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We accepted surveillance as default

vivianvoss.net

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Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#61

Post by frumplestlatz »

alt227 wrote: post #28
inventor7777 wrote: post #10

When Apple first released App Tracking Transparency, I immediately used it to block the trackers and I have not even thought about it since because it is so simple and useful. What a contrast to modern websites which require all sorts of weird clicking gymnastics to disable similar tracking.

Its amusing that Apple itself is one of the biggest ad companies that exists, fed entirely from their own users private data. Yet by simply pointing the finger away from themselves and helping their customers block other ad companies efforts, they seem to have gained complete trust of all their users and most dont even know how much Apple are making in ad revenue from their own data. https://appleinsider.com/articles…

The article you cite refutes your claim, explicitly bringing up the lack of access to user data.

I frankly don’t care if the App Store has advertisements. I would care if my data is (1) available to Apple to read by virtue of not being e2e encrypted, and (2) used to train models and target those advertisements.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#62

Post by microtonal »

inventor7777 wrote: post #10

When Apple first released App Tracking Transparency, I immediately used it to block the trackers and I have not even thought about it since because it is so simple and useful. What a contrast to modern websites which require all sorts of weird clicking gymnastics to disable similar tracking.

When Apple first released App Tracking Transparency, I immediately used it to block the trackers

There seems to be a common misconception that this blocks trackers, which is not the case. Use a DNS-based ad/tracker blocker and watch the logs and you'll see that many apps happily track you. As far as I understand, ATT blocks is cross-app/website tracking. If you deny, the app does not get access to the Identifier for Advertisers, meaning that tracking services cannot use a single identifier that is used across apps. While this initially had a large financial impact (see the article), trackers have probably developed other ways to correlate data from apps/websites now.

The real solution would be for Apple/Google to offer an option to completely disable in-app trackers and if an app would violate it, boot them from the App Store.

Of course, they would never do that because they make a lot of money from targeted advertising with their own ad networks, so either they would have to block themselves or get in hot water with regulators.

Put differently, Apple and Google are not your friend here.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#63

Post by cameronbrown »

inventor7777 wrote: post #42
StilesCrisis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Google couldn't disable third-party cookies even if they wanted to; it's seen as anti-competitive to other tracking networks and was blocked by the courts.

Really? Do you have a link? That sounds very interesting and very frustrating. Regardless, because of such things I'm guessing the only ways to disable such tracking in the foreseeable future will still be 3rd party non-affiliated DNS/extensions or browsers such as Brave and Safari (to some extent).

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/investigation-into-googles-priv...

Disclosure: I worked on Privacy Sandbox.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#64

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

advael wrote: post #60
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising doesn't require surveillance though.

No, but surveillance is profitable outside of advertising, and advertising provides a perfect cover for surveillance: It's hard to make things that can separate third-party content from surveillance from third-party content for advertising, or for UI JS libraries for that matter

I'm tired of the feigned helplessness. Well gee this is the only way things can be. Internet doesn't work without surveillance! Guess you don't want the internet! /s

Ads and surveillance are not inseparable. We don't need to accept surveillance as the price for a functional internet.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#65

Post by microtonal »

nozzlegear wrote: post #34
alt227 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its amusing that Apple itself is one of the biggest ad companies that exists, fed entirely from their own users private data. Yet by simply pointing the finger away from themselves and helping their customers block other ad companies efforts, they seem to have gained complete trust of all their users and most dont even know how much Apple are making in ad revenue from their own data. https://appleinsider.com/articles…

I trust Apple with my private data. I don't trust Google with it, and I don't trust Joe Blow's Sketchy Ass Apps & Ads Service with it. Simple as.

Why do you trust Apple with your private data? Unless you enable ADP, iCloud backups are only encrypted at rest and not end-to-end. So, Apple, law enforcement, etc. can just read your iMessage or WhatsApp messages if needed. Did you enable ADP? Well good luck convincing everyone you communicate with to enable it as well, or their backups will still have all your chats without E2E encryption.

WhatsApp pulls a similar trick on Android. It's E2E encrypted, but by default backups (done to Google Drive) are not. I think most users never enable encrypted backups.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a deal with law enforcement, where Apple and Meta can do and advertise E2E chats, but the defaults (which most users do not change) are such that law enforcement can still access them. But yeah, Apple and Google were part of PRISM too, so no big surprise I guess?

If you truly care about privacy, either completely disable iCloud backups or get a GrapheneOS phone. Also use Signal, because they exclude themselves from phone backups by default. So either chats are not backed up or they are backed up through Signal's own E2E backup service.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#66

Post by jonahx »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #58
jonahx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why wouldn't they? It's an additional income stream. If customers cared, the additional income from being someone who didn't surveil could outstrip the income stream from surveilling.

I agree with you, and if you frequent tech circles you'd be under impression that the masses prioritize lack of surveillance and privacy. In my experience with IRL acquaintances, although anecdotal, exactly 0% of people I have spoken to where it's come up in conversation care at all about privacy or surveillance in general with the old "nothing to hide" fallacy.

That's my experience as well. However, I suspect a lot of it is not really understanding the situation, and not wanting to be bothered learning about it. In other words, I think it's possible those preferences could be changed with the right kind cultural or legal shifts. Even in my lifetime, I look at how massively public attitudes have changed around smoking, wearing seatbelts, and recycling, to take 3 examples. Each of those seemed equally immovable at one time.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#67

Post by Lerc »

I once watched a news report about the then tail end of the Ceaușescu regime. One of the indicators of the level of oppression they described was that they had video cameras mounted on street lamps.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#68

Post by keybored »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #58
jonahx wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why wouldn't they? It's an additional income stream. If customers cared, the additional income from being someone who didn't surveil could outstrip the income stream from surveilling.

I agree with you, and if you frequent tech circles you'd be under impression that the masses prioritize lack of surveillance and privacy. In my experience with IRL acquaintances, although anecdotal, exactly 0% of people I have spoken to where it's come up in conversation care at all about privacy or surveillance in general with the old "nothing to hide" fallacy.

Technologists seem to lack professional integrity. This blasé blame-the-victim attitude is completely normalized but I don’t think it makes sense if you zoom out far enough.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46757509

There are many exceptions and initiatives like truly altruistic OSS projects which aim to empower users. But by and large what we have ended up with is a divide between the tech-empowered and in-the-knows (surveillance etc.) contrasted with people who just want to access their photos on their phone and their computer.

The everyman being enlightened to all the abstract BS in IT is untenable. But programmers aren’t stepping up to collectively protect all of us.

Re: We accepted surveillance as default

#69

Post by Footprint0521 »

microtonal wrote: post #65
nozzlegear wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust Apple with my private data. I don't trust Google with it, and I don't trust Joe Blow's Sketchy Ass Apps & Ads Service with it. Simple as.

Why do you trust Apple with your private data? Unless you enable ADP, iCloud backups are only encrypted at rest and not end-to-end. So, Apple, law enforcement, etc. can just read your iMessage or WhatsApp messages if needed. Did you enable ADP? Well good luck convincing everyone you communicate with to enable it as well, or their backups will still have all your chats without E2E encryption. WhatsApp pulls a similar…

Use signal and disable notification previews… Apple saves even cleared notification text previews on device, which the feds just used in a recent case…
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