this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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Privacy

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With the recent WWDC apple made some bold claims about privacy when it comes to so called Apple Intelligence. This makes me wonder if they did something to what Microsoft did with Recall feature, would people be less concerned and to an extend praise their effort?

Do you trust apple with their claims?

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[–] deweydecibel 56 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Do I trust them? Sure, I guess, when it comes to privacy from other entities.

Do I trust that I will have privacy from Apple? Hell no. What does "local" even mean on an iCloud connected iOS device anymore? Because there's nothing on that phone Apple can't access remotely if they want to, and if any of the AI cache is backed up on iCloud, that's not local anymore.

Do I trust them with the data they're absolutely gathering? No, but I don't trust anyone with it. But I also think that data would be relatively safer with Apple than their competitors.

If Apple announced Recall? Apple wouldn't announce Recall, that's the whole point. Apple wouldn't be so brazen and stupid to push a tool that is so obviously invasive and so poorly implemented. Apple earned its trust by not making those mistakes.

But if they did decide to say fuck it and implement something like Recall, of course people would trust them. That's what trust means: consumers take them at their word. But if it's as bad as Microsoft's Recall, Apple would burn all that trust when people found out.

People don't believe Microsoft because they have long since burned any trust and good will for most of their consumers. They have proven time and time again they don't give a shit about users' wants or needs, and users have felt that. So when they announce Recall, they have no earned trust. No one believes their assurances. There's no good faith to cushion this. And it turns out everyone was right not to grant them that trust.

Does that mean I'd ever use an Apple device? Hell no. I value my privacy, but I value it on my terms, not Apple's, and I will never use a device that creates privacy through taking power from the user.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Apple now has encrypted iCloud backups so they can’t see what you backup to them. GrapheneOS is obviously better but for an off the shelf OS ios ain’t bad.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Not fully encrypted unless you enable lockdown mode (and losing various features)

[–] Salzkrebs 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They have full control over your device. It's the same for Whatsapps encryption, where Facebook can still access everything on your decrypted client.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Pretty sure it’s not the same at all but keep saying things brother

[–] Salzkrebs 1 points 5 months ago

So you manage your own encryption keys for cloud files? Thats pretty much the only way and even then you have to trust Apple because it's closed source.

[–] hemmes 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

creates privacy through taking power from the user.

What do you mean by that?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I'm pretty sure they mean how Apple won't let you install 3rd party apps and stuff, under the guise of pRiVAcY.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do I trust them? Sure, I guess, when it comes to privacy from other entities.

Do they not send everything directly to ChatGPT? Like, that logic is not broken with that for the Apple users?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They don't, actually. Most of AI stuff is processed on device, few go to their private infrastructure, and only certain Siri requests go to ChatGPT, if you give explicit permission.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That’s cool, at least. I’ve never used Siri and never will, but maybe I’ll mess around with their AI if it’s fully on-device.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Based on their claims Siri also works primarily on-device. It wasn't entirely clear if you can manually prevent the usage of their AI infrastructure, but they definitely implied it. So if that's true, there's no real reason to avoid just Siri while still using other AI stuff, cause they are one and the same. And since it runs locally, they can't even store the voice clips.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I do also trust that Siri is all on-device! Otherwise it would work as well as its competitors hahaha. I just hate voice commands, and will never use them. I want to use my hands for operating devices.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I'm pretty sure it wasn't on-device before. At least not all the time. But I have some good news for you, they added the ability to type your requests to Siri 😆
And to be fair, some certain things are definitely faster by voice than doing manually, like setting a timer and stuff. It's just daunting when the assistant misunderstands you or takes ages to respond. If they fixed all that, it could actually be useful.