6 ms·

> The Android platform API should simply never allow apps to obtain global system identifiers When the revenue stream of the creator of Android fundamentally d

by sfifs 8y ago

> The Android platform API should simply never allow apps to obtain global system identifiers When the revenue stream of the creator of Android fundamentally depends on being able to tie devices to identity and behaviour, it's highly unlikely this is going to happen. They can't also keep it only for themselves and block for others or they'll get unfair trade practices action on their backs. Thr fact that Apple which could do this without significant adverse monetary impact but has chosen not to do so suggests they want to keep the possibility of re-entering the advertising business (or at least portray so to their shareholders)

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
>When the revenue stream of the creator of Android fundamentally depends on being able to tie devices to identity and behaviour, it's highly unlikely this is going to happen. Well put. I’ve tried to explain to people that I prefer Apple’s upfrontness that they are there to sell me a device and it’s software for money. Unlike Android systems where I feel the lead is intentionally buried by telling me how “free” the software is.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  iOS apps have similar issues, actually. On the Android side, you can at least use free and auditable apps from the F-Droid repository, and buy your device from an OEM vendor which will let you unlock it and install google-free LineageOS. (More speculatively, the community is now working on replacing AOSP altogether with the usual Linux desktop stack, via PostmarketOS. Not usable right now, but it's progressing rather quickly, and may well be practically useful later in 2019.)
  - paulcole 8y ago
    > iOS apps have similar issues, actually. Which issues specifically?
    - zozbot123 8y ago
      Being non-free and non-auditable, including proprietary SDKs that can gather tracking info/IDs, connecting to Facebook (even when the app is something other than a FB client)... Stuff that's quite comparable to what the video is talking about.
      - gvurrdon 8y ago
        Indeed. I don't have a Facebook account and yet various apps on my iOS devices still attempt to connect to graph.facebook.com (amongst other servers I'd rather they didn't, e.g. flurry).
      - Angostura 8y ago
        I think you need to be a bit more specific
  - reificator 8y ago
    > More speculatively, the community is now working on replacing AOSP altogether with the usual Linux desktop stack, via PostmarketOS So you're telling me that 2019 is the year of the Linux desktop... on mobile?
  - ummonk 8y ago
    >On the Android side, you can at least use free and auditable apps from the F-Droid repository, and buy your device from an OEM vendor which will let you unlock it and install google-free LineageOS. Do you go audit every line of source code in the apps and OS you install? Do you then verify that the binary blobs you're installing were built from the same source? Do you somehow audit the source for the firmware on your device and verify that that is the firmware installed on your device? What about the hardware, do you audit it?
    - zozbot123 8y ago
      I trust the community (including the security community) to do a better job at this than a handful of proprietary hardware and software vendors. Yes, it would be nice to have more openness on the hardware side too (and the Librem 5 phone is a worthwhile answer to that) but let's focus on the lowest-hanging fruit first.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        How did that work out for HeartBleed bug that was in open source code for over two years? Even worse, this 11 year old bug in the Linux kernel? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/linux_kernel_gets_patch_against_12yearold_bug/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/linux_kernel_gets_p...
        bch 8y ago
        Heartbleed was found and fixed, and diagnostic tools quickly followed. OSS isn’t a panacea, but it’s something, no?
        scarface74 8y ago
        After two years? How is that better than closed source?
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
- SalimoS 8y ago
  I’m interested to know what’s wrong in this comment with all the downvotes, personally I use ios only for exactly this google/ads/tracking
- barrow-rider 8y ago
  Nitpick: I believe that's "lede" as in "burying the lede".
JimDabell 8y ago
> Thr fact that Apple which could do this without significant adverse monetary impact but has chosen not to They restrict access to most of the things listed above, giving randomised fakes where necessary. The advertising ID they do let apps access is unique to a publisher so they can't be tied together with behaviour from apps by other publishers, and it's trivially disabled/resettable by the end user (Settings > Privacy > Advertising > Limit Ad Tracking / Reset Advertising Identifier…). They improve things every year, e.g. Safari's intelligent tracking prevention. I'm not really sure how you can arrive at the conclusion that Apple are holding back; they seem clearly committed to improving privacy as demonstrated by their continuous work in the area.
- samt 8y ago
  Where do you get that IDFA is unique to the publisher?
  - JimDabell 8y ago
    Apologies, I'm conflating two slightly different things there. There's the identifierForVendor [0] which is unique to the publisher. This is pretty safe to use however you see fit (within reason). Then there's the advertisingIdentifier [1], which is not unique, but can easily be permanently zeroed out by the user. Apple also have some fairly stringent rules about how it can be used [2], not to mention further rules about not identifying people surreptitiously [3]: > 5.1.2 Data Use and Sharing > (iii) Apps should not attempt to surreptitiously build a user profile based on collected data and may not attempt, facilitate, or encourage others to identify anonymous users or reconstruct user profiles based on data collected from Apple-provided APIs or any data that you say has been collected in an “anonymized,” “aggregated,” or otherwise non-identifiable way. They ask you to explicitly confirm that you're following the advertising identifier rules in particular every single time you submit to the App Store. [0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/1620059-identifierforvendor https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/162... [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... [2] https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/207032086-Apple-IDFA-Guidelines-How-To-Submit-Your-iOS-App-With-IDFA https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/207032086-Ap... [3] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#data-use-and-sharing https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#dat...
etphonehome 8y ago
Not true at all..this would have significant monetary impact. If advertisers lose to ability to monitor purchases at a granular level attributed to advertiser specific initiatives they will not spend and that has a chain effect that trickles to apple since they take 30% cuts of all in app revenue. If advertisers pull the plug on in app purchases and go around...they may go the route of removing IDFA to screw over advertisers for trying to go around their App store.

by sfifs 8y ago

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

>When the revenue stream of the creator of Android fundamentally depends on being able to tie devices to identity and behaviour, it's highly unlikely this is going to happen. Well put. I’ve tried to explain to people that I prefer Apple’s upfrontness that they are there to sell me a device and it’s software for money. Unlike Android systems where I feel the lead is intentionally buried by telling me how “free” the software is.

zozbot123 8y ago
iOS apps have similar issues, actually. On the Android side, you can at least use free and auditable apps from the F-Droid repository, and buy your device from an OEM vendor which will let you unlock it and install google-free LineageOS. (More speculatively, the community is now working on replacing AOSP altogether with the usual Linux desktop stack, via PostmarketOS. Not usable right now, but it's progressing rather quickly, and may well be practically useful later in 2019.)
- paulcole 8y ago
  > iOS apps have similar issues, actually. Which issues specifically?
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    Being non-free and non-auditable, including proprietary SDKs that can gather tracking info/IDs, connecting to Facebook (even when the app is something other than a FB client)... Stuff that's quite comparable to what the video is talking about.
    - gvurrdon 8y ago
      Indeed. I don't have a Facebook account and yet various apps on my iOS devices still attempt to connect to graph.facebook.com (amongst other servers I'd rather they didn't, e.g. flurry).
    - Angostura 8y ago
      I think you need to be a bit more specific
- reificator 8y ago
  > More speculatively, the community is now working on replacing AOSP altogether with the usual Linux desktop stack, via PostmarketOS So you're telling me that 2019 is the year of the Linux desktop... on mobile?
- ummonk 8y ago
  >On the Android side, you can at least use free and auditable apps from the F-Droid repository, and buy your device from an OEM vendor which will let you unlock it and install google-free LineageOS. Do you go audit every line of source code in the apps and OS you install? Do you then verify that the binary blobs you're installing were built from the same source? Do you somehow audit the source for the firmware on your device and verify that that is the firmware installed on your device? What about the hardware, do you audit it?
  - zozbot123 8y ago
    I trust the community (including the security community) to do a better job at this than a handful of proprietary hardware and software vendors. Yes, it would be nice to have more openness on the hardware side too (and the Librem 5 phone is a worthwhile answer to that) but let's focus on the lowest-hanging fruit first.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      How did that work out for HeartBleed bug that was in open source code for over two years? Even worse, this 11 year old bug in the Linux kernel? https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/linux_kernel_gets_patch_against_12yearold_bug/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/23/linux_kernel_gets_p...
      - bch 8y ago
        Heartbleed was found and fixed, and diagnostic tools quickly followed. OSS isn’t a panacea, but it’s something, no?
        scarface74 8y ago
        After two years? How is that better than closed source?
        lern_too_spel 8y ago
SalimoS 8y ago
I’m interested to know what’s wrong in this comment with all the downvotes, personally I use ios only for exactly this google/ads/tracking
barrow-rider 8y ago
Nitpick: I believe that's "lede" as in "burying the lede".

JimDabell 8y ago

> Thr fact that Apple which could do this without significant adverse monetary impact but has chosen not to They restrict access to most of the things listed above, giving randomised fakes where necessary. The advertising ID they do let apps access is unique to a publisher so they can't be tied together with behaviour from apps by other publishers, and it's trivially disabled/resettable by the end user (Settings > Privacy > Advertising > Limit Ad Tracking / Reset Advertising Identifier…). They improve things every year, e.g. Safari's intelligent tracking prevention. I'm not really sure how you can arrive at the conclusion that Apple are holding back; they seem clearly committed to improving privacy as demonstrated by their continuous work in the area.

samt 8y ago
Where do you get that IDFA is unique to the publisher?
- JimDabell 8y ago
  Apologies, I'm conflating two slightly different things there. There's the identifierForVendor [0] which is unique to the publisher. This is pretty safe to use however you see fit (within reason). Then there's the advertisingIdentifier [1], which is not unique, but can easily be permanently zeroed out by the user. Apple also have some fairly stringent rules about how it can be used [2], not to mention further rules about not identifying people surreptitiously [3]: > 5.1.2 Data Use and Sharing > (iii) Apps should not attempt to surreptitiously build a user profile based on collected data and may not attempt, facilitate, or encourage others to identify anonymous users or reconstruct user profiles based on data collected from Apple-provided APIs or any data that you say has been collected in an “anonymized,” “aggregated,” or otherwise non-identifiable way. They ask you to explicitly confirm that you're following the advertising identifier rules in particular every single time you submit to the App Store. [0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/1620059-identifierforvendor https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uidevice/162... [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidentifiermanager https://developer.apple.com/documentation/adsupport/asidenti... [2] https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/207032086-Apple-IDFA-Guidelines-How-To-Submit-Your-iOS-App-With-IDFA https://support.appsflyer.com/hc/en-us/articles/207032086-Ap... [3] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#data-use-and-sharing https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#dat...

etphonehome 8y ago

Not true at all..this would have significant monetary impact. If advertisers lose to ability to monitor purchases at a granular level attributed to advertiser specific initiatives they will not spend and that has a chain effect that trickles to apple since they take 30% cuts of all in app revenue. If advertisers pull the plug on in app purchases and go around...they may go the route of removing IDFA to screw over advertisers for trying to go around their App store.