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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

#181

Post by helsinkiandrew »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #92
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - if they were arms dealers or a drug company they would be doing other bad things, but their business model doesn’t need targeted ads. People and companies should be judged on their actions not on what you think they would do if they were in some other business.

Sure, but what we are saying is that Apple _is_ a bad company, and that we don't believe they are on our side. (or that they are trying to protect us.) They are not on our side when it comes to repairing our devices. They are not on our side when it comes to running software we want to on the hardware we own. They are not on our side when it comes to walled gardens. They are not on our side when it comes to how quick…

Apple is on Apples side. However, the fact that they are "defending our privacy" (as the article states) in this small way compared with what Facebook and others are doing is a good thing. Apple don't sell ads in the same way as Facebook do and have never done so (unless they are doing it secretly and illegally - they are not - it would be worth so little to them and the potential loss if they were discovered would be so huge).

Whatever their motive is, or how bad they are in other aspects of their business, or how different it would be if they had a different business model the fact that they are providing this 'privacy' to their users is a good thing.

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

#182

Post by Nextgrid »

TheManInThePub wrote: post #162
0xPIT wrote: post #150

I truly wonder why people still believe they have any privacy, any right to privacy, or, that they could do anything about it. Sun Microsystems‘ Scott McNealy was vocal about this already in the late 1990s: „you have no privacy, get over it“ Look, even if you were able to get FAANG et al. to honor privacy, there will always be the one player that does not. Then, the people who write privacy laws have no clue what the…

> I truly wonder why people still believe they have any privacy, any right to privacy, or, that they could do anything about it. The GDPR (very good legislation forming one of our rights to privacy), and a host of UK/Europe national Data Protection Acts preceding it would take issue with this statement.

Its enforcement is severely lacking though, to the point where you wonder if the parties supposed to enforce it are actually benefiting from the status-quo.

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

#183

Post by Nextgrid »

zelon88 wrote: post #22
gordon_freeman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't get it. Apple is not making any decisions on whether to allow apps to track or not. They are simply delegating that choice to their users (and rightly so). The user has power to chose which advertisers he or she can trust showing them the useful ads and allow those apps to track. If ads are not useful or are exploitative of their data then they can chose not to allow tracking. As simple as that.

I believe it is you who has a misunderstanding. Let's word this differently. Apple gives apps the ability to track and users the option to disable that feature, but they built it with dark patterns. Now they've removed the dark patterns, but you can still have this awful feature that nobody wants. Why? And why is Apple getting credit for removing dark patterns that they created earlier? Why does this feature exist if…

It wasn't a dark pattern per-se. They assumed good faith and relied on morals and compliance with the law to be sufficient.

Keep in mind that when the GDPR went in effect (and maybe before that with the "cookie law", as the advertising ID is equivalent to a tracking cookie), using the system-wide advertising ID (which is enabled by default - the dark pattern you were talking about) would be in breach of the regulation; apps should still ask for consent before using it and allow users to decline.

I can't fully fault Apple for expecting that the GDPR would actually be enforced and clean things up. It clearly wasn't the case however and they're thankfully making changes to mitigate that.

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

#184

Post by Nextgrid »

gampleman wrote: post #160

I'm surprised to not see too much discussion about GDPR here. But the question I have is under what legal basis do companies use the tracking identifiers? Surely the only legal basis available to them is consent? So Apple has kindly made the consent collection infrastructure part of iOS (and therefore standardised and therefore user friendly). So are the complaints about Apple forcing them to obey the law? That seems…

The whole ATT thing merely forces companies to do what they were supposed to do 3 years ago when the GDPR came into effect, and maybe even earlier if you consider the ePrivacy Directive ("Cookie law").

The regulators should use any company's complaints about the change as evidence of past GDPR breaches, but then again the reason ATT was required and companies complain is that the regulators are so incompetent that the regulation is routinely broken in total impunity even 3 years down the line.

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

#185

Post by Nextgrid »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #175
gampleman wrote: post #160

I'm surprised to not see too much discussion about GDPR here. But the question I have is under what legal basis do companies use the tracking identifiers? Surely the only legal basis available to them is consent? So Apple has kindly made the consent collection infrastructure part of iOS (and therefore standardised and therefore user friendly). So are the complaints about Apple forcing them to obey the law? That seems…

I just don't think that there are that many Europeans on HN percentage wise.

I think there's a lot of people on HN that profit from breaching the GDPR, so it's unlikely to have a good reputation here

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

#186

Post by Nextgrid »

theshrike79 wrote: post #37
throwaway481048 wrote: post #4

Apple should not have to lead the charge for user privacy. The government (particularly Congress, in some cases State Legislatures) needs to step up and create modern rules for a modern society. While you can’t “cook up” new laws as quickly as an engineer can a prototype, trusting a private entity - with only the power to regulate its own devices and activity - is foolish, if just merely in scope. The interests of a…

EU has GDPR and California has CCPA. Y'all just need to get your elected officials to copy & paste CCPA to a federal level.

To be fair, the GDPR is only good in theory but its enforcement has been severely lacking, as demonstrated by all the companies suddenly complaining about App Tracking Transparency, despite ATT only mandating what they should've done to comply with the GDPR anyway 3 years ago.

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

#187

Post by willis936 »

Google234 wrote: post #167
willis936 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/apple-health-studies/en-...

Wait, what is your problem with this? Who the hell would enroll in a scientific study to share their data and not expect their data to be used in that study?

I didn't say I had a problem with it, just that they have access to more biometrics than any other FAANG and I don't know what their motive is.

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

#188

Post by dheera »

wyre wrote: post #138
dheera wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, but I don't do phone-based 2FA; I only use U2F or TOTP.

When I have a massive, immobile desktop in front of me it makes no sense that the desktop isn't the 2FA device, and that I'm asked to go search for an easy-to-steal tiny 5" device.

Also, I don't believe in phone numbers being 1:1 correlated with a device; for convenience I should be able to take a call from any device that I happen to have with me. So phone numbers should never be used for 2FA IMO.

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

#189

Post by fartcannon »

elygre wrote: post #95
fartcannon wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft's privacy policy for sharepoint says thst Microsoft employees have accesss to all data in sharepoint. So Microsoft's privacy is worth as much as its poorest paid employee with access.

Do you have a reference for that?

Yes, the privacy policy issued by Microsoft to your company regarding SharePoint.

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

#190

Post by willis936 »

pabs3 wrote: post #141
willis936 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat that there's a competitor to system 76. I'll have to look into them later. I use a T500 I plucked from the trash for secure libre street cred. No blobs anywhere afaik.

T500 has blobs at minimum: CPU microcode, UEFI boot firmware, EC firmware, GPU firmware, HDD/SSD firmware, Ethernet/WiFi firmware, battery controller firmware, display firmware etc.

While true, those issues are present even in system76 and purism. They're even worse because the T500 doesn't have a dedicated GPU or TPM. I know the combination of hardware I have in my T500 has all FOSS drivers and I assume purism is the same.

I have it mostly as a toy and I'm sure most purism customers are the same.

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