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I have not bought an Apple product... evar But I said I would get the first production-ready ARM Laptop chip... It had to be an Apple, here I am writing this o
by tubbyjr 6y ago
I have not bought an Apple product... evar
But I said I would get the first production-ready ARM Laptop chip... It had to be an Apple, here I am writing this on an M1 Laptop now (to my credit I am trying to minimize as much of the home phoning via various means, albeit I understand I'm using complete spyware).
ARM/RISC is the future.
- Angostura 6y ago> I understand I'm using complete spyware What makes you say that? There is relatively little phoning home in MacOS
- jolmg 6y agoI don't really follow Apple news, but I do remember this: https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/ https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/ > On modern versions of macOS, you simply can’t power on your computer, launch a text editor or eBook reader, and write or read, without a log of your activity being transmitted and stored. > It turns out that in the current version of the macOS, the OS sends to Apple a hash (unique identifier) of each and every program you run, when you run it. Lots of people didn’t realize this, because it’s silent and invisible and it fails instantly and gracefully when you’re offline, but today the server got really slow and it didn’t hit the fail-fast code path, and everyone’s apps failed to open if they were connected to the internet. > Because it does this using the internet, the server sees your IP, of course, and knows what time the request came in. An IP address allows for coarse, city-level and ISP-level geolocation... > Apple (or anyone else) can, of course, calculate these hashes for common programs: everything in the App Store, the Creative Cloud, Tor Browser, cracking or reverse engineering tools, whatever. > This means that Apple knows when you’re at home. When you’re at work. What apps you open there, and how often. They know when you open Premiere over at a friend’s house on their Wi-Fi, and they know when you open Tor Browser in a hotel on a trip to another city.
- astrange 6y agoThis post is factually incorrect, it does not send a hash of the application (instead an identifier that can be shared across apps) and the server doesn't save any logs.
- neolog 6y agoIt's a developer ID. Most developers have only one app, so it's very close to an app ID.
- derefr 6y agoBut a content-hash would have given them a release ID (i.e. which specific version of the app bundle you're running.) A series of {release hash, launch timestamp} events could be used to build a much more precise profile of your computing habits than just {app ID, launch timestamp} events would. Also, you're ignoring the power-law: while yes, the majority of software exists in a long-tail of ISVs, most of the apps that people use are made by big corps that make a lot of apps each. 80% of the apps on any computer (Windows or macOS) are Microsoft or Apple or Adobe apps. When you're using any of those, all Apple gets is {Apple, timestamp} or {Google, timestamp} or {Adobe, timestamp}. That's... not very useful for profiling. Especially the first two. Safari and iTunes are both just "Apple" through this system. Are you working? Relaxing? Who knows?
- neolog 6y agoThose are fair points. The original report was much more serious before Apple changed policies to make the reports encrypted in transit and stopped logging IPs.
- zelon88 6y agoApple telling you they don't log IPs means nothing. Facebook did this and nobody batted an eye. [1] It's also incredibly unlikely. I'm just trying to picture what this server that does no kind of user identification at all looks like. What value would it possibly offer? Just to count how many times an application is opened? How can any kind of analytic application function without some kind of user profiling mechanism and a place to store that data for analysis? It sounds too good to be true, so it probably is. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/facebook-doubles-down-misusing-your-phone-number https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/facebook-doubles-down-...
- tubbyjr 6y agoSo what measure of relatively little in your mind would yield it not to be spyware? In my mind, no phoning home, and open-source at the very least. So to me, it's spyware indeed, because as you just said yourself, it phones home.
- outworlder 6y agoHash checks for malware is not the same as spyware. If anything, it's the opposite. One could argue that these hashes should be downloaded and then checked against a local database and I can't really argue against that, sounds like a standard anti-virus MO and I would prefer that. You can block those connections if they bother you.
- dylan604 6y ago>checked against a local database Is this ripe for being manipulated by an infected system though? By keeping it central to the home office, they have control over the single location rather than trying to ensure every single system stays current.
- upbeat_general 6y agoThey can be blocked but not in a simple way for most users. If it was a preference synced with iCloud or at the very least in system preferences I’d be okay with it but I shouldn’t have to fight with my OS. Plus I had to unblock ocsp.apple.com at one point because it was causing an issue with something else. In any case, defaults matter.
- Dylan16807 6y agoIt's not the "opposite". It's very much a "lesser evil" situation. > One could argue Could and should.
- kergonath 6y agoThere is some phoning home from applications, though. On top of the occasional Gatekeeper SNAFU. I like to rely on Little Snitch, and feel nervous when using a computer without it.
- jdshaffer 6y agoI'm curious -- do you find a lot of unsavory activity using "Little Snitch", or is it almost all fair-and-square? I ask out of honest curiosity. I tinkered with LS a year ago or so, but it made me wonder just how many bad-actors are really out there. Cheers!
- m_eiman 6y agoA lot of applications, perhaps a majority, use analytics and send data data to eg Google or Microsoft whenever you run them.
- kergonath 6y agoGoogle, Adobe, and Microsoft tend to be quite bad. The other ones tend to be reasonable and just check for updates every now and then. It has flagged a couple of daemons, mostly related to iCloud, but nothing very suspicious after a quick investigation. So no, nothing too worrisome.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lallysingh 6y agoCan you put Linux on it?
- kergonath 6y agoIn a VM, yes. As the only OS, not quite yet.
- ben-schaaf 6y agoNot if you want the GPU to work - or a whole host of other things that usually don't work on recent macs.
- edgyquant 6y agoLast I saw Linux will boot but it’s so new they were still in the alpha stages of having a proper terminal, let alone true GPU support.
- mike00632 6y agoThe 2019 Microsoft Surface Pro X is an ARM laptop. https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/5/20948092/microsoft-surface-pro-x-review-arm-windows-10-apps-features-specs-price https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/5/20948092/microsoft-surfac... It uses a Qualcomm laptop processor.
- bloqs 6y agoI hope you read up on the SSD wear and tear controversy that has been PR'd out of existence
- 908B64B197 6y agoYou bought the second production-ready ARM laptop chip it seems. [0] Also, unlike the M1, if your SSD goes bad because of excessive usage [2] you can just swap it with a screwdriver [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_X [1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+X+Teardown/127703 https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+X+Tear... [2] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/23/m1-mac-users-report-excessive-ssd-wear/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/23/m1-mac-users-report-exc...
- toiletfuneral 6y agoThis is 100% fair but I also want to say I've never swapped an SSD in any of my devices in the last decade. I suspect the number of people who won't need that repairability may be getting larger too, but I'm totally willing to be wrong as it's just a gut feeling.
- cesarb 6y ago> You bought the second production-ready ARM laptop chip it seems. [0] Do netbooks count as laptops? Because I've used the Efika MX (https://genesi.company/products/smartbook https://genesi.company/products/smartbook), which is an ARM netbook older than the Surface.