A throwback to remind ourselves that apple is terrible for privacy
Another dishonest, misleading anti-Apple vid from Rossmann. I can’t with him anymore.
Apple watching & logging EVERY APP YOU OPEN [Louis Rossmann]
Submitted 1 year ago by thann@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
dpkonofa@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Dnn@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s a shit video since he’s just reading a blog post. The post is here: sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
Make of this what you will.
thann@lemmy.world 1 year ago
what is misleading or dishonest?
PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks [bot] 1 year ago
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Cotillion189@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Same as android, same as windows, same as almost every app that we use is terrible for privacy. Unfortunately
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 1 year ago
There are ways to prevent this like degoogling, using Linux and privacy respecting tools and it’s good that there are people calling stuff like this out
thann@lemmy.world 1 year ago
yup, but some people think theyre beyond reproach
Vamanos@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 year ago
So you posted a 2 year old video because of “some people” think Apple is secure?
Audbol@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Careful, it’s only been about a week since they purged all the apple bots, they were down to about 12 from the original 35,000 but now it’s back up to 15,000.
Speculater@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Good damn, that’s some creepy ass shit!!
jvrava9@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 year ago
Using a jailbroken iPhone without an AppleID go brrr
octalfudge@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Unfortunately, this is highly misleading. Thank you for sharing this, and I appreciate good, high quality information about privacy but please don’t spread misleading information about one of the few companies that provides easily accessible private tools for the not-so-tech-savvy, as well as the busy. Apple applies E2E encryption for almost all iCloud data, something similar to Tor for web browsing, kills tracking pixels in your mail, uses differential privacy to avoid identifying you, and so much more.
Please see: blog.jacopo.io/en/post/apple-ocsp/
TL;DR
No, macOS does not send Apple a hash of your apps each time you run them. You should be aware that macOS might transmit some opaque3 information about the developer certificate of the apps you run. This information is sent out in clear text on your network. You shouldn’t probably block ocsp.apple.com with Little Snitch or in your hosts file.
Dnn@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The video is basically some dude reading a blog post (boy, I hate those, provide no value). The blog post he reads is this: sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
The author comments to the blog post you linked and it partially makes sense: if you fetch the developer’s certificate, Apple knows when you started an application of that developer (and which public IP address you have).
Whether or not there are many devs that only made one application, so you can identify this, I cannot estimate, I’m not an Apple user. But you don’t need to send a hash calculated in client side to get this info.
octalfudge@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You’re absolutely right that it’s still an issue to transmit information about the developer certificate. Apple published a response to this, which admittedly is not ideal:
support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491#view:~:text=Priv…
We have never combined data from these checks with information about Apple users or their devices. We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.
These security checks have never included the user’s Apple ID or the identity of their device. To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.
In addition, over the the next year we will introduce several changes to our security checks:
A new encrypted protocol for Developer ID certificate revocation checks
Strong protections against server failure
A new preference for users to opt out of these security protections
thann@lemmy.world 1 year ago
what is misleading exactly? the part where every app you open gets sent to apple along with third parties along with your IP?
because I’m pretty sure that’s all 100% true, and I think its been true for over 5 years…
you’re just suggesting that because they do one thing well they do everything well, which is a fallacy.
Also, any proprietary program that does “E2EE” is misleading you by omitting the part where they could totally steal anyones keys at any time with the push of a button, if they haven’t already. it is completely laughable to suggest any proprietary E2EE program is secure!
so who is spreading the missinfo again?
octalfudge@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m sorry but did you read the article l linked to or the TL;DR I lifted from the article?
They do not send the app you open to Apple, and there is no evidence they send it to third parties as the app information is not sent at all!
Nevertheless, they do send information about the developer certificate for notarization and gatekeeper checks.
support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491#view:~:text=Priv…
Quote:
We have never combined data from these checks with information about Apple users or their devices. We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.
To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.
In addition, over the the next year we will introduce several changes to our security checks: A new encrypted protocol for Developer ID certificate revocation checks Strong protections against server failure A new preference for users to opt out of these security protections
xedrak@kbin.social 1 year ago
I’m not going to touch your other points, but you clearly have no idea how encryption works if you claim that any proprietary program using end-to-end encryption is insecure.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Misleading as to WHY macOS is phoning home. It’s done to validate that the developer of the app you’re attempting to run is a trusted developer. Disabling or bypassing this check would open users up to potentially malicious software. howtogeek.com/…/does-apple-track-every-mac-app-yo…
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 year ago
They only started doing that in December, it has not rolled out to everyone and everything yet, and like you said it won’t cover everything even then — mail, contacts and calendar will not be included. (And they considered backdooring it for a while before they relented.)
Even the E2E aspect is misleading. The encryption ultimately relies on a password, which can be brute-forced because most people don’t use overly complex passwords for their iCloud account. Hardware keys are something Apple has only very recently made possible to use.
theverge.com/…/apple-end-to-end-encryption-icloud…
schneier.com/…/apple-is-finally-encrypting-icloud…
Bottom line, it would be more correct to say that Apple has recently made privacy improvements. But for the longest time they were nowhere near the privacy champion they styled themselves as.
octalfudge@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Apple’s stated reason for not covering mail, contacts and calendar is “Because of the need to interoperate with the global email, contacts, and calendar systems, iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendar aren’t end-to-end encrypted”. I think it’s worth mentioning that critical bit of context. support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/security/…/web. Apple does have to balance usability and security, though this might not be as secure / private as you or I would like.
I think it’s a little misleading to say they considered backdooring it. They intended to scan images for CSAM before uploading it to iCloud Photo Library. A lot of speculation was they wanted to E2EE photos but were worried about the reaction from the FBI and other bodies, given the FBI had pressured them on this before, and so settled on this compromise. If they had managed to do this, they wouldn’t be able to access the photos after they had been uploaded, hence, they had to scan them prior to the uploading.
They attempted to do this with a very complex (and honestly still relatively privacy-preserving) way of comparing perceptual hashes, but perhaps they realised (from the feedback accompanying the backlash) this could easily be abused by authoritarian governments, so they abandoned this idea.
I would assume that a company like Apple is getting significant pressure behind back doors, and they cater to an audience that is unforgiving for any slight reduction in performance or ease-of-use, and wants security features that are almost fully transparent to them. Given these constraints, I’m not sure they can improve much faster than what they’ve demonstrated. Smaller, open-source projects probably don’t have these constraints.
Baketime@kbin.social 1 year ago
Can you tell me some more about this? I haven't heard about this interested to know what it is
octalfudge@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Hi! It’s called iCloud Private Relay and it’s detailed here: threadreaderapp.com/…/1402274867366477831.html