5 ms·

GrapheneOS has a retort: https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w

by i80and 1y ago

ldoughty 1y ago
Yeah, that's basically what I deduced. They throw Android under the bus but _really_ it's not any more private, it just makes it up to Apple to comply, not the developer. There is an argument to be made that Apple is better positioned to fight financially... However, the current administration tends to threaten blocking or mergers/acquisitions, or other red tape unless they comply. I doubt Apple would accept such financially damaging threats to protect ICEBlock's users.
- fn-mote 1y ago
  Apple has resisted pressure from law enforcement in the past. That gives me a real reason to believe that they will not fold in the future.
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    Agreed, and they certainly have better lawyers than an indie dev could afford.
  - realusername 1y ago
    They also threw their Chinese users under the bus and complied with the russian government as part of their war censorship.
    - redeeman 1y ago
      translation: they followed local law where they operate
      - realusername 1y ago
        You can frame it like that if you want yes but they certainly aren't "resisting pressure from law enforcement". As a side note, they do fight sometimes, they fought the EU's DMA for example, but in Russia and China, they complied without a fight though to my knowledge.
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        Just like Apple followed federal law installing the American backdoor for Push Notifications. See? No laws broken, perfectly safe.
        redeeman 1y ago
        blame the governments? the people of the US is responsible for what their government does. The people of China is responsible for their government.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Which pressure from law enforcement? Ron Wyden blew the whistle on Apple's warrantless Push Notification backdoor, which Apple did admit to implementing for the federal government: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-... Apple has since confirmed in a statement provided to Ars that the US federal government "prohibited" the company "from sharing any information," but now that Wyden has outed the feds, Apple has updated its transparency reporting and will "detail these kinds of requests" in a separate section on push notifications in its next report. As other commenters have noted, Apple's treatment of Russian and Chinese users should not give you hope for their resisting US federal oversight.
    - jeroenhd 1y ago
      Apple fought back against forced decryption orders. They could theoretically decrypt any iPhone they're given with new firmware but they don't want to. On the other hand, Google isn't exactly working with the authorities either. They moved Google Maps' location history to on-device storage because of the many warrants they were served, for instance, and they too refuse to decrypt phones. These companies know to pick their battles, but they did take on the government various times.
      - 15155 1y ago
        > They could theoretically decrypt any iPhone they're given with new firmware but they don't want to. This is untrue at some technical level: Apple is currently unable to break AES-256. The San Bernadino case was about having Apple create and sign new firmware that would enable a brute force attack - which could easily be unsuccessful. I don't believe the Secure Enclave found in newer models even allows for a brute force attack (enforcing some delay, among other things) from BFU state.
  - DownGoat 1y ago
    It's a different risk calculation with the current government. Deny blocking this, and suddenly there are new tariffs designed to especially hurt Apple, or other punishments for not complying.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
  If there is any silver lining in any of this, it may be that people will finally start taking privacy as not completely irrelevant trade-off to convenience. I am not really holding my breath, but if people do not have that level of self-preservation in relatively clear instances, it probably does not matter anyway.
- BlueTemplar 1y ago
  The issue is much older than the current US administration : Apple has been listed as participating to PRISM since 2012, and considering the whole opacity of the Patriot Act (and its derivatives), the secret courts in particular, it makes whatever they (or any other US company) might say about their commitment to privacy (when the opponent is the US government) rather irrelevant. (Personally, I am suspecting that they do try much more than some other companies, but again, the opacity makes it impossible to verify.)
johnklos 1y ago
[flagged]
- miloignis 1y ago
  But Google doesn't have to be involved! GrapheneOS is specifically a de-googled Android. Even for normal Google-y Android, you could provide the APK to side-load, so it doesn't go through the Play Store or Google's FCM at all, an option you don't have with Apple. I think this is what the Graphene posts are trying to say. As others mention, having a web app would make a lot of sense.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Apple tracks user location too. If you log into your iCloud from a country you've never been to, you're going to have to need to provide your 2FA code even with a valid session token. They're not stupid. Apple is very much in favour of user privacy, as long as that privacy means "protecting your data from third parties". When it comes to the data Apple itself collects, they're far less conservative. They don't share information derived from their massive databases per se, but they do keep track. Thanks to Apple and Find My, stalking people is easier than ever. The company can look up where you are and where you've been. They'd probably fight a court order to provide live location data to ICE, but who knows what that'll mean with the current American government. Even on iOS, user data ends up in the hands of data brokers through ads. They're not supposed to collect all that data, but that's not stopping an unethical company from trying. Android's privacy issues are there, but only if you're protecting your privacy against companies. If you're trying to protect your privacy against the government, there's no difference, really.
  - chaoskitty 1y ago
    This is orthogonal to the discussion.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  ICEBlock is actively lying, is not open source and is confidently misleading many. While I don't want to assume regular fed honeypot, we can at the very least be certain that it's an app made by an Apple Kool-Aid drinking person. iOS is, in many ways, more susceptible to governement subpoenas than an Android app would ever be. Sideloading, UnifiedPush, maintaining a connection to a server to handle notifications yourself are all more secure than just trusting that Apple will not just hand you over to the cops. In addition, if the author is worried about a subpoena, it means that they're US based. Which is an absurdly stupid thing to do if you're going to make a fascist-reporting app while living in a fascist country.

GrapheneOS has a retort: https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w

by i80and 1y ago

GrapheneOS has a retort: https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3lswujex4e22w

ldoughty 1y ago

Yeah, that's basically what I deduced. They throw Android under the bus but _really_ it's not any more private, it just makes it up to Apple to comply, not the developer. There is an argument to be made that Apple is better positioned to fight financially... However, the current administration tends to threaten blocking or mergers/acquisitions, or other red tape unless they comply. I doubt Apple would accept such financially damaging threats to protect ICEBlock's users.

fn-mote 1y ago
Apple has resisted pressure from law enforcement in the past. That gives me a real reason to believe that they will not fold in the future.
- kstrauser 1y ago
  Agreed, and they certainly have better lawyers than an indie dev could afford.
- realusername 1y ago
  They also threw their Chinese users under the bus and complied with the russian government as part of their war censorship.
  - redeeman 1y ago
    translation: they followed local law where they operate
    - realusername 1y ago
      You can frame it like that if you want yes but they certainly aren't "resisting pressure from law enforcement". As a side note, they do fight sometimes, they fought the EU's DMA for example, but in Russia and China, they complied without a fight though to my knowledge.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Just like Apple followed federal law installing the American backdoor for Push Notifications. See? No laws broken, perfectly safe.
      - redeeman 1y ago
        blame the governments? the people of the US is responsible for what their government does. The people of China is responsible for their government.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Which pressure from law enforcement? Ron Wyden blew the whistle on Apple's warrantless Push Notification backdoor, which Apple did admit to implementing for the federal government: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-... Apple has since confirmed in a statement provided to Ars that the US federal government "prohibited" the company "from sharing any information," but now that Wyden has outed the feds, Apple has updated its transparency reporting and will "detail these kinds of requests" in a separate section on push notifications in its next report. As other commenters have noted, Apple's treatment of Russian and Chinese users should not give you hope for their resisting US federal oversight.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    Apple fought back against forced decryption orders. They could theoretically decrypt any iPhone they're given with new firmware but they don't want to. On the other hand, Google isn't exactly working with the authorities either. They moved Google Maps' location history to on-device storage because of the many warrants they were served, for instance, and they too refuse to decrypt phones. These companies know to pick their battles, but they did take on the government various times.
    - 15155 1y ago
      > They could theoretically decrypt any iPhone they're given with new firmware but they don't want to. This is untrue at some technical level: Apple is currently unable to break AES-256. The San Bernadino case was about having Apple create and sign new firmware that would enable a brute force attack - which could easily be unsuccessful. I don't believe the Secure Enclave found in newer models even allows for a brute force attack (enforcing some delay, among other things) from BFU state.
- DownGoat 1y ago
  It's a different risk calculation with the current government. Deny blocking this, and suddenly there are new tariffs designed to especially hurt Apple, or other punishments for not complying.
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
If there is any silver lining in any of this, it may be that people will finally start taking privacy as not completely irrelevant trade-off to convenience. I am not really holding my breath, but if people do not have that level of self-preservation in relatively clear instances, it probably does not matter anyway.
BlueTemplar 1y ago
The issue is much older than the current US administration : Apple has been listed as participating to PRISM since 2012, and considering the whole opacity of the Patriot Act (and its derivatives), the secret courts in particular, it makes whatever they (or any other US company) might say about their commitment to privacy (when the opponent is the US government) rather irrelevant. (Personally, I am suspecting that they do try much more than some other companies, but again, the opacity makes it impossible to verify.)

johnklos 1y ago

[flagged]

miloignis 1y ago
But Google doesn't have to be involved! GrapheneOS is specifically a de-googled Android. Even for normal Google-y Android, you could provide the APK to side-load, so it doesn't go through the Play Store or Google's FCM at all, an option you don't have with Apple. I think this is what the Graphene posts are trying to say. As others mention, having a web app would make a lot of sense.
jeroenhd 1y ago
Apple tracks user location too. If you log into your iCloud from a country you've never been to, you're going to have to need to provide your 2FA code even with a valid session token. They're not stupid. Apple is very much in favour of user privacy, as long as that privacy means "protecting your data from third parties". When it comes to the data Apple itself collects, they're far less conservative. They don't share information derived from their massive databases per se, but they do keep track. Thanks to Apple and Find My, stalking people is easier than ever. The company can look up where you are and where you've been. They'd probably fight a court order to provide live location data to ICE, but who knows what that'll mean with the current American government. Even on iOS, user data ends up in the hands of data brokers through ads. They're not supposed to collect all that data, but that's not stopping an unethical company from trying. Android's privacy issues are there, but only if you're protecting your privacy against companies. If you're trying to protect your privacy against the government, there's no difference, really.
- chaoskitty 1y ago
  This is orthogonal to the discussion.
ohdeargodno 1y ago
ICEBlock is actively lying, is not open source and is confidently misleading many. While I don't want to assume regular fed honeypot, we can at the very least be certain that it's an app made by an Apple Kool-Aid drinking person. iOS is, in many ways, more susceptible to governement subpoenas than an Android app would ever be. Sideloading, UnifiedPush, maintaining a connection to a server to handle notifications yourself are all more secure than just trusting that Apple will not just hand you over to the cops. In addition, if the author is worried about a subpoena, it means that they're US based. Which is an absurdly stupid thing to do if you're going to make a fascist-reporting app while living in a fascist country.