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Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

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Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#71

Post by ______- »

headmelted wrote: post #45

I've been trying to point this out to people but YouTube personalities have a louder voice than anyone else so you end up with bad information. Props to Apple for offering an (albeit low entropy) onion router on their own infrastructure. I can't imagine this is going to win them any friends in government circles but it's definitely a step in the right direction. I'd also really like to see Apple come clean about the…

> I'd also really like to see Apple come clean about the iCloud backup encryption debacle

Are you referring to this article?:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

It's why I only use my Apple ID for grabbing apps from the app store. I have disabled all the `cloud storage` features of iCloud. iCloud is a privacy nightmare.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#72

Post by yegor »

marceldegraaf wrote: post #33
Brajeshwar wrote: post #28

Does this compare to NextDNS[1]. I moved from Pi Hole[2] to NextDNS and I'm happy with it. 1. https://nextdns.io 2. https://pi-hole.net

No. NextDNS and Pi-Hole serve DNS requests and are mainly used for ad blocking and content restrictions on your network. They don't tunnel or redirect your actual internet traffic the way a VPN does.

Shameless self-plug: NextDNS does not, but ControlD does do that - https://controld.com

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#73

Post by criddell »

krageon wrote: post #15
danpalmer wrote: post #9

Props to Apple for the design of this service. It doesn't hit all the privacy targets that long-time personal VPN users might be looking for, and it doesn't get into the game of trying to circumvent region locked content*, but otherwise it's likely to be a solid privacy improvement for almost all users in a careful and deliberate way. I use a VPN for other reasons (downloading Ubuntu ISOs mostly) but I'll probably tu…

> but UK residents do typically pay for the content whereas those outside the UK are unable to. In essence, what you're saying boils down to "it's already paid for, but nobody else can have it anyway". It's unreasonable and there is no need to make excuses for this behaviour.

It really hasn't already been paid for. For example, say you are a composer who wrote some music for a BBC series. You get paid more for something in wide release than for something released only in the UK.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#74

Post by tyingq »

I'm curious how they are securing the feature that keeps you in the same region. Since that feature encourages content providers to not block, it would be a desirable target to work around.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#75

Post by gjsman-1000 »

______- wrote: post #71
headmelted wrote: post #45

I've been trying to point this out to people but YouTube personalities have a louder voice than anyone else so you end up with bad information. Props to Apple for offering an (albeit low entropy) onion router on their own infrastructure. I can't imagine this is going to win them any friends in government circles but it's definitely a step in the right direction. I'd also really like to see Apple come clean about the…

> I'd also really like to see Apple come clean about the iCloud backup encryption debacle Are you referring to this article?: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... It's why I only use my Apple ID for grabbing apps from the app store. I have disabled all the `cloud storage` features of iCloud. iCloud is a privacy nightmare.

By that logic though, Google Drive, OneDrive, AmazonS3, they are all privacy nightmares. And you might agree, but Apple is hardly alone.

And like the article says, they didn’t want to poke the bear anymore. Of course the FBI has congressional friends. It is possible that Apple saw the risk of it backfiring and making things worse as too great.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#76

Post by 867-5309 »

mavhc wrote: post #63
867-5309 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

totally agree. I had no end of shit trying to watch BBC News channel from abroad. I'm a UK national, I own a house in the UK, I pay UK taxes, I pay your stupid TV licence fee, you're broadcasting live over 3 separate CDNs, just let me watch the fucking news. I eventually subscribed to an illegal IPTV service for that one sodding channel. I don't even need the other 17,000 channels. the BBC drove me to it

Not running a vpn from your house?

the tenants wouldn't approve (they pay for elec and internet). plus I'm away for twelve months so no chance of onsite troubleshooting, physical reboots after power outages, etc.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#77

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

nojito wrote: post #69
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, whether they do no logs. There are many VPN providers in the US which don’t have logs, so that if they are subpoenaed, they have nothing to give. The beauty of Apple’s double hop is that if one partner was hacked, secretly wiretapped, or had lied about not keeping logs, your connection would still be private. But, that assumes that nobody on this network is keeping logs. If they are, then it could be theo…

What would the logs contain? I believe everything is encrypted on device before being sent to Apple.

Timestamp, source and destination ip addresses, username. In the case of the exit node, url.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#78

Post by varispeed »

headmelted wrote: post #45

I've been trying to point this out to people but YouTube personalities have a louder voice than anyone else so you end up with bad information. Props to Apple for offering an (albeit low entropy) onion router on their own infrastructure. I can't imagine this is going to win them any friends in government circles but it's definitely a step in the right direction. I'd also really like to see Apple come clean about the…

> I can't imagine this is going to win them any friends in government circles but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Quite the opposite. Governments probably already have taps to decrypted traffic.

Otherwise how come that would even be legal to run?

If someone commits a crime and government cannot find evidence, because Apple gives shielding, then isn't that making them hypothetically an accomplice?

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#79

Post by lxgr »

bhaavan wrote: post #47

My guess is one of the major reasons for having the exit nodes in the same geo location as entry nodes is to have continuous operations in China. Without this constraint, they would have allowed chinese consumers to access the free web, which would ban them instantaneously. I don't think Apple cares as much about video content providers, though.

> I don't think Apple cares as much about video content providers, though.

Not being able to watch Netflix, Amazon Video etc. in Safari seems like something Apple would in fact care about.

Re: Apple's iCloud+ “VPN”

#80

Post by decrypt »

KMnO4 wrote: post #56
Brajeshwar wrote: post #28

Does this compare to NextDNS[1]. I moved from Pi Hole[2] to NextDNS and I'm happy with it. 1. https://nextdns.io 2. https://pi-hole.net

Just curious, are you on the free tier? Just wondering if 300k queries per month is sufficient for the average person. I have no reference to base that number on.

I was on the free tier but hit 300k requests in roughly 25 days. My primary smartphone, laptop, and parents' smartphones. Upgraded to NextDNS, happy customer for an year but jumped ship to pihole. Have two pihole devices on the Tailscale network. NextDNS was great. Checks all of my requirements. Just wanted to support open source software. I donate to pihole often instead.
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