[verisimi]

It's completely fair, because regardless of third party audits, chips, etc, there are backdoors right along the line, that are going to provide Apple and the government with secret legal access to your data. They can simply go to a secret court, receive a secret judgment, and be authorised to secretly view your data. Does anyone really think this is not already the case? There is no transparency. A licensed third party auditor would not be able to tell you this. We have to operate with the awareness that all data online is already not private - no need to pretend/imagine that Apple's marketing is actually true, and that it is possible to buy online privacy utopia.

[theshrike79]

The best protection against "secret orders" is to use mathematics.

Build your system so that it can't be decrypted, don't log anything etc. Mullvad has been doing this with VPNs and law enforcement has tested it - there's nothing for them to get.

Same has been proven with Apple not allowing FBI to open an iPhone, because it'd set a precedent. Future iPhone versions were made so that it's literally impossible for even Apple to open a locked iPhone.

There's no reason why they wouldn't go to same lengths on their private cloud compute. It's the one thing they can do that Google can't.

[Xelynega]

> Same has been proven with Apple not allowing FBI to open an iPhone, because it'd set a precedent.

I thought the outcome of that case was that no precedent was set, since the iPhone was unlocked before the FBI could test their argument in court.

> Future iPhone versions were made so that it's literally impossible for even Apple to open a locked iPhone.

Firmware signed by apple is what runs to verify your biometrics and decide whether or not to unlock the device. At any point apple could sign firmware with a backdoor for this processor which lets them unlock any phone. How did they prevent this in future iPhone versions?

> theshrike79 18 hours ago | parent | context | flag | on: Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI priva...

The best protection against "secret orders" is to use mathematics.

Build your system so that it can't be decrypted, don't log anything etc. Mullvad has been doing this with VPNs and law enforcement has tested it - there's nothing for them to get.

Same has been proven with Apple not allowing FBI to open an iPhone, because it'd set a precedent. Future iPhone versions were made so that it's literally impossible for even Apple to open a locked iPhone.

> There's no reason why they wouldn't go to same lengths on their private cloud compute. It's the one thing they can do that Google can't.

They did go to the same length, they have the ability to see your data whenever they choose to since they own the signing keys.

[KaiserPro]

> Build your system so that it can't be decrypted

Now you can't debug anything.

> Mullvad has been doing this with VPNs

Mullvad do not need to store any data at all. Infact any data that they store is a risk. Minimising the data stored minimises their risk. The only thing they need to store is keys.

Look, if you want to ask an AI service if this photo has a dog in, thats simple and requires no state other than the photo. If you want to ask it does it have my dog in, thats a whole 'nother kettle of fish. How do you communicate the descriptors that describe your dog? how do you generate them? on device? that'll drain your battery in a very short order.

> Apple not allowing FBI to open an iPhone, because it'd set a precedent

Because they didn't follow process.

> Future iPhone versions were made so that it's literally impossible for even Apple to open a locked iPhone.

They don't need to, just hack the icloud backup. plus its not impossible, its just difficult. If you own the key authority then its less hard.

[verisimi]

> Same has been proven with Apple not allowing FBI to open an iPhone, because it'd set a precedent. Future iPhone versions were made so that it's literally impossible for even Apple to open a locked iPhone.

Right, but I have no reason to think that this isn't a marketing ploy either, just another story. There is simply no way that Apple is as big as it is, without providing whatever data the government requires. Corporations and governments are not your friend.

[theshrike79]

Apple will obey government orders to give data they have and can access.

No government order short of targeting a specific backdoored update to a specific person will allow them to give data they can't access.

And if you're doing something that can make a TLA force Apple to create a targeted iOS update just for you, it's not something regular people can or should worry about.

Apple keeps normal people safe from mass surveillance, being protected from CIA/NSA required going Full Snowden and it's not a technological problem, you need to change the way you live.

[hexage1814]

> No government order short of targeting a specific backdoored update to a specific person

I'm failing to see the what would be the challenge here. Apple can technically do that. The government can force them to do that.

[verisimi]

Do you not remember Edward Snowden? Eg this sort of info:

> The scandal broke in early June 2013, external when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans.

> The paper published the secret court order directing telecommunications company Verizon to hand over all its telephone data to the NSA on an "ongoing daily basis".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-23123964

You seem to think that 10 years, under cover of secret orders, that this is NOT going on now. Not Apple!

People's lovely trusting natures in corporations and government never ceases to amaze me.

[theshrike79]

"telephone data" != "contents of every phone call"

[digging]

Contents of communications aren't as important as you may think; metadata is extremely dangerous.

[verisimi]

You and I have no idea.

[dwaite]

> Does anyone really think this is not already the case?

I don't think this is already the case, and I think the article is an example of safeguards being put into place (in this particular scenario) to prevent it.

[verisimi]

On the basis of not having information, cos all this occurs out of sight, you believe this is not the case. Ok.

[brookst]

If you’re presenting a conspiracy theory, you have to at least poke holes in the claims you consider false.

Under the system described in the linked paper, your scenario is not possible. In fact, the whole thing looks to be designed to prevent exactly that scenario.

Where do you see the weakness? How could a secret order result in undetectable data capture?

[verisimi]

No. The information is all out there - secret courts, secret judgements, its all been put out there. I don't need to dissect any technical information, to recognise that I cannot know what I do not know.

In case anyone was uncertain about whether to trust what we are told - we heard that the US government was taping millions of phone records from the Snowden revelations.

So, we are told there are secrets, and we are told that there are mechanisms in place to prevent this information from being made public.

You are also free to believe that the revelations are no longer relevant... I'd like to hear the reason.

IMO - the reverse is the case - in that you need to show why Apple have now become trustworthy. Why would Apple not be subject to secret judgements?

I know there is a lot of marketing spin about Apple's privacy - but do you really think that they would actually confront the government system, in a way that isn't some further publicity stunt? Can one confront the government and retain a license to operate, do you think? Is it not probable that the reality is that Apple have huge support from the government?

Perhaps this kind of idea is hard to understand - that one can make a big noise about privacy, and how one is doing this or that to prevent access, and all the while ensuring that access is provided to authorised parties. Corporations can say this sort of thing with a straight face - its not a privacy issue to private information - its a (secret) legal issue!

Sorry, but secret courts and secret judgements, along with existing disclosure that millions were being spied upon, means one needs to expect the worst.

[brookst]

Fair, go ahead and expect the worse, and handwave away any attempts to mitigate.

But I'm not sure where that leaves you. Is it just a nihilistic "no security matters, it's all a show" viewpoint?

[verisimi]

It is fair, I don't accept attempts to mitigate. The trust is gone, and nothing can recover it. The idea of trusting government and corporations was ridiculous in the first place as these entities are not your friends.

You wouldn't expect a repeat abuser to stop abusing just because of 'time' or a marketing campaign. And yet this is the case here. People keep looking to their tormentors for solutions.

Not expecting healing from those also inflicting the trauma, ie changing one's expectations, seems like a minimum effort/engagement in my view, but it's somehow inconceivable.