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Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

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Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#391

Post by Cogito »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #389
Cogito wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are claiming the Google money is 'pure profit' while making phones is not. They are saying that you can't account for the Google money as pure profit, even though the costs aren't as obvious. In particular, their argument says, you have to make and sell the phones before Google will give you money to make their search engine the default. So the Google money is not pure profit, in the same way the phone sales are…

Apple’s profit is increasingly derived from non-hardware sales. That profit is dependent on them having sold hardware. If they sell no hardware they will generate no services revenue or profit. Scroll way back to the root of this conversation. Someone said that $20B is not nothing but is a small fraction of their revenue. I think this is a poor characterization because you need to consider the source of both gross an…

> I think this is a poor characterization because you need to consider the source of both gross and net revenue.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

From earlier upthread (forrestthewoods-0):

> Apple makes about 60 billion a year in the profit. The 10 billion they get from Google constitutes 16% of their annual profit. That’s significant!

This is the contentious part.

Some of the $10B from Google needs to be allocated against the cost centres that enable the sale, in order to account for it correctly. To put it another way, the marginal cost of this revenue is insignificant but the capital costs are significant.

It is worthwhile to consider marginal and capital costs separately, but it's not reasonable to ignore those upfront costs when making an argument - it comes across as "playing funny buggers with figures" (wyattpeak-1).

So I generally agree with your points, but also agree with people who say you need to factor in the non-marginal costs required to generate the Google revenue.

As a meta point, your comments on goal post moving (while potentially correct - I'm not making a comment on correctness here) don't add to your argument, your argument makes sense without them (and in my opinion would come across better if you left them out).

forrestthewoods-0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25432024

wyattpeak-1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25438323

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#392

Post by forrestthewoods »

Cogito wrote: post #391
forrestthewoods wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s profit is increasingly derived from non-hardware sales. That profit is dependent on them having sold hardware. If they sell no hardware they will generate no services revenue or profit. Scroll way back to the root of this conversation. Someone said that $20B is not nothing but is a small fraction of their revenue. I think this is a poor characterization because you need to consider the source of both gross an…

> I think this is a poor characterization because you need to consider the source of both gross and net revenue. I agree with this wholeheartedly. From earlier upthread ( forrestthewoods-0 ): > Apple makes about 60 billion a year in the profit. The 10 billion they get from Google constitutes 16% of their annual profit. That’s significant! This is the contentious part. Some of the $10B from Google needs to be allocate…

Good response and fair summary. Don’t think I have any other thoughts on this! I believe all views are fairly represented at this point.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#393

Post by fsflover »

user-the-name wrote: post #380
fsflover wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The threat model is the same as in GNU/Linux desktop I would say. It's probably less secure than Android (ignoring its proprietary bits), but is' improving.

Generally, Android is worse for privacy than iOS, and this is worse than Android. So if one follows your advice to use this instead of iOS, you give up a LOT of privacy protection. That does not seem like good advice to me.

Concerning privacy, it's the opposite. Android sells all your data, so there is just no privacy there at all. iOS sends at least some data to Apple, so it's better but far from perfect. GNU/Linux collects no data, so it's as good privacy as you can get.

It's different in terms of security, but for most people security of GNU/Linux is sufficient given it's all FLOSS.

See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#394

Post by user-the-name »

fsflover wrote: post #393
user-the-name wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, Android is worse for privacy than iOS, and this is worse than Android. So if one follows your advice to use this instead of iOS, you give up a LOT of privacy protection. That does not seem like good advice to me.

Concerning privacy, it's the opposite. Android sells all your data, so there is just no privacy there at all. iOS sends at least some data to Apple, so it's better but far from perfect. GNU/Linux collects no data, so it's as good privacy as you can get. It's different in terms of security, but for most people security of GNU/Linux is sufficient given it's all FLOSS. See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-…

By far the biggest exposure you have is NOT from your OS, it is from third-party apps running on it. That is the real risk, and that is the gigantic blind spot open source projects like this have.

They are just not addressing the real problem at all, and they are doing nothing whatsoever to protect you from the real risk.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#395

Post by swiley »

madeofpalk wrote: post #195
swiley wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO Pine64 is more privacy respecting than Apple. I don't have to send them an email address to install software and I don't have to send them my drivers license to be allowed to compile it.

> I don't have to send them my drivers license to be allowed to compile it You do not need to send Apple your drivers license to compile software for Apple hardware.

They had me send my license the last time I tried, I guess now you can do it for free for your own devices although you still need a mac and an online developer account.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#396

Post by fsflover »

user-the-name wrote: post #394
fsflover wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concerning privacy, it's the opposite. Android sells all your data, so there is just no privacy there at all. iOS sends at least some data to Apple, so it's better but far from perfect. GNU/Linux collects no data, so it's as good privacy as you can get. It's different in terms of security, but for most people security of GNU/Linux is sufficient given it's all FLOSS. See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-…

By far the biggest exposure you have is NOT from your OS, it is from third-party apps running on it. That is the real risk, and that is the gigantic blind spot open source projects like this have. They are just not addressing the real problem at all, and they are doing nothing whatsoever to protect you from the real risk.

What you say is true, but in PureOS you only have FLOSS apps in the app store, which hardly will spy on you. If you install spying apps, this is a different problem, not yet solved apart from virtualization.

Also, when the OS spies on you, it's definitely a problem.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#397

Post by user-the-name »

fsflover wrote: post #396
user-the-name wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By far the biggest exposure you have is NOT from your OS, it is from third-party apps running on it. That is the real risk, and that is the gigantic blind spot open source projects like this have. They are just not addressing the real problem at all, and they are doing nothing whatsoever to protect you from the real risk.

What you say is true, but in PureOS you only have FLOSS apps in the app store, which hardly will spy on you. If you install spying apps, this is a different problem, not yet solved apart from virtualization. Also, when the OS spies on you, it's definitely a problem .

Putting aside the fact that simply being open source does not ensure anyone actually audits the source (in fact, most open source is largely unaudited by anyone but the developers themselves), of course limiting yourself to using only a tiny amount of software can make you more safe. But that is not really a reasonable solution to anything. Going down that route, you might as well not use a phone or a computer at all, and be perfectly protected.

People WANT to use software, and the software they want to use will never be available as pure, audited FLOSS. Instead, we need to have ways to let user use software from less trusted sources while still working hard to protect them from it.

Apple does this. They put in tons of effort to give you a way to run untrusted software while retaining some amount of trust that it can't go too far in endangering you.

I find it massively frustrating that these FLOSS projects will not do the same. They will just not even try to protect you.

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#398

Post by fsflover »

user-the-name wrote: post #397
fsflover wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say is true, but in PureOS you only have FLOSS apps in the app store, which hardly will spy on you. If you install spying apps, this is a different problem, not yet solved apart from virtualization. Also, when the OS spies on you, it's definitely a problem .

Putting aside the fact that simply being open source does not ensure anyone actually audits the source (in fact, most open source is largely unaudited by anyone but the developers themselves), of course limiting yourself to using only a tiny amount of software can make you more safe. But that is not really a reasonable solution to anything. Going down that route, you might as well not use a phone or a computer at all…

> Putting aside the fact that simply being open source does not ensure anyone actually audits the source

There is no guarantee, but try to find Android-style malware in F-Droid or in GNU/Linux repositories.

> of course limiting yourself to using only a tiny amount of software can make you more safe. But that is not really a reasonable solution to anything.

This is not the goal here. The goal is switch to FLOSS wherever possible and expand FLOSS alternatives. It starts from a small number of apps, but currently F-Droid has most of what you need already. So I don't see this a a problem, except for very specific needs (or if you are into Facebook and co).

> I find it massively frustrating that these FLOSS projects will not do the same. They will just not even try to protect you.

First of all, anbox is already a thing, and it can definitely sandbox your apps. Second, GNU/Linux phones are just at the beginning and they are already far ahead of the first Apple or Android phones. Expect a revolution there...

Re: Apple’s Anti-Tracking Plans for iPhone

#400

Post by user-the-name »

fsflover wrote: post #398
user-the-name wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside the fact that simply being open source does not ensure anyone actually audits the source (in fact, most open source is largely unaudited by anyone but the developers themselves), of course limiting yourself to using only a tiny amount of software can make you more safe. But that is not really a reasonable solution to anything. Going down that route, you might as well not use a phone or a computer at all…

> Putting aside the fact that simply being open source does not ensure anyone actually audits the source There is no guarantee, but try to find Android-style malware in F-Droid or in GNU/Linux repositories. > of course limiting yourself to using only a tiny amount of software can make you more safe. But that is not really a reasonable solution to anything. This is not the goal here. The goal is switch to FLOSS wherev…

> There is no guarantee, but try to find Android-style malware in F-Droid or in GNU/Linux repositories.

The by far biggest reason you won't find it is nobody uses it, so there is no incentive to try. These operations require large audiences to be worth trying.

> Expect a revolution there...

I don't. Because, once again, nobody is even acknowledging what the real problem is. People are patting themselves on the back for doing things that do not really matter, while leaving the barn door wide open for attacks that only do not happen because they are not worth it. I'm not seeing any sign of this changing.

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