Apple's commitment to privacy and security is really cool to see. It's also an amazing strategic play that they are uniquely in the position to take advantage of. Google and Meta can't commit to privacy because they need to show you ads, whereas Apple feels more like a hardware company to me.

I still like to encourage people to watch all of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U&t=1993s for the details (from Apple’s head of Security Engineering and Architecture) about how iCloud is protected by HSMs, rate limits, etc. but especially the timelinked section. :)

modeless linked to this article earlier today:

https://james.darpinian.com/blog/apple-imessage-encryption/

My current understanding of the facts:

1. Google defaults to encrypted backups of messages, as well as e2e encryption of messages.

2. Apple defaults only to e2ee of messages, leaving a massive backdoor.

3. Closing that backdoor is possible for the consumer, by enabling ADP (advanced data protection) on your device. However, this makes no difference, since 99.9% of the people you communicate will not close the backdoor. Thus, the only way to live is to assume that all the messages you send via iMessage will always be accessible to Apple, no matter what you do.

It's not like overall I think Google is better for privacy than Apple, but this choice by Apple is really at odds with their supposed emphasis on privacy.

It's all tempered by them ultimately controlling what you can put on your phone though.

As was demonstrated in LA, it's starting to have significant civil rights consequences.

I still like their hardware. But let’s not pretend that there is any part of Trump’s body that he won’t kiss and sell out his customers for. If Trump asked Cook to put a backdoor in iPhones or impose tariffs on Apple, Cook would do it in a minute

Apple is an ad company now though

That people fall for this corporate BS while Tim Cook is giving gold bars to Trump and dining and dancing with him When people are being murdered on the streets by ice is just amazing to me.

You know what's even cooler? Apple's commitment to hiding US federally-mandated backdoors for dragnet surveillance: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

  Apple has since confirmed in a statement provided to Ars that the US federal government “prohibited” the company “from sharing any information,” but now that Wyden has outed the feds, Apple has updated its transparency reporting and will “detail these kinds of requests” in a separate section on push notifications in its next report.

Apple has ads. See the App Store, Apple Maps is also planning to roll out advertising.

I claim bs at this whole apple privacy thing, nothing but propaganda.

Two years ago I was locked out of my MacBook pro.

Then I just booted in some recovery mode and just..reset the password!?

Sure macos logged me off from (most) apps and website, but every single file was there unencrypted!

I swear people that keep boasting that whole apple privacy thing have absolutely no clue what they are talking about, nothing short of tech illiterate charlatans. But God the propaganda works.

And don't start me on iMessage.

You know this is just marketing right? Apple gives zero fucks about security. They just use it to lock competitors out of their gardens and preach a holier-than-thou attitude about it.

> Apple's commitment to privacy

We know now that it was all marketing talk. Apple didn’t like Meta so they spun a bunch of obstacles. Apple has and would use your data for ads, models and anything that keeps the shareholders happy. And we don’t know the half of the story where as a US corp, they’re technically obliged to share data from the not-E2EE iCloud syncs of every iPhone.