Unfck the Internet

Re:Unfck the Internet by branon on Thursday October 01, 2020 @12:14PM (#24652661)

Apple is only focused on privacy in the barest sense. They'll refuse to unlock physical devices while happily answering thousands of requests from the US and other govermnents for users' iCloud data[0]. They also don't allow users to encrypt data stored in iCloud, expressly so they can continue to do this[1].

Apple's front as a privacy company is little more than PR. I understand this isn't really the point of your comment, but I think the privacy policies of Apple and Mozilla make for a misleading comparison.

Mozilla cannot have anything other than a huge positional advantage over Apple where privacy is concerned, mainly because the amount and type of personal data the two companies ingest are so vastly different. Were Mozilla to adopt Apple's stance on privacy, results would be disastrous.

[0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html

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

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Re:Unfck the Internet by coldpie on Thursday October 01, 2020 @12:20PM (#24652747)

> They'll refuse to unlock physical devices while happily answering thousands of requests from the US and other govermnents for users' iCloud data[0].

They are required by law to do the latter. They are not required to to do the former (or at least are willing to go to court to defend that belief).

> They also don't allow users to encrypt data stored in iCloud

The article you linked does not back up this assertion. It says they chose not to automatically encrypt user backups to the cloud, at the FBI's request. I'm sure if you encrypt data and upload it to iCloud, they will not delete your encrypted data.

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Re:Unfck the Internet by branon on Thursday October 01, 2020 @12:25PM (#24652813)

I don't fully agree with your second point. The way iCloud on an iPhone works, users have no chance to encrypt data before uploading it. Most people are only tangentially aware of what data is siphoned automatically by the service.

It would be the responsibility of the iCloud service to encrypt data (if Apple had chosen to do so, and a user opts in). Simply choosing not to delete encrypted blobs is not the same thing. The salient point is that Apple was _going_ to offer encryption as a part of the iCloud service, but dropped the feature at the FBI's request.

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Re:Unfck the Internet by coldpie on Thursday October 01, 2020 @12:39PM (#24653059)

Apple altering their pro-privacy plans after strong pressure from a federal agency tells a very different story than the one you presented with your initial statement.

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