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So Apples going to war with Facebook and Google citing privacy. Google violates privacy, yes but so does Apple. Real privacy on phones means removing google p

So Apples going to war with Facebook and Google citing privacy. Google violates privacy, yes but so does Apple. Real privacy on phones means removing google play services from your phone, using fdroid, not using any proprietary apps and self hosting services instead of relying on gsuite or ms365. Not the fake privacy shit that Apple does, where they move the power from Google to themselves.

jmnicolas 6y ago
What about your ISP? They know every websites you consult, every phone calls and texts and they triangulate your position...
- metiscus 6y ago
  For all but the position aspect of that, switching to a trustworthy VPN provider (e.g. ProtonVPN or Mozilla VPN) and using Signal or another VOIP system can provide mitigation. For the position data, that is harder to mitigate but you have to consider your threat profile. The truly paranoid keep their phones with battery removed (when possible) and/or in a faraday bag unless they are actively using them. You do, of course, pay for this privacy with significantly reduced convenience.
  - jmnicolas 6y ago
    I'm not sure who I distrust more between a VPN provider and my ISP, but for sure I don't trust either. Signal has received financing from the CIA so my trust level isn't high (even though I use it). My point is that privacy is an illusion on any connected system and particularly a smartphone. You can make less privacy damaging choices but IMHO there's no panacea.
    - ViViDboarder 6y ago
      > Signal has received financing from the CIA so my trust level isn't high (even though I use it). More like Signal once received funding from a fund that included funding from an organization that was once run by the CIA. Still, I agree with your overall point. To be truly private, you need to disconnect. Other than that, you need to consider each trade off. Historically, this was difficult because companies barely disclosed what they did. Since GDPR and CCPA, a lot of the veil has been lifted.
gggtt 6y ago
Agreed. On the long-term, Apple is the one which might harm Privacy the most because they will kill the real Privacy alternatives by pretending they are one. People use Google & Facebook because they are dependent on their services but some of them know they are unethical (for e.g the recent WhatsApp scandal shows that at least some people are kinda aware). Apple on the other hand lies and does propaganda about their fake Privacy and people (even on HN) think they are the solution, and that's far more dangerous I think. Many people think real Privacy solutions are not worth supporting because they have Safari, IOS & Icloud. Well guess what, ICloud is not even (end2end) encrypted, employees have been listening to your Siri conversation, HomeKit doorbells are doing nonconsenting facial recognition on you & your friends, Apple tracks every app you lunch & when (and no that's not necessary for security, you could just download a blacklist instead of sending Apple your history), and no, Apple does not audit or read any line of code of the apps on the store. It's killing me that my friends think it's okay to install Facebook, Instagram & Snapchat or whatever on their phone because "No but it's okay, I have an IPhone so Apple has checked the app and everything". For them, Apple is magically going to protect them whatever they do. That's where you see their lies & propaganda really worked. Apple is like a polluting gas car that sells & market itself as a green clean ecological electrical car so that people can use without conscience issues
kgin 6y ago
Your bar for privacy is very high and accessible only to nerds. That's great, but not helpful for average users. Apple is not absolute, ironclad privacy. Don't rely on them for covert ops missions. But they ARE providing a very reasonable model of doing business that requires no special skills on the part of the user and does not engage in the unrelenting surveillance that other companies bake into every corner of their products. Is it "privacy"? I'm not sure. But it is definitely "not surveillance". And that's a very reasonable place to start.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
  Where does privacy end and surveillance start?
  - kgin 6y ago
    I think many are defining privacy as “no one has even the possibility of accessing your data”. To me, surveillance is actively instrumenting and recording data from a user . Apple seems live in a middle zone where the do not engage in surveillance, but sometimes make technical choices where they could in theory access or intercept data from you, though they have they have promised not to.
- gerash 6y ago
  What Apple does is partly "privacy theatre" in my opinion. They shame third party apps you have given background location permission for using your location in the background (eg. gps dog collar app) while never alerting you when the first party Apple apps do the same "Apple maps / friend finder / Siri / etc. used your location in the background"
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
jmull 6y ago
What you're suggesting isn't that far from "don't use the internet". That's fine -- your privacy will go way up -- but I don't think that's the solution very many people are looking for.

jmnicolas 6y ago

What about your ISP? They know every websites you consult, every phone calls and texts and they triangulate your position...

metiscus 6y ago
For all but the position aspect of that, switching to a trustworthy VPN provider (e.g. ProtonVPN or Mozilla VPN) and using Signal or another VOIP system can provide mitigation. For the position data, that is harder to mitigate but you have to consider your threat profile. The truly paranoid keep their phones with battery removed (when possible) and/or in a faraday bag unless they are actively using them. You do, of course, pay for this privacy with significantly reduced convenience.
- jmnicolas 6y ago
  I'm not sure who I distrust more between a VPN provider and my ISP, but for sure I don't trust either. Signal has received financing from the CIA so my trust level isn't high (even though I use it). My point is that privacy is an illusion on any connected system and particularly a smartphone. You can make less privacy damaging choices but IMHO there's no panacea.
  - ViViDboarder 6y ago
    > Signal has received financing from the CIA so my trust level isn't high (even though I use it). More like Signal once received funding from a fund that included funding from an organization that was once run by the CIA. Still, I agree with your overall point. To be truly private, you need to disconnect. Other than that, you need to consider each trade off. Historically, this was difficult because companies barely disclosed what they did. Since GDPR and CCPA, a lot of the veil has been lifted.

gggtt 6y ago

Agreed. On the long-term, Apple is the one which might harm Privacy the most because they will kill the real Privacy alternatives by pretending they are one. People use Google & Facebook because they are dependent on their services but some of them know they are unethical (for e.g the recent WhatsApp scandal shows that at least some people are kinda aware). Apple on the other hand lies and does propaganda about their fake Privacy and people (even on HN) think they are the solution, and that's far more dangerous I think. Many people think real Privacy solutions are not worth supporting because they have Safari, IOS & Icloud. Well guess what, ICloud is not even (end2end) encrypted, employees have been listening to your Siri conversation, HomeKit doorbells are doing nonconsenting facial recognition on you & your friends, Apple tracks every app you lunch & when (and no that's not necessary for security, you could just download a blacklist instead of sending Apple your history), and no, Apple does not audit or read any line of code of the apps on the store. It's killing me that my friends think it's okay to install Facebook, Instagram & Snapchat or whatever on their phone because "No but it's okay, I have an IPhone so Apple has checked the app and everything". For them, Apple is magically going to protect them whatever they do. That's where you see their lies & propaganda really worked. Apple is like a polluting gas car that sells & market itself as a green clean ecological electrical car so that people can use without conscience issues

kgin 6y ago

Your bar for privacy is very high and accessible only to nerds. That's great, but not helpful for average users. Apple is not absolute, ironclad privacy. Don't rely on them for covert ops missions. But they ARE providing a very reasonable model of doing business that requires no special skills on the part of the user and does not engage in the unrelenting surveillance that other companies bake into every corner of their products. Is it "privacy"? I'm not sure. But it is definitely "not surveillance". And that's a very reasonable place to start.

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
Where does privacy end and surveillance start?
- kgin 6y ago
  I think many are defining privacy as “no one has even the possibility of accessing your data”. To me, surveillance is actively instrumenting and recording data from a user . Apple seems live in a middle zone where the do not engage in surveillance, but sometimes make technical choices where they could in theory access or intercept data from you, though they have they have promised not to.
gerash 6y ago
What Apple does is partly "privacy theatre" in my opinion. They shame third party apps you have given background location permission for using your location in the background (eg. gps dog collar app) while never alerting you when the first party Apple apps do the same "Apple maps / friend finder / Siri / etc. used your location in the background"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

jmull 6y ago

What you're suggesting isn't that far from "don't use the internet". That's fine -- your privacy will go way up -- but I don't think that's the solution very many people are looking for.