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Apple develops a phone operating system and sells phones that run that operating system. What does it even mean to say “if Apple had no access to the user’s dev

Apple develops a phone operating system and sells phones that run that operating system. What does it even mean to say “if Apple had no access to the user’s device”?

perihelions 5y ago
Yes, Apple is also the OS vendor. What it would mean to say "Apple has no access to the user's device" is, whatever an average, unsophisticated user understands it to mean -- because their informed consent is ethically all that matters here. It means precisely that Apple has no technical capability to remotely access the device. It means any (consented) Apple software update leaves behind no hooks or backdoors that enable subsequent, remotely-initiated access. It means there verifiably exist no code paths that allow remote exfiltration of data, other than those that pass through consent dialogs. The basic distinction between legitimate OS functionality, and malware.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  But average users are clearly aware of many high profile iPhone features that inherently involve Apple “remotely accessing the device,” assuming you're include all cases where the iPhone software can be configured to send data from the device to Apple servers. That’s what all iCloud services explicitly do.
  - perihelions 5y ago
    Yes, but the distinction between "stores private data E2E encrypted on a secure server" and "uploads private data for Apple employees to review" is a bright line. Informed consent means we can't extrapolate from one to the other, if we pretend to be ethical. It's not as if Apple's marketing doesn't heavily emphasize the "private", "E2E encrypted" aspects already.
mro_name 5y ago
yes, consumers want to - well - consume. And not be bothered with anything other than that. So somebody else has to do housekeeping and hand-holding. That's where apple comes in again, or better, stays for convenience sake. And to not complicate their own day, Apple just does it the same for all.

Apple develops a phone operating system and sells phones that run that operating system. What does it even mean to say “if Apple had no access to the user’s device”?

perihelions 5y ago

Yes, Apple is also the OS vendor. What it would mean to say "Apple has no access to the user's device" is, whatever an average, unsophisticated user understands it to mean -- because their informed consent is ethically all that matters here. It means precisely that Apple has no technical capability to remotely access the device. It means any (consented) Apple software update leaves behind no hooks or backdoors that enable subsequent, remotely-initiated access. It means there verifiably exist no code paths that allow remote exfiltration of data, other than those that pass through consent dialogs. The basic distinction between legitimate OS functionality, and malware.

tshaddox 5y ago
But average users are clearly aware of many high profile iPhone features that inherently involve Apple “remotely accessing the device,” assuming you're include all cases where the iPhone software can be configured to send data from the device to Apple servers. That’s what all iCloud services explicitly do.
- perihelions 5y ago
  Yes, but the distinction between "stores private data E2E encrypted on a secure server" and "uploads private data for Apple employees to review" is a bright line. Informed consent means we can't extrapolate from one to the other, if we pretend to be ethical. It's not as if Apple's marketing doesn't heavily emphasize the "private", "E2E encrypted" aspects already.

mro_name 5y ago

yes, consumers want to - well - consume. And not be bothered with anything other than that. So somebody else has to do housekeeping and hand-holding. That's where apple comes in again, or better, stays for convenience sake. And to not complicate their own day, Apple just does it the same for all.