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The chances of you being directly spied on are low. The chances of someone being spied on who could influence the world around you is much higher. So a journali

The chances of you being directly spied on are low. The chances of someone being spied on who could influence the world around you is much higher. So a journalist could be spied on right before they break a big story, potentially leading to a cover up. That’s the problem with stuff like this. Even if you have “nothing to hide” you might rely on someone who legitimately does.

majormajor 5y ago
Can you be more specific with where you think the risk is? As far as I can tell, in this scenario, the journalist has powered off their phone, ignored the message about "findable when power off," and then is somehow tracked through the BT beacon and Find My network. Were their phone to be on, all the same tracking would work. Were they to read the message and go change the settings, this tracking would presumably not work. That assumes you trust that the "always on processor" only does what it says it does, of course. But in that case, any proprietary device is just as bad as any other. (Many supposedly less-proprietary devices could be sneakily subverted, too, no?)
- gremIin 5y ago
  You asked what the real risk is then described several risks.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    How many risks here are new in iOS 15 or exclusive to Apple products? Specifically, I believe the real risk seems to be that you have very few ways to know if your device is doing anything when it's on or off unless the manufacturer tells you. If you don't believe that everyone, including your government is corrupt, the only solution is through government regulation. Clearly the private companies are otherwise going to do what they will.
    - krrrh 5y ago
      In some cases. In other cases the government regulation is what puts people at risk in ways that the companies have no interest in doing.
jonshariat 5y ago
Wow, very well put!
harry8 5y ago
Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assumption to think that you can count on that being true forever. Imagine you witness a murder in a restaurant, cold blooded and it's dirty cops working for a three letter institution that did it. You want to give evidence like a law abiding, upstanding citizen with nothing to hide. Suddenly you have something to hide despite having done nothing wrong. "Nothing to hide" means nothing to hide from all current and future humans who control some small aspect spying on you. Even just control access for 30 seconds. It's nuts. Even if you think every single last one of the current guys are honest and completely competent despite the head of them criminally lying, while under oath, in answer to a question with notice in legitimate oversight. Who is going to infiltrate that power in 10 years? Radical anti-fa is impossible? White supremacists impossible? Religious cultists? Organised crime? People flipped to work for hostile foreign nations? "I have nothing to hide" is is gradeschool silliness to be treated with contempt every time it comes up. It needs to be ridiculed as anyone suggesting it is an idiot or just totally and knowingly dishonest. There are just so many ways it is completely wrong, the only debate is which of the ways it is false and a con is more important than the other.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Except in that case you don't know you have to hide and 101 other things you do make you easier to track than this. And odds are you're not turning off your phone all the way every single time you change locations to start so... I have nothing to hide is different than "I literally need to hide".
  - harry8 5y ago
    Yep "I have nothing to hide" is always completely false. "I literally need to hide and I'm also aware of that change" might be true or might be false. You might "literally need to hide" and not know it while the so-called "nothing" you had to hide is used against you when you have done nothing morally or legally wrong.
- colordrops 5y ago
titzer 5y ago
Just consider the possibility that any large multi-national corporation or national government these days has datacenters that contain untold computational power. A hundred thousand CPU cores to a hundred million, with petabytes of RAM and perhaps exabytes of storage. It is now not only entirely feasible but it is but a flesh wound to surveil everyone, everywhere, all the time. In fact, it's far less suspicious to just constantly suck in as much data as possible all the time, and filter, index, and store it for later. In the event of a mass casualty event, like a Boston marathon bombing, 9/11, or something like what you mentioned, there will be no activation necessary, just a few SQL queries, maybe a mapreduce. You are nothing. You are navel lint. But all the navel lint gets sucked up into the filter, too. Welcome to the quiet all-seeing eye. Tremble and kneel to those who will wield it! Don't deviate from social norms. Don't be different. Don't stick out. Just pretend you don't know.
tinus_hn 5y ago
You could be spied on if governments are allowed to deploy dragnets that spy on everyone. Like how if your phone is on, your broad location is tracked whether you are a suspect or not.
- psd1 5y ago
  I'm afraid that whether or not the governments are _allowed_ is a moot distinction, since they _do_.

majormajor 5y ago

Can you be more specific with where you think the risk is? As far as I can tell, in this scenario, the journalist has powered off their phone, ignored the message about "findable when power off," and then is somehow tracked through the BT beacon and Find My network. Were their phone to be on, all the same tracking would work. Were they to read the message and go change the settings, this tracking would presumably not work. That assumes you trust that the "always on processor" only does what it says it does, of course. But in that case, any proprietary device is just as bad as any other. (Many supposedly less-proprietary devices could be sneakily subverted, too, no?)

gremIin 5y ago
You asked what the real risk is then described several risks.
- majormajor 5y ago
  How many risks here are new in iOS 15 or exclusive to Apple products? Specifically, I believe the real risk seems to be that you have very few ways to know if your device is doing anything when it's on or off unless the manufacturer tells you. If you don't believe that everyone, including your government is corrupt, the only solution is through government regulation. Clearly the private companies are otherwise going to do what they will.
  - krrrh 5y ago
    In some cases. In other cases the government regulation is what puts people at risk in ways that the companies have no interest in doing.

jonshariat 5y ago

Wow, very well put!

harry8 5y ago

Without disagreeing with anything you've said there, even if you /think/ you have nothing to hide now and happen to be correct in practice, it's a terrible assumption to think that you can count on that being true forever. Imagine you witness a murder in a restaurant, cold blooded and it's dirty cops working for a three letter institution that did it. You want to give evidence like a law abiding, upstanding citizen with nothing to hide. Suddenly you have something to hide despite having done nothing wrong. "Nothing to hide" means nothing to hide from all current and future humans who control some small aspect spying on you. Even just control access for 30 seconds. It's nuts. Even if you think every single last one of the current guys are honest and completely competent despite the head of them criminally lying, while under oath, in answer to a question with notice in legitimate oversight. Who is going to infiltrate that power in 10 years? Radical anti-fa is impossible? White supremacists impossible? Religious cultists? Organised crime? People flipped to work for hostile foreign nations? "I have nothing to hide" is is gradeschool silliness to be treated with contempt every time it comes up. It needs to be ridiculed as anyone suggesting it is an idiot or just totally and knowingly dishonest. There are just so many ways it is completely wrong, the only debate is which of the ways it is false and a con is more important than the other.

BoorishBears 5y ago
Except in that case you don't know you have to hide and 101 other things you do make you easier to track than this. And odds are you're not turning off your phone all the way every single time you change locations to start so... I have nothing to hide is different than "I literally need to hide".
- harry8 5y ago
  Yep "I have nothing to hide" is always completely false. "I literally need to hide and I'm also aware of that change" might be true or might be false. You might "literally need to hide" and not know it while the so-called "nothing" you had to hide is used against you when you have done nothing morally or legally wrong.
colordrops 5y ago

titzer 5y ago

Just consider the possibility that any large multi-national corporation or national government these days has datacenters that contain untold computational power. A hundred thousand CPU cores to a hundred million, with petabytes of RAM and perhaps exabytes of storage. It is now not only entirely feasible but it is but a flesh wound to surveil everyone, everywhere, all the time. In fact, it's far less suspicious to just constantly suck in as much data as possible all the time, and filter, index, and store it for later. In the event of a mass casualty event, like a Boston marathon bombing, 9/11, or something like what you mentioned, there will be no activation necessary, just a few SQL queries, maybe a mapreduce. You are nothing. You are navel lint. But all the navel lint gets sucked up into the filter, too. Welcome to the quiet all-seeing eye. Tremble and kneel to those who will wield it! Don't deviate from social norms. Don't be different. Don't stick out. Just pretend you don't know.

tinus_hn 5y ago

You could be spied on if governments are allowed to deploy dragnets that spy on everyone. Like how if your phone is on, your broad location is tracked whether you are a suspect or not.

psd1 5y ago
I'm afraid that whether or not the governments are _allowed_ is a moot distinction, since they _do_.