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Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

reuters.com

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Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#441

Post by phkahler »

_bxg1 wrote: post #431
panarky wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No company cares about anything It's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Corporations are run by leaders. Many leaders choose to pursue unethical and immoral activities to maximize profit. They justify their actions by saying "it's just business", or "we have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to maximize earnings per share by what…

Thinking about long-term profits instead of short ones, and sacrificing profits for some greater moral purpose, are not at all the same thing. It's entirely possible to do immoral things for the sake of profit while still being prudent about your company's future. As for sacrificing profits to a moral end: private companies may do this occasionally. Not often, but sometimes. But the CEO of a publicly-traded company e…

>> But the CEO of a publicly-traded company expressly does not have the option of sacrificing profits for any higher purpose, unless that directive comes from his shareholders.

This is not true AFAICT. In practice it might be.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#442

Post by clairity »

Finnucane wrote: post #405
panarky wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No company cares about anything It's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Corporations are run by leaders. Many leaders choose to pursue unethical and immoral activities to maximize profit. They justify their actions by saying "it's just business", or "we have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to maximize earnings per share by what…

>t's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Not really, those leaders are pretty quick to hide behind the corporate veil when it's convenient for dodging questions of moral (or even legal) responsibility. The whole point of corporate legal structure is to create an entity that is _separate_ from the humans that occupy offices. That entity…

> "That entity is not a person."

the (current) supreme court doesn't agree, and their opinion carries a tad more weight. corporations are basically super-persons in the eyes of the court, since corporations intrinsically funnel the resources of its many consituents, unlike individuals.

instead, any entity exerting outsized power, like corporations, should be held to higher standards of duty and transparency. that's an inherent value embedded in the US constitution that is absolutely being trampled over by power-seekers (commercial, political, or otherwise).

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#443

Post by lern_too_spel »

tomc1985 wrote: post #300
natch wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has bought into that meme I will admit this feels like a pretty huge betrayal by Apple. So, yes, I think if Apple sticks with this, their whole privacy stance is going in the toilet now. And a very dirty toilet it is. Beyond just the facts of not protecting data, there is also the deception. This is some really very, very, nasty stuff for Apple's brand and the reputation of every person who works at Ap…

Yeah, but what are the reasonable alternatives? Android, with its freewheeling stance on privacy and app permissions? Do they even let you disable location tracking any more?

> Do they even let you disable location tracking any more?

You're confusing iOS with Android. On iOS, every time you get your location, that location is also sent to Apple, and there is no way to disable this. Android's collection of this data is gated by a checkbox that is shown to every user on device setup.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#444

Post by louis-paul »

luxuryballs wrote: post #373
louis-paul wrote: post #46

Easy fix: back up your iPhone locally on your computer instead of using iCloud: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977#computer The ambiguous position on true end-to-end encryption shows once again that Apple is in for the marketing (both to consumers—predatory and dangerous, and to engineering talent—dishonest). Same hypocrisy as on the China issue. Not that there is an easy solution when you are one of the bigges…

Makes me wonder why they only mention iCloud specifically, does that imply our local OS is already pwnd?

On the contrary, Apple has very decent device security. See their Platform Security guide: https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/app.... Some of their online services are end-to-end encrypted with very smart designs (see iCloud Keychain page 82, Find My page 103).

In contrast, iCloud Backup is pretty much an open door: https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/account.html

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#445

Post by xvector »

scarface74 wrote: post #417
president wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1: iCloud in China is operated by a mainland Chinese company and subject to that company's terms and conditions. So you can pretty much assume iCloud data is completely accessible by the government. Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

Apple uses third party data centers, if it can't host encrypted data on a Chinese server without China having access to the data, there is something wrong with the encryption.

It would be trivial for the Chinese gov't to sniff RAM or the bus and get everything they need anyways.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#446

Post by lern_too_spel »

scarface74 wrote: post #417
president wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1: iCloud in China is operated by a mainland Chinese company and subject to that company's terms and conditions. So you can pretty much assume iCloud data is completely accessible by the government. Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

Apple uses third party data centers, if it can't host encrypted data on a Chinese server without China having access to the data, there is something wrong with the encryption.

The keys exist on machines managed by the third party, which is controlled by the state. Therefore, the state has access to the data.

Edit: Apple itself has stated that the keys are in China. The option of having Apple devices talk through the Great Firewall to servers in the US that then encrypt the data for storage in China (and on the querying end, request encrypted data from China to decrypt and process in the US to serve back to devices through the Great Firewall) that Apple apologists wishfully theorize is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. https://www.reuters.com/article/china-apple-icloud/rpt-insig...

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#447

Post by xvector »

miles wrote: post #62
parasubvert wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone/iPad backups stored locally on iTunes (or Finder, in Catalina) are end-to-end encrypted. iCloud backups always were encrypted based on a key derived from your iCloud account credentials, since the beginning...

> iPhone/iPad backups stored locally on iTunes (or Finder, in Catalina) are end-to-end encrypted. Optionally encrypted: https://support.apple.com/sl-si/HT205220

I suppose even if you don't check the box to encrypt, you're still protected by FileVault.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#448

Post by xvector »

mhb wrote: post #136
clarkmoody wrote: post #73

Beyond HN and tech circles, is there any detectable groundswell of demand for privacy? When you talk with friends & family about privacy, does anyone care? When average people care about privacy, the large players will respond. Until then, pressure from the state can be accommodated without irking customers, so Big Tech will play along.

Maybe they don't care about privacy because they're defining it as secrets that people have. Snowden's description of privacy is much more powerful: "And if we actually think about it, it doesn’t make sense. Because privacy isn’t about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect. That’s who you are. That's what you believe in. Privacy is the right to a self. Privacy is what gives you the ability to share…

Beautiful compilation. Thanks.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#449

Post by fc_barnes »

azinman2 wrote: post #307
RealStickman wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate

Everything that happens internally has to be approved by privacy, it’s always part of every discussion (meaning it’s like you’d hope for). There’s no shortage of projects killed or altered because privacy said no. It’s not just marketing.

But the marketing is nonetheless deceptive. Apple’s practices are much less stringent, and their cooperation with law enforcement much greater, than their marketing and even their privacy pages suggest.

This is a crappy place to turn around and tell your customers, “should’ve read the fine print!”

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained

#450

Post by overcast »

chrisseaton wrote: post #355
overcast wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so do real backups of your data. iCloud is loss recovery, and multi device convenience.

But a backup of your iCloud can be a real backup. What do you think is special about a phone backup compared to a backup of anything else?

So you're saying that people SHOULD care about backups now? Which is it?
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