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Android and iOS data collection
- durnygbur 5y ago> Nearby Wifi MAC addresses When idle. Google and Apple are basically American and Five Eyes invigilation devices. What cost money and resources in the past - satellites, airplanes, field agents, now people are paying to carry on them at all times.
- AwaAwa 5y ago"To date Apple have responded only with silence," So business as usual for Apple. I suppose they have no fear of losing market share from losing their "privacy" moniker. Too many folks that are locked in to the brand, and who will now happily switch to saying Apple's data collection is 'better/ok'.
- MrWiffles 5y agoAnd it’s not like there’s a viable alternative available anyway. Yet another reason I strongly support antitrust measures against both these companies.
- ekianjo 5y agoAntitrust wont solve the privacy problem at all. Its the wrong tool for the job.
- Jcowell 5y agoExactly , in this case it’s like the Tower of Babel except you’re not addressing why the people started building a tower in the first place . Eventually , once they get their shit together, another tower will be built.
- brundolf 5y agoThis is the real problem. All they really have to be is a razor's edge better than Google, which it sounds like they still (arguably) are.
- reginold 5y agoNo viable alternative...today. Donate to open source, support Linux, buy a Pinephone!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- amelius 5y agoOr Librem.
- shkkmo 5y agoThe funny part is that Apple (unlike google) refused to respond to Leithman's numerous requests for comment/clarification but then is happy to have their PR trash the accuracy of the paper to journalists.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwme159 5y agoPrivacy is just a bonus. I like not having to fuck with my stuff to have it work, or see ads in my “Start menu”.
- threeseed 5y ago> "To date Apple have responded only with silence," Not sure what more Apple could add that hasn't been thoroughly documented in their security [1] and privacy [2] overviews. It's not like something new has been discovered by TomsGuide that people weren't aware of before. [1] https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/app... [2] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/pdfs/apple-privacy-policy-en-ww.pdf https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/pdfs/apple-privacy-polic...
- dannyw 5y agoGive an opt out for location sharing, how about that? The location collection described in this paper cannot be turned off, and it happens every 4-5 minutes even if you have disabled location services!
- barsonme 5y agoThe paper uses IP addresses as a proxy for location. They’re not sharing (fuzzy) coordinates unless you enable location sharing. The only way to prevent that is that is to never make network requests. That’s probably a reasonable expectation, but it’s certainly not the same thing as sending your lat/long every few minutes.
- kamray23 5y agoWell they do log surrounding network hardware which are broadcasting, so visible Bluetooth, devices on the same wifi, the APs themselves, etc. This allows a rough estimate of the locations of visible devices which are not made by Apple. The only way to opt out of that is to not be visible on public networks and to not bring an iPhone onto your house network.
- neuronic 5y agoDon't use a product which has "ecosystem" as a feature then. Sending MAC addresses and their locations sounds like Apple devices try to establish a consistent local awareness of surrounding devices, e.g. for "Find My".
- resonious 5y agoIndeed. And when it comes to something invisible like software, a company doesn't really need to implement real privacy in order to uphold a "privacy" moniker. It's a similar story with "security", as Zoom demonstrated somewhat recently. 99% of users have no way to actually check a smartphone to see "how private" it is, or "how secure" it is. And I imagine another large portion of users doesn't read tech news, and so they won't see these kinds of articles. So all Apple needs to do is put on a show about privacy, since that's what users actually see.
- dragonwriter 5y agoNew study is very mistaken about what I think. Or, more accurately, clickbait headline writer is...
- 0xFreebie 5y agoIt's strange that Apple requires a billing address to download free apps. That was unexpected given the marketing.
- judge2020 5y agoIn the US, payments almost always require a billing address for anti-fraud, so people are used to giving it out to pretty much any company that asks for it. > That was unexpected given the marketing. An extremely small amount of people will see "privacy" and think "I can use it completely anonymously without any PII being sent".
- threeseed 5y agoHas been that way since day one of the iOS App Store. It was because it was re-using the same backend as the iTunes Store which was ultimately backed by an SAP system. One that required billing addresses for all purchases (free app = $0.00 purchase).
- lern_too_spel 5y agoAs far as I know, no other smartphone app store does this. Apple could have corrected this any time in the past 14 years, but no doubt Apple figured the reduction in expected App Store revenue and decided that it values that revenue more than user privacy.
- fastball 5y agoWell Apple has different App Store regions, so doing this hypothetically allows a company to offer an app for free in one region but with cost in another.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y agoSot they could only ask for a country if you don't purchase any application? For some reasons, they don't.
- pixelgeek 5y agoNew article reveals apple-centric headline gets clicked more often.
- shapefrog 5y agoActual research paper - 25th March, 2021: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
- gnabgib 5y agoArticle is from March too. The paper/story about was posted several times 6 months ago (with little traction/comments/votes)
- yepthatsreality 5y agoRewrite: New study reveals privacy and security are an abstraction of how person lives life.
- zozin 5y agoApple’s pivot to privacy has more to do with marketing than with actual functionality.
- Bud 5y ago1) There was no "pivot"; this has been an Apple stance for a very long time. 2) It actually has a lot more to do with functionality than with marketing, as is obvious to even a casual observer. Apple hasn't really even marketed this as a big strength until relatively recently.
- pixelgeek 5y ago> Apple hasn't really even marketed this as a big strength until relatively recently. So is that the 'pivot' then? It has been an Apple stance because Apple has no internal need for your personalised data. They have no privacy related business model. But that is the extent to it. I don't think Apple cares one iota about personal privacy and they are happy to throw users to the fickle winds of censors in China and Russia.
- hunterb123 5y ago> So is that the 'pivot' then? No, it's highlighting a previously unlooked feature. > They have no privacy related business model. Not directly, but the issue is their only other legit competitor has an advertising business model directly inverse to a privacy model. Since they are selling a product, the product has to be what people want, and people are increasingly wanting more privacy.
- shkkmo 5y ago> No, it's highlighting a previously unlooked feature. That would be a marketing pivot... which is precisely what the original commenter suggested.
- shkkmo 5y ago> Apple has no internal need for your personalised data Then why is Apple recording and sending itself every single MAC address on your local network even when telemetry is turned off?
- Bud 5y agoIt does not appear that Tom's Guide has the right take on what Douglas Leith actually said. https://www.techradar.com/news/google-is-taking-far-more-data-from-your-android-devices-than-you-may-think https://www.techradar.com/news/google-is-taking-far-more-dat...
- shkkmo 5y agoThe article you linked to seems to do a worse job of summarizing the paper than Tom's Guide. Do you have specific concerns about the characterization of the paper?
- wutbrodo 5y agoCould you clarify what you mean? I don't see anything in this article contradicting what the Tom's Guide article says.
- epwr 5y agoAnd what exactly is the difference? The framing? None of the facts in the two articles seem to contradict each other.
- pixelgeek 5y agoI believe that what they are trying to say is the the articles are the same but Tom's Guide has used the Apple-bait headline to try to get more clicks.
- heavyset_go 5y ago> but Tom's Guide has used the Apple-bait headline to try to get more clicks. As opposed to the Google-bait headline in the article above from Tech Radar? Apple has spent millions of dollars running "Privacy. That's iPhone." campaigns on every platform out there. Given that the facts contradict Apple's privacy-bait campaigns, the title seems apt to me.
- pixelgeek 5y agoYes but when you write an article with that headline it does seem odd for most of the article to be about how much data Google hovers in, no? The permalink for the article is far more innocuous. 'https://www.tomsguide.com/news/android-ios-data-collection https://www.tomsguide.com/news/android-ios-data-collection' Using headline like that to drive traffic is as old as John C Dvorak. Who is a hack but I remember his name well enough to know his middle initial so clearly this tactic works :-)
- wly_cdgr 5y agoIs there really anyone out there still naive enough to believe iPhones are private?
- pixelgeek 5y agoAnyone recall Stingray?
- k4c9x 5y agoHow private do people actually think it is? It's a completely opaque system, 0% privacy should be assumed by default.
- triska 5y agoQuoting from https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/ : "Privacy is a fundamental human right. At Apple, it’s also one of our core values. Your devices are important to so many parts of your life. What you share from those experiences, and who you share it with, should be up to you. We design Apple products to protect your privacy and give you control over your information. It’s not always easy. But that’s the kind of innovation we believe in." So, according to Apple, it is designed "to protect your privacy and give you control over your information".
- pixelgeek 5y agoUntil the Chinese government asks them not to
- heavyset_go 5y agoOr the US government asks them not to. Apple gives up US customers' data for about 150,000 users/accounts a year[1]. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
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- walterbell 5y agoOne network mitigation for Apple devices (e.g iPads) without a cellular baseband is to have a router block all connections to 17.0.0.0/8, except a once a week check for OS and app updates. This assumes no use of iCloud, which would siphon much more data than described in this article. It's also necessary to disable Siri on-device search (e.g. "Learn from this app") and Spotlight indexing of in-app content (per-app setting for "Show app in Search"), including E2E encrypted messengers like Signal and Wire. For phones, the only mitigation is a lifestyle change to switch from always-reachable to scheduled availability windows or the always-async workflows of pre-mobile computing. A faraday bag can deny realtime telemetry, even if it's cached for relay when connectivity returns.
- sneak 5y agoYou can't add an IMAP email account (or a gmail email account) to the device's local mail app with 17./8 blocked on iOS. And, of course, you can't install or update any apps. The iPhone depends on Apple services to function even outside of iCloud and updates. I've tried.
- walterbell 5y agoI've added IMAP email accounts with 17./8 unblocked and then accessed those email accounts later with 17./8 blocked. Most apps aren't updated more than once a week, some are not updated for months. There are a few high-quality iOS apps which support NAS (e.g. WebDAV) for local, surveillance-free, cross-device sync.
- derefr 5y agoMaybe not through the device's local Settings UI, but presumably you could insert the mail account binding through an MDM profile, no?
- walterbell 5y agoYes, Apple Configurator can be used to install IMAP accounts, including password. Gmail accounts require password entry on the device, even if the account is installed via Apple Configurator.
- wackget 5y agoAre there any recent third-party Android ROMs (without any Google services) which send little or no telemetry data?
- HKH2 5y agoYes, LineageOS.
- KingMachiavelli 5y agoAs soon as you install Google play services it is pretty much a moot point. Also in the past LineageOS left in a lot of Google related code and in general focused more on features than privacy. Maybe that has changed but using a purpose built ROM like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS is a lot better & actually easier.
- HKH2 5y ago> As soon as you install Google play services it is pretty much a moot point. That is optional. > Maybe that has changed but using a purpose built ROM like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS is a lot better & actually easier. If you have a Pixel phone. I'd rather pay as little money as possible to Google.
- livueta 5y agoCalyx and Graphene are also worth checking out if you have a compatible device.
- smoldesu 5y agoI got my first taste of LineageOS on my Nintendo Switch of all places, it's quite a nice OS for people who want Android without Google in it. It also runs on basically anything as far as I can tell.
- LeoPanthera 5y agoThis is the actual abstract from the actual study. Most comments here seem to be referring to a strawman version of the study. Abstract: > We investigate what data iOS on an iPhone shares with Apple and what data Google Android on a Pixel phone shares with Google. We find that even when minimally configured and the handset is idle both iOS and Google Android share data with Apple/Google on average every 4.5 mins. The phone IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number and IMSI, handset phone number etc are shared with Apple and Google. Both iOS and Google Android transmit telemetry, despite the user explicitly opting out of this. When a SIM is inserted both iOS and Google Android send details to Apple/Google. iOS sends the MAC addresses of nearby devices, e.g. other handsets and the home gateway, to Apple together with their GPS location. Users have no opt out from this and currently there are few, if any, realistic options for preventing this data sharing. That is the extent of the data sharing unless the user allows more.
- geoduck14 5y ago>iOS sends the MAC addresses of nearby devices, e.g. other handsets and the home gateway, to Apple together with their GPS location. I was not aware that my location was being tracked by other people's iPhones.
- threeseed 5y agoIt isn't. Apple is sending your location and the MAC addresses of other devices your phone sees. It's been doing this for nearly a decade since I believe their acquisition of WifiSlam back in 2013. They use it roughly triangulate a device's position when GPS/Cellular is not available.
- ravivyas 5y agoWhat Large companies do is largely monitored, the problem is what the Android security model allows smaller unknown companies to do. Apps abuse permissions, and do nefarious stuff, which is why you have a news post a month about Google removing apps. 4-5 years ago I came across a startup reading all of the SMSs to give you APIs to get bank balance, number of bank accounts etc. iOS that way is "relatively" more secure (not perfect)
- syntaxing 5y agoAnecdata for sure, but I switched to iOS after using Android for almost a decade (like the original HTC tmobile phone early). I run a pihole at home, and I find that iOS has significantly less ad-based telemetry. Sure, its pings the mothership just as much but android apps would ping some sort of ad-service telemetry aggressively. Also, curious how it would play out if the researcher uses iOS 14 instead of 13 which is when Apple started the Do not track stuff. Apparently FB is hurting from this, so I would guess other major ad-based companies are too?
- joemazerino 5y agoiPhones are getting less private as the years go on. I wonder what will happen to Apple's privacy policy when Tim Cook kicks the bucket. Use a deGoogled OS such as Calyx, Lineage and Copperhead. Don't install GMS and you won't have these issues.
- randomperson_24 5y agoSome of the smartest people working in best industries defending a brand clearly where it is doing something wrong, is bewildering.
- durnygbur 5y ago"the smartest" spend weeks and months studying to even be considered by these companies' recruitment.
- LudvigVanHassen 5y agoWelcome to the modern world...
- randomperson_24 5y agoUnpopular opinion: Android is more privacy focussed than iOS. Especially because during first setup, it clearly asks you to opt-out of services you do not wish to participate in. Also much more transperent.
- kaba0 5y agoStock Android? Perhaps. The shit OEM’s produce? No way, unfortunately. And afaik only Pixel’s come with vanilla android.
- vinay427 5y agoPixel devices do not come with stock Android, and they certainly don't come with a build that allows for opting out of cloud services. They include a wide variety of Google "bloatware" that cannot be removed, much of which is also included on many other OEMs but some of which is unique to stock Pixel builds of Android (i.e. not public or open-source). Most all of the newer Pixel-only features fall into this latter category and usually involve some type of telemetry, in my experience.
- sofixa 5y agoAnd Android One devices.
- randomperson_24 5y agoMicromax devices and even Motorola devices come with Stock android. Nokia too (but they are pretty bad)
- hungryforcodes 5y agoI feel the same-- that's one reason I switched. You can also just run what you want like f-droid etc. Want to run a Linux subsystem? Just download Termux...
- randomperson_24 5y agoI persoanlly just run a private DNS server and block requests to services I don't want tracking me / showing me ads.
- conspiracist 5y agoRegardless of studies and what they bring to light, always assume your phone has been compromised, assume others have intercepted your texts and have data mined them to determine not if you’re a nuisance (that’s a given), but how big of one. With that, assume most companies from there on out have access to how wealthy you are and how they can best sell products to you, use your data to sell your friends products, and so on. Do not store anything on your phone that you wouldn’t want your worst enemy to see. Do not even say it while your phone is nearby. Put your phone in an acoustic proof container/soundproof box if you need to have a talk with anyone. Don’t bother with airplane mode, it’s a sinkhole waiting to be discovered so assume it’s compromised until given sufficient evidence to the contrary. With this in mind, you can sleep soundly knowing that your phone is a monitoring device, and as such privacy-related studies that demonstrate (as they always do) that your phone isn’t as private as you think will not come as a surprise and you will have no bad habits to undo/change.
- simondotau 5y agoThe difference for me isn’t so much the technical implementation of aspects of the operating system, it’s my willingness to trust either Google or Apple with my data. Knowing how Google and Apple make their massive sums of money, I’m willing to trust Apple with my data but I am not willing to trust Google. Data being sent to Google—in my personal, subjective opinion—a breach of my privacy whereas—again, opinion—it isn’t when it’s sent to Apple.
- LukeBMM 5y agoAn alternate way of framing the same idea: I'm less opposed to sending data to a hardware company than an advertising company.
- cblconfederate 5y agoPeople don't think iphones (or any phones) are private anyway > Two in three (65%) [iphone] users are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their activities being tracked as they use certain websites and apps, while only 14% said they were not at all concerned.
- neuronic 5y agoThat concern doesn't translate to sales though because LOOK A 120Hz SCREEN AND A SUPERFAST PROCESSOR FOR WHATSAPP!
- cblconfederate 5y ago> A whopping 74% of users would rather have apps track their online activities than pay for content or features that are currently free; only a mere 26% said otherwise. same survey https://www.sellcell.com/blog/apple-privacy-survey/ https://www.sellcell.com/blog/apple-privacy-survey/
- usr1106 5y agoIn Finland most cellular data plans are completely unlimited and cellular coverage (even indoors) is excellent. I have not used any WiFi connection (home/office/public hotspot) for years and I have no reason to turn my WiFi on ever. My home fixed internet is ADSL, slower than 4G anyway, much slower on uplink. The next question would be: Does Apple's (or others) WiFi listen to other traffic even when offline has been selected by the user. They could do it without turning the transmitter on. Maybe on global perspective such users are still the exception, but given their data collection desires I would not be surprised if they do that routinely anyway.
- aembleton 5y ago> My home fixed internet is ADSL, slower than 4G anyway, Why do you have ADSL when you can just use your unlimited 4G? Even if you want it for other devices - just get a 4G router.
- usr1106 5y agoI am not always at home when the Internet is being used, so my phone would not be enough. The ADSL is there mostly for historic reasons. It works so I don't change it. In most cases the speed does is not really matter. I work mostly using the shell over ssh. An occasional video works just fine. The only case where I need a better uplink are telcos that require me presenting. Or in theory the camera, but I'm not in the fashion business so I hardly ever turn it on... In that case I am obviously at home and switch to the connection of my phone.
- blunte 5y agoI'm not surprised by Apple's collection of data, particularly that data which helps enable relatively seamless interoperation with other Apple devices. It basically allows multiple Apple devices to seem tightly integrated, without the user having had to figure out how to integrate them. This is a positive thing for the user. But it obviously comes with a privacy cost. So the question is, what is the risk of Apple having this information? What else might they do with it? The answers to this question are probably very different for Google. And this is why I would trust Apple more than Google for data collection. Apple is more likely to use that information to make your hardware and software work better, and Google is more likely to (also) use that information to improve their myriad other systems - primarily ad targeting.
- gigel82 5y agoI wish someone (with network knowledge) would do this for Windows 11. I'm curious how much data (and what kind) is being sent by the OS after you enable (as much as possible) all the privacy options during OOBE.