Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

I'm really tired of how much phone-home Apple products do these days. At this point I don't even put a SIM in my phones any longer, and only permit them access via a travel router (which does have a SIM, for LTE backhaul) which runs a VPN client and on which I have root to inspect/block traffic. My latest blog post shows the dozens of dozens of connections that a Mac running Big Sur will make just sitting idle at the desktop on a fresh install.

Apple's products are only private if you want privacy from their commercial competitors. If you want privacy from Apple or the US federal government to which they provide tons of user data (without warrants(!) or due process), you're in for a constant uphill battle.

Using everyday devices should not be creating hardware-serial-linked permanent records that the state can download at any time; to me that's stuff of a true dystopia.

Apple has not yet integrated this viewpoint, and seem to regard privacy as only important against companies that aren't Apple. Device backups (full message history and attachments), as well as Photos stored in iCloud, are not end to end encrypted permitting Apple (and by extension the state) to read and access all of it without your involvement.

It's a bummer they're extending this attitude to browser-related traffic too. There seems to be a new trend inside of Apple that they're still figuring out here (see also: the addition of ContentFilterExclusionList in 11.0, and then its quick removal in 11.2).

Did you know that if you entirely block access to all Apple hosts, you can't even add a Gmail account to an iPhone?

I wouldn't call it dystopia, it's just that as technology is eliminating these barriers to entry for such sort of thing, it's inevitable to have happened and will become more pervasive as the tech develops further. And you can't fight it either as long as you're in their ecosystem, as you'll be one man against an army of engineers working 9-5. Linux, open-source, opting out of personalized solutions - that's the only way, and it's still a battle you can't win, just delay the loss.

You go through all these hoops then want to add a Gmail account???

Very few of us want end-to-end encryption of everything. People say they do, but they really don't. For example, full e2e means that Apple can never access your content with having your password. This sounds great unless you've ever worked tech support. The first time someone loses their mind because they forget their phone's PIN and now can't access their wedding photos, which of course they've never backed up anywhere else, it becomes apparent that most people want Apple to be able to access their stuff as long as it's in service of doing something convenient for the person.

You and I want true e2e everything. We have our encryption keys backed up safely. We make ourselves enter our passwords regularly enough that we can't forget them. We willing and capable of taking full responsibility for protecting our data. You and I are not like most people. They don't want to be bothered with "all that nerd stuff". They just want all their photos to magically show up on all their devices, and to have a support person they can call to let them in when they've forgotten their password for the second time this year. That doesn't mean those people are less intelligent, or ignorant, or any of that. It means they have different priorities than you and I do, and their priorities are absolutely reasonable and appropriate for most people. They look at us and say "WTF, those guys don't work for the CIA. Why are they so obsessed with protecting their recipe collection and text messages, at the risk of losing all their data if they forget a password?" And frankly, that's a completely OK and normal mindset.

Apple's privacy stance is the correct one for the market they're trying to sell to. I personally think your and my privacy stance is better, but most people would reasonably say it's impractical given the threat model we actually face. I'm OK with that because I like doing these things for myself as a hobby, but I don't think Apple has made a bad or unjustified decision. They just different priorities than we do.

> The first time someone loses their mind because they forget their phone's PIN and now can't access their wedding photos, which of course they've never backed up anywhere else, it becomes apparent that most people want Apple to be able to access their stuff as long as it's in service of doing something convenient for the person.

This is a false dichotomy.

Apple had invested significantly in doing a form of key escrow with trusted other devices and other users, possibly involving secret sharing with trusted friends-and-family, that would permit users to have end-to-end encrypted data that could still be recovered without Apple having keys.

The FBI nixed the plan, and Apple obeyed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Apple employs tons of world class cryptography experts, and has designed several end-to-end cryptosystems, and is perhaps the foremost leading expert organization on what comprises good UX "for the rest of us". This is a solvable problem, and the "they can't do e2e because" excuses that people throw up (such as the one you provided) fall down when we see that they had a system ready to go that was ended on the initiative of those who would prefer surveillance.

Even Google figured out a way to do e2e device backups for Android in a privacy-preserving way. Apple is at least as competent as they are at designing cryptosystems, possibly more so.

The technical issue can be solved, but not as long as Apple doesn't want to upset the FBI.

Apple devices have been found to phone home much less frequently than the alternative.

>A new study has found that a stationary iPhone sends data 50 times less frequently to Google's servers than a stationary Android phone.

That's according to a 55-page report titled 'Google Data Collection', carried out by Professor Douglas C Schmidt, professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University.

The study comes as Google faces criticism and now a lawsuit over the revelation that turning off Location History does stop it tracking iPhone and Android users' location.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/want-google-to-track-you-less-...

Your quote doesn’t cover Apple phoning home at all. It covers the frequency Apple devices send data to Google.

You would prefer a different quote?

>According to a research paper published by Vanderbilt University's Professor Douglas Schmidt Aug. 15, Google’s Android phones are sucking information from your private life at a much higher rate than Apple’s iPhones — almost 10 times more, on average.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/android-privacy-vs-iphone,news-...

Link to the actual blog post: https://sneak.berlin/20210202/macos-11.2-network-privacy/

> to Apple at all times (to APNS, for the receipt of push notifications)

Push notifications can't be implemented otherwise... so you'll have to trust Apple for that one.

Mozilla Push Service is the Mozilla equivalent for example. Push notifications are an expected feature of every device nowadays, routed through a server owned by the OS/browser provider by design.

This happens on a device with no apps installed, with no apps running. No Apple ID. Fresh install.

Also, locally running apps can trigger their own notifications.

Locally running apps constantly polling for push notifications kills battery life, so in this case I can see where they are coming from

> This happens on a device with no apps installed, with no apps running. No Apple ID. Fresh install.

On a fresh install you have Software Update, News, Safari, iTunes Store, App Store, Stocks, etc. which are all going to be a part of polling for available push notifications. When a new device update releases you will get a notification about it, even without an Apple ID signed in.

Yes, locally running apps can trigger time-based notifications but all network-based notifications should be handled by Apple's push services as iOS doesn't allow long-term persistent background tasks due to battery drain and it doesn't make sense for every app to have its own individual polling occurring at random times.

This particular article is about a feature that was "phoning home" to Google, and Apple changed it to do it to Apple instead.

In what ways do you think your point is relevant to this article?

It's yet another thing added to the long list of things that Apple devices phone home to Apple servers about, even if you don't want to use any Apple services and opt out of all of them (all that you can; App Store/Apple ID is mandatory as there is no sideloading).

There's a growing list.

Agreed. The only alternative (in terms of OS) would be Linux, but as soon as you open a browser the vultures will still get you.

Does the specific feature mentioned in the article have to do with any of this? I fail to see how this proxy can be abused by Apple as you seem to be implying because they won't be able to see the contents of the queries, which is secured by TLS.

The TLS will necessarily be terminated by Apple, so they could definitely see the hashes if they cared to.

I was under the impression that Apple would just tunnel the encrypted connection.

Really nice post there! Enjoyed reading it. (Also agree with the bit regarding xps 13. I was given one at work and they expected me to have a 'wow' reaction to it and made remarks what a 'beast of a machine' I was getting. Lol.) edit: typo.

To all the kind people downvoting, I am referring his blog post, not his post here. https://sneak.berlin/20210202/macos-11.2-network-privacy/

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