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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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (3 children)

That brings me to a recent discovery:

I got a text via matrix, my notifications dont show content, yet the „places“ app suggested a route to an address given in the message.

I checked and had no appointment or other text which the app could have read it from.

This suggests to me two things: apple is reading our screens already, our governments do as well.

Can someone confirm or deny?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Apple has been trying to be the next advertising giant. They’ve been growing their advertising revenue and plan on doubling it this year. They went from $4b ad revenue to $7.5 2022/2023. And if you remember correctly, that was right when you started seeing all their “apple cares about your privacy!” ads and got into it with Facebook. They’re not out here to protect our privacy. They’re trying to take the advertising revenue from the other ad giants and corner that market for themselves.

Think about it. They have gotten people locked into their OS/ecosystem. They basically hold the advertising golden ticket. They’re not here to make your digital life more private. They’re here to get your data for themselves, locking out the competition. They aim to bring more people into the gate and shut it behind them while extracting all of our advertising milk with their more advanced data udder sucking machine. The pasture looks nice, but when those gates close, the skies darken and the farmer corners you with that look in his eye.

I don’t know where that metaphor came from. But that’s how I see it in my head. The moo cow with the pretty eyelashes and the shiny bell around her neck is pulled into a false sense of security by the smiling farmer at the gate, but that shit turns dark real quick when she’s locked in.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Can't neither but it's sooo easy to achieve with telemetry.

Your friend searched for the place. Your friend send you (any) message. Anyone and their mother know you are affiliated with your friend. Said place is now connected with you.

That's why telemetry doesn't need to read your screen

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

It's weird to assume that OS doesn't "read" the notification content, because how else would it categorize them by priority, and provide smart replies and stuff.

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

That's the whole reason why I disabled the notifications for Lemmy app.

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

Thanks for offering your opinion. I find it weird to assume the worst at all times yet here we are.

My point is that it makes zero sense to use encryption on iOS devices at all if they read your stuff anyway, no?

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

Not really, it can make sense. By "reading" your messages/notifications they could just perform semantic search/categorization, or now, run a local LLM. It doesn't necessarily mean they send that data to servers or make people actually read it.
Encryption just means the data stored on your device is not saved in plaintext. So if somebody gets their hands on your phone, they won't be able to hot-wire the memory chip and directly read all the data.

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

We have a misunderstanding here. I know that encryption as a whole will do that. But using anything else than imessage for example or whatsapp makes no sense if they can read it anyway. No point in using matrix, threema, signal and whatever. I need to get rid of this phone.

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

If it's the encrypted transfer protocols that you're talking about, then it's just for the transfer of data. It was never meant to make things secure on the endpoints. Encrypting your whatsapps, signals and so on just ensures the ISPs and mobile operators can't read your messages. Also prevents an occasional MITM attack. Once the data reaches your device it's not encrypted anymore, as you can read it and copy it.

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

I know. You do get that the normal person does not think their phone manufacturer listens in on the stuff they have on their phone, yes? That is what I‘m talking about.

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

I don't follow. No I don't think that most people think that Apple and Samsung are spying on them. But a lot of people are concerned about NSA and the likes having access through the cellular service. Which is what the encryption is for.

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

Its like Apple runs the notification servers or something