Comment by andsoitis
2 months ago
> everyone knows all the alls on your phone
On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.
2 months ago
> everyone knows all the alls on your phone
On Android phones. iPhone doesn’t have this privacy deficiency.
Actually you can via private API, which Apple app use all the time but forbid other app to use
https://blog.verichains.io/p/technical-analysis-improper-use...
On iOS it's kinda worse in some ways. If you enroll into a company MDM they can see all your apps.
On Android if they use the work profile (which is the standard method these days) they can only see the apps inside there.
Apple introduced account-driven enrollments in 2021[1], which behaves similar to Android's work profile. Managed apps/data are kept in its own APFS volume, and MDM servers don't have access to anything outside of it. They also disallow system-wide commands like wipe device. The only caveat is you need managed Apple IDs[2] to use this enrollment flow, and I doubt many companies have set it up.
Regardless, MDM installed app visibility is limited to those users who opt-in to an organization managing their personal device, and isn't an effective way to broadly gather what apps a given person has installed. What's described in this post would work on any user/device, and there's no way to deny/opt-out of specific permissions.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10136/ [2] https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/use-m...
Yes I know about User Enrolment. The problem is the managed Apple IDs are a complete and total dealbreaker. So I'm not even considering this as an option.
The reason is that Apple demands that the UPN (the account ID) and the email address are the same. For us this is not the case (our UPN is our employee number as an email address, whereas our email address is just our name). And obviously we're not going to change this for ten thousand users because Apple wants to (most of which don't have Apple devices because we're a European company). Also, you have to manually decide what happens to each user that has already created an account with their corporate email address and what to do with the content they purchased on it. This is not feasible for a large corp. We have commented this to our Apple account manager for years and years but they simply don't care. If you work in this realm you probably know that Apple doesn't really care about things that matter for their corporate customers anyway. The consumer is their main client and it shows (unlike with Microsoft where it's the opposite).
So the whole account-driven enrolment (User Enrolment) as well as everything else depending on managed Apple IDs like DEP for Macs is completely out of the window.
The problem in my opinion is that I as an admin can simply query for example all the employees that have something like Grindr installed. Considering the current political climate in the US (or worse, the middle east where this can lead to a death sentence in some cases) it's obvious why this is super bad. And really, why should we be able to do this at all?
I'm working on implementing this for the company, and the annoying limitations on iOS is that you can't clone apps. If you want Gmail (as an example) as managed app, you can't have another Gmail as unmanaged app. While the company can't see inside the Gmail managed app (without the app itself explicitly providing that feature), the company can remove Gmail (and any local data inside the app) at any time.
Fun fact from the MDM implementation - the most private way (at least to the company policies) to have a company-connected device is to buy a separate phone and install company's MDM on it. On company provided devices, the company may locate company's assets at any time but doing so on a personal device is a privacy breach.
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I would have to strongly recommend nobody enroll a personal device in a company MDM. If the company needs you to have mobile connectivity that badly, they can give you a device.
I think it’s a personal decision. I really, really do not want to carry two huge slabs around. One is already too much.
Account driven MDM enrolment pushes the Pareto front when it comes to privacy/conveniency compromises from my point of view. I will ask my IT if they have already looked at it.
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I mean... isn’t that expected of an MDM? I have always assumed that any company device (i.e. any device enrolled in an MDM) is under 100% control and surveillance of that company. Being able to see my installed apps is the least of my worries.
No I (as a mobile admin) don't think it should be like that at all, at least not for BYOD devices.
Android has this really well worked out with their work profile. It's like having a company VM on your phone. Really great separation.
But on Apple we can't use a similar option which I admit does exist, but there's too many strings attached (see the discussion above).
get a separate device for work ?
ask a separate device for work.
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iPhones are less of a privacy nightmare.
One of the biggest incentives for creating apps is to scrape all kind of data from the users. Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts. And how many actually need your contacts to function. That's why I'm still a bit surprised that many seem to be surprised by findings like this one here.
I wish there was an option for “give bogus contacts” which showed the app a list of contacts - but it was all randomly generated junk. Make it so the app can’t tell if the contacts it gets are real or fake.
I read a fiction book years ago where there were cameras everywhere. To get privacy, instead of hiding their identities the protagonist paid companies to insert bogus information into the information brokers’ network. So if they tried to figure out where they were on a certain day, 20 records would match. I think this is a much more likely vision of the future.
I guess rather than closing my Google account I should have removed the 2FA and changed the password to a weak one on the HIBP list (:
Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts. And how many actually need your contacts to function.
That is, again, not require but ask for on iphone. I have zero non-functioning apps on my iphone due to denied access to contacts. Even a chinese bluetooth light controller doesn't dare (while refusing to work on android for the same reason).
You can hate apple/iphone ecosystem all you want, but let's not sneak false claims into how they actually work.
> I have zero non-functioning apps on my iphone due to denied access to contacts.
You don’t have WhatsApp then.
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> Look at how many apps require permission to see you contacts.
It is so annoying that it’s either "give access to ALL my contacts and ALL their information (yes, even the notes I took on their favorite things for next Christmas)" or "don’t give access". I wish we could limit the number of contacts and the level of information we give.
> It is so annoying that it’s either "give access to ALL my contacts and ALL their information… […] I wish we could limit the number of contacts and the level of information we give.
iOS added fine-grained (at the contact level) access to contacts data last year.
https://lifehacker.com/tech/you-can-control-which-contacts-a...
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Check if GrapheneOS suits your needs. It has "contact scopes", ie you cna literally allow the app to see single contact only.
Same with storage scopes: one directory and that's it.
iOS hasn’t allowed access to contact notes for several years, and last year added support for providing arbitrary subsets of contacts to all apps.
Photo access has improved a lot in this regard recently.
This was somewhat mitigated on iOS a few years ago.
You could try to communicate with an app via the custom URI scheme and if it succeeded, it would know you have the app installed. Twitter used this for finger printing.
An app has to get a special intent and has to list the apps it wants to use it for.
Speaking of iPhone, Im curious about something. On occasion, I log into the [former] bird app using the web app because it's enough to check up on some key follows.
Recently, they released a major update to their LLM feature and I installed the app to check it out. While I had the app installed, every time I checked the mobile website there was a large banner directing me to go to the app. Ad blockers and distraction blockers would not get rid of it. When I deleted the app again, it was gone. What gives? Why does the mobile website know whether I have the app installed? How come content+distraction blockers are enough to block all reminders to use the app when it's not installed, but are irrevocable if I have the app installed?
Apple calls these Smart App Banners. Webkit cooperates with iOS to present them according to a meta tag in the page:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting-a...
You can get rid of them with the Unsmartifier extension.
https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/q55753/unsmartifier_...
The StopTheMadness extension can also remove them (among many other things... this extension is a must have for me):
https://underpassapp.com/StopTheMadness/support-ios.html
>Apple calls these Smart App Banners. Webkit cooperates with iOS to present them according to a meta tag in the page
JFC. Are they disabled if you ask for the desktop site?
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> Why does the mobile website know whether I have the app installed?
To clarify - the mobile website doesn’t. It has meta tags that tell safari what app it’s tied to, and safari displays associated the app banner.
They did, long ago. I remember when it was shut down after someone made the problem public, like this.
I’m amazed Android still allowed this in 2022.
Right, only Apple knows, but it’s ok, they’re the good guys
Definitely not “good” but I’m still to see anything remotely resembling the complete disregard for privacy and security typical for the adtech-driven android ecosystem.
Just a different business model, not a display of moral values.
Sure, Pegasus exists but I don’t think it is commodified yet.
Ignoring the sarcasm...
What evidence is there/can you present that Apple is making use of this information in a negative way?
How can Apple not have a list of installed apps on your phone while maintaining basic functionality (automatic updates, reinstalling apps from backup, etc)?
Sort of. They have a list of apps you've bought/installed through app store, and they can figure out what you've deleted based on what your phone is pinging for update checks on.
If they went beyond that, or disclosed that knowledge, or allowed an app to get that manifest without your permission, it would destroy their brand image built around privacy, in a way that would cause long-term irreparable damage.
They decided to not comply with laws compelling them to add back doors to optional encryption on iCloud storage, rather than tarnish that image, because they know how valuable that trust is.
You can dump on Apple all you want, but compared to Google who plead with people to use their browser and phones to improve adtech surveillance they can monetize, I think they're doing OK and are a lot more trustworthy.
> they're the good guys
In a relative way, they definitely are.
It's a clickbait title that needs to be changed to stop spreading misinformation.
apple is the worst product for privacy. The entire ecosystem is closed source. You know nothing about what apple is doing.
Are you sure? I know someone in adtech and I'm pretty sure Apple allows a similar app manifest that allows you to check for specific apps. I could be wrong.
Not sure about the manifest but recently I've seen talk about some banking apps using SBSLaunchApplicationWithIdentifierAndURLAndLaunchOptions (undocumented function in SpringBoardServices) [0] to try to launch another app on the phone by the bundle id, and they can determine if it's installed or not.
They were using this trick to detect unauthorized apps on the phone.
https://blog.verichains.io/p/technical-analysis-improper-use...
[0] - https://gist.github.com/wh1te4ever/c7909dcb5b66c13a217b49ea3...
> I know someone in adtech and I'm pretty sure Apple allows a similar app manifest that allows you to check for specific apps. I could be wrong.
On iOS an app developer will need to register in advance which external applications their app intends to query, and the list needs to be very short and motivated. [1]
Incidentally, “I have a friend who says...” isn’t really a good citation anywhere outside Reddit - which HN resembles more and more each day.
[1] https://www.hackingwithswift.com/example-code/system/how-to-...
Thanks for the information.
I suppose a more appropriate term of phrase would've been "I'd heard anecdotally...", but I agree I was lazy with my original reply. I appreciate the feedback.
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Could you take a moment of your time to read the last point in the HN Commenting Guidelines? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Is that also the case for alt-store apps available in EU ?
I don't think it is worth being dismissive.
I snorted when I got to the self-important haughtiness about reddit.
Why?
- You immediately recognized what they meant.
- They weren't advancing a claim, they were indicating a basis for their interrogative, likely to avoid seeming naive when claiming it out of nowhere.
- The article we're commenting on describes the same mechanism you claim differentiates iOS. ("register in advance...which applications...intends to query, and the list needs to be very short and motivated.")
- I've worked heavily on iOS and Android since 2009. As close to a graybeard as you can get in mobile. I'm searching, reaching, grasping for any sign you've done anything other than Google and link the first article you saw, and I can't find _any_. At all. But I don't think that's wrong. You're trying. Why is it wrong for the person you asked to try too?
- There's strong signs you didn't read the article we're commenting on.
- If you had, it is unlikely you would have said iOS was differentiated, then laid out the exact same mechanism described in the article.
- There's strong signs you didn't read the article you linked.
- On iOS you can register URL schemes in a plist, these aren't "external applications you intend to query" and the list does not have to be "very short and motivated"
I get cranky too, but, I am grateful I recognize it is very reddit to cry Reddit and edit it out, or delete.
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