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Forget the movies you lose, if your AppleID is disabled, you also lose: 1. All your emails if you use iCloud for your email, and thus potentially locking you o
by tolmasky 3y ago
Forget the movies you lose, if your AppleID is disabled, you also lose:
1. All your emails if you use iCloud for your email, and thus potentially locking you out of any other sites that use email as a 2-factor-auth.
2. All your backups on iCloud.
3. All your data on iCloud.
4. Every single login you have where you used sign-in-with-Apple.
5. Every app on your phone that you have a paid subscription for.
6. The fallback login mechanism on any of your Macs where you used iCloud as the login fallback.
The list goes on. They ask you to tie your life to iCloud. They tell you to make backups on iCloud. According to the reddit thread, this can happen if there was a fraudulent charge made with a credit card associated with the account... Not even done on the account. So then all of your data disappears?
- mrweasel 3y agoInteresting and terrifying observation. Who exactly would one go about making backups of ones iCloud data. The internet is of no help, it's all about backing up TO iCloud.
- ezfe 3y agoWhile true, as observed elsewhere there's no reason to believe Apple restricts these things if you get banned for fraudulent transactions. The linked post doesn't make that allegation.
- HWR_14 3y agoApple has instructions [0]. Looks like there is a download link accessible via the web interface on icloud.com. But you can also set an auto-syncing folder on OSX/Windows and copy them from there using standard OS commands. [0] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204055 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204055
- mrweasel 3y agoThanks, annoyingly it seems like there's no automated solution for photos.
- wil421 3y agoSetting up a Smart Folder in MacOS may work but it’s been a long time since I’ve used them. I use rsync to backup photos to my NAS. It looks like you can use rsync on an iCloud directory.[1] I just ordered a new MacBook Pro and plan to use them method for my NAS and to iCloud. [1] https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2019/09/27/icloud-backup-using-rsync/ https://www.jessesquires.com/blog/2019/09/27/icloud-backup-u...
- allarm 3y agoI sync photos with my google account. I realize it’s not ideal, but at least something.
- coldtea 3y agoYou can set Photos.app to download all photos locally (on the Mac at least)
- HWR_14 3y agoThere is a Photos program Apple makes for Windows, and I think it has the same option.
- switch007 3y agoThere is also https://privacy.apple.com/ https://privacy.apple.com/ and "Transfer a copy of your data" (photos/videos) to Google Photos. Plus a data export feature for the other data. That can take up to 7 days. Not exactly a backup in the traditional sense however.
- jjulius 3y ago>... to Google Photos. The same exact thing can happen, and has happened, if Google disables your account.
- kelnos 3y agoSure, but what's the likelihood that both your iCloud and Google accounts get disabled at the same time? Personally I would opt for something safer, like using a true backup solution, but convenience often trumps safety. Using two cloud providers with trigger-happy account termination policies is better than just one.
- jjulius 3y agoThat's a fair point, I hadn't considered that before.
- switch007 3y agoI knew someone would reply making that point. Well done.
- jjulius 3y agoThanks, I appreciate your snark! Have a great day/evening/whatever it is where you are. Genuinely.
- Mo3 3y agoAlso holds true if you str_replace iCloud for Google
- sangnoir 3y agoDo Apple services have an equivalent of Google's Takeout[1]? Local backups of online services that can be severed at anytime is advisable. If you're paranoid about continued access to your email - use a domain you control! Regaining access to your email address will be one mx-record update away. 1. https://takeout.google.com/ https://takeout.google.com/
- derefr 3y ago> All your emails if you use iCloud for your email, and thus potentially locking you out of any other sites that use email as a 2-factor-auth. ...but you can use iCloud Mail through regular POP3/IMAP and thus have a local copy of all your mail. (And, as far as I know, this is what Mail.app itself does, save for some push-notification optimization; am I wrong here?) There's no walled garden here. It's email.
- ozim 3y agoThat is why I don't use webmail I rather use Thunderbird. Second reason I use Thunderbird (or whoever wants whatever else) is that I have 10 or 20 mail boxes like separate for shopping separate for more important stuff separate for stupid stuff. You don't have to have a single mailbox with a single provider.
- brewdad 3y agoAnother advantage of Thunderbird is that I already have a downloaded copy of my past emails. If I ever get locked out, I can change my MX records and start over elsewhere with minimal disruption or data loss.
- tolmasky 3y agoIf they disable your account, you're not going to get any new email. So if a website uses your email address for 2-factor-auth, then you are straight out of luck, as I'm sure they also use that email for any sort of account changes. To be clear, "don't use email for 2-factor-auth" isn't a real answer here, there are plenty of services that don't give you an option. Additionally, you can't send email. That's also a pretty important part of the whole "email" thing. Any ongoing discussions will just be cut off. Seems pretty walled garden-y to me, considering the entire framing of this is that nothing bad was done with said email. It was because Apple has a unilateral switch that turns everything off if anything bad happens to an associated credit card. That is to say, if your credit card number is stolen, completely outside of your control, this could happen to your email. I'm not aware of any other email service where that is the case.
- mrtksn 3y agoAFAIK you should be able to request a copy of your data under EU regulations. But honestly, it freaks me out that Google might someday disable my account. Unlike the Apple stuff, Gmail is a gateway to all my internet stuff since 1st of April, 2004. Lately Apple is also trying to be that middleman and IMHO account blocking should be more like denying anything new but providing a clear path out or a clear path for re-activation. Another thing that I can't stand is the policy of not disclosing the reason for account blocking or rejection. This should be straight out illegal, it creates real stress and even trauma on people and I don't believe that the justification on making their job easier by hiding their methods to fight bad actors is a reasonable one. A number too small to show up in the analytics dashboard is someone very upset, maybe crying maybe going through life changing situation due to a glitch or bad design in the system. These things happen all the time and get resolved when gain traction in social media. The tech companies need to understand that they are dealing with real people and the outcomes of their actions are real and that's why they are paid so much in first place.
- TimCTRL 3y agoShameless plug; I'm building FaangSupport[0] to try to solve this issue, did a Show HN[1] to try and get some feedback but It didn't get enough traction; Most Important Feedback I needed is whether my idea is even legal. But I believe we have to democratize accesss to customer support for Faang. [0] https://faangsupport.com https://faangsupport.com [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36899787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36899787
- mschild 3y agoThat's a pretty neat idea. Obviously might be a challenge to find enough volunteers and this is unfortunately really only a bandaid on the actual problem. Curious to know why you included a login with Google account though. Feels like they're particularly well known for disabling accounts.
- TimCTRL 3y agoThanks! And true, the service is only good if Fanng/Fortune500 employees signup. I agree, its only a bandaid because Faang needs to step-up to solve this. I think the only reason I added Login with google is that it's frictionless, just to enable users quickly setup accounts.
- websap 3y agoI'm so worried now, I think there's a bigger problem to be solved here. Sounds like I need to use the Apple Credit Card only with my Apple ID, remove all other payment instruments and make sure my Apple Credit card isn't used anywhere else.
- greedo 3y agoI've had fraudulent charges on my Apple card multiple times. They were almost always detected by Goldman Sachs. I was issued new cards (and virtual cards) immediately, and nothing happened to my Apple ID. I think there's far more to this post on Reddit than we're seeing.
- FireBeyond 3y agoAnd then, one of the replies... "They can't tell you, but trust me, if they were allowed to tell you why, you'd understand and even thank them." Wuh?!?
- wmf 3y agoPeople who work in anti-spam and anti-fraud are all like that. "I can't tell you how, but we're the only thing keeping civilization from collapsing."
- totallywrong 3y agoThat's crazy, how the heck is every Apple user comfortable with that.
- chung8123 3y agoI wonder how many use those services. Google is the same way.
- tick_tock_tick 3y agoGoogle supports simple exports.
- ezfe 3y agoSo does Apple... https://privacy.apple.com https://privacy.apple.com does full data exports
- shuckles 3y agoAs described in this post, they don't disable your iCloud account for fraudulent transactions. They block you from their app and media stores.
- tzs 3y ago> Forget the movies you lose, if your AppleID is disabled How does Movies Anywhere fit in here? If I buy a movie at one of {Apple, Amazon, Google, Xfinity, Microsoft, Vudu, DirecTV, Verizon} that is from a studio that participates in Movies Anywhere and then lose or close my account at the place I bought the movie, does it remain on Movies Anywhere for me?
- mihaic 3y agoHonestly, that's the sort of terror that keeps me still using GMail, but at the same time at least my email is on a domain I control, and worst case I'd just need to hard migrate to another provider while keeping the address.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ubermonkey 3y agoI'm pretty tied to Apple for lots of things, and I generally trust them (or I wouldn't be tied this way), but even I won't put myself in a position where a single vendor can utterly cripple me. My email isn't at iCloud. It's at Fastmail. My iCloud data -- contacts, calendars, etc -- is backed up locally. My login to my Mac isn't run by Apple. Regardless of how much you trust a vendor, you should never create a single point of failure, right?
- hnbear 3y agoFrom the discussion on the Reddit link this was related to financial issues and limited to app store and iTunes accounts, not all iCloud.