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If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

theguardian.com

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Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#51

Post by soraminazuki »

xvector wrote: post #20
unreal37 wrote: post #6

Apple is in it for themselves too. Stop falling for this.

Obviously. But just because Apple is in it for themselves doesn’t mean that their customers can’t also benefit. Clearly, it’s mutually beneficial - customers get privacy-focused devices, and Apple gets money from people that care about privacy. All that said, the level of privacy Apple offers in any of its devices is superficial at best. There are way more problems Apple needs to solve before any of its devices can b…

> Your IP still gives away your location, apps can remember if they were installed on your phone, you can’t turn off network or sensors for individual apps, etc.

I agree with your last point, but the first two is asking for the impossible. You'd need multiple technological breakthroughs for that to happen.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#52

Post by wyqydsyq »

landryraccoon wrote: post #25

I see a bunch of comments talking about how Apple is being self serving and not at all altruistic when they defend our privacy. And my response is - well duh. And this is supposed to be a problem how? Apple wants my money and nothing else. They aren't motivated to protect my privacy out of the goodness of their hearts. I am happy to pay money for more privacy. The fact that they only do this because they want my mone…

> The interesting question to me is, why is it that they are literally the ONLY large tech company that is willing to offer me this tradeoff?

Maybe other corporations consider it unethical to charge their customers a premium for a false sense of privacy and security?

> Samsung, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft don't sell privacy

And neither does Apple, they just sell you on the promise of privacy. The reality is quite far removed from the perception most customers are given by their marketing and PR campaigns.

Apple might be a bit more stringent on enforcement of data sharing with third parties compared to other large tech corps, but that doesn't magically mean your privacy is invulnerable through their devices and services.

There have been multiple cases of them being caught out being hypocritical in regards to privacy, there have been multiple data breaches of Apple services and platforms to varying degrees of severity. Since the recent Epic lawsuit, it's also been revealed that Apple decided to not notify some 150 million of their customers who were victims of a data breach.

Anyone who actually thinks Apple cares even remotely about their privacy is living in a fantasy land. Unless you think being not alerted of your personal data getting exposed in a data breach of their systems is somehow not in your privacy's best interests.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#53

Post by bryanrasmussen »

landryraccoon wrote: post #25

I see a bunch of comments talking about how Apple is being self serving and not at all altruistic when they defend our privacy. And my response is - well duh. And this is supposed to be a problem how? Apple wants my money and nothing else. They aren't motivated to protect my privacy out of the goodness of their hearts. I am happy to pay money for more privacy. The fact that they only do this because they want my mone…

>I'm willing to pay a premium of probably hundreds of dollars on a phone because I want privacy, and nobody else will even consider selling me one?

how much of a premium are most of the target market willing to pay however.

Google, Facebook, and Amazon don't sell privacy because privacy goes directly against what their business strategy is.

Samsung has based their stuff on Android an OS that, heavily influenced by Google, I suspect might be difficult to make as private as Apple can make its stuff. I suspect Samsung does not care about privacy because it has determined it will not make much money from it, and that most of the market that cares about privacy will go to Apple.

I don't know why Microsoft doesn't care as I think it would totally align with their business goals.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#54

Post by nemothekid »

actuator wrote: post #41

This is not true. As I have submitted on HN earlier, Apple is using the purchases data to customise ads. https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208477 You can make a case that the ad targeting is just on App Store, News and Stocks but that is just for now, Apple used to have an ad platform iAd which wasn't that successful, so it was discontinued. Once they milk other revenue streams and are more of a monopolistic power in…

I can't seem to open the Tweet you provided, nor could I find the relevant tweet on the timeline. Can you fix your post?

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#55

Post by threatofrain »

landryraccoon wrote: post #25

I see a bunch of comments talking about how Apple is being self serving and not at all altruistic when they defend our privacy. And my response is - well duh. And this is supposed to be a problem how? Apple wants my money and nothing else. They aren't motivated to protect my privacy out of the goodness of their hearts. I am happy to pay money for more privacy. The fact that they only do this because they want my mone…

The willingness to pay big for privacy is a signal that you are an interesting person to track.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#56

Post by Gaelan »

actuator wrote: post #41

This is not true. As I have submitted on HN earlier, Apple is using the purchases data to customise ads. https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208477 You can make a case that the ad targeting is just on App Store, News and Stocks but that is just for now, Apple used to have an ad platform iAd which wasn't that successful, so it was discontinued. Once they milk other revenue streams and are more of a monopolistic power in…

That tweet's been deleted, so it's hard to judge it exactly, but my recollection is that someone else pointed out "payment data" here is just App Store, iTunes, etc purchases. "Apple targets ads on the app store based on previous app store purchases" is, IMO, much less of a privacy invasion than "Facebook targets ads based on your friends list, messages, browsing history, real-life purchases, and other things I can't think of off the top of my head".

Apple's profile of me, I imagine, is much less detailed than Facebook's, despite Apple's capability to build just as much of one (after all, they own iMessage and my iCloud contacts) if they wanted to.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#57

Post by dheera »

theshrike79 wrote: post #38
dheera wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most apps now use certificate pinning, i.e. they have the root certificate included in the app and signed as part of the app, so that method won't work. On Android it's much easier to intercept and modify the behavior of apps and tell the system to disregard signatures and things of the sort.

> On Android it's much easier to intercept and modify the behavior of apps and tell the system to disregard signatures and things of the sort. This really doesn't increase my confidence in Android as an OS. I'd rather prefer it to be really hard to intercept and modify the behavior of apps and to make the system disregard signatures.

When I say it's easier, that doesn't mean any app can do it in user space, it's only easier because the OS itself is open source, you can modify it to your liking, and there is a decent community around alternate (also open source) images such as LineageOS which can give you very good control over what user space apps can and cannot do.

If you use an open source version of Android you can prevent even Google from tracking you. With iOS no matter how hard you try you can't really stop Apple from getting your info.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#58

Post by slver »

t-writescode wrote: post #47
slver wrote: post #27

While some worry that Apple's the only organization defending privacy, others are attacking it for trying to control its ecosystem (in part so it can defend their users' privacy). That's the world right now.

For what it's worth, I'm one of the people that's doing both. I want the store monopolies to be greatly reduced for my benefit as the consumer - and yes, I will continue to acquire and purchase things through the app store, in general, because I trust their system a lot; BUT, I also applaud them and primarily purchase their hardware because I appreciate their privacy. It's possible to have nuance in these positions.

The mistake that many people do is requesting a systematic change, and then ignoring the systematic effects of it.

Maybe in theory "more stores" sounds like "more good" to you as a consumer.

But the large mass of consumers are not in a position to judge things like safety, performance, reliability, sustainability. They're only in position to judge things like "$3 is less than $4".

So the systematic effect of multiple stores will be that everyone will flock to the cheapest stores, which won't have the means or motivation to do what Apple does. Many of those stores will also be offering pirated applications.

So this will destroy many developers who will lose a lot more than 15% or 30% of their potential revenue to piracy, and it will also end up destroying Apple's own store.

This is what "be careful what you wish for" means. Eating fast food every day is cheaper and tastes better than whole foods, for you as a consumer. By the time your body is destroyed, it'll be too late to have some important realizations.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#59

Post by actuator »

nemothekid wrote: post #54
actuator wrote: post #41

This is not true. As I have submitted on HN earlier, Apple is using the purchases data to customise ads. https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT208477 You can make a case that the ad targeting is just on App Store, News and Stocks but that is just for now, Apple used to have an ad platform iAd which wasn't that successful, so it was discontinued. Once they milk other revenue streams and are more of a monopolistic power in…

I can't seem to open the Tweet you provided, nor could I find the relevant tweet on the timeline. Can you fix your post?

Thanks for the heads up, just added Apple's support page link.

Re: If Apple is the only organisation defending our privacy, it is time to worry

#60

Post by dheera »

theshrike79 wrote: post #28
gordon_freeman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only other company I could think of that is playing in this privacy game is: Signal. And well they are a nonprofit and they prove that privacy is not only made affordable for the rich and affluent and anyone can have private communication whether they donate to Signal or not.

And Signal still leaks phone numbers to people, that's why I refuse use it for group chats. For encrypted 1-1 with people I already know it's fine though.

Get a Twilio number and use it for pretty much everything.

Twilio is awesome, I even have my Twilio workflow configured to receive "2FA" calls and hit the # key without my intervention, and I have it set up mess with unknown callers by putting them on hold indefinitely with music.

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