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I'm so done. I'm sorry to dump a pointless rant like this on HN but... what the hell is going on these days? Nobody seriously seems to care about legitimate pri

I'm so done. I'm sorry to dump a pointless rant like this on HN but... what the hell is going on these days? Nobody seriously seems to care about legitimate privacy concerns anymore. If I were in a position of power, like being CEO, CTO, or even just an engineer on the team at Apple that implemented this, I'd do EVERYTHING to make sure that my power is in check and that I'm not pushing a fundamentally harmful technology. I just feel so lost and powerless these days, I don't know how much longer I can go on when every piece of technology I own is working against me - tools designed to serve a ruling class instead of the consumer. I don't like it one bit.

gsibble 5y ago
The feeling is mutual. The devices we own are now being used to actively police us.
- wobbly_bush 5y ago
  The parent comment might have misunderstood what the government asked for. It asked for a feature to "report spam" by end users.
  - c7DJTLrn 5y ago
    Maybe I did. But what difference does it make? There's plenty of other instances where Apple has reportedly been bullied into action or inaction (being dissuaded from implementing E2EE for iCloud is one example). I've really just reached a breaking point and I'm sorry if logic does not apply.
domador 5y ago
There are many of us that DO care! Unfortunately, even though we are many, we are still a small minority among the general population, or probably even among software developers. Convenience and fashion tend to trump security and principles for most people. (Oftentimes, I'm one of those people as well, though I try not to be. It's exhausting to be an activist 100% of the time. But let's keep at it!)
t0mas88 5y ago
I'm as surprised as you are that a giant like Apple doesn't just tell them "go ahead, ban iPhones, see how popular they'll become" to someone as powerless as the government of India. It would be a huge free publicity campaign for them in the rest of the world while the public in India would either put pressure on their government or buy iPhones via import websites. For additional fun, strike a deal with the #2 non government owned carrier in whichever country you do this to. Offer the iPhone at a special rate for a few months. They would kill the government telco while selling record numbers of phones with free publicity. And at the same time scare any other government into not trying this kind of stunt with Apple ever again.
- gremloni 5y ago
  “Powerless” is not how I would refer to the Indian government.
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  Too political. It would just scare consumers away.
- FabHK 5y ago
  How much fun would that be for customers if India then decided to confiscate every iPhone it encounters within India (maybe excepting tourists, but maybe not)?
- danudey 5y ago
  I wonder how Apple's shareholders would react if the company threw away a market that was worth $1.8bn in revenue in 2020. Then there's China; 17% of Apple's global revenue, $43.7bn. I don't think shareholders would much appreciate that. > the public in India would either put pressure on their government or buy iPhones via import websites The iPhone had 2.97% market share in India in April 2021, down from a high of 3.54% in June 2020. I don't think the people who wanted to buy iPhones but couldn't would be able toput any significant amount of political pressure on politicians. Rich people would just import them from somewhere else like they always have before, and everyone else would switch to some available Android phone that had the modifications that the government wanted.
rsj_hn 5y ago
What is going on is that reality is slapping some techno-utopians in the face and they are shocked, shocked, that governments are more powerful that businesses. That's not at all what the lefty geeks learned by reading Chomsky or what the righty geeks learned by reading Heinlein. All along these people thought algorithms and protocols (e.g. bitcoin and TCP/IP) would somehow be a powerful force that would cause governments to fall on their knees and let people evade government control. After all, it's distributed! You can't stop it! Well, that was all very foolish, because they mistook government uninterest in something for the equivalent of government being powerless to control it, and when governments did start taking an interest in something, it turns out that protocols and algorithms are no defense against the realities of political power. It is to the field of politics, and not the field of technology, that one must turn in order to increase collective freedoms. Individual freedom can be increased by obtaining money or making lots of friends, but collective freedom cannot be increased this way, it can only be increased by organizing and influencing government.
- JunkDNA 5y ago
  Bingo. I wish I could upvote this comment more. All the geeks get distracted by words like “cloud” or “virtual” and forget that all this stuff we depend on has a physical presence at some point in the real world. That physical presence necessitates humans interacting with other humans. Humans interacting with humans falls squarely in the “things governments poke their noses into” bucket. It’s like the early days of Napster when people were all hot for “peer to peer”, as if that tech was some magic that was going to make record labels and governments throw up their hands over copyrights.
  - hnechochamber 5y ago
    Dont worry, ill fix all this by creating a unique javascript framework that will change the world.
    - danudey 5y ago
      Maybe we could make this framework future-proof by using blockchains? Somehow? Maybe it can use blockchains, or it can be stored on a blockchain, or maybe both at the same time. Surely that will help society in some nonspecific, ambiguous manner.
nescioquid 5y ago
> I don't know how much longer I can go on when every piece of technology I own is working against me - tools designed to serve a ruling class instead of the consumer. This made me think of the Butlerian Jihad in Dune: "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." I'd say the typical remedy that societies have adopted for these sorts of things is legislation, though regulatory capture[1] is an issue that blocks the way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
andrei_says_ 5y ago
My only conclusion is that Apple is not arguing in good faith. That CSAM prevention is an excuse. This makes me very sad.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bitL 5y ago
Buy Sony Xperia 10 ii, then buy an official SailfishOS package from shop.jolla.com and flash it over Android 11 - enjoy a polished mobile OS without snitches, which you fully control, a real pocket computer instead of a future pocket policeman.

gsibble 5y ago

The feeling is mutual. The devices we own are now being used to actively police us.

wobbly_bush 5y ago
The parent comment might have misunderstood what the government asked for. It asked for a feature to "report spam" by end users.
- c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  Maybe I did. But what difference does it make? There's plenty of other instances where Apple has reportedly been bullied into action or inaction (being dissuaded from implementing E2EE for iCloud is one example). I've really just reached a breaking point and I'm sorry if logic does not apply.

domador 5y ago

There are many of us that DO care! Unfortunately, even though we are many, we are still a small minority among the general population, or probably even among software developers. Convenience and fashion tend to trump security and principles for most people. (Oftentimes, I'm one of those people as well, though I try not to be. It's exhausting to be an activist 100% of the time. But let's keep at it!)

t0mas88 5y ago

I'm as surprised as you are that a giant like Apple doesn't just tell them "go ahead, ban iPhones, see how popular they'll become" to someone as powerless as the government of India. It would be a huge free publicity campaign for them in the rest of the world while the public in India would either put pressure on their government or buy iPhones via import websites. For additional fun, strike a deal with the #2 non government owned carrier in whichever country you do this to. Offer the iPhone at a special rate for a few months. They would kill the government telco while selling record numbers of phones with free publicity. And at the same time scare any other government into not trying this kind of stunt with Apple ever again.

gremloni 5y ago
“Powerless” is not how I would refer to the Indian government.
FridayoLeary 5y ago
Too political. It would just scare consumers away.
FabHK 5y ago
How much fun would that be for customers if India then decided to confiscate every iPhone it encounters within India (maybe excepting tourists, but maybe not)?
danudey 5y ago
I wonder how Apple's shareholders would react if the company threw away a market that was worth $1.8bn in revenue in 2020. Then there's China; 17% of Apple's global revenue, $43.7bn. I don't think shareholders would much appreciate that. > the public in India would either put pressure on their government or buy iPhones via import websites The iPhone had 2.97% market share in India in April 2021, down from a high of 3.54% in June 2020. I don't think the people who wanted to buy iPhones but couldn't would be able toput any significant amount of political pressure on politicians. Rich people would just import them from somewhere else like they always have before, and everyone else would switch to some available Android phone that had the modifications that the government wanted.

rsj_hn 5y ago

What is going on is that reality is slapping some techno-utopians in the face and they are shocked, shocked, that governments are more powerful that businesses. That's not at all what the lefty geeks learned by reading Chomsky or what the righty geeks learned by reading Heinlein. All along these people thought algorithms and protocols (e.g. bitcoin and TCP/IP) would somehow be a powerful force that would cause governments to fall on their knees and let people evade government control. After all, it's distributed! You can't stop it! Well, that was all very foolish, because they mistook government uninterest in something for the equivalent of government being powerless to control it, and when governments did start taking an interest in something, it turns out that protocols and algorithms are no defense against the realities of political power. It is to the field of politics, and not the field of technology, that one must turn in order to increase collective freedoms. Individual freedom can be increased by obtaining money or making lots of friends, but collective freedom cannot be increased this way, it can only be increased by organizing and influencing government.

JunkDNA 5y ago
Bingo. I wish I could upvote this comment more. All the geeks get distracted by words like “cloud” or “virtual” and forget that all this stuff we depend on has a physical presence at some point in the real world. That physical presence necessitates humans interacting with other humans. Humans interacting with humans falls squarely in the “things governments poke their noses into” bucket. It’s like the early days of Napster when people were all hot for “peer to peer”, as if that tech was some magic that was going to make record labels and governments throw up their hands over copyrights.
- hnechochamber 5y ago
  Dont worry, ill fix all this by creating a unique javascript framework that will change the world.
  - danudey 5y ago
    Maybe we could make this framework future-proof by using blockchains? Somehow? Maybe it can use blockchains, or it can be stored on a blockchain, or maybe both at the same time. Surely that will help society in some nonspecific, ambiguous manner.

nescioquid 5y ago

> I don't know how much longer I can go on when every piece of technology I own is working against me - tools designed to serve a ruling class instead of the consumer. This made me think of the Butlerian Jihad in Dune: "Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." I'd say the typical remedy that societies have adopted for these sorts of things is legislation, though regulatory capture[1] is an issue that blocks the way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

andrei_says_ 5y ago

My only conclusion is that Apple is not arguing in good faith. That CSAM prevention is an excuse. This makes me very sad.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bitL 5y ago

Buy Sony Xperia 10 ii, then buy an official SailfishOS package from shop.jolla.com and flash it over Android 11 - enjoy a polished mobile OS without snitches, which you fully control, a real pocket computer instead of a future pocket policeman.