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Apple’s approach to privacy
- knd775 11y agoI guess I should have expected a number this high, but I didn't. 750-999 national security requests in half a year? Not warrants, but national security requests. That just seems insane to me.
- themartorana 11y agoWhen national security requests come with built-in gag orders, little-to-no oversight, and are probably easier to issue/get than warrants (no pesky judges or explaining to do) why would one ever use a warrant again?
- jsprogrammer 11y agoLow-level enforcers don't have easy access to such orders.
- leesalminen 11y agoI'm not sure that high level enforcers should have easy access either, though. What's the old saying? Something like you rise to the level of your own incompetence?
- rancur 11y agoyes. you can trust that only people who should have your data can get it :/
- themartorana 11y agoWe don't know that. We do know that the FBI, NSA, and other federal agencies are overly anxious to support local law enforcement - by providing wartime hardware and weapons, as well as support in spying. We know local police patrols use Stingray devices, disrupting cell service and sweeping up private communications without a warrant - that's just a single instance. We have no idea how easy it is for local law enforcement to pick up the phone and request "support" by having a NSL issued.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoOne could infer how difficult it would be to maintain secrecy as the number of privileged enforcers expands. The longer that secrecy is maintained, the less access probably exists to the privilege. I'm comfortable assuming that my local beat officer probably can't signal to his superior to pull an NSL on me and start reading every piece of data my devices are streaming over TLS.
- hsod 11y agoIf NSRs are so easy to get and so powerful, why does anyone still bother getting warrants?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sixothree 11y agoI suppose the question is - What is the scope of an NSL? Can it cover all subscriber data in a single request?
- mtgx 11y agoI'll take them more seriously when they stop voluntarily giving the NSA zero-day vulnerabilities months before they get fixed, essentially giving them "temporary backdoors" to their systems.
- donut2d 11y agoSource?
- dubcanada 11y agoHis tin foil hat told him so...
- cryoshon 11y agoWhat's with the tinfoil hat accusation? It's 100% reasonable and supported by an abundance of information that US corporations are being pressured in multiple ways from the surveillance state in order to hand over their user data, whether or not their users are suspected of any crime. Sure, maybe he is speculating without anything specifically to support his thought, but come on, it's plausible. We know that "they" have no decency or limits on what they'll try to exploit.
- 0x0 11y agoStuff like gotofail took a while to get patched (weeks?), and things like https://github.com/kpwn/tpwn https://github.com/kpwn/tpwn has been around for a while which is still not patched in any public, non-beta release of OSX.
- donut2d 11y agoWhile it's definitely plausible, and probably likely, I was looking for a source to the specific statement that Apple is "voluntarily giving the NSA zero-day vulnerabilities months before they get fixed". Are they giving them to the NSA? Is this why they're holding out on fixing them? Do we have evidence that this is their intention?
- happywolf 11y agoI use Apple products, including the MBP on which I am typing this post. I paid big bucks and my expectation is Apple should respect my privacy. Services like Google I use them for free, and as such, monetization is fair. Not for Apple, and I hope it won't let me down.
- cgh 11y agoThis seems to me like a rational approach. You get what you pay for. Or to put it another way, if you don't pay for the product, then you are the product.
- happywolf 11y agoYes, I feel this is a fair deal.
- devcpp 11y agoOr you could use free software, and stop hoping for people around you to be honest.
- mrmondo 11y agoFree != open source
- memu 11y agoThey meant free as in freedom not free as in gratis.
- dandelion_lover 11y agohttps://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
- happywolf 11y agoGuess what. I used to be a Linux zealot for over ten years, my hobby was to custom-build my kernel and rewrite device drivers for some of my devices. But Linux had some minor issues that I couldn't quite put up with, while Apple so far just works for me. Apple is far from perfect, but it covers most of my needs and I am happy to use it. I know strong advocate of freedom and transparency will say Apple is closed-source, for-profit company yadi yada. The truth is most of things in our lives are: the cars we drive, the fridge, the TV, the watch we wear, and hardware we use (Intel or ARM chips aren't open source, right?) So years ago i decide this free software thingie isn't for me.
- tedd4u 11y agoApple says "Less than 0.00673% of customers have been affected by government information requests." That's approximately 1 out of every 14,000 -- seems like a lot to me!
- buffoon 11y agoDefinitely. There was a story a few years ago about the South African postal system delivering 99% of all letters over a period of time. Turns out when you aggregate that across how many they sent they only lost a couple of hundreds of thousands of letters. Percentage is a convenient con used in some contexts.
- forrestthewoods 11y agoHow many customers does Apple have? How many people total is that? It's 6730 per 100,000,000 (hundred million). I think Apple has sold like 700 million iphones. But actual customers is less. So there have been maybe 20,000 or so government information requests?
- amdolan 11y agoHere is some detail I think you'll appreciate: http://www.apple.com/privacy/transparency-reports/ http://www.apple.com/privacy/transparency-reports/
- chinathrow 11y agoAlso, the NSLs do not count against the "government information requests", if I interprete the report correctly.
- mikro 11y agoIt also says that 94% of requests are "Device requests - Law enforcement seeking a stolen device."
- smackfu 11y agoThe trick is telling the difference between that and: "Device requests - Law enforcement seeking a device they claim is stolen."
- alex95 11y agoYeah thanks for that. Top news this is. I love a privacy policy.
- 0x0 11y agoIt's a shame the options to disable sending your local spotlight queries to bing and apple are hidden away in a huge list of other apps. I wish they had one giant button for disabling all remote queries instead of 4-5 options spread throughout different settings sub-pages.
- acqq 11y agoI still don't know which setting actually disables that.
- coldtea 11y agoIt's half a google away. https://www.google.com/search?q=disable+spotlight+queries+send+to+bing&oq=disable+spotlight+queries+send+to+bing&aqs=chrome..69i57.9678j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=disable+spotlight+queries+se...
- 0x0 11y agoDoesn't really address iOS 9 which changed things around a bit, and to even find anything about iOS at all you have to start looking at the 4th or 5th result on some random domain. And - even then - there are multiple odd places in the settings you need to check and verify, some of which are hidden in a long list of other apps.
- joosters 11y agoIt's detailed in the help page, the link to which is on the same settings screen that contains the switches to turn off. Likewise on MacOS, there's a 'About Spotlight Suggestions & Privacy' button on the Spotlight settings page. Again, it's on the same screen that contains the switches to turn off the feature. You don't need internet access to find these options, and I can't think of a better place to put the help. Knowing that these options exist in the first place is another problem though...
- 11y ago
- chinathrow 11y agoTo my understanding, an NSL could mean "give me everything you have". And the NSLs have no disclosed accounts linked to them. Edit: Why the downvote? If my understanding is false, please indicate so.
- tedunangst 11y agoPerhaps you could post the source for your understanding?
- m4110c 11y agoDubious, given Apple's support of CISA.
- muddi900 11y agoWasn't the Fappening because of a iCloud hole?
- gruez 11y agothat was speculated, but denied by apple
- jbob2000 11y agoNo, it was because celebrities are normal people and tended to use the same password for multiple services. One service was compromised, which compromised every other one because the passwords were the same.
- neuralspark 11y agoIt's also much easier to find the answers to account recovery questions when the target is a celeb.
- ctz 11y agoSource? My understanding was that some iCloud account login endpoints (associated with Find My iPhone) didn't have any rate limiting for password failures, and this allowed brute force to work for targetted accounts.
- muddi900 11y agoSource? Most of my google has netted the blame on Apple and a conspiracy throy of this beng a PR scandal.
- josso 11y agoReally? It seems to me that most articles conclude that it wasn’t iCloud that was hacked but the celebrities. Apple also released a press release[1] saying that they “have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone.” [1]: http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/09/02Apple-Media-Advisory.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2014/09/02Apple-Media-Adviso...
- staunch 11y agoIf it wasn't for Tim Cook this would be considered an insanely radical view by most people. Thank you Tim!
- diafygi 11y ago> Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a “backdoor” in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government access to our servers. And we never will. Did Apple ever provide any insight into what access the Prism program had? They denied knowing about it[1], so either they are lying or it was a mole. Did they ever follow up with an investigation or conclusion as to what exactly the government had access to? [1]: https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/ https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/
- Eric_WVGG 11y agoisn’t there a third possibility, that they could have used an exploit akin to Heartbleed?
- caractacus 11y agoIf you were paranoid, it wouldn't take much to conclude that "worked with" and "allowed" could mean that this doesn't imply that there weren't or aren't backdoors or access that occurred without Apple's knowledge or approval.
- snowwrestler 11y agoPrism in general was mischaracterized by the early reports. It was first reported as a persistent backdoor into servers, but it was actually just a way for NSA to automate requests for information through the FBI. This was detailed in later reports. Edit: for those skeptical about my comment above, here is more detail from a discussion about a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8333844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8333844
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoAh, so then Apple wouldn't be lying if they said they hadn't allowed access to their servers, even under a broad interpretation.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y agoUnder a strict interpretation, Apple hasn't given the NSA "access to [their] servers" (not root access, not physical access, etc.). They've given them a means to access some user data. (Edit: Or just request it, see snowwrestler's comment below.) To answer what access the NSA has, the best case would be merely access to iCloud email, iTunes Store purchase records and other things Apple can't encrypt. The worst case is everything.
- Tangokat 11y agoApple is in a good position in the market to do this, but it is just really hard to trust any US company. They say they will never give anyone access to their servers but how can they make that promise when they don't make the laws? As an aside I am finding it really difficult to delete my iCloud account, in fact it seems that is impossible.
- karmelapple 11y agoGenuine curiosity: which country would a company need to be in to be able to trust them?
- zxcvcxz 11y agoThat's not what it's about for me. If companies like google and Apple want my trust they need to operate as their own government entity and make all users citizens and give them rights. Until then I'll stick to using as much FOSS as possible, never using social media for secure communication, and storing all my own data. Basically, unless they let me see what's happening with my data by allowing me access to the code, I can't and won't trust them.
- atmosx 11y agoSwitzerland, Netherlands and Norway are a good starting point. I believe that now that privacy became a major concern, we will see countries with some legislative background and experience in other sectors that require secrecy above everything else (e.g. private banking), evolve in secure havens for servers.
- jboy55 11y agoA lot has been written about secret US courts giving secret warrants to spy on US networks or force companies to give keys. Infiltrating foreign servers, installing backdoors and such don't require any warrant or court approval.
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoSwitzerland has their own private domestic SIGINT network known as Onyx, and has had other surveillance scandals before. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal
- cryoshon 11y agoRemember this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tracking-prompts-privacy-fears http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/20/iphone-tra... in which the location history of users was tracked and offloaded to the user's PC when synched? I get that the "problem" was allegedly fixed, but there's absolutely zero reason to trust anything Apple says here. The potential of getting hit with National Security Letters with built in gag orders invalidates any conception of trust between users and groups that handle their data. There could also be hardware or software backdoors/exploits that Apple has no clue about-- I would say almost certainly, given how inventive the NSA has been with both of those angles.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoWe’re going to make sure you get updates here about privacy at Apple at least once a year and whenever there are significant changes to our policies. Translation: We set up this page to reference for the inevitable future articles and critcisms of our policies. Not saying it's a bad idea, but it's very lawerly to me. Like this one: We don’t build a profile based on your email content or web browsing habits to sell to advertisers. We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. That makes sense, and I figure it's a true statement as written. But, bear with me here, I feel like it could still also be true they build a profile based on X, Y, or Z for internal use by Apple in the name of "making services better" as it were. What I'd like to see at the bottom of the letter - and don't see even after clicking through a couple of the links - is a link to review all stored content by Apple in a nice, clean two-factor authenticated dashboard, and settings for all devices to be managed in one central location. That would be rather helpful to individuals...a big gesture of that buzzword "transparency" and all that! Yet I highly doubt such a portal / review capability would be implemented by Apple without much metaphorical kicking and screaming.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- popctrl 11y agoI was going to suggest that this page was meant to serve as a warrant canary but it looks like Apple had a warrant canary but it's gone now (Explanation of a warrant canary for the uninitiated in link): http://apple.slashdot.org/story/14/09/18/2216222/apples-warrant-canary-has-died http://apple.slashdot.org/story/14/09/18/2216222/apples-warr...
- erostrate 11y agoI don't know if Apple actually means that, but the EFF gives Apple 5 stars out of 5 when assessing which companies protect their customers from government data requests: https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-government-data-requests-2015 https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-government-data-reques...
- subliminalpanda 11y agoI was reading their guidelines for law enforcement requests: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/emeia_le_guidelines_final_20150916.pdf https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/emeia_le_guidelines_final... Interesting note: "P. FaceTime FaceTime communications are end-to-end encrypted and Apple has no way to decrypt FaceTime data when it is in transit between devices. Apple cannot intercept FaceTime communications. Apple has FaceTime call invitation logs when a FaceTime call invitation is initiated. These logs do not indicate that any communication between users actually took place. Apple has no information as to whether the FaceTime call was successfully established or duration of a FaceTime call. FaceTime call invitation logs are retained up to 30 days. FaceTime call invitation logs are available only following receipt of a legally valid request" iMessage is not mentioned. Does this mean they are capable of intercepting iMessage? edit: in the FAQ it says "Can Apple intercept users’ communications pursuant to a Wiretap Order? Apple can intercept users’ email communications, upon receipt of a valid Wiretap Order. Apple cannot intercept users’ iMessage or FaceTime communications as these communications are end-to-end encrypted."
- Jerry2 11y ago>Does this mean they are capable of intercepting iMessage? You know what the best way is to see who cooperates with law enforcement and to what level? Court documents! I've been trawling court documents for the past few months (I'm writing a blog article on this) and I'm yet to find iMessage being used in court (unless the access to the conversation was given by one of the parties). iMessage really does seem secure from legal system point of view. For a comparison, I've found dozens of court documents from Google, Facebook, Microsoft handing over chat logs from Hangouts, Whatsapp/FBMessenger, Skype. Anyway, if you want to see the level of cooperation and want to double-check privacy policies, actual court documents are the best way.
- athrun 11y agoSounds very interesting! I will be waiting for the blog post :)
- cryptophreak 11y ago
- notNow 11y agoCan we get Apple on board with RWD since they seem are up to their ears with "protecting" their users' privacy to the point of neglecting this crucial aspect of modern web design?
- teekert 11y agoNice but recently I was asked to enter the admin password of my MBP into a webform at an Apple reseller, it was a requirement for getting the GPU repaired (as part of a recall.) Isn't that very strange?
- jws 11y agoYou don't have to. It just lets them better test and repair your device. If something is gorked up in your system files they can fix it using an admin account. I just dropped two laptops for repairs and didn't know an admin password on one. It wasn't a problem, though I suppose it might be more likely to come back with a wiped disk.
- dangero 11y agoNo it's not strange. It's the only way to make sure everything is working correctly before giving your computer back. If you tell them you aren't comfortable with that they do have workarounds. If they DIDN'T need your password that would be a bigger red flag because it would mean they had backdoors.
- Shivetya 11y agoSo how will we ever know until it happens if the encryption on Apple devices is weakened by government demands? I understand they have a posted stance on privacy and such but the US government has shown it will threaten even those who divulge requests. It is to the point I don't upgrade i devices until weeks after just to be sure.
- harmegido 11y agoIsn't that problem solved by the 'canary in the coal mine' ? A company can have strong privacy language in their documentation. If any or part of that language disappears suddenly one day, you can know that a government forced the company to go against this language?
- Fradow 11y agoSadly, Apple isn't on https://canarywatch.org/ https://canarywatch.org/ Did I miss another way to know about that information (that does not involve parsing all Apple documentation by myself).
- verusfossa 11y agoI'm just going to leave this here https://www.youbetrayedus.org https://www.youbetrayedus.org
- mahyarm 11y agoThis website is about the CISA bill and says: Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, and a handful of other tech companies just began publicly lobbying Congress to pass Cyber Threat Information Sharing legislation, like CISA, a bill that would give corporations total legal immunity when they share private user data with the government and with each other. Many of these companies have previously claimed to fight for their users' privacy rights, but by supporting this type of legislation, they've made it clear that they've abandoned that position, and are willing to endanger their users' security and civil rights in exchange for government handouts and protection.
- keejkl 11y agoNo, I don't trust you. That trust is long gone, you will have a long way to go to earn it back. These are just words, and they can write whatever they want since there is no way to validate the claims.
- miah_ 11y agoSorry Tim, you've already lost me as a customer. Next computer I get from work will be running Linux.
- trevyn 11y ago"We have also never allowed any government access to our servers. And we never will." That's a pretty bold statement.
- rhino369 11y agoIt's a promise they really can't keep.
- Dirlewanger 11y agoThat's because it's a lie. It's like the lawyers (and everyone else here) forgot the Snowden leaks occurred.
- nemothekid 11y agoI'm still confused if the Snowden leaks meant that the NSA was cooperating with the companies listed, or had developed backdoors with the companies listed. There were Google security engineers that seemed to be in the dark about the level of NSA engagement. https://plus.google.com/+BrandonDowney/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG https://plus.google.com/+BrandonDowney/posts/SfYy8xbDWGG
- ttflee 11y agoBy 'government', does Apple mean the government of the U.S. or any governments of nations Apple exports its goods and services to? I am still skeptical about any company in a hypothetical case where private information of its customers is sought by governments like China. BTW, I am living and going to live in China in future.
- rufugee 11y agoAs a long time Linux user and a long time Google product user, I'd be willing to go all in on Apple if: * They were truly, actively committed to defending a user's privacy. * They allowed using your own domains (I currently have around 30 domains pointed to the same GMail account). If both of the above were true, I'd ditch my Cyanogenmod-running HTC One M8 and buy an iPhone today. My privacy is worth more to me than the ability to install whatever music player, keyboard, etc that I want or drop to a command line (though I do love having that ability and would miss it).
- nemoniac 11y agoNope. Just nope. I'll stick with choice and privacy over promises of privacy by a for-profit.
- rufugee 11y agoYou really think you get privacy with Android? Have you ever monitored outbound connections on your device? There's a LOT of activity there. Even with Cyanogenmod's Privacy Guard, which at least improves the Android permissions debacle. Combine that with GMail. I pay for the business version, yet the privacy policy is still hard to understand and I still get suspicious ads popping up which seem to have come from no where else but my email. Could be wrong, but it's uncanny. I have a hard time trusting Google.
- olifante 11y agoIt doesn't matter whether it's open source or closed source, non-profit or for-profit. If it's made by a company headquartered in the US, there's no escaping a national security letter with a gag order. Anything within Five Eyes (AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/US) jurisdiction (such as Ubuntu) is probably not much safer. We really need a new Linux distribution headquartered in a safe jurisdiction.
- polysome 11y agohttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Details.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Det...
- tomschlick 11y agoDoes anyone else have the suspicion that Prism was named prism because instead of getting companies to co-operate with the program they were siphoning off data like they did to google by tapping their fiber lines? That would fit more in line with what we have heard about the tapping stations/rooms at AT&T/Verizon over the years. I mean if they were really involved with back dooring the individual servers of google/apple/facebook that would involve hundreds of employees at each company to make that happen. Someone would have spoken out by now with some evidence to prove it. To my knowledge that hasn't happened. Just this shitty looking powerpoint outlining when the data was starting to come in...
- bduerst 11y agoWouldn't HTTPs prevent that?
- tomschlick 11y agoYes, but according to google they were tapping the "dark fiber" (private lines only carrying google traffic) that were not encrypted between their data centers. Those lines were for things like data replication so it was a goldmine for the NSA to tap. Those transmissions have since been encrypted.
- yRetsyM 11y agoNot entirely, though Google and subsequently Microsoft, Apple et all have upgraded inter-datacentre connectivity to be encrypted - reducing this attack vector.
- mikeash 11y agoI recall that being a common interpretation of the name when the news of PRISM first broke, so you're certainly not alone in that.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- acconsta 11y agoAlong with iOS ad blocking, this seems like a big shift in Apple's stance toward Google.
- chmaynard 11y agoI'd like to see Apple commit to making Apple Pay available for online commerce. That would allow Apple to get rid of the hundreds of millions of credit and debit card numbers they retain in their private servers. If Apple's card number information ever got hacked, it would be a disaster for Apple and their customers.