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iPhone = Privacy?

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Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#91

Post by philjohn »

danaris wrote: post #90
philjohn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...?

Built in apps - iMessage. And yes, that does seem to be in the app store now, however, there's a lot there that seems to be missing - access to photos for example isn't listed in the health card, neither is microphone access - both of which are core features of the app.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#92

Post by amelius »

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)

> I don’t see what the issue is, unless Apple is violating my privacy to serve their ads.

Google also claims they don't violate our privacy by hiding our data from third party advertisers. They still collect massive amounts of data ...

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#93

Post by danaris »

philjohn wrote: post #91
danaris wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...?

Built in apps - iMessage. And yes, that does seem to be in the app store now, however, there's a lot there that seems to be missing - access to photos for example isn't listed in the health card, neither is microphone access - both of which are core features of the app.

Are they?

It looks like the way it's implemented, access to photos comes through a Photos extension to iMessage (I think I recall these being called "iMessage apps"?), rather than it being inherent to the app.

And options for the microphone similarly seem to belong either to the extensions, or to the system—which handles microphone input as a substitute for typing.

It's possible you're right, and I'm missing something, but that's how it appears to me.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#94

Post by nathancahill »

hardnose wrote: post #54
nathancahill wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm a huge privacy advocate but the part people are missing with this fiasco is that client-side scanning before _anything_ is uploaded is objectively less invasive than every single photo being scanned on iCloud (the direction legislation is heading). Again, this is an _opt-in_ behavior when you enable iCloud Photos, for photos that you're trying to upload (currently not E2EE) anyway. The feature comes with th…

>client-side scanning before _anything_ is uploaded is objectively less invasive than every single photo being scanned on iCloud That's like saying cyanide tastes better than strychnine. It might be true, but I'd rather just not have either one.

I mean, iOS uses the same client-side machine learning to "scan" your photo library for tons of things. You can search "Dog" and get results, with nothing ever touching Apple's servers. We're happy with this but not happy with the other?

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#95

Post by hardnose »

nathancahill wrote: post #94
hardnose wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>client-side scanning before _anything_ is uploaded is objectively less invasive than every single photo being scanned on iCloud That's like saying cyanide tastes better than strychnine. It might be true, but I'd rather just not have either one.

I mean, iOS uses the same client-side machine learning to "scan" your photo library for tons of things. You can search "Dog" and get results, with nothing ever touching Apple's servers. We're happy with this but not happy with the other?

>We're happy with this but not happy with the other?

Yes?! What's hard to understand about the difference between:

1) An application using AI to scan photographs to provide categorization benefits to the owner/operator/user

2) An application using AI to scan photographs to provide accusation and punishment to the owner/operator/user

...especially when feature #1 can be turned off, but feature #2 cannot be turned off?

iCloud mischaracterizing a baby picture as a "dog" might cause some dinner table chuckles, but it's never going to cause meaningful harm. iCloud mischaracterizing a baby picture as a child abuse image can VERY plausibly cause extremely severe harm.

As a matter of principle, my devices shouldn't be designed to act against my will as an active informant for the authorities against me. The point that they do is the point that I join the flannel and wooly beard set out in the mountains eschewing technology and living "off the grid".

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#96

Post by hardnose »

falcolas wrote: post #60
hardnose wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's many stories from workers at these third parties about how much intimate detail they've heard when listening to these clips. Assuming those internet stories are even true - can anyone show me actual harm occurring to anyone based on Apple's use of Siri training? I've heard some Alexa stories, but frankly, Apple seems to do a really good job of protecting that information, at least so far, at least as far as…

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.

>A lack of reported harm does not imply a lack of the ability to harm.

The assertion wasn't that there is a possibility that Siri could cause privacy harm. The claim was that it DOES cause privacy harm. So yes, a lack of reported harm is actually evidence here.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#97

Post by dns_snek »

nathancahill wrote: post #94
hardnose wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>client-side scanning before _anything_ is uploaded is objectively less invasive than every single photo being scanned on iCloud That's like saying cyanide tastes better than strychnine. It might be true, but I'd rather just not have either one.

I mean, iOS uses the same client-side machine learning to "scan" your photo library for tons of things. You can search "Dog" and get results, with nothing ever touching Apple's servers. We're happy with this but not happy with the other?

> We're happy with this but not happy with the other?

One carries the risk of not finding a photo you're looking for.

The other carries the risk of a possibly life-ruining criminal investigations being opened against you.

This is a new surveillance vector that explicitly gives your phone the required functionality to report any flagged content on your device directly to the authorities, something that is clearly a slippery slope with questionable effectiveness at best. I'm not sure how you can compare it to strictly local face recognition AI.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#98

Post by hardnose »

rickdeckard wrote: post #75
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…

> 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. It's puzzling to me how this keeps getting repeated without any strong foundation. This story that others sell your data while Apple holds it secure is a narrative established by Apple that keeps coming up like a mantra. The implication…

>The implication is that Google is gathering personal data to then then sell it to third parties.

No, the implication is that Google collects as much of your personal data as possible, stores it forever, and monetizes it. You can tell because that's what I actually said. What you're responding to is a red herring - you brought up third parties, not me.

If I use the Apple Mail app with default settings from my iCloud account to e-mail ten lawn care services, I won't start seeing web ads for lawn care. If I use Gmail with default settings, I will.

> The main thing that Apple does differently is, that they took stronger measures to ensure that the data THEY collect from their users can only be collected by THEM.

No, the main thing that Apple does differently is make their money by selling hardware, software, and services directly to end users. This is in stark contrast to Google, whose typical business model offers free services that make the end users into the saleable product.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#99

Post by saiya-jin »

spideymans wrote: post #66
saiya-jin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats a bit naive approach. Both (and other) companies exist primarily to earn money to owners. If Apple will find it can extract even more money from consumers on top of hardware, ie overpriced forced walled gardens called app shops, it will. As long as it doesn't affects its main money pipeline which are devices. Like it or not, most folks don't care about nor understand privacy, so Apple has a lot of leeway there.…

On the contrary, I’d say access to user data is a liability for Apple. Apple saw how damaging the iCloud privacy scandal and Cambridge Analytica were. They responded by fully hitching Apple’s brand to the privacy train. If Apple were to be caught intentionally violating user privacy now, the damage to the brand would be immense. Apple makes their money primarily by selling cool stuff to people. If they tarnish their…

I work in IT whole life, ie Swiss private banks for more than decade and almost a decade elsewhere. None of the colleagues and friends properly cares about this. You are experiencing HN (or maybe SV) echo chamber effect in 200%.

People I know in category above, and rest as well buy Apple since its premium product, there is a lot of ads on it everywhere, its a lot in media ie Hollywood product placement, they like the design, they like photos it makes, and the price you have to pay makes you stand out as non-cheapskate in same vein cool fresh haircut or expensive clothing/jewelry does. Privacy isn't in top 10, ever.

Scandals? What scandals? In current world they come and go, people have little attention span with covid, wars, environmental crises and so on. That goes for Android too, people en masse simply don't care about phone privacy. Makes me a bit sad but it is what it is.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#100

Post by judge2020 »

hardnose wrote: post #95
nathancahill wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, iOS uses the same client-side machine learning to "scan" your photo library for tons of things. You can search "Dog" and get results, with nothing ever touching Apple's servers. We're happy with this but not happy with the other?

>We're happy with this but not happy with the other? Yes?! What's hard to understand about the difference between: 1) An application using AI to scan photographs to provide categorization benefits to the owner/operator/user 2) An application using AI to scan photographs to provide accusation and punishment to the owner/operator/user ...especially when feature #1 can be turned off, but feature #2 cannot be turned off?…

> but feature #2 cannot be turned off?

The CSAM scan would not be enabled if you had iCloud Photos turned off. All it did was move the scan on-device, it still only ran if those photos were destined for the cloud.

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