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Privacy: Is That iPhone?

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Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#51

Post by lonelappde »

blkhp19 wrote: post #43
kpU8efre7r wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save a photo someone sends her, my girlfriend's mother takes a screenshot. A lot of her printed photos have battery or other information on them.

It blows my mind, and makes me nervous about my own future, that old people do this kind of thing. Are they actually incapable of learning the right way to do things? Is neuroplasticity playing a role here? Do they not care that their images look terrible when zoomed in on? I guess they grew up in an era when photos frequently had time and date stamps, and if their eyesight is going... I guess that explains both poin…

If you are going to become an app developer, you shot stop blaming users for not learning your made up UI language, and start making your app work in their language.

I thought some apps and iOS had already responded to this workflow by doing smart things when users try to create screenshots. If they haven't yet, they should. There's no need in the common case for "screenshot" and "share main image" to have different UI entry points. Just pop up a menu asking the user that they want when they push the button.

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#52

Post by lonelappde »

ogre_codes wrote: post #35
retpirato wrote: post #9

The problem is that Apple has always claimed ios provides more privacy (& security) than android, but that's irrelevant if you don't make sure your users are capable of finding the settings. Apple has always marketed to people who are (at least perceived to be) largely tech illiterate (while claiming you have to be extremely tech savvy to use android which is a lie), so if they view their users that way they should m…

Android phones pump tons of location info and usage info direct to one of the biggest advertising companies in the world. On top of that, a fair number of Android phones ship with third party spyware and outright malware which cannot be uninstalled. The iPhone is a lot better for privacy by default. It's just not as good as it should be, and I do agree it's not as good as their claims suggest.

Question is, does it matter if my barn comes with a door that only closes half way, and your barn comes with a door that closes most of the way?

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#53

Post by api »

mojuba wrote: post #48
varenc wrote: post #40

Mozilla suggests resetting the IDFA once per month...but that seems pretty trivial to workaround? If an app you used previously starts up and sees that your IDFA changed, it's easy for that app to know that the old IDFA and the new IDFA refer to the same user! This tracking is all possible because iOS gives every app on the device the same IDFA (advertising identifier [1]). They can then correlate all your activity a…

Unfortunately the majority of more or less useful or popular apps are also linked against various analytics/attribution platforms, often many of them at once. Mixpanel, Amplitude, AppsFlyer, Branch to name a few, plus Facebook and/or Google. In fact having any of the Google's or Facebook's SDKs means tracking, e.g. Maps, Login etc. Somehow these platforms have no problem with identifying users across their client app…

Mobile is all about surveillance as near as I can see. The whole purpose of it is to track users.

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#54

Post by lonelappde »

Apple is all about heavy handed locking down the experience for the user's benefit as judged by Apple. Why do they even allow apps that exfiltrate data and serve ads? Just require all ads go through Apple's system, and ban apps that do anything remotely shady.

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#55

Post by eddieh »

gorgoiler wrote: post #5

Finding the settings mentioned in the article is the sole dark pattern I can think of in iOS — when you find them it’s like finding a secret level in Super Mario Land. They are under Settings...Privacy...Advertising https://imgur.com/a/EOvUzCS The Advertising and Analytics options are only visible below the fold, if one scrolls down the privacy page. The fold itself is disguised as the bottom of the page to put you o…

If you swipe down, type "advertising", the very first Settings link takes you to "Reset Advertising Identifier...". It is the same for swiping down from the home screen or in the Settings app. I don't think I'd call that a dark pattern.

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#56

Post by taneq »

saagarjha wrote: post #11
gorgoiler wrote: post #5

Finding the settings mentioned in the article is the sole dark pattern I can think of in iOS — when you find them it’s like finding a secret level in Super Mario Land. They are under Settings...Privacy...Advertising https://imgur.com/a/EOvUzCS The Advertising and Analytics options are only visible below the fold, if one scrolls down the privacy page. The fold itself is disguised as the bottom of the page to put you o…

Did you… print out a screenshot of your phone?!

Ha! Now we know the brand of his printer and the retail outlet where he bought it!

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#57

Post by gruez »

gorgoiler wrote: post #19
saagarjha wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you… print out a screenshot of your phone?!

I applied filters and took a screenshot of the screenshot to reduce image fidelity in case it contained any [covertly embedded]* identifying information [in the form of watermarks or hidden pixels] . *added for clarity.

I'm sorry, but that's some tin foil hat level paranoia with no basis in reality. What's your threat model here? That Apple wants to deanonymize HN posters by tying them to their screenshots? Considering that they own the operating system, they could skip all the complicated and detectable stenography-in-screenshots and smuggle your mobilesafari (or webkit, which all apps are forced to use) browsing history and cookies along with the analytics data they regularly upload (which is way harder to detect). Failing that, they could also use their iOS backdoor and check every screeenshot that was taken a few hours before this post, and see which one matches. I don't imagine there are too many people taking screenshots of their privacy settings on a daily basis. Correlate that with paranoia tendencies (shouldn't be too hard to determine consider they own the operating system), and they trace it back to you with a high degree of certainty.

Something that actually protects your privacy (and doesn't make you stick out like a sore thumb) is getting the screenshot from an image search and posting from a regularly rotated HN account, all the while using tor.

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#58

Post by taneq »

blkhp19 wrote: post #43
kpU8efre7r wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save a photo someone sends her, my girlfriend's mother takes a screenshot. A lot of her printed photos have battery or other information on them.

It blows my mind, and makes me nervous about my own future, that old people do this kind of thing. Are they actually incapable of learning the right way to do things? Is neuroplasticity playing a role here? Do they not care that their images look terrible when zoomed in on? I guess they grew up in an era when photos frequently had time and date stamps, and if their eyesight is going... I guess that explains both poin…

"Old people"? Half the reposted Twitter memes on imgur have a cellphone title bar in them.

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#59

Post by taneq »

lonelappde wrote: post #51
blkhp19 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind, and makes me nervous about my own future, that old people do this kind of thing. Are they actually incapable of learning the right way to do things? Is neuroplasticity playing a role here? Do they not care that their images look terrible when zoomed in on? I guess they grew up in an era when photos frequently had time and date stamps, and if their eyesight is going... I guess that explains both poin…

If you are going to become an app developer, you shot stop blaming users for not learning your made up UI language, and start making your app work in their language. I thought some apps and iOS had already responded to this workflow by doing smart things when users try to create screenshots. If they haven't yet, they should. There's no need in the common case for "screenshot" and "share main image" to have different…

What do you mean, three-finger-anticlockwise-spiral-while-shaking-the-phone-horizontally isn't intuitive?

Re: Privacy: Is That iPhone?

#60

Post by COGlory »

godelski wrote: post #46

> Phone users can currently disable the IDFA, but have to do so manually; Android users aren’t even given this option This actually false. You can change your Ad ID on Android. I just looked (and checked)If you go to Settings > Privacy > Ads you can see this IDFA. At the top (it looks like a header and not an option, so I will not fully fault Mozilla because this is a dark pattern) it says "Reset advertising ID". If…

My Android 8 Pixel 2 XL has no privacy option in the settings. Upgrading would unfortunately come at the cost of losing root and AdAway (for the moment). I wonder which is more beneficial to have.
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