6 ms·

> It's a complete change of narrative and there's no easy way to explain it and still defend Apple's Privacy narrative, wihout doing extreme mental gymnastics.

> It's a complete change of narrative and there's no easy way to explain it and still defend Apple's Privacy narrative, wihout doing extreme mental gymnastics. Everyone who took Apple at their word was already doing extreme mental gymnastics because Apple's privacy stance was a farce on borrowed time to begin with. Now it's just blatantly obvious to everyone.

busymom0 5y ago
While I knew that the "privacy" stance from Apple in prior years was always a marketing facade to sell more devices, I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. It's kind of funny how I am very suspicious of governments and politicians but when it comes to a trillion dollar corporation, I was giving them more of benefit of doubt. I was wrong.
- akiselev 5y ago
  I don't necessarily think you were wrong to believe in Apple, perhaps just a bit naive about how little "as much as possible" is good for in this context. Apple is a public corporation at the mercy of several superpowers. Economic incentives and the people with the guns make the rules. Full stop. Apple's privacy stance was always one desperate/amibitious business unit or bureaucrat away from complete collapse.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. Considering how often Apple gives up customer data without a fight when requested to by the government, I don't really believe that. According to Apple, they respond to government data requests with customers' data ~85% of the time, and 92% in cases of "emergencies"[1]. Apple gave customer data from over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests and National Security Letter requests in the first half of 2020 alone[1]. During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times[1]. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
  - wyre 5y ago
    I don’t know if the first half of 2020 is a good time frame for sampling as this is when the country had the largest amount of protests in history and the police are going to be making a lot of requests in retaliation. Doesn’t make Apple look any better though. I’m curious about how often Google and Facebook hand over information.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      There's a drop down menu that you can use to see other time periods. The numbers and rates in the July to December 2019 period are similar to 2020's.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    > During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times To clarify: The 9,000 figure is the number of individual data requests, but the requests themselves asked for data from a total of ~120,000 different users/accounts. Multiple users' data can be requested in a single request.
- istingray 5y ago
  I appreciate you saying this, I felt the same way. I was delighted when Apple started selling privacy hard, and hoped it would persist. Their "Mind your own business" [1] ad was a delight - only 2 months ago. Now my question is, which of the annoying characters in the ad is Apple? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y
  - rossjudson 5y ago
    So few people realize this! Say, what is Apple's advertising policy? Hmm. It looks very familiar, doesn't it? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223
- 7sidedmarble 5y ago
  Have you ever considered that the profit motive might be responsible for leading all companies to act unethically? In the future, it's a good reason never to trust them.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Please stop insulting people because they chose less privacy than you. Don't act superior. I would posit that just about everyone who reads hackernews knows that privacy and security are on a spectrum. People complaining about this as the last straw have every right to do so and this is a huge leap from Apple's previous position. No one thinks you're any smarter by saying "I told you so".
- AuthorizedCust 5y ago
  I think what he is saying is that Apple has consistently not acted in the interest of consumers. Therefore, why should we take their privacy claims seriously? Remember when they attacked journalists, for example? How about the corporate culture of secrecy? That is far from consumer friendly.
- istingray 5y ago
  Important adjustment -- privacy and surveillance are what's on a spectrum. Security is not the inverse of privacy.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    I was going to say; I'm aware security is always a compromise (vs speed or ease of use or budget etc), but I've never seen that privacy and security are the natural opposites / inverses in same spectrum.
    - istingray 5y ago
      "Security vs privacy" is unfortunately the most common mistake made about privacy discussions.
- akiselev 5y ago
  My daily drivers are an Android and an iPhone while my PinePhone gathers dust, so I don't understand what this has to do with my privacy choices. Nor did I say it to act superior or imply that no one had a right to complain. This is merely a reminder that Apple was founded in and most HN readers live in the United States, a nation founded on the idea that, without checks and balances, any power that can be abused will be abused. Without something legally binding and someone holding Apple to their word, their privacy stance was never going to be anything more than a temporary ploy in their ultimate goal: to make more money.
naeeqn 5y ago
I agree. I wanted to believe that despite being a greedy coropration - like they are all - and despite the hidden compromises in security they do (like not encrypting backups because the FBI asked them to) they would at least try their best to avoid being scumbags. Too bad. Scumbags they are.
btgeekboy 5y ago
It’s only a “farce on borrowed time” because you have the benefit of hindsight.
- GauntletWizard 5y ago
  I think you'll find that a few of us, above poster included, have been saying all along it's a farce - that their stances have been missing the point for a long time. In that case, it's called foresight. Sometimes just luck, but repeated lucky guesses are indistinguishable from predictive power.
- tehjoker 5y ago
  No, this is obvious to anyone that understands that companies one master: profit. The soon as it becomes convenient to discard a "principled" stand, a company will do it. Apple was using privacy as a wedge to attack the Android consumer base or because they wanted their customers to believe they were special to reinforce their velben brand, not because they have some deeply held belief. In this case, perhaps Apple saw a way to do a favor for the government in exchange for some policy that will advantage it.
- Valkhyr 5y ago
  Not true, unless by "having the benefit of hindsight" you mean "having watched Apple's actions for the last few years". Yes, they do a lot for privacy. But when it comes to their bottom line, they also have a record of compromising on privacy (and consumer rights in general) to preserve business with less than freedom-loving countries such as China, the UAE, Russia. It is sometimes difficult to criticize them for this because the financial loss to them would be huge if, say, China kicked them out of their market (and utterly devastating if they kicked them out of manufacturing in China), and because people like to make the argument that iOS is (probably) "still the the bets option for privacy in China" - but it doesn't change the fact that in Apple's hierarchy of priorities privacy ranks lower than making money. To give a concrete example: if Apple allowed sideloading of apps as Android does, Apple would no longer be in the position to remove VPN apps on behest of China - but at the cost of opening up app distribution outside their own store, which means no free rent-seeking income from that anymore. They'd now actually need to compete on providing the best store for developers, which is obviously going to be more work and cost for them. So, instead they choose the "lesser evil" of putting themselves in a position where they are the only thing that stands (or rather: drops dead lie a wet sack) between an authoritarian state and people trying to circumvent that state's surveillance. It's a good thing Apple shows more Courage(TM) when it truly counts, for instance when it comes to ridding us all of that terrible scourge of human existence, the 3.5mm jack.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It makes discussion shallower, more tedious, and nastier. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163326.
- akiselev 5y ago
  What criteria do you use to evaluate whether a post takes a thread further into a flamewar or not? In what way did my reply make the rest of the discussion "shallower, more tedious, and nastier"? I felt that this sparked a lively (albeit short) debate about a blindspot that a great many readers seem to have. It took a six hour rollercoaster ride before flags killed it - not even a fair shake for anyone to vouch despite no flagged children.
  - dang 5y ago
    Two issues: 1. Your comment didn't add any information—it was just grandiose, inflammatory claims ("extreme mental gymnastics", "farce to begin with" and "blatantly obvious") 2. Replies like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 are to be expected to such comments. This is the way that discussion degrades. (That was the top reply to your comment before I downweighted it, so the effect was a lot more obvious before that.) Ok, three issues: 3. This entire subthread is way more generic than the better parts of the discussion. That's to be expected from inflammatory comments that don't add information. Generic threads are much more predictable and much less interesting than specific ones: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
    - akiselev 5y ago
      > 1. Your comment didn't add any information—it was just grandiose, inflammatory claims ("extreme mental gymnastics", "farce to begin with" and "blatantly obvious") "Extreme metal gymnastics" was the only inflammatory claim and it was the same language used by the person I was replying to. "Farce" has no more charitable a synonym [1] and "to begin with" does not make it any more or less inflammatory. "Blatantly obvious" - really? It was. Plenty of replies agree based on the merits of the argument. This isn't a flamewar > 2. Replies like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 are to be expected to such comments. This is the way that discussion degrades. (That was the top reply to your comment before I downweighted it, so the effect was a lot more obvious before that.) People get defensive sometimes, so what? Take the charitable interpretation. (and this is a deflection - I was asking about my comment). "Please stop insulting... Don't act superior..." - how in the world did that get flagged!? How does this level of genuine politeness degrade the discussion? "No one thinks you're any smarter by saying "I told you so"." - ...really? By HN snark standards thats praise. > 3. This entire subthread is way more generic than the better parts of the discussion. That's to be expected from inflammatory comments that don't add information. Generic threads are much more predictable and much less interesting than specific ones: ... That's a self fulfilling judgement (see above). Worst case I'm guilty of extreme snark. Call it a coping mechanism. [1] https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/farce https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/farce https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/facade https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/facade

busymom0 5y ago

While I knew that the "privacy" stance from Apple in prior years was always a marketing facade to sell more devices, I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. It's kind of funny how I am very suspicious of governments and politicians but when it comes to a trillion dollar corporation, I was giving them more of benefit of doubt. I was wrong.

akiselev 5y ago
I don't necessarily think you were wrong to believe in Apple, perhaps just a bit naive about how little "as much as possible" is good for in this context. Apple is a public corporation at the mercy of several superpowers. Economic incentives and the people with the guns make the rules. Full stop. Apple's privacy stance was always one desperate/amibitious business unit or bureaucrat away from complete collapse.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. Considering how often Apple gives up customer data without a fight when requested to by the government, I don't really believe that. According to Apple, they respond to government data requests with customers' data ~85% of the time, and 92% in cases of "emergencies"[1]. Apple gave customer data from over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests and National Security Letter requests in the first half of 2020 alone[1]. During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times[1]. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
- wyre 5y ago
  I don’t know if the first half of 2020 is a good time frame for sampling as this is when the country had the largest amount of protests in history and the police are going to be making a lot of requests in retaliation. Doesn’t make Apple look any better though. I’m curious about how often Google and Facebook hand over information.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    There's a drop down menu that you can use to see other time periods. The numbers and rates in the July to December 2019 period are similar to 2020's.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times To clarify: The 9,000 figure is the number of individual data requests, but the requests themselves asked for data from a total of ~120,000 different users/accounts. Multiple users' data can be requested in a single request.
istingray 5y ago
I appreciate you saying this, I felt the same way. I was delighted when Apple started selling privacy hard, and hoped it would persist. Their "Mind your own business" [1] ad was a delight - only 2 months ago. Now my question is, which of the annoying characters in the ad is Apple? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y
- rossjudson 5y ago
  So few people realize this! Say, what is Apple's advertising policy? Hmm. It looks very familiar, doesn't it? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223
7sidedmarble 5y ago
Have you ever considered that the profit motive might be responsible for leading all companies to act unethically? In the future, it's a good reason never to trust them.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Please stop insulting people because they chose less privacy than you. Don't act superior. I would posit that just about everyone who reads hackernews knows that privacy and security are on a spectrum. People complaining about this as the last straw have every right to do so and this is a huge leap from Apple's previous position. No one thinks you're any smarter by saying "I told you so".

AuthorizedCust 5y ago
I think what he is saying is that Apple has consistently not acted in the interest of consumers. Therefore, why should we take their privacy claims seriously? Remember when they attacked journalists, for example? How about the corporate culture of secrecy? That is far from consumer friendly.
istingray 5y ago
Important adjustment -- privacy and surveillance are what's on a spectrum. Security is not the inverse of privacy.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  I was going to say; I'm aware security is always a compromise (vs speed or ease of use or budget etc), but I've never seen that privacy and security are the natural opposites / inverses in same spectrum.
  - istingray 5y ago
    "Security vs privacy" is unfortunately the most common mistake made about privacy discussions.
akiselev 5y ago
My daily drivers are an Android and an iPhone while my PinePhone gathers dust, so I don't understand what this has to do with my privacy choices. Nor did I say it to act superior or imply that no one had a right to complain. This is merely a reminder that Apple was founded in and most HN readers live in the United States, a nation founded on the idea that, without checks and balances, any power that can be abused will be abused. Without something legally binding and someone holding Apple to their word, their privacy stance was never going to be anything more than a temporary ploy in their ultimate goal: to make more money.

naeeqn 5y ago

I agree. I wanted to believe that despite being a greedy coropration - like they are all - and despite the hidden compromises in security they do (like not encrypting backups because the FBI asked them to) they would at least try their best to avoid being scumbags. Too bad. Scumbags they are.

btgeekboy 5y ago

It’s only a “farce on borrowed time” because you have the benefit of hindsight.

GauntletWizard 5y ago
I think you'll find that a few of us, above poster included, have been saying all along it's a farce - that their stances have been missing the point for a long time. In that case, it's called foresight. Sometimes just luck, but repeated lucky guesses are indistinguishable from predictive power.
tehjoker 5y ago
No, this is obvious to anyone that understands that companies one master: profit. The soon as it becomes convenient to discard a "principled" stand, a company will do it. Apple was using privacy as a wedge to attack the Android consumer base or because they wanted their customers to believe they were special to reinforce their velben brand, not because they have some deeply held belief. In this case, perhaps Apple saw a way to do a favor for the government in exchange for some policy that will advantage it.
Valkhyr 5y ago
Not true, unless by "having the benefit of hindsight" you mean "having watched Apple's actions for the last few years". Yes, they do a lot for privacy. But when it comes to their bottom line, they also have a record of compromising on privacy (and consumer rights in general) to preserve business with less than freedom-loving countries such as China, the UAE, Russia. It is sometimes difficult to criticize them for this because the financial loss to them would be huge if, say, China kicked them out of their market (and utterly devastating if they kicked them out of manufacturing in China), and because people like to make the argument that iOS is (probably) "still the the bets option for privacy in China" - but it doesn't change the fact that in Apple's hierarchy of priorities privacy ranks lower than making money. To give a concrete example: if Apple allowed sideloading of apps as Android does, Apple would no longer be in the position to remove VPN apps on behest of China - but at the cost of opening up app distribution outside their own store, which means no free rent-seeking income from that anymore. They'd now actually need to compete on providing the best store for developers, which is obviously going to be more work and cost for them. So, instead they choose the "lesser evil" of putting themselves in a position where they are the only thing that stands (or rather: drops dead lie a wet sack) between an authoritarian state and people trying to circumvent that state's surveillance. It's a good thing Apple shows more Courage(TM) when it truly counts, for instance when it comes to ridding us all of that terrible scourge of human existence, the 3.5mm jack.

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It makes discussion shallower, more tedious, and nastier. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163326.

akiselev 5y ago
What criteria do you use to evaluate whether a post takes a thread further into a flamewar or not? In what way did my reply make the rest of the discussion "shallower, more tedious, and nastier"? I felt that this sparked a lively (albeit short) debate about a blindspot that a great many readers seem to have. It took a six hour rollercoaster ride before flags killed it - not even a fair shake for anyone to vouch despite no flagged children.
- dang 5y ago
  Two issues: 1. Your comment didn't add any information—it was just grandiose, inflammatory claims ("extreme mental gymnastics", "farce to begin with" and "blatantly obvious") 2. Replies like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 are to be expected to such comments. This is the way that discussion degrades. (That was the top reply to your comment before I downweighted it, so the effect was a lot more obvious before that.) Ok, three issues: 3. This entire subthread is way more generic than the better parts of the discussion. That's to be expected from inflammatory comments that don't add information. Generic threads are much more predictable and much less interesting than specific ones: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20discussion%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor....
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > 1. Your comment didn't add any information—it was just grandiose, inflammatory claims ("extreme mental gymnastics", "farce to begin with" and "blatantly obvious") "Extreme metal gymnastics" was the only inflammatory claim and it was the same language used by the person I was replying to. "Farce" has no more charitable a synonym [1] and "to begin with" does not make it any more or less inflammatory. "Blatantly obvious" - really? It was. Plenty of replies agree based on the merits of the argument. This isn't a flamewar > 2. Replies like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28163531 are to be expected to such comments. This is the way that discussion degrades. (That was the top reply to your comment before I downweighted it, so the effect was a lot more obvious before that.) People get defensive sometimes, so what? Take the charitable interpretation. (and this is a deflection - I was asking about my comment). "Please stop insulting... Don't act superior..." - how in the world did that get flagged!? How does this level of genuine politeness degrade the discussion? "No one thinks you're any smarter by saying "I told you so"." - ...really? By HN snark standards thats praise. > 3. This entire subthread is way more generic than the better parts of the discussion. That's to be expected from inflammatory comments that don't add information. Generic threads are much more predictable and much less interesting than specific ones: ... That's a self fulfilling judgement (see above). Worst case I'm guilty of extreme snark. Call it a coping mechanism. [1] https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/farce https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/farce https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/facade https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/facade