> I think Apple leads in privacy
How do you know that? Unless you have some special access to see the source, you are just taking their word on that.
How do you know that? Unless you have some special access to see the source, you are just taking their word on that.
Next even if the source was published there’s no way to know of the published source is what is in the phones they sell. This is just as true of an AOSP or any open source phone unless you literally audit the source and compile the whole stack from source yourself.
However at least we have Apple on record and accountable, and it seems like their actual commercial interests align with their stated policies. Going with them seems like a reasonable risk to take, especially considering how poor we know for a fact most of their competition is in this regard.
I'd say it's highly contestable, especially since we have no actual direct proof that they do value privacy. Additionally, I don't care about brand perception, I care about reality.
> Next even if the source was published there’s no way to know of the published source is what is in the phones they sell.
So because they ship a poor OS that doesn't let you manage and control your own system means that there's no way to tell? Interesting, considering that a lot of other hardware works that way....
> This is just as true of an AOSP or any open source phone unless you literally audit the source and compile the whole stack from source yourself.
A) So? What if I want to do that?
B) The point of open-sourcing everything isn't so that everyone can audit everything everytime. It's so that we can audit when we need to. I would never buy a car that doens't let me pop the hood if I wanted to make modifications, why can't the same be true for Apple's products?
> However at least we have Apple on record and accountable, and it seems like their actual commercial interests align with their stated policies.
Their commercial interests actually align to look like they care about privacy, while actually double-dipping. Additionally, they still cater to governments.
> Going with them seems like a reasonable risk to take, especially considering how poor we know for a fact most of their competition is in this regard.
I completely agree that their competition is awful, but that doesn't in any way mean that Apple is good.
In the end, none of what you said refutes my point: You are still reliant on Apple being honest.
So what if you do ? You can't.
Android isn't really open source. They let you look at some unimportant parts of it, that's all. It's a token gesture at best, or deliberately deceptive at worst.
> The point of open-sourcing everything isn't so that everyone can audit everything everytime. It's so that we can audit when we need to
But you can't audit the most important parts of Android, as they are closed-source. Hell, even Google doesn't have access to the source of the most important bits such as the baseband firmware.
That is my complaint. There are plenty of other operating systems where I can. The fact that Apple won't let me implies that they are hiding something.
> Android isn't really open source. They let you look at some unimportant parts of it, that's all. It's a token gesture at best, or deliberately deceptive at worst.
I agree, but this is whataboutism. Android being shitty doesn't give Apple the right to be shitty.
Name 1 OS + hardware combination where you have the ability to fully audit every part of security-sensitive software. I'll wait...
> Android being shitty doesn't give Apple the right to be shitty.
No, but you can whine about stuff you're never ever going to get, or you can just pick the least problematic option available. Currently that's Apple.
https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/systems + any open source os
That aside: Just because we have shitty foss offerings doesn't mean Apple has a good offering.
> No, but you can whine about stuff you're never ever going to get, or you can just pick the least problematic option available. Currently that's Apple.
A) Currently that is not Apple. There are many other systems that do a much better job of protecting your privacy that Apple.
B) I'll choose to whine about things that I'm "never going to get". I'm in the business of reality, not wishful thinking. Just because Apple is more convenient when it comes to privacy, doesn't mean it solves the privacy problem, and sweeping that lie under the rug doesn't make it any less of a lie.
OMG, I don't even.... You do realise none of those are phones right?
>That aside: Just because we have shitty foss offerings doesn't mean Apple has a good offering.
The contention was that they lead, not that they are perfect.
>A) Currently that is not Apple. There are many other systems that do a much better job of protecting your privacy that Apple.
Name one. I really don't know of any. Android is a security car crash. The MS offering is effectively nonexistent.
The fact is there is a very consistent consensus among security professionals that iOs is the only platform that's even close to being secure.
>B) I'll choose to whine about things that I'm "never going to get". I'm in the business of reality, not wishful thinking.
And yet in a thread about phones where you're asked what systems you can compile your own stack on you give a list of OS friendly laptops and servers; you reframe a thread on which is the best option to one about whether that option is 'good'; then invoke vague assertions about 'other systems' without backing that up in the slightest. Bearing in mind the last time you were asked to back up a statement you changed the subject completely, I hold out little hope.
In regards to phones:
Just because we don't have a good alternative doesn't make Apple a good one. It is a fact that we don't know what they do with your private data. You can't say that their system is the best if you don't actually know what it does. All you can do is guess.
But that's true for everything.
It's simply impossible to have a computing device where you can be sure of every part being safe without trusting other people's judgement. You'd have to start by studying the VHDL of every chip in your computer, that's going to take you a while. Then check the software and hardware that turns that into a photomask and verify that the actual silicon produced doesn't have any hidden backdoors (that's difficult enough). You'd have to own your own equipment for producing the chips (can't trust the manufacturers)
Once you'd have the hardware completed, you'd have to check every single line of code, not just the OS kernel, but every compiler used (you've got a bootstrapping problem here, do you trust the compiler that compiled the compiler ?), every bit of userland software. Hundreds of millions of lines of code.
And even after you've done all of this, all you've proven is that you didn't find a backdoor, not that there isn't one. If you want to be really sure, you'd need formal proof of everything, which is going to add at least a couple of thousand additional years to the whole exercise.
Basically, what you want is a pipe dream. You can't do this alone, you have to trust other people at some point. So then the question becomes: who do you trust ?
Definitely not a multinational corporation who has lied to it's users in the past, and has compromised their privacy and security.
I trust companies who put their money where their mouth is, and provide me access to inspect the systems that they have built.
Yes, you can't ever really know for sure if there is a back door or not. There's no way to prove a negative. But blindly trusting someone who is clearly hiding something seems naive at best.
I won't say that it is a good option, as it clearly isn't. But at least they give you some control of your data. Apple doesn't really give you any.