Apple has done more than literally any other technology company to limit their own ability to ever access your personal data.

Always missing from the paranoid lunatic side of this discussion: what devices do you use? I presume you do all your computing on an abacus?

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Rohansi 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Personally I don't deny those claims. I question their motive. Most people don't care much about anything except camera/microphone/location access, so why invest so much into engineering all of these solutions? Are they just morally superior to others? Or are they using the reputation they created for themselves to justify locking down their platforms? Because there are things only Apple can be trusted with?

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HumblyTossed 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's paranoia now to question a 4 Trillion dollar company?

I presume truth and facts are important, no?

	▲	stouset 42 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It’s paranoid lunacy to ignore the irrefutable, demonstrable work that they’ve done to minimize the data they can ever collect or access while conveniently ignoring the miserable track record of every one of their competitors, and to ascribe intentions to them that are in direct conflict to every intentional action they’ve taken in at least the past decade.

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HumblyTossed 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Apple has done more than literally any other technology company to limit their own ability to ever access your personal data.

I mean, it's what they _say_ they do. Do we know?

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alsetmusic 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They invited security researchers to inspect their implementation of Private Cloud Compute. I expect there’d be a news story worth a good amount of traffic if they said it and didn’t allow people to do so. That there has been no such story suggests that there hasn’t been scandal.

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Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What's the claim here, that they are doing nefarious things that are undetectable? Because we know that this is probably the most scrutinized tech company on the planet, and we know that they've been caught and penalized for errors in the past.

Do you have any evidence to present, or is this pure FUD?

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HumblyTossed 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If you read what I have written, I have not made a single claim. I'm only asking if people put faith in Apples claims because they're, well, Apple, or do we _know_ their claims are valid.

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Brendinooo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Having spent a lot of time in the open source world, I'm aware of the concept that I can never know for sure if I can't see the code. (And even if I could, that wouldn't tell us with certainly how that the data that code creates/captures is used by the people using it.)

But I do think that, in general, Apple tends to be the least-bad actor among its mainstream competitors: its primary business model does not depend on harvesting and selling data, and it has made this value proposition a part of its marketing, and people high up in the company have spoken about ways that they personally value it. And, for any story about ways in which Apple has failed here, there are certainly twice as many for any other company they compete with.

I mean, step back: Who cares more about my privacy - Apple or Google? Apple or Roku? Can anyone seriously argue the latter for either?

> I'm only asking if people put faith in Apples claims because they're, well, Apple, or do we _know_ their claims are valid.

If we _know_, then there would be no need for faith. Given the lack of options and the lack of certainty, people must place their faith somewhere (or take on a lot of technical burden to roll their own); given everything I've seen, it's more reasonable to place faith in Apple than basically anyone else in "Big Tech" in this regard.

(But again: if there's a product out there that is very similar to Apple TV in every way except that it is more private: please tell me what that product is. I'd be thrilled to consider it.)

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HumblyTossed an hour ago | parent [-]

> I mean, step back: Who cares more about my privacy - Apple or Google? Apple or Roku? Can anyone seriously argue the latter for either?

I don't know. But I don't care about Google or Roku. I'm simply asking, are we sure Apple keeps things as private as they say.

HN apparently hates to question Apple...

	▲	Brendinooo 39 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you read my lengthy reply and came away with "this guy hates to question Apple", you are not reading my reply at all.
	▲	stouset 37 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		HN hates when people are “just asking questions” but haven’t bothered to make any attempt whatsoever to answer those questions. Yes, Apple has actually put work into designing, building, and shipping secure enclaves. Yes, they have put a gargantuan amount of work into PCC to uphold the claims they make about its privacy. Yes, they employ differential privacy. Yes, they have shipped a feature that enables privacy-conscious users to be the only ones to hold the keys to their iCloud account. And on and on and on. Nothing will ever be enough for you. You aren’t asking these questions in good faith. If you were, you’d have your answers already.