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>A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages... And now we've hit on the essential flaw in Warren's "break them up!" soundbite based policy. Her ide

>A messaging app that can read SMS and replace Messages... And now we've hit on the essential flaw in Warren's "break them up!" soundbite based policy. Her ideas do NOTHING to address the real problem, a lack of data privacy. If you tell apple they have to let people make apps that can access things like sms, boom, all of the users lose control of that data. The App developer takes it, and now it can go anywhere. It'd actually be worse than what we have now. Here's the really sad part about all of this: A law to make the sharing of data between companies explicitly illegal is actually EASIER to implement than the whole "break 'em up!" strategy. So you have to ask yourself, "Why won't they just make it illegal to share data?" And when you start brainstorming potential answers to that question, it can be a bit unsettling. It makes me think we need such a law even more.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
That is a completely independent problem. Moreover, the privacy issue isn't solved by prohibiting what applications can do, it's solved by giving the user control over them. If a flashlight app wants to access your SMS messages, you should be able to say "no" and still use it as a flashlight. But if an actual messaging app wants to do that for actual messaging purposes, you should still be able to say "yes" and use that app instead of Apple's.
- mikhailt 8y ago
  Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. Okay, how does that prevent Telechat from collecting my data and selling it? I understand what you're trying to say but it is not solved by using app policies (controlling which piece of data they can access) because such policies does not prevent said apps from violating your privacy. That isn't to say that such app policies shouldn't be a thing, it's a great tool and limits the potential damage but it has nothing to do with privacy.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. It solves the flashlight app accessing your SMS messages. > Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. But then that's a different problem. It's no longer the app having permissions it shouldn't, it's the user explicitly choosing to trust a malicious app. The solution to that is to have a third party service to verify that apps aren't doing anything malicious. That is nominally what Apple does with the App Store, but there are two main problems with their implementation: (1) You can't choose someone else to trust to verify iOS apps for you, it has to be Apple and there is no alternative if they get it wrong or reject non-malicious apps because they don't want competition. (2) It's not enough to deny malicious apps from accessing SMS, they also need to allow non-malicious apps to do it. This would largely be solved by fixing (1) because then a provider that failed to do (2) would not have to be used.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

That is a completely independent problem. Moreover, the privacy issue isn't solved by prohibiting what applications can do, it's solved by giving the user control over them. If a flashlight app wants to access your SMS messages, you should be able to say "no" and still use it as a flashlight. But if an actual messaging app wants to do that for actual messaging purposes, you should still be able to say "yes" and use that app instead of Apple's.

mikhailt 8y ago
Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. Okay, how does that prevent Telechat from collecting my data and selling it? I understand what you're trying to say but it is not solved by using app policies (controlling which piece of data they can access) because such policies does not prevent said apps from violating your privacy. That isn't to say that such app policies shouldn't be a thing, it's a great tool and limits the potential damage but it has nothing to do with privacy.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Unfortunately, that also won't solve anything. It solves the flashlight app accessing your SMS messages. > Let's say that I installed Telechat (fake chat app) and it asked for SMS, well yea, I'm going to approve it because it is a chat app. But then that's a different problem. It's no longer the app having permissions it shouldn't, it's the user explicitly choosing to trust a malicious app. The solution to that is to have a third party service to verify that apps aren't doing anything malicious. That is nominally what Apple does with the App Store, but there are two main problems with their implementation: (1) You can't choose someone else to trust to verify iOS apps for you, it has to be Apple and there is no alternative if they get it wrong or reject non-malicious apps because they don't want competition. (2) It's not enough to deny malicious apps from accessing SMS, they also need to allow non-malicious apps to do it. This would largely be solved by fixing (1) because then a provider that failed to do (2) would not have to be used.