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The PRISM revelations, to this day, are very ambiguous about their implications for cooperation. When they came out, most involved companies flat out denied coo
by shuckles 5y ago
The PRISM revelations, to this day, are very ambiguous about their implications for cooperation. When they came out, most involved companies flat out denied cooperation. The types of data the NSA claimed to get were available by tapping into network backbones. Unless you are aware of a theory or evidence I’m not, I think it’s just as likely that the program described in the leaked slides involved unilateral or covert intrusion by the NSA rather than cooperation.
It is reasonable to be conservative about data stored in someone else’s cloud, and there is undeniable value to end to end encryption that gives you control over who can access it. That said, especially if you read Apple’s letter in response to the PRISM allegations, Apple’s behavior seems quite consistent and sincere over time: https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/ https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/.
I don’t think it’s likely they designed this feature under pressure from the government or with the intention to expand it to local data on your device.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y agoOk. If that is not the reason, then the question becomes what is the real reason. Some analysts seem to think Apple should be getting into advertising business, which would partially explain some of the proposed updates. Naturally, if that were the case, it would render Apple's commitment to privacy about as useful as T-Mobile's. Then again, I might be giving Apple too much crap. Most companies don't even pretend to care. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-could-be-apples-next-20-billion-business-11629906340?mod=home-page https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-could-be-apples-next-...
- shuckles 5y agoI think Apple (i) genuinely believes scanning on device is better for privacy because it lets users (theoretically) confirm the behavior of the system and (ii) is learning from others’ mistakes of deploying scanning server side and having that become a blocker to moving to end to end encryption (e.g. Facebook Messenger). My guess is they announce expansions to end to end iCloud behavior soon. Features like this are building blocks to controlling who escrows your iCloud private keys: https://gadgettendency.com/apple-allowed-to-bequeath-and-inherit-apple-id-accounts/ https://gadgettendency.com/apple-allowed-to-bequeath-and-inh...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y agoInteresting. That did not occur to me. Thank you for sharing this. Lets see where this goes.
- shuckles 5y agoYou’re welcome, and I’m happy to share alternative theories. I think some of the issues of control that have been raised are legitimate. For example, you brought up the idea that Apple is doing this as part of a move to advertising, perhaps because advertisers want to be reassured their ads don’t appear next to distasteful content. I think there’s an interesting idea there: lots of companies are trying to move towards “on-device” ads; are they really private? Is privacy the right framework to evaluate them, or is it a different type of control?