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Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

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Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#311

Post by d110af5ccf »

brokenmachine wrote: post #310
d110af5ccf wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative is upload everything unencrypted to providers who then scan there That's exactly how it should be. If a service provider wants to scan unencrypted documents for legal or PR reasons that's completely understandable. If instead they want to provide true E2EE and risk ending up in court with the regulators, that's also fine. E2EE with black box on device scanning, however, is an absolutely terrible ide…

There's no proper encryption though. In my mind, it's just like having everything unencrypted but using TLS to get it to Apple central. Apple employees can still access it. This is just ever so slightly better than the worst of everything. No real encryption, on-device scanning and scanning on Apple servers. "For privacy", WTF!!

No client side encryption yet.

I can't see any reason to implement a scanner in this way other than at least having E2EE as a possibility under consideration. They knew there was the possibility for PR backlash. Doing it on device also adds significant complexity. Meanwhile scanning on upload is a very common and well accepted (both legally and socially) practice.

On its own the current approach is all downsides and no upsides so there has to be something else going on here. Wanting to market iCloud as providing full E2EE is obvious and fits perfectly.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#312

Post by emodendroket »

renerthr wrote: post #270
emodendroket wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original complaint also seems to put the blame on Apple but I would have to think that letting people start deleting stuff in discovery is not allowed, even if you swear it's personal and irrelevant to the case.

I'm curious about this. It's 'not allowed' explicitly by the judge? Can the employee be charged with 'evidence tampering' even if the judge didn't issue any order that explicitly prohibits the employee from deleting their files?

I think the concern is that the employer could be accused of destroying relevant evidence in that case. If I’ve understood the tweets and the Wikipedia article on e-discovery correctly, these photos went through the preservation phase but likely were not actually handed over to the other party since relevance is a factor before that happens.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#313

Post by DoubleGlazing »

shaggyfrog wrote: post #7

Create a firewall between your personal and professional time. Another name for this is “setting healthy boundaries”. Always create new accounts for anything work related -- GitHub, Apple ID, whatever. Don’t install work apps on your personal phone. Don’t enrol your personal phone in corporate MDM. If they want you to use a device for work, ask them to give you one. Don’t do personal stuff on your work devices. Don’t…

I've had issues in the past with employers wanting me to add work email and work apps to my own phone.

I always refused. My attitude was, like you said, if you want me to carry around a device connected to my work, then you need to pay for it.

But my main reason why though was knowing that managers preferred staff to put work email etc on personal phones, not due to the cost of buying devices for employees, but because it blurred the lines between personal and work domains. You can switch a work phone off at 6:00pm and turn it on again at 9:00am. With a personal phone you have to set up do not disturb profiles and stuff like that to achieve the same separation because you aren't likely to turn it off in the evenings. Admittedly, it's not the hardest thing in the world to setup - but still a bit more effort that just being able to hit the power button.

I still had to deal with the extreme annoyance of having my personal number passed around the company without my permission.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#314

Post by jasonkester »

treebot wrote: post #235
Cd00d wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that in the "most secure boundary" sense, I should have a work provided phone for work stuff, BUT... I don't want to carry two phones. I'm part of a team that owns some responsibility for fixing things that break in the night. I find it freeing to be able to reply to a Slack or Outlook email while I'm with my kids at the playground. I see the above advice all the time, but I can't help but think it only relates…

I also just want to say, as a full time remote worker, I need Slack on my personal phone. Remote work allows you to work anytime and thus break out of the 9-5. But to properly do that and still be a member of a team, I need to be reachable on my regular phone. If I decide to switch up my day and work at night, I need to still be reachable for random things during other people's working hours. It's usually just someon…

You don’t have to do that.

I also work remote, in a different time zone to my team who communicate mainly on slack. I would never consider installing it on my phone.

Yes, it is possible that somebody will send me a message when I’m not at my machine. They’ll get a response the next morning I’m in.

To me, that’s just the most basic form of boundary setting. If I’m not at work, I’m not working. Being remote doesn’t change that.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#315

Post by blitzar »

bierjunge wrote: post #308
e_proxus wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, what kind of workplace did you work in? Here in Germany I think gathering many of these facts would simply be illegal.

Yes most of that would be illegal, except you gave them consent in your contract or other legal document. This is also exactly why I always check all the paperwork for "personal usage" of the devices and services provided by the company (email and stuff). If there is nothing about it, I send my mom a random cat picture from my work email (always outside of office hours, in other cases it could be a contract violation…

There is the law and then there are employment contracts. Sometimes these things overlap, intersect or contradict in interesting ways.

I dont think I have ever worked under an IT policy that was anything but 'for work use only' - although that didnt stop me from taking great pleasure at seeing how many work emails were used to sign up for sugardaddie etc whenever they leaked. I was never too fussed - having two phones, two emails, two laptops etc doesn't bother me in the slightest. You lose access to the work phone number / email / storage when you leave anyway so it's really of no use.

I have even come to like the physical separation of work and personal, there are times each needs more than 50% of my attention.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#316

Post by blitzar »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #233
Cd00d wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that in the "most secure boundary" sense, I should have a work provided phone for work stuff, BUT... I don't want to carry two phones. I'm part of a team that owns some responsibility for fixing things that break in the night. I find it freeing to be able to reply to a Slack or Outlook email while I'm with my kids at the playground. I see the above advice all the time, but I can't help but think it only relates…

I think you are dramatically overestimating the actual challenge of carrying two phones. Phones these days have great battery life, and they make pretty small models. The phone is like 0.2% the mass of your body. It’s not that big of a load. I’ve been promoted several times while having separate work and personal phones.

If more phones is less ambitious, is having 0 phones the maximum ambition? I have tapped away on slack on my work phone while at the playground or sports or recital on weekends etc 100's of times.

Yes I feel like a right prick pulling two phones out of my pocket - I mitigate this by not being the kind of person who sits down and places their phone on the table face up at dinner.

As for the suggestion that the seperation or work/personal is a sign of less ambition, that you somehow care less about work than your personal life - my work phone is set to ring 24 hours a day, my personal phone vibrate only. There are times where I am not keeping my work life from getting in the way of my personal life, but keeping my personal life from getting in the way of work.

Watching someone go to check their work slack on their phone only to have their attention dragged away to group chats with friends on competing attention apps gives me pause to consider. At the end of the day, whatever works for people, I have found what I think works for me.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#317

Post by rmah »

labawi wrote: post #285
mlyle wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hands over data that was created before and outside the employment definitely points towards Apple abusing their position of power here. Trust me, Apple legal would rather not dig through your personal information to find nuggets to hand to opposing counsel during discovery. But if there's work information in your personal account, and Apple is legally compelled to go through accounts with work information as part…

People will call them awful and disrespectful, for not providing explicit instructions to use a new or work account, and warning everything in the account may be impounded.

New hires at Apple get multiple hours of training in information security and other HR policy. There is warning. It's just ignored by lots of folks.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#318

Post by cutemonster »

raxxorrax wrote: post #289
_drimzy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you need to link your personal accounts with family photos and whatnot? Nope. You can create a separate iCloud account just for work. I did that during my time there. I always maintained a separate work phone, and used work icloud account for that. The folks complaining are the ones who just didn't do that, and added 'work data' on their personal account, which ofcourse they will have to hand over if subpoenaed.

Having a separate account for work and private stuff should be common sense. No surprise your employer wants to access it when you used it for work related reasons. This can be as trivial as some business contacts having your mail and trying to contact Apple.

People just out from college might not know this yet. And others too who never were in similar situations and never had any problems with their employer or the legal system, and don't visit HN

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#319

Post by BoxOfRain »

didericis wrote: post #31
amiga1200 wrote: post #4

I’m slowly getting the impression that either there’s been a policy change at Apple in terms of customer privacy, or some other government pressure that’s causing all of these seemingly anti-privacy decisions to be made. I’m considering moving away from the Apple eco-system, any recommendations? I’m equally distrustful of Android (specifically Google). I feel like my only option is to compile and deploy my own versio…

It’s a downgrade, but the freedom of running linux on a phone is nice. I have a pinephone running sxmo, probably the nerdiest and least friendly ux possible. I’ve been using it sparingly, but intend to make a full time switch pretty soon. Having a phone with less capability and a focus on privacy will I think help make my phone less of a mental zapping appendage and more like the useful tool I remember these things b…

>minus all of the notification hell.

I'm a huge believer in disabling any form of push notification. Nobody's software is entitled to my attention, I'll use it when I feel like it, not when it nags me for attention like a petulant toddler. I don't know how people tolerate their phones pinging, flashing, and buzzing all day like a pinball machine that's been very personally crafted to extract as much attention from your day as possible.

A little off topic, but since social media seems to be the main driver of this "phones as a personally crafted distraction" I'd love to see what a social network that's not actually deeply antisocial would look like. No push notifications, no filter bubbles, no politics, no "nudge" messaging from governments and other organisations aiming to subtly change people's behaviour, no creepy advertising pushed to a perverse degree. Just give me a place with a good chat client, a way of asynchronously keeping in touch with people in my life in that long range between "good friend" and "stranger" (seriously even the Facebook walls of 2008ish would do), and just enough non-obnoxious adverts to cover costs and make a reasonable profit. Oh yeah, and you should always be able to pay a small monthly fee to be rid of ads if you want to.

Re: Apple explicitly asks employees to merge their personal and work accounts

#320

Post by [deleted] »

bnj wrote: post #48
Johnny555 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No longer buying iPhones or Macs. I was planning on upgrading to the Mac Mini with M1 chip later this fall but now I plan on building a hackintosh instead. If you don't trust Apple, why build a Hackintosh and run Apple software?

Not the parent you're replying to but it sounded from the post like it's because they develop apps on apple platforms and need them for work.

[deleted]
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