Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iPhone = Privacy?

kerkour.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 108 posts

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#81

Post by jeffbee »

smaccona wrote: post #79
jeffbee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go into privacy settings and try to disable the “system services” it will prompt you, twice, with a big scary warning about how nothing on your iPhone will ever work again.

I can go into Settings -> Maps -> Location -> Never, and then when I use Apple Maps it says "Location Services is off" and can't figure out where I am. Is that different than what you are talking about?

Yes, that is different. Apple will still be collecting location data to "improve maps" and for other enumerated purposes.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#82

Post by kornhole »

imgabe wrote: post #7

> iOS sends a lot of data about your phone to Apple, such as your phone number, your unique device identifier, your location and your IMEI number Oh no! The manufacturer of my phone knows the unique identifier they created and assigned to my phone? Whatever shall I do?

If one did not need to register the device to one's real ID when activating it, this would not be such a big issue. I ditched my Iphone long ago for this reason, and to my knowledge it is still not possible to make an Iphone anonymous unlike other Android or Linux based devices.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#83

Post by Ancapistani »

CharlesW wrote: post #76
falcolas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lack of reported harm does not imply a lack of the ability to harm. "Siri, order medicine X and deliver to address Y" is a simple example of how a simple command - whether valid or not - can expose someone's medical history, and while an ethical reviewer (probably 99%+ of reviewers) would do nothing with it, an unethical reviewer could.

> "Siri, order medicine X and deliver to address Y" is a simple example of how a simple command… FWIW, Siri isn't capable of anything resembling this. For fun, ask "Siri, how many days are left in this year?"

IME, using "virtual assistants" is as much about training you as it is about training them.

If you as the question as "Hey Siri: how many days until the end of the year?", you get a valid response. I intuitively guessed that the word "until" was a trigger that would make Siri understand what I meant.

In other words - it's not that Siri isn't _capable_ of doing things like ordering medication, but that the syntax for doing so is still obscure and specific enough that most people aren't using it for purposes like that.

I've set up a number of shortcuts that I regularly use. For instance: "Tell my wife I made it" will send her a text message letting her know that I've arrived wherever I was going. "Tell _them_ I made it" will send the same message to my wife, daughter, and mom.

Until the NLP algorithms get better at inferring intent, a combination of user training and custom shortcuts will be needed to do things like this.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#84

Post by philjohn »

hardnose wrote: post #14

Apple seems to prioritize privacy more than the competition, while for Google collecting, and combing through to monetize, your personal data is a big part of their business model. Much of this criticism seems misplaced or invalid. Apple tracks your IMEI? Well, sure, unless you choose otherwise, and they've given you a convenient place to turn off. Apple chipsets track your location down to the meter? Well, yes, that…

Seems to - because it's a great marketing.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#85

Post by philjohn »

oreilles wrote: post #44
hardnose wrote: post #14

Apple seems to prioritize privacy more than the competition, while for Google collecting, and combing through to monetize, your personal data is a big part of their business model. Much of this criticism seems misplaced or invalid. Apple tracks your IMEI? Well, sure, unless you choose otherwise, and they've given you a convenient place to turn off. Apple chipsets track your location down to the meter? Well, yes, that…

> The only one I agree on is the image scanning for CSAM. The idea of a device I own acting as a state informer using AI to detect what it thinks is a crime is not my idea of a step forward. There's also a convenient place to turn it off: CSAM scanning doesn't happen if you don't use iCloud photos/files syncing.

Yet.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#86

Post by philjohn »

spideymans wrote: post #55
fsflover wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whereas I don't see much evidence that's the case for Apple products https://www.barrons.com/articles/apples-advertising-business...

I don’t see what the issue is, unless Apple is violating my privacy to serve their ads. (I’m not a fan of ads, but don’t see how this is necessarily a privacy issue)

Well there's the disingenuous way in which they present the choice, defaulted to opt in with flowery language, versus the popup third party developers have presented to their users.

There's also the "app store health card" which the cynic in me would say is designed to scare people away from "competing" apps, because none of the Apple equivalents have a health card. Additionally there's no nuance - both iMessage and Twitter ask for location data - but only if you want to share your location. End result? People looking at Twitter in the App Store surmise "well, they must be tracking my location at all times!".

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#87

Post by philjohn »

matai_kolila wrote: post #20

> Thus, anyone who has access to your iCloud account, whether it be a hacker, an Apple employee, or a government agency, has also access to that data. Lost a lot of credibility here by including Apple employees, as that’s not a thing. Honestly this just reads as a bunch if FUD for what appears to be no reason. There’s no new info, no new perspective, no attempt at fair explanation of why those things might actually b…

The CSAM scanning would have required Apple employees to view flagged photos to confirm if they are CSAM - so yes, Apple employees will have some level of access to iCloud data, otherwise, legal requests for data would be impossible.

This wouldn't be an issue if iCloud was E2EE, but they probably save a chunk of money by only storing one copy of the "meme du jour" on their servers.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#88

Post by philjohn »

bb123 wrote: post #37

For me it's a question of incentives. Apple makes the vast majority of its income selling hardware to people. That makes me the customer. Google makes the vast majority of its income selling user data to advertisers. That makes me the product and advertisers the customer. Which company has more of an incentive to compromise my privacy by accessing my data in a dishonest way?

Apple want to vastly increase the amount of money they make from ads - that blurs the line somewhat, no?

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#89

Post by danaris »

Ancapistani wrote: post #83
CharlesW wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Siri, order medicine X and deliver to address Y" is a simple example of how a simple command… FWIW, Siri isn't capable of anything resembling this. For fun, ask "Siri, how many days are left in this year?"

IME, using "virtual assistants" is as much about training you as it is about training them . If you as the question as "Hey Siri: how many days until the end of the year?", you get a valid response. I intuitively guessed that the word "until" was a trigger that would make Siri understand what I meant. In other words - it's not that Siri isn't _capable_ of doing things like ordering medication, but that the syntax for…

No, Siri isn't capable of doing things like ordering medication, because that requires more than just improving NLP capabilities.

It requires there being some specific facility for Siri to place orders. It requires some mechanism for conveying payment. It requires being able to determine where to order from in any given case (because Apple, unlike Amazon, does not attempt to be the one-stop-shop for everything under the sun).

This really seems to be just perpetuating the popular, but dangerous, fallacy that "AI" is all basically the same thing, and if you keep feeding enough data to your NLP algorithms, at some point they'll become able to do things that affect the real world purely by some kind of handwaved "ability to connect to the network".

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#90

Post by danaris »

philjohn wrote: post #86
spideymans wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see what the issue is, unless Apple is violating my privacy to serve their ads. (I’m not a fan of ads, but don’t see how this is necessarily a privacy issue)

Well there's the disingenuous way in which they present the choice, defaulted to opt in with flowery language, versus the popup third party developers have presented to their users. There's also the "app store health card" which the cynic in me would say is designed to scare people away from "competing" apps, because none of the Apple equivalents have a health card. Additionally there's no nuance - both iMessage and…

> none of the Apple equivalents have a health card.

Apple's apps on the App Store most certainly do have health cards. Not sure what you've been looking at...?

Post reply on HN