https://9to5mac.com/2023/07/20/apple-imessage-facetime-remove-security-law/?
Facing possible legislation that would require messaging services to offer backdoors in end-to-end encryption, Apple is saying it would rather...
Yep. They really doubled down on privacy/security and it’s pretty admirable. The President doesn’t use an android or a blackberry for a reason. (Well, two in the case of blackberry. Security and existing). If only there were no other problematic areas of Apple’s business (manufacturing, wages, environmental impact).
Can't wait for them to put their money where their mouth is and do the same in China and other large population countries that demand the same thing 😂
They're hypocrites though. Branding themselves as privacy focused and in some cases actually being that too but at the same time also scanning your photos and messages and reporting to authorities/parents if there something inappropriate.
Inb4 no need to worry if you have nothing to hide -argument
Ok…so I’m aware there is a feature “check for sensitive media” that parents can turn on and AI can send an alert to you if it seems like your kid might be texting nude pics….only works with iMessage since apple doesn’t have access to photos in other apps. No human sees the photos. But that isn’t the same as what you’re saying and I don’t know if what you’re saying is accurate.
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-communication-safety-messages/
This is what I'm talking about.
And the issue with that parental control is that say you're gay kid in Iran that send nudes to your boyfriend which Apple then reports to your ultra conservative parents. That's not going to end good for you.
Apple Kills Its Plan to Scan Your Photos for CSAM
That headline literally says they're not doing that. It was a well-meaning initiative that they rightfully backed down on when called out.
I am one of the first to typically assume malice or profit when a company does something, but I really think Apple was trying to do something good for society in a way that is otherwise as privacy-focused as they could be. They just didn't stop to consider whether or not they should be proactive in legal matters, and when they got reamed by privacy advocates, they decided not to go forward with it.
Good on them for canceling those plans but they only did so because of the massive public outcry. They still intended to start scanning your photos and that is worrying.
However I'm not denying that it's probably still the most privacy focused phone you can get. For now.
They still intended to start scanning your photos and that is worrying.
They wanted to scan photos stored in iCloud. Apple has an entirely legitimate interest in not storing CSAM on their servers. Instead of doing it like every other photo service does, which scans all of your photos on the server, they created a complex privacy-preserving method to do an initial scan on device as part of the upload process and, through the magic of math, these would only get matched as CSAM on the server if they were confident (one in a trillion false-positives) you were uploading literally dozens of CSAM images, at which point they'd then have a person verify to make absolutely certain, and then finally report your crime.
The system would do the seemingly impossible of preserving the privacy of literally everybody except the people that everyone agrees don't deserve it. If you didn't upload a bunch of CSAM, Apple itself would legitimately never scan your images. The scan happened on device and the match happened in the cloud, and only if there were a enough matches to guarantee confidence. It's honestly brilliant but people freaked out after a relentless FUD campaign, including from people and organizations who absolutely should know better.
but they only did so because of the massive public outcry
Well, shit. For once the voice of the people worked and you're still bitching about it.
i mean, that's a pretty niche case and maybe your underage kid shouldn't be sending nudes via imessage anyways.
That's a whole another discussion. It just one example anyways. My point still stands; this does not increase user privacy.
The child in that case is not the user (or at least not the owner). The user is the parent who configures the phone as they choose and loans it to the child. It's no different than Apple allowing a business to configure a MacBook as they choose, including tools to monitor its usage, and then offering that computer to one of their employees. The owner of the device gets to choose the privacy settings, not necessarily the end user.
Well that and the fact that he's 900 years old and probably thinks all phones are iPhones.
This is one thing Apple has been pretty firm on. You can’t have a secure product and have backdoors. You can try to hide them all you want, but a backdoor will always be a massive security vulnerability.
ahem
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/25/apple-moves-icloud-encryption-keys-for-chinese-users-to-china/
Chinese authorities can now get a Chinese legal order and tell Apple’s local partner to hand over user data. The local partner (and by extension Apple) will have no choice but to comply with the order.
Apple’s statement to Reuters is quite telling. “While we advocated against iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful,” The company told Reuters. Apple simply couldn’t win this fight.
They moved the storage of encryption keys for Chinese users to servers in China instead of shutting down iMessage and Facetime. Quite the different response compared to here.
They moved the storage of encryption keys for Chinese users to servers in China instead of shutting down iMessage and Facetime. Quite the different response compared to here.
I was assuming Apple was posturing until they'd actually have to do something.
They could well have postured in China as well, before backtracking. I have no Idea if that happened, but it seems reasonable from a PR vs Legal vs business development standpoint.
They moved the storage of encryption keys for Chinese users to servers in China instead of shutting down iMessage and Facetime.
These are totally separate things. Apple users in China can still use iMessage and FaceTime and those are still end-to-end encrypted. If you choose to store your iMessages in iCloud, those can be accessed by the government, but that's the same as they can in every other country. The UK's proposal is to directly break the security of iMessage itself, something worse than what China has done.
They moved the storage of encryption keys for Chinese users to servers in China
No they didn't. iMessage can only be decrypted by keys stored in the secure enclave on your device.
There are some things that the Chinese government can access. The contents of messages isn't one of them.
And as for Facetime... those calls aren't recorded at all. Not sure how a legal order is supposed to allow access to data that doesn't even exist.
I agree that's not how it works in most places but I don't assume to know the inner working of a Chinese iphone or the version of iOS it's running. If there is a financial incentive apple will bend for China while also saying it didn't.
The way Facetime works is extensively documented and thoroughly audited by third parties - many of whom publish their findings.
If China had a back door into Facetime, I suspect I'd know about it as someone who follows these things pretty closely.
Right but none of it is open source so being extensively documented doesn't mean much and what I said still stands. You are assuming that what apple has told you is the truth with zero 3rd party audits of the underlying code.
Will, except in China. They opened the backdoor nice and wide for Winnie the Pooh so he could gobble up all the Chinese iCloud data
Not really. Apple's track record for this kind of thing is pretty great. See also, the San Bernardino case.
Apple doesn't like be told what to do.
If privacy is in the way of their desires then Apple will invade their user's privacy. They don't stand for privacy.
Seems like you're spewing FUD to me, mostly. I agree Apple is far from perfect, but they literally introduced an e2e methodology for much of iCloud data recently.
Besides, even if they are only doing this out of selfish desire, it's still a good thing for the consumers in this case.
Has everyone forgotten about Apples plan to scan every single photo uploaded to iCloud for harmful content? They can and will destroy any semblance of privacy for the right reason.
Well, scan hashes -- they didn't look at images directly until it was flagged. That being said, it'd require trusts from users they aren't looking at everything directly.
I believe proprietary software gives unjust power over users and so Apple making a good change (even if it were sincere benevolence) is still in that content.
I happened to view your profile and see recent comments. I see a post saying you choose to switch from Plex (proprietary) to Jellyfin (open source) due to their businesses decisions. Is that's because you anticipate changes to the software you will dislike? This seems very close to what I just tried to say.
Good, why should they comprise security. It makes it easier for everyone to hack, not just the government
It could already be completely hackable and no one would know because the security in this case is solely based on apples word with zero auditing. If there were a true financial incentive there is no doubt they would compromise "security".
21st century governments: Hey guys, why don't we ban math?
Yeah good luck with that. Gotta give it to Apple on this one, though I'm not a huge fan of their business practices otherwise.
they removed the ability to send sms in the app. so I, like many others, moved on to other apps that could handle such a task.
signal isn't capable of anything other than talking to other signal users. so it's a dead app.
It's not a dead app if your group chat is on signal. Source: my group chat is on signal
unfortunately I am friends with all sorts. those who have signal and those who do not. I have no need to have separate texting programs for my phone when I can just use another app that does everything.
they removed the ability to send sms in the app. so I, like many others, moved on to other apps that could handle such a task.
signal isn't capable of anything other than talking to other signal users. so it's a dead app.
I would think the obvious answer to this question is those that don't use signal.
I have no need to have separate texting programs for separate functions on my phone.
signal used to do sms. it doesn't anymore. so I've moved on. does that help you?
The answer is not as obvious. Those that don’t use Signal may use Whatsapp, Telegram, Instagram DMs, Google Chat, even Slack or Discord.
Sending SMS is like using a fax at this point. It’s ridiculous to even consider doing it.
The state of messaging in the US is absurd and only explained by this kind of behavior. The rest of the world moved on from SMS over a decade ago and have zero issues communicating with people no matter what OS their device has.
listen you'll get no argument from me on that. I wish I could just use discord for everything. I just love my friends even if they use sms. in some cases these are not internet heavy users.
these are just normal people who use their phones to call, text and play mahjong. that's it.
I'm not going to hold a seminar and try to talk them all into an app they'd get no real use out of other than talking to just one person.
I don’t doubt it. Apple would probably just ship a new app called “Texts” or something that only does traditional cell carrier text messages, and then refer customers to third party solutions for video conferencing. A nice explanatory web page on Apple’s website to point customers in the region towards would be the cherry on top.
No need for a new app. The app is already called „messages“. Just remove iMessage support and it works „fine“
Hope this comes to fruition. Maybe it would help people realize how dumb it is to be locked into these services in the first place.
We will have to wait and see what if they actually follow through.
They are big ones for making grand statements and then quietly backtracking later on once all the press isn't paying attention anymore.
I'd say good on Apple protecting their users but knowing Apple it's more like they don't want to be told what to do.
Mine is mainly a YouTube and Books machine. During the NFL season I’ll use it to keep tabs on games that my team isn’t in, or pull up NFL Redzone as a PiP kind of setup from the couch.
Sometimes I use it for recipes too