Comment by valuearb
4 years ago
Why is it scary that your computer checks for malware?
It’s not like Apple us building a database of apps you’ve launched linked to your address and social security number.
4 years ago
Why is it scary that your computer checks for malware?
It’s not like Apple us building a database of apps you’ve launched linked to your address and social security number.
> Why is it scary that your computer checks for malware?
It isn't just checking for malware, its broadcasting your app opening behavior to apple and anyone else who might be listening.
> It’s not like Apple us building a database of apps you’ve launched linked to your address and social security number.
You know this how? Seriously, I don't get why you would believe that.
Because Apple would not benefit from doing so, I’m fact could be hugely damaged doing so.
They don’t have any significant advertising business. They don’t need to collect any personally identifiable information. They’ve promoted their brand by putting their customers privacy first.
So why would you believe they would intentionally risk all of that here?
> They don’t have any significant advertising business. They don’t need to collect any personally identifiable information. They’ve promoted their brand by putting their customers privacy first.
Yes... now. Can you say that with certainty 10 years from now? 15? 20? Would you want an evil Apple 10 years from now having that? Or one that a 3-letter agency forced to collect it and they could never tell anyone because National Security Letter? Is that a bet you want to take? One you NEED to take? Is it truly unavoidable, sufficient to justify such a thing?
The best bulwark against overreach is to not create the capacity for it in the first place. Power will only ever do 1 thing, and that's amass more power.
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You are assuming that Apple would have a say in the matter. The US is deteriorating socially and becoming much more authoritarian every day. It is not at all outlandish to believe the US could simply compel Apple to store this information and/or funnel it right to the NSA/FBI/Whoever. They could even be ordered to lie and say they are respecting our privacy and would never do such a thing.
Only if catched. You've claimed Linux does similar checks. Linux is not a company, it is community. They don't need to collect PI, they don't play PR.
Why would private company not utilize leverage? You have no source, you can't even turn off these checks without hacks. Privacy first is open source and audit. It is removing feature people don't want.
Let me tell you a story about this frog and this scorpion..
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What if a 3 letter agency told them so? (Since apparently it is entirely impossible for people to even conceive that apple might be doing it for their own benefit)
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or serious. Schrodinger's sarcasm.
Poe's law.
Well it would be pretty good information to have to do analysis against.
You could easily see knowing how often an app is used on an OS to be useful business information if apple wanted to create software to get into a trend before it gets to big.
Of course that doesn't require fine grained time data just daily would be more than good enough.
However you could also see the business use of knowing if two pieces of software are often used together or sequentialy which could inform creating an all in one/integrated experience that would do well in a market. So you need that finer application timing.
Of course that doesn't require tying it to a particular user account,not even a device ID, just a sessionID that changes each time the device restarts would probably be granular enough.
However since we've got that other stuff in place per device wouldn't it be great to see if there's a correlation between people using an app on there Mac and using it or another App on there iphone, ipad, or watch. What piece of data can we include to match up a user across all their devices? Maybe some kind of obfuscated or derived userID.
Of course you'd hope that other interests such as a commitment to privacy would rule out the use of such a dataset. If Apple did have such a dataset then you'd hope they'd be doing whatever processes (social, business, and technical) it can to obfuscate and seperate how that dataset is tied to a specific user.
The only real argument against Apple not having it is the balance between the cost of creating/exploiting such a data set, the expected profit, and the legal and reputational costs of such behaviour.
I don't know they're not doing that, is the problem. They probably aren't, but as Bill Kristol offered recently, 99% sure isn't 100% sure, and the fact that I'm not 100% sure is a problem unto itself.
It's only a matter of time and money: https://www.google.com/amp/s/mashable.com/article/apple-sear...
It’s not like Apple us building a database of apps you’ve launched linked to your address and social security number.
Linked to your identity if you have a credit card saved for say iTunes.
Any proof of that audacious claim?
In the modern age isn't the audacious claim that they're not?
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Any proof of that audacious claim?
Proof that if you are signed into any of their cloud services they know who you are? Is this a serious question?
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