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But Apple isn't in that business, they are trying to make common user's comm private. Open sourcing only helps the power user (audit, run their own), as you des

But Apple isn't in that business, they are trying to make common user's comm private. Open sourcing only helps the power user (audit, run their own), as you described. Signal and iMessage both don't guarantee true privacy as we can't see the servers.

zanny 9y ago
No service that uses a third party server can guarantee privacy unless they let you see the servers. For common users the question is if you trust the server operator, and if not, to consider your communications insecure. What they do about that is up to them. And it is up to these providers to earn trust.
- asadlionpk 9y ago
  > No service that uses a third party server can guarantee privacy unless they let you see the servers. And there are no services that do that. Since that doesn't seem to be possible. Open sourcing the backend doesn't help here since you still have to blindly trust the server operators.
- dsacco 9y ago
  The problem with this is that it eliminates the value proposition of E2EE, which is designed specifically to protect you when you don't trust the server operator. If you already trust the server operator, you've obviated the issue that E2EE ostensibly solves.
- muse900 9y ago
  Personally I can't trust apple for a specific reason... On iOS they've made it quite difficult to turn location services off unless you jailbreak the device itself. You have to go into settings -> privace -> locations -> on - off -> are you sure you want to do it? -> yes .... I mean when a company does that, it makes it pretty clear that they do want to monitor your location, making it annoying for you to turn it on and off.
  - internet2000 9y ago
    How is that difficult to turn off?
    - muse900 9y ago
      The steps, I am a privacy junkie myself and I want to have location services off most of the time, apart from when am gonna use uber or gmaps. Even for me that I'd go the extra mile to turn it off, it just puts me off that you have to go through so many steps to do it.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    Not sure what you exactly want from Apple here. Nobody other than a handful of people are regularly switching Location Services on or off. Especially at a global level as opposed to at the app level. And even then it's only 4 taps. Which is 1 more tap than what's involved in changing WiFi networks something a lot of people do.
    - tripzilch 9y ago
      Well on Android it's just a swipe down on the system bar (or whatever it's called) and a tap--from anywhere. So yes of course people are constantly turning it on and off, mainly because it saves loads of battery, but also the obvious privacy reasons.
scalio 9y ago
Helping the power user is the whole point imo: let those who know what they're doing see and run the code themselves. As such, it doesn't matter whether Apple is in some business or not, it's simply a security measure.
- asadlionpk 9y ago
  That's what I am trying to say, "Helping the power user" is not the business Apple is in.
  - scalio 9y ago
    I guess we're going to find out soon enough what Apple thinks of that demographic considering their WWDC announcements.
nickik 9y ago
Open sourcing helps everybody. Power users make sure its save for them, if it is, it is save for 'normal' users as well. I don't need to read Signal code to have confidence in its working.
- bilbo0s 9y ago
  "...if it is, it is save for 'normal' users as well..." Not sure about that. I think even if a power user were to say "this is safe", you still have a boatload of integrity problems with the software. -How do we know the power users can be trusted? -Even if they can, what guarantee do we have that the service provider we use is using the same open source code that the power user validated? -Etc, etc, etc. Basically, a lot of trust issues. I agree with asadlionpk, open source can generally only be proven to help power users in a trustless environment. And where security is concerned, we cannot ascribe the "safe" attribute to any system where that safety cannot be proven.
- FussyZeus 9y ago
  OK so if your tech-inclined friend sets up a Signal server, for little to nothing in return, that's automatically more trustworthy than a multi-billion dollar corporation with an ingrained and (seemingly) solid attitude regarding NOT selling user's data? I roll an OwnCloud server for me and my family, and I know that I'm not invading their privacy, but I could very easily do so and not leave a trace of my having done it even that a pro user could find, let alone a layman. To say that Apple is less trustworthy than a given power user solely because they use closed source is ridiculous, there is zero correlation there.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  > Power users make sure its save for them, if it is, it is save for 'normal' users as well. Power users can make sure the code they're running is safe for them. There's no guarantee that Signal for example is running the same code they release to others.
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    Signal for Android has reproducible builds, so you can verify that the version on the Play Store matches the code you audited.
FussyZeus 9y ago
Any system where you don't control every component of that system is inherently insecure. I find it laughable that so many (especially on HN) will evangelize security while evangelizing Google, a company that literally wrote the book on and perfected the art of harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers, while tearing down Apple just because Apple refuses to let us see their code.
hrehhf 9y ago
>both don't guarantee true privacy as we can't see the servers. What do you define as true privacy? Why isn't other privacy "true"? What do you mean by "see the servers"? Surely you can see them as computers at the other end of a TCP connection, and the server cannot read the cleartext of an E2E encrypted message.

zanny 9y ago

No service that uses a third party server can guarantee privacy unless they let you see the servers. For common users the question is if you trust the server operator, and if not, to consider your communications insecure. What they do about that is up to them. And it is up to these providers to earn trust.

asadlionpk 9y ago
> No service that uses a third party server can guarantee privacy unless they let you see the servers. And there are no services that do that. Since that doesn't seem to be possible. Open sourcing the backend doesn't help here since you still have to blindly trust the server operators.
dsacco 9y ago
The problem with this is that it eliminates the value proposition of E2EE, which is designed specifically to protect you when you don't trust the server operator. If you already trust the server operator, you've obviated the issue that E2EE ostensibly solves.
muse900 9y ago
Personally I can't trust apple for a specific reason... On iOS they've made it quite difficult to turn location services off unless you jailbreak the device itself. You have to go into settings -> privace -> locations -> on - off -> are you sure you want to do it? -> yes .... I mean when a company does that, it makes it pretty clear that they do want to monitor your location, making it annoying for you to turn it on and off.
- internet2000 9y ago
  How is that difficult to turn off?
  - muse900 9y ago
    The steps, I am a privacy junkie myself and I want to have location services off most of the time, apart from when am gonna use uber or gmaps. Even for me that I'd go the extra mile to turn it off, it just puts me off that you have to go through so many steps to do it.
- threeseed 9y ago
  Not sure what you exactly want from Apple here. Nobody other than a handful of people are regularly switching Location Services on or off. Especially at a global level as opposed to at the app level. And even then it's only 4 taps. Which is 1 more tap than what's involved in changing WiFi networks something a lot of people do.
  - tripzilch 9y ago
    Well on Android it's just a swipe down on the system bar (or whatever it's called) and a tap--from anywhere. So yes of course people are constantly turning it on and off, mainly because it saves loads of battery, but also the obvious privacy reasons.

scalio 9y ago

Helping the power user is the whole point imo: let those who know what they're doing see and run the code themselves. As such, it doesn't matter whether Apple is in some business or not, it's simply a security measure.

asadlionpk 9y ago
That's what I am trying to say, "Helping the power user" is not the business Apple is in.
- scalio 9y ago
  I guess we're going to find out soon enough what Apple thinks of that demographic considering their WWDC announcements.

nickik 9y ago

Open sourcing helps everybody. Power users make sure its save for them, if it is, it is save for 'normal' users as well. I don't need to read Signal code to have confidence in its working.

bilbo0s 9y ago
"...if it is, it is save for 'normal' users as well..." Not sure about that. I think even if a power user were to say "this is safe", you still have a boatload of integrity problems with the software. -How do we know the power users can be trusted? -Even if they can, what guarantee do we have that the service provider we use is using the same open source code that the power user validated? -Etc, etc, etc. Basically, a lot of trust issues. I agree with asadlionpk, open source can generally only be proven to help power users in a trustless environment. And where security is concerned, we cannot ascribe the "safe" attribute to any system where that safety cannot be proven.
FussyZeus 9y ago
OK so if your tech-inclined friend sets up a Signal server, for little to nothing in return, that's automatically more trustworthy than a multi-billion dollar corporation with an ingrained and (seemingly) solid attitude regarding NOT selling user's data? I roll an OwnCloud server for me and my family, and I know that I'm not invading their privacy, but I could very easily do so and not leave a trace of my having done it even that a pro user could find, let alone a layman. To say that Apple is less trustworthy than a given power user solely because they use closed source is ridiculous, there is zero correlation there.
Veratyr 9y ago
> Power users make sure its save for them, if it is, it is save for 'normal' users as well. Power users can make sure the code they're running is safe for them. There's no guarantee that Signal for example is running the same code they release to others.
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  Signal for Android has reproducible builds, so you can verify that the version on the Play Store matches the code you audited.

FussyZeus 9y ago

Any system where you don't control every component of that system is inherently insecure. I find it laughable that so many (especially on HN) will evangelize security while evangelizing Google, a company that literally wrote the book on and perfected the art of harvesting user data and selling it to advertisers, while tearing down Apple just because Apple refuses to let us see their code.

hrehhf 9y ago

>both don't guarantee true privacy as we can't see the servers. What do you define as true privacy? Why isn't other privacy "true"? What do you mean by "see the servers"? Surely you can see them as computers at the other end of a TCP connection, and the server cannot read the cleartext of an E2E encrypted message.