Comment by Lammy
1 month ago
Wrong. Anything that makes any network request is by definition a privacy leak. The network itself is always listening, and the act of making any connection says that you are using the computer, and where, and when.
1 month ago
Wrong. Anything that makes any network request is by definition a privacy leak. The network itself is always listening, and the act of making any connection says that you are using the computer, and where, and when.
If every app and system is making network connections by default without the user's knowledge or intervention then it doesn't really prove that you are using the computer at all.
Completely missing the point, but you're right that I should have said “using or in possession” of the computer. The point is that they reveal your physical location to the network, so if they make requests while not directly in use then it's actually even worse.
For context, stationary desktop machines comprise single-digit percentages of Mac sales: https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/03/06/macbook-pro-and-m...
Every other product sold by Apple (Mac notebooks, iPhones, watches, etc) are designed to be carried around with you, happily beaconing your presence to every network and to every other Apple device that will listen. I have seen this with my own eyes where my M3 MBP showed up on my WiFi AP status page as soon as I got home even though it was supposedly “““asleep””” in my bag.
Your Mac connected to your trusted home network when it want turned off? Wow, scandalous.
You can randomize your MAC address. Built in OS feature.
2 replies →
And so in this context.
You are saying that every network request is going to a target controlled by the US government.
Or their friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
Why yes, I did happen to work in US data centers throughout the 2010's... including during Snowden's [then adamently-denied] revelations.
"If you're taking flak, you're near the target."
Yes, this is what I'm saying.
Particularly among "controversial" product manufacturers.
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Entirely unrelated: I recently visited my favorite hometown (Austin) museum, UT's Harry Ransom Center. Their P.E.N. exhibit has an exposé on how various mid-20th Century authors were in fact funded by The Ford Foundation (a known CIA "investment vehicle"), including Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World). One of the exhibits features multiple author signatories adamently denying this CIA-funding, over the 1950's decade... ultimately this conspiracy theory ended up being true/revealed. Adds an entirely new dimension to The Savage's [BNW's main character] decision to hang himself.