Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Tloewald 2876 days ago
Yes.

Unlike FB they don’t do secret backdoor deals with phone manufacturers to spy on you. Also they don’t spy on you. Also they don’t make ALL their money from advertising creating an unavoidable incentive for violating your privacy (and wasting your time but that’s beside the point).

Unlike Android they aren’t a Wild West of malware and dodgy phone manufacturers who do secret deals with everyone to spy on you.

Unlike Google they don’t make almost all their money from advertising (see above).

Unlike Microsoft they don’t bake ads into their OS despite the fact that they don’t make much money from it. Also they aren’t trying to compete with Google. Also hardware Wild West thing.

Unl
2 comments
CaptSpify 2876 days ago
> Unlike FB they don’t do secret backdoor deals with phone manufacturers to spy on you. Also they don’t spy on you.

How do you know this to be true?

link
dkonofalski 2875 days ago
Apple manufactures all their own devices. They don't have any incentive to do so nor any way to do so since they're not dealing with 3rd party phone manufacturers.
link
CaptSpify 2875 days ago
A) Of course they have incentive to do so. They Also have incentive to hide it tho.

B) Not dealing with 3rd party manufacturers seems unrelated to the discussion. Can you expand?

link
dkonofalski 2870 days ago
A) I disagree. Apple's incentive is in getting people to pay top dollar to live in the Apple ecosystem. They require a certain level of trust. Selling out people's data to Facebook does not achieve that end. The risk of getting caught is far higher than the reward from those analytics.

B) Apple controls the entire supply chain for iPhones. They have no need from a profit standpoint to try and insert hardware that allows other companies to do anything to their users. The secret backdoors are almost always the result of some exchange - FB offers data about users in exchange for the ability to insert hardware/software into a phone. Since that exchange doesn't exist for Apple, there's no reason for it.

link
Tloewald 2875 days ago
FB was able to obtain SMS data from some android handsets. Tons of people found this out when they obtained their data from FB.
link
CaptSpify 2875 days ago
My apologies for being unclear. Yes, it is known that FB can and has taken a ton of info from Android. I was questioning how they know that Apple doesn't put in back doors, and doesn't spy on you.
link
izacus 2876 days ago
They literally made a deal to spy on Chinese citizens as soon as that made them profit. Did you deliberately forget to mention that?
link
dkonofalski 2875 days ago
No, they didn't and I'm sure you know they didn't too.

The data is encrypted and users in China have to accept the terms that explicitly state that Apple must comply with government requests for access to their cloud servers in China. It wasn't a situation where they changed course or pulled the wool over someone. You're being deliberately disingenuous and misleading.

link
macintux 2875 days ago
They complied with the law. As they would do here if compelled by the law.
link
CaptSpify 2875 days ago
A privacy breach via legal means is still a privacy breach
link
macintux 2875 days ago
Absolutely, but "They literally made a deal to spy on Chinese citizens as soon as that made them profit" is a willful misrepresentation of the situation.
link
CaptSpify 2875 days ago
I don't see how that is inaccurate. Can you explain?
link
macintux 2875 days ago
China made demands regarding data hosting of tech companies operating in their country. Worrisome, but by definition lawful.

Apple complied while still retaining as much security as possible. They assert that the data is still encrypted, and they hold the keys:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/business/apple-china-data...

Apple had, as I see it, two choices: disable current customers and refuse to sell any more devices, or comply with the law.

So, yes, Apple could have walked away from their customers, but how would that have helped anyone? Their phones are still more secure from non-state actors than nearly anyone else's, and Chinese citizens, for better or worse, have to live with the dictatorship's rules.

(And to preempt the inevitable comparison: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/google-is...)

So "They literally made a deal to spy on Chinese citizens as soon as that made them profit" is only true if you assume Apple is lying about the encryption and lying about their reasons for opening the new data center.

It's also possible the OP is talking about some other Apple cooperation with China, but that seems to be the one most people throw at them.

link