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Privacy, yes. Security qua security (ie, not counting security loss due to privacy loss) it's pretty tight between Android and iOS: https://zerodium.com/progr

Privacy, yes. Security qua security (ie, not counting security loss due to privacy loss) it's pretty tight between Android and iOS: https://zerodium.com/program.html https://zerodium.com/program.html

judge2020 4y ago
While rootkits et al. are bad, privacy loss can be just as bad ie. “reads your email” or “passively reads clipboard [containing passwords]”.
gpt5 4y ago
To be fair, this mode is a direct counter to the zero-click attacks that Zerodium is offering the high payouts for. It specifically blocks all the (currently) known attack vectors. Maybe Zerodium will offer a new tier for a zero-click attack on an iPhone on Lockdown mode in the future.
- 3pt14159 4y ago
  I wouldn't say that is fair in that very few people can use that mode, so the net security win is minor and there exist hyperlocked down Android versions for years on the open market. A friend of mine even worked on one. This space is murky at the top end. The Zerodium payout offering is a rough proxy, but for 99.99% of consumers the security win for a iPhone are mostly about how they don't have to think about the manufacturer (tell your tech illiterate friend to buy an iPhone is easier than saying "Android but only Google or XYZ manufacturer") and how the privacy differential helps out a bit. Also, plenty of people can't enable crazy hyper secure mode without bleeding information that they've enabled it. So this isn't as helpful as it may seem.
  - gpt5 4y ago
    > I wouldn't say that is fair in that very few people can use that mode Very few people are being targeted by nation-states. But more importantly, these are not a random set of people. These are head of states and companies, free speech activists and journalists, and people with access to top secret information. I suspect that a large set of them are aware that they are potential targets.
dan-robertson 4y ago
My understanding was that the median iPhone is much more secure than the median android phone due to things like regular updates being widely installed. Lots of the things that used to be worse for android (eg bad app permission model) have been fixed.
nr2x 4y ago
There is no privacy when the device sends a full unencrypted backup to the mothership by default. It’s theater.
Melatonic 4y ago
They are always one upping each other. On the positive side both OS are very, very good generally for security (comparatively to what we used to have) Privacy I am not even so sure - you can turn a ton of Google stuff off fairly easily and on top of that while Apple may not directly sell your aggregated data to third parties they sure as hell are using it themselves
saagarjha 4y ago
Bug bounty payouts are generally not a good proxy for security, because they must take into account market conditions and platform relevance.

Privacy, yes. Security qua security (ie, not counting security loss due to privacy loss) it's pretty tight between Android and iOS: https://zerodium.com/program.html https://zerodium.com/program.html

judge2020 4y ago

While rootkits et al. are bad, privacy loss can be just as bad ie. “reads your email” or “passively reads clipboard [containing passwords]”.

gpt5 4y ago

To be fair, this mode is a direct counter to the zero-click attacks that Zerodium is offering the high payouts for. It specifically blocks all the (currently) known attack vectors. Maybe Zerodium will offer a new tier for a zero-click attack on an iPhone on Lockdown mode in the future.

3pt14159 4y ago
I wouldn't say that is fair in that very few people can use that mode, so the net security win is minor and there exist hyperlocked down Android versions for years on the open market. A friend of mine even worked on one. This space is murky at the top end. The Zerodium payout offering is a rough proxy, but for 99.99% of consumers the security win for a iPhone are mostly about how they don't have to think about the manufacturer (tell your tech illiterate friend to buy an iPhone is easier than saying "Android but only Google or XYZ manufacturer") and how the privacy differential helps out a bit. Also, plenty of people can't enable crazy hyper secure mode without bleeding information that they've enabled it. So this isn't as helpful as it may seem.
- gpt5 4y ago
  > I wouldn't say that is fair in that very few people can use that mode Very few people are being targeted by nation-states. But more importantly, these are not a random set of people. These are head of states and companies, free speech activists and journalists, and people with access to top secret information. I suspect that a large set of them are aware that they are potential targets.

dan-robertson 4y ago

My understanding was that the median iPhone is much more secure than the median android phone due to things like regular updates being widely installed. Lots of the things that used to be worse for android (eg bad app permission model) have been fixed.

nr2x 4y ago

There is no privacy when the device sends a full unencrypted backup to the mothership by default. It’s theater.

Melatonic 4y ago

They are always one upping each other. On the positive side both OS are very, very good generally for security (comparatively to what we used to have) Privacy I am not even so sure - you can turn a ton of Google stuff off fairly easily and on top of that while Apple may not directly sell your aggregated data to third parties they sure as hell are using it themselves

saagarjha 4y ago

Bug bounty payouts are generally not a good proxy for security, because they must take into account market conditions and platform relevance.