Blaming Zoom and FB is entirely acceptable here, it is their responsibility to keep my data private.
Blaming Apple? Why, when Zoom is on the Play Store as well?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=us.zoom.videom...
>As long as you're running binary blobs that can make whatever network connections they please, people are going to take your data and send it to places you don't know about.
Surely there are open source video chat solutions already? They haven't taken off for one simple reason: video hosting is expensive. It's quite literally one of the most intensive network activities you can partake in, rivaling torrenting.
It doesn't make sense economically to offer a video hosting platform without collecting income from it. Nor does it make sense to attempt a peer-to-peer solution knowing full well that one laggy peer wrecks the experience for everyone else.
It's a very hard problem.
Blame Apple because they constantly tout the iPhone as being "privacy respecting" and "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone"[0], while they
A. Apple doesn't default to "limit tracking", or at least make "limit tracking" an option on setup/iOS upgrade
B. Apple doesn't penalize developers for using Facebook's SDK with auto data collection (ie. punishment by having text like "sends data to: facebook, google, hotjar" on an app's install page)
C. Apple doesn't do any software stuff to limit and track the trackers. Having a counter for # of total days a domain name was contacted would be an eye-opener for many, and being able to toggle a "block" on the domain would be a big step forward.
Facebook meets the standard for being included in apps (respects the user resetting the usage ID), but that standard isn't the standard privacy-conscious users want. Apple can do better, but whether it be industry pressure or monetary pressure [google paying to be the default search engine], they don't actually put privacy first.
0: https://www.businessinsider.com/apples-ces-ad-las-vegas-misl...
Sorry state of Apple App security and privacy - all your apps are swarms of data collection and privacy abuses.
Apple built this world - and Apple is to blame. Zoom is to blame too. And finally individual app developers should also alert everyone on what's truly happening in their apps.
And preventing this from happening with SSL pinning is not a barrier for Google or Apple because they can easily bypass that.
Since they have the means to inspect the traffic at scale then they should be able to filter out apps that are violating your privacy.
https://www.apple.com/privacy/features/
Apple sells privacy, brags about privacy - yet Privacy is abused in from the beginning in the store apps.
Blame them. Not Apple
So Facebook will just provide an SDK for app developers to integrate server-side that lets their app send the data to their own domain, and the server passes it on to FB. Developers will install it, because they want the analytics and ad conversion tracking. There probably isn't a great technical solution to this problem.
So I don't see how they're a "privacy respecting company" either. It's just marketing BS.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/24/apple-card-gets-updated-pr...
> Apple is changing the privacy policy for Apple Card with iOS to share a richer, but still anonymized set of data with Goldman Sachs in order to allow the creation of a new credit assignment model, which could expand the group of users that may be able to secure credit. > There is also a beefed up fallback method in the works that will allow users to share more personal data on an opt-in basis with Goldman Sachs if you do not at first get approved
So anonymised by default.
Opt-in, IF you want to share more personal data.
Do you also understand it's Goldman Sachs that run the credit cards, accounts, etc, they're not just randomly sharing data with Goldman Sachs?
“You can opt out of this use or your Apple relationship information by emailing our privacy team at [email protected] with the subject line ‘Apple Relationship Data and Apple Card.’”
Sure, it would be nice if no company ever shared data with any other company, but that does not track in this case.
People signing up for an Apple branded Goldman Sachs credit card shouldn't be surprised or affronted by the fact Goldman Sachs gets anonymised data from Apple.
Why the hell anyone would sign up for this crap is beyond me. But it's not a reason to drag Apple into the context of a thread about a company guilty of basic privacy failures -- sending personal data to a 3rd party social network the user has no connection to.
Please also understand what 'anonymised' means, it means _not reversible_ i.e. you _cannot_ tell who the user is.
If you want to be creeped out, go to https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/ and find out how many apps have been quietly reporting all your usage activity to Facebook.
I have 100's of websites which managed to identify my Facebook account despite me logging into Facebook only in Incognito for the past 2 years.
I have been running Facebook in the special Firefox container pretty much since it was available. I took off the WhatsApp and Instagram apps from my phone months ago. For me, the number of ads (on Instagram) and integration into Facebook made them expendable.
I don't know if Facebook really has no information or they do but are not showing it to me.
I'd like to do the same with Google but the Google container wants to force all interactions with Google into one container. I've got dedicated containers for different Gmail identities - it was very handy to have a Gmail identity while I was president of the kids' soccer club and then turn the account over to someone else.
There are, as you state OSS solutions [0]. But the video hosting is not akin to Torrenting. Most people are fine with 720p quality video as you're not "watching" the participants like a movie. And as you scale up the number of users the required bandwidth for each subsequent user goes down in a linear fashion due to reduced screen real estate. A conference with 8 users, from a video perspective doesn't reasonably take up more bandwidth than that of 2 given the smaller stream. I am on almost constant conference meetings with 4-12 users, many times with video and I have a full packet monitoring solution at home and can tell you it's not remotely as intensive as you've claimed here.
Most people are fine with 720p movies too.
It's a "commons" issue. I don't necessarily trust FOSS software because I am going to login to the repo and check the code (though I have once or twice), I trust it because I know thousands of people motiviated by ethics and quality vs. money have peer reviewed the code for things like this.
Similar in concept to herd immunity.
Apple doesn’t allow software like that on iOS.
[0] https://support.apple.com/en-is/guide/mdm/mdmc77c9609/1/web/...
maybe some kind of automated little snitch settings ⇄ profile converter?
It’s possible that your solution might work for some small fraction of users, some of the time, for known spying hosts. Many people still want to access Facebook and Instagram, though.
It‘s a little bit like blaming the person making the deal with the devil. Of course on some level they deserve blame for engaging with evil but evil presenting itself in a slick interface should also get its fair share.
However every app vendor by now should know that Facebook is hungry for data and careless use of Facebook software is to blame in them.
As is Apple (and Google) to blame for providing no privacy measures for users.
Their kids should be able to help.
There’s plenty of anger to go around. Get mad all all three: Facebook for making an SDK that tracks you, Zoom for integrating it, and Apple for letting it through unencumbered.
It's really hard to believe this point given that... getting mad seems to have worked.
Check any news outlet to know why, and you’re likely to also read about zoom in some article.
Webex, Teams, Slack are the only ones that matter.
Yeah some companies are behind the curve (not blaming you).
Zoom is getting very popular
"Top of page 21- In addition, we have a high concentration of research and development personnel in China, which could expose us to market scrutiny regarding the integrity of our solution or data security features. Any security compromise in our industry, whether actual or perceived, could harm our reputation, erode confidence in the effectiveness of our security measures, negatively affect our ability to attract new customers and hosts, cause existing customers to elect not to renew their subscriptions or subject us to third-party lawsuits, regulatory fines or other action or liability, which could harm our business."
No.
That's all that really needs to be said about it but I'll add a couple of more lines here so no one thinks I'm lazy or posting a shallow dismissal:
- First, just because someone trusts you it doesn't mean you are free to abuse them. This should go without saying!
- Second: In Europe and I think California as well this is also illegal.
We’re all stuck inside for a while, this is the perfect time to act. One app and SDK at a time.
During covid nobody is paying attention and we have the additional problem that they're trying to use cellphone location data to enforce social distancing! Once this is in effect it will be difficult to undo because the next epidemic will be "just around the corner" ...
Compare to a system where you fix the incentives to automatically align everyone’s interests: e.g. bottle deposits, or a small fee for plastic bags. Now people will want to do the right thing, because it is aligned with their own interests.
The same holds here: fix this one instance with enough outrage, there will be a thousand more. Instead, let’s fix the misaligned incentives between app builders and users, so their invasion of my privacy costs them as much as it does me (e.g. GDPR).
This is how you make efficient markets: align incentives. Fixing everything on a case by case basis only provides temporary relief.
[edit: note that OP never said "don't do it", they just said "it's missing the point". which I think is a fair call. this one fix is good, but it's unsustainable.]
You know how these programs started? They started small. A few stores requiring them. Eventually, they become a law.
It isn’t. This is recycling one bottle. It doesn’t have any sustainable long lasting effect.
To stretch the metaphor, the equivalent of one store asking for deposits would be e.g. Apple requiring full disclosure of all such tracking SDKs on the App Store page, as suggested by someone else in this thread. That’s sustainable, scalable, and that’s what might eventually even lead to legislation, as you pointed out.
In this very thread we started from “I can tell you from experience that everyone does this.”.
Now when a PO will be asked to add facebook in its app (or wants to remove it) there is at least one prominent instance to point to showing that having the SDK is not the right move. And hopefully that “everyone does it” will become “some still do it”.
If of course in the meantime we find a working systematic solution, it’s all for the better.
write a blog post?
take it twitter/HN/reddit?
hold a rally/demonstration outside Apple/Google?
call our MP?
bombard their employees with phone calls or knock on their front door where they live?
write malware?
... really I got nothing that sounds like it would work. In retrospect all of Tim Cook's privacy / security grandstanding and attitude of superiority was just that. There are no good guys in this game.
We're outgunned by the lobbying from these companies I think.
If California and the EU get wind of this, they may also give Facebook a gentle nudge.
That'll get Facebook to remove it fairly quickly, or at least stop triggering it in the background without user initiation.
If this app works without root, it must be possible to apps on iPhone to add their own certificates to the system, which are then trusted by other applications - that would already be pretty alarming. I think Android still requires certificates to be manually imported by the user. Maybe this app points you to instructions on how to do this, but the description makes it sound very automatic.
https://andydavies.me/blog/2019/12/12/capturing-and-decrypti...
That's a tiny proportion of the user population and doesn't imply agreement or consent to the information the Facebook SDK shares. And even if it it did, it wouldn't automatically mean that it's an acceptable or good behaviour by those apps and Facebook.
Bringing widely-distributed privacy breaches to a wider audience's attention can help those users provide feedback regarding products and then allow them to select vendors who respect their values.
PWAs could answer this problem, at least to some extent, but Apple historically has been limiting the features to protect the AppStore and the Apple Tax (v. the recent local persistence changes in ITP).
It's better than, say, Google pretending that third-party cookies make the web a safer place (yup, that happened).
(Don't get me wrong, I think ITP and Safari are great)
> Get mad at Apple for not letting you wireshark your own iPhone.
People on HN can, but an average user shouldn't have to care about that. I'm 100% up for stronger legislative measures (both tech and dark UX patterns) and more education in this area. Sounds boring, but without it we'll just keep running in circles.
I’d like to see Apple launch their own telemetry/events framework, that users can examine the data from, and then cut off everyone else
Regarding the issue that started this Zoom-FB dialogue I have commented a dozen (or more) times on the necessity to have a firewalled phone that a user (unfortunately the user needs to have basic knowledge of firewall admin) can decide what to allow and what to block. Your point on who audits is valid (I am a CISA and CISM of many years), and, well, nobody does. Each user will have to do his/her own work/effort to keep their family clear of these scum.
Apple gives you no way to find what your phone is doing, and no way to prevent it from doing it.
They provide company sponsored "controls" on what apps can do, which is about as useful as a factory alarm on a mid-80's car. Except with a modern twist, where they're the only ones capable of installing an alarm. (and imagine the alarm gives a free pass to apple)
The fact that they're starting in on MacOS and Little Snitch makes me think their platform isn't long for the world.
sigh. I do like arch linux.
This is not true and even if it was true it is an extremely lame argument. You can justify pretty much everything with this logic.
But you’ve just said everyone does it and we shouldn’t get mad at them - so we don’t need wireshark, because it would simply confirm that everyone does it and we shouldn’t get mad at them - right?
Now almost all the packages grab identifiable info by default and some are doing things like making screen recordings. Combine that with a rotating set of product owners like described above and a lot of apps just end up making way too many calls to way too many places.
And I do think Apple could and should be doing something more here. Their developer analytics setup is a good example to lead by as it gives users a global option to opt out. They also are able to reject apps for an icon being offbrand so I’m pretty sure they could figure out something here.
"Who audits that?" We just did. And if there was a law against that, Zoom would just have been exposed for breaking it. Any sane company will try their best to adhere to laws. Some big players like Google can afford to mess around pay a few billions in fines, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. Eventually, even they can't afford to pay the fines in the long run (Even Google bowed to GDPR or at least its getting bashed with steeper fines until they wake up).
"How do you determine what's legal and what's not?" You pass a law, read the law? This is a self-contradiction. Laws are open for interpretation but the interpretation is quite clear after a supreme court case (for the better or worse).
"We should be pushing for a platform that makes it obvious what the software you're running is up to". Oh the web of trust? Did you ever install Snitch or some other firewall on your system? Its utterly hopeless even if you are knowledgeable. There is simply not way to audit that. Who audits that? Here you CAN ask this question.
I can't for the life of me understand how you can believe that it is better for everyone, including parents and grandparents to audit their phone, instead of having researchers audit phones and report companies who break the law. This is non-nonsensical. You must either be some expert without a connection to the real world, or some elitist who thinks everyone is like him.
Specifically on this point, I think the HN comment sorting algorithm may take account of how many votes child comments have too, so you may find that it’s the top child comment which has brought this to the top.
edit: some people won't want to give them any slack because they committed the offenses in the first place, but I think that's silly. Reward them for trying, because if this is the way they're going to respond to blowing it, they're one of the good guys.
a definite improvement in this case and so far.
I've been and iOS developer for a long time. I can tell you from experience that everyone does this. I have never worked for anyone who didn't ask for their app to include some combination of Facebook, Google, Flurry, AppCenter, Segment, Intercom, Parse, or whatever other random analytics framework the PM happens to be infatuated with.
Getting mad at Zoom for using the Facebook SDK is missing the point. They and a million others are always going to be doing this. Get mad at Apple for not letting you wireshark your own iPhone. Or having no way to package open source software where you can actually see what's running. As long as you're running binary blobs that can make whatever network connections they please, people are going to take your data and send it to places you don't know about.
Yeah maybe you can pass laws about it. But is that really a great solution? Who audits that? How do you determine what's legal and what's not? We should be pushing for a platform that makes it obvious what the software you're running is up to. The random pitchfork crusade against whatever company happens to catch a bad news cycle just isn't going to get us anywhere.