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When it comes to your personal data, Apple loves (correctly) to say "all of our user's data is encrypted, we can't access it even if we wanted to, so we cannot

by 827a 1y ago

When it comes to your personal data, Apple loves (correctly) to say "all of our user's data is encrypted, we can't access it even if we wanted to, so we cannot respond to this government request for data" When it comes to application distribution, all of Apple's courage immediately disappears. They could say "We don't sign or control apps distributed through third party app stores, that's out of our hands, so we cannot respond to this government request". But, they chose not to. It was a choice, and Tim Cook chose an ugly, dishonorable, cowardly path.

anonym29 1y ago
It would be trivial for Apple to push out silent targeted OS updates to specific individuals that would log decryption keys and send them to Apple, enabling Apple to decrypt that specific user's data. Remember, Apple is the same company that cooperated with the NSA to secretly log and feed user data to the NSA starting back in 2012, as revealed by Snowden's heroic disclosure of the PRISM program (which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge). Apple's privacy-protecting image is nothing more than marketing.
- cnst 1y ago
  Apple is actually far worse at protecting your privacy than Google. On iOS, you cannot install any apps without an Apple Account, and even some preinstalled apps (like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie) cannot be used before you assign them to an Apple Account. On Android, you can install any app from any third-party store without having any accounts. There's a store called Aurora Store that even lets you install apps from Google's Play Store without an account as well, so, you can even install all the mainstream apps, all without any accounts.
  - vlovich123 1y ago
    > On Android, you can install any app from any third-party store without having any accounts. There's a store called Aurora Store that even lets you install apps from golgle's Pay Store without an account as well. I thought Google recently announced changes to this requiring a developer account to side load.
    - cnst 1y ago
      Yes, Google did announce of the plans, but those changes aren't active yet, and they plan to start enforcing them in only several APAC countries where sideloading is far too popular and gets abused far too much. Hopefully, they'll see just how ineffective their measures are, and abandon before applying the plans to the rest of the world.
      - Yokolos 1y ago
        The unspoken part is, now that the functionality exists, it will be rolled out in more and more countries because it allows governments to directly control what apps users have access to. My response to Chat Control in the EU, if all efforts to stop it were to fail, was always "well, I have an Android, so I'll just install whatever app that isn't backdoored". But if Chat Control passes, this exact functionality will eventually be used to ensure that I can only use backdoored apps.
      - hellojesus 1y ago
        > where sideloading is far too popular and gets abused far too much. Why do we consider user installation of software abuse? Plenty of people install software from non-play repositories simply to prevent Google from getting data about their app profile.
        cnst 1y ago
        The issue I spoke of, is not by the user, but by the fraudsters tricking people into installing malicious apps. I disagree that such protections (at the expense of the power users) are necessary, but, OTOH, you cannot just ignore such issue existing in the first place, because it does exist, and Google already does have the tools to combat it (by scanning all apps regardless of origin, and blocking malicious ones).
      - vrighter 1y ago
        There is no way to abuse it "too much". In fact there is no way to abuse it at all. "Sideloading software" means "installing software on my own damn machine". You can't abuse installing software on your own machine.
  - Nevermark 1y ago
    That's one point of privacy. Meanwhile, they protect vast amounts of your data with encryption, especially if you opt in to the most protection. I don't have any wish to promote Apple, but those are not comparable. Even though I have hated Apple's closed App Store policy.
    - eptcyka 1y ago
      What do you mean by your data being protected by vast amounts of encryption? Can you verify those claims beyond trusting what Apple tells you? Isn’t the commenter above insinuating that a targeted individual can be compromised anyway?
      - theshrike79 1y ago
        The amount of money you can get for a iPhone 0day confirms it. If they were playing fast and loose with cryptography and encryption, we'd have a lot more exploits in the open.
        eptcyka 1y ago
        What do you mean by that? I don't think this follows at all.
        theshrike79 1y ago
        If iPhones had flaws in the encryption or security, they WOULD be exploited and monetised. A zero day remote attack on an iOS device is worth so much money that you have to be _really_ ethical as a hacker not to sell it and report it to Apple for a small reward instead. The last time one was deployed "publicly" was against Jeff Bezos (or his wife) - one of the top10 richest people in the world anyway. And then it was patched for everyone.
        const_cast 1y ago
        Apple owns the code and all it's visibility - you're not allowed to see it. They don't need a 0 day to compromise your device, they can just choose to do it at any point. You're simply trusting they don't.
  - close04 1y ago
    > Apple is actually far worse at protecting your privacy than Google. On iOS, you cannot install any apps without an Apple Account How did you decide that this one thing alone makes Apple's entire privacy approach far worse than Google's? Everything else doesn't matter anymore?
    - cnst 1y ago
      What else could possibly matter if your entire identity is always exposed on every iOS device? I can't really think of anything worse as far as privacy is concerned. Can you?
  - jimjambw 1y ago
    That is indeed one area of privacy but I wouldn’t say that Apple is far worse. There is countless number of examples where this just simply isn’t true. Also regarding the App Store, you don’t have to enter a credit card, you can make an account with a new email address.
    - cnst 1y ago
      What's worse than the inability to NOT have a permanent standardised real-name identifier on your device at all times and on all devices? Apple has really questionable security as well. There's lots of people who have reported Apple randomly asking for Apple Account passwords all of a sudden in popups, on both iOS and macOS, the same way as malware would; or forcing password resets every day or every week. BTW, do you know how many customer accounts did Apple terminate in 2024? It's 128'961'839 — nearly 129 million customer accounts terminated in just one year.
- greyadept 1y ago
  This is what I’ve always struggled to explain to people, that any software’s security and privacy is only as good as its most recent update.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  > It would be trivial for Apple to push out silent targeted OS updates to specific individuals that would log decryption keys and send them to Apple. I don't think they even need to do that. They are in control of the encryption process and obviously already process the data to create a persona of the user (after which it is no longer considered "user data")
- nozzlegear 1y ago
  Wouldn't Apple have just done exactly that when they faced public and state pressure to unlock the iPhones of mass shooters, such as the San Bernardino shooter or the Pensacola shooter? That was their golden opportunity, but instead they refused, went to court, and forced the FBI to pay third parties to break into the phones. That's the opposite of your espionage scenario. If Apple never decrypts a user's data, then this debate will never resolve, because there will always be people who insist that Apple's teetering on the precipice of logging decryption keys and decrypting a user's data – or worse, that they've already done it and we're just waiting for another heroic whistleblower to reveal their corruption. > Remember, Apple is the same company that cooperated with the NSA to secretly log and feed user data to the NSA starting back in 2012, as revealed by Snowden's heroic disclosure of the PRISM program (which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge). PRISM compelled Apple to provide the NSA with access to cloud data they already held under FISA orders. Apple was not installing spyware on people's devices as you seem to be implying.
  - anonym29 1y ago
    >PRISM compelled Apple to provide the NSA with access to cloud data they already held under FISA orders. Cloud data that's supposedly encrypted with encryption keys Apple pinky promises they don't have, right? >Apple was not installing spyware on people's devices as you seem to be implying. I am very clearly not implying this is currently happening - just that there is nothing theoretically preventing this from happening, and the company already has a history of secretly cooperating with illegal government surveillance programs to provide cleartext user data - user data that they love to present an image of protecting vigorously.
hopelite 1y ago
You haven't noticed that the tyrannical agencies, aka "intelligence" agencies in the west no longer white and throw tantrums about "going blind" and "black holes" etc. regarding Apple device encryption? I do not get the impression that they just forgot and stopped being traitors.
- habinero 1y ago
  I mean, you can just look it up instead of spreading conspiracies. Apple put in functionality that makes it impossible for them to unlock phones and added additional controls to make brute forcing infeasible. The fight was fought, they had it out in court, and it's done. If that wasn't true, literally all iPhones would be backdoored by the Russians and Chinese lol. Law enforcement is utterly incompetent when it comes to technology, you think they wouldn't immediately leak keys or access?
  - dns_snek 1y ago
    I regret to inform you that the latest leaked Cellebrite support matrix [1] (from summer 2024) showed that all iOS devices on then-current iOS versions could be forcibly unlocked by law enforcement in AFU state (After First Unlock, following a reboot) using their software. The only devices that successfully resisted their attempts were Google Pixels running GrapheneOS. According to those documents Cellebrite hasn't had the ability to crack them open since 2022. There's an updated matrix for Android from February [2] which indicates that this hasn't changed on the Android side. [1] https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-july-2024-documentation https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju... [2] https://osservatorionessuno.org/blog/2025/03/a-deep-dive-into-cellebrite-android-support-as-of-february-2025/ https://osservatorionessuno.org/blog/2025/03/a-deep-dive-int...
    - habinero 1y ago
      Yeah, I know. It requires expensive 0-days, which are rare and very much not what the other guy was implying, which is "Apple unlocks things for LEO". Both Google and Apple have world-class security teams, it's not surprising that it's that difficult.
hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
One is a selling point to the security conscious user. The other they no longer need to care about because Android is now a walled garden too.
Someone 1y ago
To protect their users they chose to include a feature that allows them to remotely kill nefarious apps on all devices, regardless of how they got installed. A consequence of that is that they cannot answer government requests to kill apps with “I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that”. Was that the right trade-off? I’m not sure, but AFAIK, they aren’t allowed to add alarming warnings when users add alternative stores, so they can’t put up signs “you’re leaving the safe area”, so I can see why they made this choice.
- ruszki 1y ago
  > To protect their users they chose to include a feature that allows them to remotely kill nefarious apps This feature is part of antivirus solutions for ages.
  - can16358p 1y ago
    If an OS needs antivirus for this, that OS has been designed wrong (excluding Linux, FreeBSD etc as the target audience isn't regular end users) in the first place. An OS should NOT need antivirus, it needs proper sandbox and containerization.
    - Someone 1y ago
      - defense in depth means adding such an extra layer is a good idea - an app can 100% stay within its sandbox and still be nefarious. For example, a password manager could secretly send all your passwords to Mr(s) Evil.
      - gkbrk 1y ago
        With a proper sandbox, a password manager won't have internet access.
        kube-system 1y ago
        It also wouldn't have a competitive feature set if that were the case -- syncing across devices is a bog standard feature for password managers. Also, the possibilities for nefarious apps that aren't thwarted by sandboxes are endless: social engineering and phishing are very common and effective.

by 827a 1y ago

anonym29 1y ago

It would be trivial for Apple to push out silent targeted OS updates to specific individuals that would log decryption keys and send them to Apple, enabling Apple to decrypt that specific user's data. Remember, Apple is the same company that cooperated with the NSA to secretly log and feed user data to the NSA starting back in 2012, as revealed by Snowden's heroic disclosure of the PRISM program (which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge). Apple's privacy-protecting image is nothing more than marketing.

cnst 1y ago
Apple is actually far worse at protecting your privacy than Google. On iOS, you cannot install any apps without an Apple Account, and even some preinstalled apps (like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, iMovie) cannot be used before you assign them to an Apple Account. On Android, you can install any app from any third-party store without having any accounts. There's a store called Aurora Store that even lets you install apps from Google's Play Store without an account as well, so, you can even install all the mainstream apps, all without any accounts.
- vlovich123 1y ago
  > On Android, you can install any app from any third-party store without having any accounts. There's a store called Aurora Store that even lets you install apps from golgle's Pay Store without an account as well. I thought Google recently announced changes to this requiring a developer account to side load.
  - cnst 1y ago
    Yes, Google did announce of the plans, but those changes aren't active yet, and they plan to start enforcing them in only several APAC countries where sideloading is far too popular and gets abused far too much. Hopefully, they'll see just how ineffective their measures are, and abandon before applying the plans to the rest of the world.
    - Yokolos 1y ago
      The unspoken part is, now that the functionality exists, it will be rolled out in more and more countries because it allows governments to directly control what apps users have access to. My response to Chat Control in the EU, if all efforts to stop it were to fail, was always "well, I have an Android, so I'll just install whatever app that isn't backdoored". But if Chat Control passes, this exact functionality will eventually be used to ensure that I can only use backdoored apps.
    - hellojesus 1y ago
      > where sideloading is far too popular and gets abused far too much. Why do we consider user installation of software abuse? Plenty of people install software from non-play repositories simply to prevent Google from getting data about their app profile.
      - cnst 1y ago
        The issue I spoke of, is not by the user, but by the fraudsters tricking people into installing malicious apps. I disagree that such protections (at the expense of the power users) are necessary, but, OTOH, you cannot just ignore such issue existing in the first place, because it does exist, and Google already does have the tools to combat it (by scanning all apps regardless of origin, and blocking malicious ones).
    - vrighter 1y ago
      There is no way to abuse it "too much". In fact there is no way to abuse it at all. "Sideloading software" means "installing software on my own damn machine". You can't abuse installing software on your own machine.
- Nevermark 1y ago
  That's one point of privacy. Meanwhile, they protect vast amounts of your data with encryption, especially if you opt in to the most protection. I don't have any wish to promote Apple, but those are not comparable. Even though I have hated Apple's closed App Store policy.
  - eptcyka 1y ago
    What do you mean by your data being protected by vast amounts of encryption? Can you verify those claims beyond trusting what Apple tells you? Isn’t the commenter above insinuating that a targeted individual can be compromised anyway?
    - theshrike79 1y ago
      The amount of money you can get for a iPhone 0day confirms it. If they were playing fast and loose with cryptography and encryption, we'd have a lot more exploits in the open.
      - eptcyka 1y ago
        What do you mean by that? I don't think this follows at all.
        theshrike79 1y ago
        If iPhones had flaws in the encryption or security, they WOULD be exploited and monetised. A zero day remote attack on an iOS device is worth so much money that you have to be _really_ ethical as a hacker not to sell it and report it to Apple for a small reward instead. The last time one was deployed "publicly" was against Jeff Bezos (or his wife) - one of the top10 richest people in the world anyway. And then it was patched for everyone.
        const_cast 1y ago
        Apple owns the code and all it's visibility - you're not allowed to see it. They don't need a 0 day to compromise your device, they can just choose to do it at any point. You're simply trusting they don't.
- close04 1y ago
  > Apple is actually far worse at protecting your privacy than Google. On iOS, you cannot install any apps without an Apple Account How did you decide that this one thing alone makes Apple's entire privacy approach far worse than Google's? Everything else doesn't matter anymore?
  - cnst 1y ago
    What else could possibly matter if your entire identity is always exposed on every iOS device? I can't really think of anything worse as far as privacy is concerned. Can you?
- jimjambw 1y ago
  That is indeed one area of privacy but I wouldn’t say that Apple is far worse. There is countless number of examples where this just simply isn’t true. Also regarding the App Store, you don’t have to enter a credit card, you can make an account with a new email address.
  - cnst 1y ago
    What's worse than the inability to NOT have a permanent standardised real-name identifier on your device at all times and on all devices? Apple has really questionable security as well. There's lots of people who have reported Apple randomly asking for Apple Account passwords all of a sudden in popups, on both iOS and macOS, the same way as malware would; or forcing password resets every day or every week. BTW, do you know how many customer accounts did Apple terminate in 2024? It's 128'961'839 — nearly 129 million customer accounts terminated in just one year.
greyadept 1y ago
This is what I’ve always struggled to explain to people, that any software’s security and privacy is only as good as its most recent update.
rickdeckard 1y ago
> It would be trivial for Apple to push out silent targeted OS updates to specific individuals that would log decryption keys and send them to Apple. I don't think they even need to do that. They are in control of the encryption process and obviously already process the data to create a persona of the user (after which it is no longer considered "user data")
nozzlegear 1y ago
Wouldn't Apple have just done exactly that when they faced public and state pressure to unlock the iPhones of mass shooters, such as the San Bernardino shooter or the Pensacola shooter? That was their golden opportunity, but instead they refused, went to court, and forced the FBI to pay third parties to break into the phones. That's the opposite of your espionage scenario. If Apple never decrypts a user's data, then this debate will never resolve, because there will always be people who insist that Apple's teetering on the precipice of logging decryption keys and decrypting a user's data – or worse, that they've already done it and we're just waiting for another heroic whistleblower to reveal their corruption. > Remember, Apple is the same company that cooperated with the NSA to secretly log and feed user data to the NSA starting back in 2012, as revealed by Snowden's heroic disclosure of the PRISM program (which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge). PRISM compelled Apple to provide the NSA with access to cloud data they already held under FISA orders. Apple was not installing spyware on people's devices as you seem to be implying.
- anonym29 1y ago
  >PRISM compelled Apple to provide the NSA with access to cloud data they already held under FISA orders. Cloud data that's supposedly encrypted with encryption keys Apple pinky promises they don't have, right? >Apple was not installing spyware on people's devices as you seem to be implying. I am very clearly not implying this is currently happening - just that there is nothing theoretically preventing this from happening, and the company already has a history of secretly cooperating with illegal government surveillance programs to provide cleartext user data - user data that they love to present an image of protecting vigorously.

hopelite 1y ago

You haven't noticed that the tyrannical agencies, aka "intelligence" agencies in the west no longer white and throw tantrums about "going blind" and "black holes" etc. regarding Apple device encryption? I do not get the impression that they just forgot and stopped being traitors.

habinero 1y ago
I mean, you can just look it up instead of spreading conspiracies. Apple put in functionality that makes it impossible for them to unlock phones and added additional controls to make brute forcing infeasible. The fight was fought, they had it out in court, and it's done. If that wasn't true, literally all iPhones would be backdoored by the Russians and Chinese lol. Law enforcement is utterly incompetent when it comes to technology, you think they wouldn't immediately leak keys or access?
- dns_snek 1y ago
  I regret to inform you that the latest leaked Cellebrite support matrix [1] (from summer 2024) showed that all iOS devices on then-current iOS versions could be forcibly unlocked by law enforcement in AFU state (After First Unlock, following a reboot) using their software. The only devices that successfully resisted their attempts were Google Pixels running GrapheneOS. According to those documents Cellebrite hasn't had the ability to crack them open since 2022. There's an updated matrix for Android from February [2] which indicates that this hasn't changed on the Android side. [1] https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-july-2024-documentation https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju... [2] https://osservatorionessuno.org/blog/2025/03/a-deep-dive-into-cellebrite-android-support-as-of-february-2025/ https://osservatorionessuno.org/blog/2025/03/a-deep-dive-int...
  - habinero 1y ago
    Yeah, I know. It requires expensive 0-days, which are rare and very much not what the other guy was implying, which is "Apple unlocks things for LEO". Both Google and Apple have world-class security teams, it's not surprising that it's that difficult.

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago

One is a selling point to the security conscious user. The other they no longer need to care about because Android is now a walled garden too.

Someone 1y ago

To protect their users they chose to include a feature that allows them to remotely kill nefarious apps on all devices, regardless of how they got installed. A consequence of that is that they cannot answer government requests to kill apps with “I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that”. Was that the right trade-off? I’m not sure, but AFAIK, they aren’t allowed to add alarming warnings when users add alternative stores, so they can’t put up signs “you’re leaving the safe area”, so I can see why they made this choice.

ruszki 1y ago
> To protect their users they chose to include a feature that allows them to remotely kill nefarious apps This feature is part of antivirus solutions for ages.
- can16358p 1y ago
  If an OS needs antivirus for this, that OS has been designed wrong (excluding Linux, FreeBSD etc as the target audience isn't regular end users) in the first place. An OS should NOT need antivirus, it needs proper sandbox and containerization.
  - Someone 1y ago
    - defense in depth means adding such an extra layer is a good idea - an app can 100% stay within its sandbox and still be nefarious. For example, a password manager could secretly send all your passwords to Mr(s) Evil.
    - gkbrk 1y ago
      With a proper sandbox, a password manager won't have internet access.
      - kube-system 1y ago
        It also wouldn't have a competitive feature set if that were the case -- syncing across devices is a bog standard feature for password managers. Also, the possibilities for nefarious apps that aren't thwarted by sandboxes are endless: social engineering and phishing are very common and effective.