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A comment on Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through proxy servers in iOS 14.5. Parent comment

Re:Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through prox... by politelemon on Friday February 12, 2021 @03:02AM (#26111582)
There is no significant improvement - the data was already hashed/anon to begin with and posed no risk. IP addresses on their own aren't a problem, it's when it's available with additional data that you start to worry.

This is purely a move to further lock users in while being touted as being privacy friendly through persistent PR.

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Re:Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through prox... by tgragnato on Friday February 12, 2021 @04:00AM (#26111826)
If you are an iOS user, then Apple is necessarily in your trust model. Google, not so much.

Google’s implementation of k-anonymity in Safe Browsing does not account for their own ability to correlate multiple queries and narrow down which specific website corresponds with the hash.

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Re:Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through prox... by michaelt on Friday February 12, 2021 @03:29AM (#26111714)
> IP addresses on their own aren't a problem

I'm the only person using my IP address, ergo it's personally identifiable. Seems pretty clear cut to me?

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Re:Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through prox... by politelemon on Saturday February 13, 2021 @08:29AM (#26123491)
Not at all. IP addresses are not PII under any definition. Feel free to browse CCPA, GDPR, etc. Even without those regulations, it's still not PII as it takes just a few seconds to enumerable every IP address. If it actually were PII, you would have controls in place to prevent it leaving your device in the first place.

IP addresses are only when identifiable metadata is linked with it. I can only guess that you are being deliberately obtuse on this - I had momentarily forgotten that I was on HN so my comments weren't welcome sadly.

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Re:Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through prox... by my123 on Friday February 12, 2021 @03:16AM (#26111653)
Lock users in? What does it change from that point?
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Re:Apple redirects Google Safe Browsing traffic through prox... by lupire on Friday February 12, 2021 @08:40AM (#26113501)
The hashes are hashes of a small set of public data, and so reversible via rainbow tables.
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