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Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

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Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#41

Post by 867-5309 »

krageon wrote: post #15
danpalmer wrote: post #9

Props to Apple for the design of this service. It doesn't hit all the privacy targets that long-time personal VPN users might be looking for, and it doesn't get into the game of trying to circumvent region locked content*, but otherwise it's likely to be a solid privacy improvement for almost all users in a careful and deliberate way. I use a VPN for other reasons (downloading Ubuntu ISOs mostly) but I'll probably tu…

> but UK residents do typically pay for the content whereas those outside the UK are unable to. In essence, what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid for, but nobody else can have it anyway". It's unreasonable and there is no need to make excuses for this behaviour.

totally agree. I had no end of shit trying to watch BBC News channel from abroad. I'm a UK national, I own a house in the UK, I pay UK taxes, I pay your stupid TV licence fee, you're broadcasting live over 3 separate CDNs, just let me watch the fucking news. I eventually subscribed to an illegal IPTV service for that one sodding channel. I don't even need the other 17,000 channels. the BBC drove me to it

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#42

Post by gjsman-1000 »

bitcurious wrote: post #38

Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it a two-hop onion network is still trivially breakable with (two) warrants, especially since both Apple and Cloudflare/etc., are US companies. Which would make it a VPN in the duck-type sense.

It depends, whether they do no logs. There are many VPN providers in the US which don’t have logs, so that if they are subpoenaed, they have nothing to give.

The beauty of Apple’s double hop is that if one partner was hacked, secretly wiretapped, or had lied about not keeping logs, your connection would still be private.

But, that assumes that nobody on this network is keeping logs. If they are, then it could be theoretically possible to piece them together. However considering Apple’s marketing with privacy, it would be interesting to see whether they keep logs on each endpoint or not.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#43

Post by judge2020 »

neximo64 wrote: post #35

It just re routes traffic to your nearest Fastly pop and mixes traffic up with everyone else nearby.

It specifically goes through an Apple proxy first and fastly (or other partners like Akamai and Cloudflare) don't see the incoming IP address.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#44

Post by NicoJuicy »

danpalmer wrote: post #9

Props to Apple for the design of this service. It doesn't hit all the privacy targets that long-time personal VPN users might be looking for, and it doesn't get into the game of trying to circumvent region locked content*, but otherwise it's likely to be a solid privacy improvement for almost all users in a careful and deliberate way. I use a VPN for other reasons (downloading Ubuntu ISOs mostly) but I'll probably tu…

> Props to Apple for the design of this service.

I was under the assumption that it was mostly Cloudflare Warp repackaged with a different name?

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#45

Post by headmelted »

I've been trying to point this out to people but YouTube personalities have a louder voice than anyone else so you end up with bad information.

Props to Apple for offering an (albeit low entropy) onion router on their own infrastructure. I can't imagine this is going to win them any friends in government circles but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

I'd also really like to see Apple come clean about the iCloud backup encryption debacle. A lot of people are trusting it to be something it's not and it should really be clarified on-device what it is and is not before opting in.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#46

Post by floatingatoll »

defaultname wrote: post #2

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10096/ A pretty decent overview of the scope of the product. As mentioned in the video, the service also is involved if your app does HTTP over port 80, offering at least some marginal level of improvement. Otherwise it leaves your app traffic as is. As to Mail, the linked comment mentions that but I don't remember it being a part of the solution (nor does it seem feas…

https://developer.apple.com/wwdc21/10085

Privacy Relay is also discussed in the privacy pillars video for a few minutes, starting at 24m30s.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#47

Post by bhaavan »

My guess is one of the major reasons for having the exit nodes in the same geo location as entry nodes is to have continuous operations in China. Without this constraint, they would have allowed chinese consumers to access the free web, which would ban them instantaneously.

I don't think Apple cares as much about video content providers, though.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#48

Post by defaultname »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #44
danpalmer wrote: post #9

Props to Apple for the design of this service. It doesn't hit all the privacy targets that long-time personal VPN users might be looking for, and it doesn't get into the game of trying to circumvent region locked content*, but otherwise it's likely to be a solid privacy improvement for almost all users in a careful and deliberate way. I use a VPN for other reasons (downloading Ubuntu ISOs mostly) but I'll probably tu…

> Props to Apple for the design of this service. I was under the assumption that it was mostly Cloudflare Warp repackaged with a different name?

That would be an incorrect assumption. It's an onion that goes to Apple first and then to a variety of external vendors -- Fastly, Cloudflare, Akamai, and likely others.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#49

Post by hnlmorg »

subpixel wrote: post #37
mtsr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally down to the terms for content that networks (BBC in this case) buy licenses to. The IP owners don't want the networks to allow the whole world access to that content for the price that the network is willing to pay to show it to their region.

But also, and mostly, in reverse. The BBC is the producer and license owner of a ton of programming, and rather than offer that to the world for a subscription fee, they choose to offer it to select partners (previously mainly PBS, now Netflix and Amazon) for a licensing fee, or sometimes in a coproduction arrangement. This is big money, up-front, with no need to build out a global delivery system or deal with millio…

The BBC aren't allowed to. There are very strict terms in which the BBC can operate. So what they have to do is sell to subsidiaries like BBC America. And there in lies the licensing issues described in the GPs post.

This is one of those classic examples of something that looks really simple from an outsiders perspective but once you have to deal with the details you realise it's anything but simple. And through no fault of the BBC either, I might add. Various commercial stations and news outlets have campaigned relentlessly to shut the Beeb down. It's a miracle the service is still operating, even if their hands are tightly tied.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#50

Post by gjsman-1000 »

bhaavan wrote: post #47

My guess is one of the major reasons for having the exit nodes in the same geo location as entry nodes is to have continuous operations in China. Without this constraint, they would have allowed chinese consumers to access the free web, which would ban them instantaneously. I don't think Apple cares as much about video content providers, though.

That’s not the reason. In China, Myanmar, Egypt, and several other countries this service will not be available at all. Those customers will just have regular old iCloud.

A more likely reason is that video streaming services with georestrictions like Netflix, Amazon, or BBC would have lost their minds.

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