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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

#71

Post by imposterr »

spoonjim wrote: post #44
Synaesthesia wrote: post #17

There's still a huge elephant in the room. How are we supposed to trust Apple, Microsoft or any other tech company when it emerged that they fully cooperated with the NSA and their PRISM program. We have to just assume that's still running. Businesses could keep a lot of secrets from us and they're not transparent or accountable to the public.

It’s basically impossible for an American company to defy the American government. They can try in court but ultimately the government has F-22s and nuclear weapons and Apple does not.

Thanks, now I'm imagining a dystopia where large tech companies have their own militaries.

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

#72

Post by trapped »

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.

Care to share evidence before making such allegations.

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

#73

Post by tboughen »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #62

A lot of folks are aligning Apple's motive to somehow gain advantage in ads business as if they'd able to compete with Google, Amazon or Facebook someday in ads biz. I don't think that is their real motive. I believe Apple's real motive with all these privacy centric features such as ATT, Sign in with Apple, Apple card data not being tracked for targeting etc. is to create a privacy centric moat and platform/ecosyste…

I think you’re right about the privacy moat. But I think it flows from a focus on improved user experience. Ads are terrible for user experience because they slow your browsing, block content from your app, take up space in your start menu and are a malware vector.

Once ads are off the table, what else can Apple do?

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

#74

Post by pertymcpert »

wyqydsyq wrote: post #52
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 i…

If you accept that corporations are not driven by ethics, then that doesn’t make sense.

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

#75

Post by quanto »

If Apple offers real privacy now, that's good for them and the consumers who are willing to pay premium for privacy. Two questions:

1. Is there a way to verify that Apple is not using or selling the user's data?

2. What is preventing Apple, after gathering all the users data, from changing its EULA/ToS and starting to sell the user data? Is an average user going to export all the data from Apple and jump to another platform (if there is one offering better privacy)?

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

#76

Post by delhanty »

Apple also has a question mark attached to its commitment to privacy in China.

Even though the Twitter thread below is by a NYT reporter, it sounds directionally credible given how embedded Apple is in China, both from a manufacturing point of view and also as a growing market.

2021-MAY-18

"NEW: Apple is jeopardizing its Chinese users’ data and augmenting the Chinese government’s censorship to placate authorities and keep its business running. Here is our multiyear investigation into Apple's Faustian bargain in China: ..."

https://twitter.com/jacknicas/status/1394378309325230080

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

#77

Post by harlanji »

Scrub forward until you see a yellow note pad.

https://m.twitch.tv/videos/1032025987

The source to complete it is on my GitHub. My IG of same handle has progress pics, recently marketing and sales.

I’m sure there are many more similar projects out there, unsure if like I they are angling for physical communities and local taxes.

TDC and iSL have initial docs, and the CarPuter machine is like $750 of parts.

I have many app designs up the stack. Captured as video or drawings or in slices as prototypes.

City Apper. IG, .com... still turning the lights on.

I picture each community having one, like a community center. B corp.

If others run with the idea then great.

I have some unique work constraints on the .com mockup modeled after a successful real life organization and my own experience bootstrapping and being close to it.

I’m my own customer for a few years, now homeless it runs at 4-9W even Twitch streaming screen cap, web cam, and using headset audio.

Ie. we can DIY and reasonably commercialize 1-off hardware. My favorite tacos seem more expensive than chain tacos, but are way more nutrient rich thus worth the cost.

Decentralized. In line with Internet OG. RSS friendly, merchant integration, XMPP, EmailInABox, iCal, LUKS, GPS, USB 3, LTE modem, CDN caching, ....

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

#78

Post by trapped »

theshrike79 wrote: post #67
trapped wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than Zynga, right? Corporation which has leaked kids data. Clones games, manipulates kids and adults in spending thousands of $$$ on virtual things, screwed employees from stock compensation. It's easy to criticize, right? Signal and Apple are at-least doing better than Zynga.

Are you OK? Everything good at home?

All good at home, thanks for asking.

Just pointing out that it's easy to point fingers and criticize. If you really believe in values or a cause then work for it. Right? Both Apple and Signal whom you are criticizing are doing much better for humanity than Zynga.

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

#79

Post by emptysongglass »

slver wrote: post #58
t-writescode wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Except that we already know what that landscape looks like on Android and... it's fine. Everyone still uses the Play Store.

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

#80

Post by slver »

dheera wrote: post #66
slver wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, how about that: everyone who wants to manually inspect the bytes coming out of their phone 24/7 can use Android, while everyone else can use iOS. (also, iOS supports proxies)

MITM proxies don't work when apps use certificate pinning. Many popular apps do this. > everyone who wants to manually inspect the bytes coming out of their phone == everyone who actually gives a damn about their privacy Do you even know what your phone apps are sending about you? I know what my apps are sending about me. Some of it is pretty scary, honestly.

So you like an OS that sends fake sensor data to apps, but you trust it to send real network data to you? What if it doesn't? What if the hardware sends fake network data to the OS? You clearly don't give a damn about your privacy, because everything you do can be subverted through any of those components.

People who give a damn about their privacy write their own OS, apps and install it on their custom built hardware that was built into their own semiconductor factories, using personally sourced materials and designs.

Yes, I can also play this game.

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