heimdall »

simonh wrote: post #125
_heimdall wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that is the technical distinction made today, but for an end user that really is splitting hairs. When Apple is offering first-party services that compete with Netflix, Spotify, etc. my privacy concern is that someone is tracking and aggregating data on what I watch and listen to. As a user I don't really care if that's two separate corporations sharing unique identifiers or two departments in the same umbrell…

You don't think who the data is shared with, whether or not you know or consent to it, and how it is propagated is a significant factor in privacy concerns?

Of course that's a significant factor, but that wasn't my point. I care if Apple Music and Apple TV aggregate my data just as much as if Spotify and Netflix do it.

This isn't anything new, we've known that Apple does this for years. If data sharing is within one umbrella corporation it's technically easier to subpeona and investigate, but that also means they have that much larger of a pile of cash to defend themselves with.

Consider another aggregious Apple policy, mobile browsers. They have had a much more oppressive browser policy than Microsoft ever did and they have done this openly since iOS 2 when the app store first launched. They've never been held accountable though - they get away with it even though Gates was dragged in front of Congress multiple times for simply shipping his OS with a pre-installed browser. Why? And if that obvious issue goes unpunished why should I expect anything better with regards to their data collection practices, simply because one parent Corp is owning all the data?

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#159

Post by sneak »

user3939382 wrote: post #140
sneak wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is only about privacy as a marketing differentiator. Apple's software clearly demonstrates that they do not place a high value on user privacy. iPhones and Macs phone home constantly with all sorts of information even if you never use iCloud or the App Store or Apple's service offerings. It's ridiculous.

Yep. Set up Charles Proxy (GUI) or mitmproxy (CLI) if you want to take a look at the actual data. It's huge and non-stop. Some of this even Little Snitch can't stop because it's sent to random IPs inside huge blocks belonging to Apple with no DNS. Unless you go to extraordinary lengths it's the same with Firefox FYI. These companies' privacy concerns are a marketing gimmick, and the situation is so out of control we…

Little Snitch can still block those.

The huge block is 17./8 and is easily identified.

Re: Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go

#160

Post by sneak »

gcanyon wrote: post #148
sneak wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is only about privacy as a marketing differentiator. Apple's software clearly demonstrates that they do not place a high value on user privacy. iPhones and Macs phone home constantly with all sorts of information even if you never use iCloud or the App Store or Apple's service offerings. It's ridiculous.

I'm curious: do you think Apple is exactly as invasive as the companies they compare themselves to? Or are they not as invasive, but still not as non-invasive as their marketing materials claim?

The issue for me is location tracking. Apple always knows what city I am in, linked constantly to unchangeable hardware identifiers, which for me is the same level of invasive.
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