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That and from a purely data privacy angle, Apple is legitimately better than Google.
by SEJeff 8y ago
That and from a purely data privacy angle, Apple is legitimately better than Google.
- taf2 8y agoAre they or do you just believe that because of what you think you know about the difference between the two companies?
- ad-hominem 8y agoApple's business model is not selling your data for advertisements. They make their money the old-fashioned way - charging customers for their product (hardware).
- Kye 8y agoI'm currently on my first iPhone. They spell out what they do with data in just about every app and setting. There's an almost annoying number of modals related to privacy and general control of data. Maybe it's all for show, but they seem to take privacy seriously.
- foepys 8y agoAfaik Apple went above and beyond to make sure their original iPhone fingerprint sensor never leaked the fingerprint to any app or even the OS itself. Android always just did whatever with the print. If that's the same philosophy now, Apple is definitely better than Google in terms of privacy. Full disclosure: I own an Android device and no Apple product except an iPod from 2009 or so.
- cronix 8y agoIs it really private though if it's all being collected, encryption and all, to be decrypted at a future date when the technology is available? All data on the net is captured by the NSA and stored at multiple data centers. One's in Utah. No company can really claim privacy if their product touches the internet since all of the pipes are tapped. It's all semantics. Maybe saying "we don't directly..." or "we don't make it easy..." would be more accurate. There is no privacy on the net, period. It's temporary privacy in the immediate present at best. 5 years from now? They might be able to decrypt everything from the last 10 years that they already have stored. It's guaranteed at some point. 6 years ago Snowden also revealed Apple was on board with the data collection. They are lying, and people don't care and go along with the show. https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/21/nsa-leaker-edward-snowden-refuses-to-use-apples-iphone-over-spying-concerns---report https://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/21/nsa-leaker-edward...
- vengefulduck 8y agoExcept they don’t send it over the internet and it never leaves the device
- cronix 8y agoMy larger point was about all of the data, not biometrics specifically. Great, your fingerprint never left the device. Everything else does, which is probably way more personal data than just a fingerprint. Your fingerprint really does me no good unless I want to try to frame you for a crime, or want to get into your specific device or other thing that requires biometrics (maybe your work). Your data, I can make use of a lot of if I were criminally inclined. Your credit card numbers, your ssn, your investment accounts, your pics for making false ID's, passwords, or any other data that has ever flowed from your device. You'd have to be pretty sophisticated to be able to make use of someones fingerprints, while basically anyone could use your credit card number. Which is more valuable and larger vector for exploit?
- mlindner 8y agoNone of the data you describe ever leaves the device unless you opt in to syncing it to iCloud (which is not on by default). The FaceID/Fingerprint never leaves the device and if you don't enable iCloud syncing of the other data off the device the data is unreachable with keys kept on the device.
- admax88q 8y agoIts reasonable to think things encrypted today with good methodologies are likely to remain secure forever. NSA can't change the fundamental laws of the universe. While cryptology and mathematics is constantly advancing, there hasn't been a fundamental breakage of a block cipher in ages, nor has any evidence emerged to suggest the fundamentals of RSA will be broken. Computing power alone isn't enough to break todays strong cryptography, and its certainly possible that the underlying math is a constant of the universe. Edit: Not to mention the snowden leaks suggests that the NSA spends most of their effort subverting implementations rather than the fundamental mathematics.
- SEJeff 8y agoBecause Tim Cook, as a homosexual, has teared up when speaking about human rights abuses of homosexual under repressive regimes, and how as the CEO of apple, he will do anything within his power to ensure your data stays safe on apple infra / hw because he personally thinks about it. Can't remember the interview, but it was quite touching actually. He's very clear in shareholder calls / letters and in their privacy policy. So much so that he even calls out the competition[1] for doing it as Apple does not. From an economics standpoint, Apple doesn't make money on your data. They sell you overpriced but quite sophisticated hardware and became one of the most valuable companies in the world doing this. That and he advocates for a US equivalent of the GPDR[2] which absolutely and directly would impact the bottom line of companies like Google and Facebook. Then there is Apple's official privacy policy, where they are very explicit that they don't gather personal information to sell to advertisers. In much of the non-US world, saying that and not following that is blatantly illegal. [1] http://time.com/5433499/tim-cook-apple-data-privacy/ http://time.com/5433499/tim-cook-apple-data-privacy/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18017842/tim-cook-data-privacy-laws-us-speech-brussels https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18017842/tim-cook-data-p... [3] https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/
- Kye 8y ago"Homosexual" is not strictly offensive, but does mark you as potentially holding regressive views. It's easy enough to see from context that you're probably okay, but you can't always count on context. You can just say gay. -- Signed, The Gays
- anyfoo 8y agoIt's a fair question. For starters, comparing the business models, and how iOS implements privacy relevant aspects vs. how Android does so, might lead to reasonable assumptions.
- mises 8y agoIt is in the best financial interests of Apple to protect user data. Mr. Cook has a fiduciary responsibility to do so.
- jdietrich 8y agoApple are primarily a hardware company. They make money on the sale of devices. They also make some money as a marketplace for apps and media. They have no significant revenue from data harvesting or advertising sales. Google are an advertising company. The overwhelming majority of their revenue is from targeted advertising. Their ability to harvest user data is the primary factor affecting their bottom line. For Apple, privacy is a no-brainer. It doesn't harm either of their primary revenue streams and it gives them a substantial point of differentiation against their main competitor. Apple have an ongoing commercial imperative to improve the privacy of their products and services; Google have an ongoing commercial imperative to the contrary.
- izacus 8y agoThey also make a lot of money in China where betraying their users privacy was required to enter. And that was almost the same week then their CEO, Tim Cook, told on camera that privacy is "fundamental human right". I guess he doesn't consider Chinese people human.
- specialist 8y agoWhat would you have done?
- cromwellian 8y agoHow about withdrawl, like Google did?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jjoske 8y agoIf Apple could see a way to make money out of your data they would do it without blinking. The only reason they went with the privacy angle was that they failed when they tried to build their own ad network.
- macintux 8y agoThey failed with their ad network in part because they weren’t willing to share user data with advertisers. You’re conflating correlation and causation.
- bduerst 8y agoHow so? Apple shared all their iCloud user data (messages, pics, docs, etc.) and keys with the Chinese government last year. [1] Apple even updated their TOS forcing Chinese users to agree to it or drop service. [2] Google got flak for just considering it with Dragonfly, but Apple actually did it. [1] https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-data/#ahDzcDZPeiqd https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insight/apple-moves-to-store-icloud-keys-in-china-raising-human-rights-fears-idUSKCN1G8060 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...
- abalone 8y agoSource? iMessage is E2E encrypted so no, Apple did not share that part (or other encrypted data like keychain). They’ve actually gone pretty far in protecting their E2E encryption from adversarial clouds.
- bduerst 8y agoAdded sources. Apple moved the keys for accessing the data at rest to Chinese servers, which were nationalized by the Chinese government. The Chinese government has access to the users' data at rest and the keys to decrypt it.
- celeritascelery 8y agoI think you are misunderstanding. Apple moved Chinese iClouds to Chinese firms. So yes, Chinese iCloud users in China will be under the full surveillance of the government. Which they always have been. But that has no impact on anyone outside of China. Dragonfly is a censored search engine, not a user data base.
- bduerst 8y agoThe Chinese firms were nationalized by the government in July, giving full access. This isn't generic surveillance but complete ownership. First source listed in my original comment. Dragonfly was complying with China's firewall, because clicking broken links in search results sucks, but it was also linking every search query to the users phone number and sharing with the Chinese government, which is what Google employees revolted over.