this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
46 points (75.0% liked)

Asklemmy

43893 readers
1016 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
46
Is apple now reading my keyboard inputs? (lemmy.giftedmc.com)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
54 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I‘m a little shocked rn. I am using fluffychat on ios since my legacy iphone is still working and I dont want to throw it out until its done.

But this happened the first time: I wrote „then I might need to take a taxi“ to someone and an installed taxi app immediately popped up via notifications saying „get off 25% today“ or something.

This freaks me out big time since it could mean every word I write on this phone gets checked by something/someone.

Anyone else? (It was literally the second I wrote the sentence)

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 71 points 8 months ago (7 children)

Apple does not sell your data to a taxi app. Apple does not transmit your keystrokes.

FluffyChat, according to their privacy page, uses FireBase for Push notifications. If the message content is transmitted through them, and the taxi app uses firebase too, they could—theoretically—associate your data with both accounts and push you ads for another service on behalf of the taxi app.

It’s probably just a coincidence… and I’d be alarmed too, but I’d start blaming other companies before Apple, as they tend to horde your data for their own use, not sell it. Apple hates sharing.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] TenderfootGungi 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If you are using a third party keyboard, the company that makes it can see every keystroke. It is why Apple did not allow them for a long time.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are you talking about a hardware keyboard or an app? I was using the on screen keyboard I used from day one.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure you didn’t have a boomer moment and accidentally spotlight search the taxi app?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That would be my first but not impossible I guess. I rechecked. Nope, I wrote a message and this popped up. None of these for days before and now hours after despite heavy use of the phone.

[–] Starbuck 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Do you have location tracking turned on? I feel like a few times when people looked into this, it came down to the Taxi app having location sharing on (so the app can show you fairs, of course) and that the fact that you wrote something about needing a taxi is irrelevant because the app knows you are someplace where you might need a taxi.

And maybe someone nearby you who also had the same Taxi app had just booked a trip. They can correlate your location and people around you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

“I might need a blowjob”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

"Click here to talk to hot singles in your area!"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

I checked. No. It only has location when the app is in use (which it hasnt been for months), to add to this, I was at home at the time and not on the move. I have however been on the move a couple days before (which the app cant see without location) and nothing happened.

[–] PeroBasta 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Had similar experiences. Check my post history. I got shit on by the apple community tho.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I‘m not seeing any posts that suggest you were in a similar situation. Feel free to send a link to the post.

[–] doctorzeromd 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I think they're referring to this https://lemmy.world/post/9384633

Though from my reading of it it seems like they got a pretty clear explanation on the top post about what was going on, it doesn't sound like OP's situation.

I'm very anti-apple, but PeroBasta's post doesn't seem like apple is doing anything weird.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Thats why I didnt see it. The post for some reason didnt show on my instance and then got loaded in between. Lemmy and federation… anyway, I also recognized this recently and my wife actually changed a setting while I was driving and since it disappeared.

[–] weeeeum 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yes, of course haha. Apple is as much of a data company as Google or Facebook, but they pretend to be privacy centric. Their "privacy" reputation comes from preventing apps from tracking your and limiting their data collection.

This isn't for the good of the consumer, it simply gives apple a monopoly on data of their customers, that they can sell for a pretty penny.

If you want a truly privacy focused iPhone you likely have to jailbreak it. Either that or get an android phone and install graphene OS or other privacy centric off shoots of android OS.

Remember, if a company owns the operating system, you're being tracked. Happens just as much on windows and Mac. They'll even track what you say, and give you recommendations based on that.

[–] TenderfootGungi 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is mostly not true. They are extremely privacy focused. The do keep some data on you but it is anonymized and not sold. For example, the maps app will keep the route, but randomly chops both ends off so there is not an exact start and stop. Siri sucks because it runs on devise instead of a server somewhere like all the rest. And they sell adds based on keywords in the App Store. But they do not collect and sell your data like the rest.

A big fear is a future new leadership team changing these policies for a quick cash grab. We need data privacy laws.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Apple is not a privacy company.

However, the data Apple collects is not immediately shared like Google and facebook do.

They know it has more value if they can be the gatekeeper of your data, and sell companies access to you by getting them to invest in their ecosystem and marketplace.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Provide proof or STFU

[–] SuckMyWang 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Isn’t it a bit like how I ate a sandwich today? I know I ate a sandwich but there’s no proof of it. I am still allowed to talk about eating a sandwich even though there’s no proof. Did I mention how I ate a sandwich today?

Also this is a bad example because I’m actually lying about the sandwich. I never ate a sandwich. But you get the point.

[–] thrawn 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Not really. You’re making an allegation with no evidence, then incorrectly comparing it to you proving something you yourself may have done. That wouldn’t work if you were merely claiming someone else ate a sandwich, much less something like this.

An exercise— some taxi company made the app with publicly available software. A lot of Lemmy users seem to be developers and know how the notification system works for iOS. Is it then:

  • Apple tracks all sentences typed and lets every single app know when something related to its purpose is typed so a notification can be served? And every single app developer in existence has hidden this knowledge?

  • Apple tracks all sentences typed and lets specific apps know when something related to its purpose is typed? Why would they give this data to a taxi company and not larger companies that drive more profit? If they did give it to taxi companies and up, how do they prevent whistleblowers? Privacy intrusion on this level would be massive. People will leak military secrets to prove a point in video games, but not this?

  • Apple tracks all sentences typed and only lets this taxi company know when “I need a taxi” is typed? This would be safest because it reduces the chance of a leak. And yet also tremendously risky to give this data to a taxi company, which probably isn’t overly secure, when this information leaking would cost them shareholder-angering amounts of money and poor press.

This conspiracy is moon-landing-is-fake levels of implausible. It would require airtight security and a level of secret keeping that humans are simply not capable of. No disgruntled employee of any company would have leaked this? Apple would risk meteoric reputation damage to slightly drive in app purchases that they’d then get a 30% cut of? Be serious.

I hate defending any corporation but the flat earth level conspiracies I see upvoted on Lemmy— with zero proof, or even waving away the thought of proof!— would be laughed at anywhere else. These takes also delegitimize real criticism because there may yet be something relatively implausible that they are doing, and noise like this muddies the water. Why not discuss the actual unethical things Apple does, of which there are many, instead of making stuff up?

Edit: oops, you did not make the allegation, merely defended it. I’d split this up into two separate criticisms for maximum effectiveness (the other one for the confidently-said zero-proof conspiracy, and this one for the implication that evidence for conspiracies is unnecessary) but no one’s gonna read it anyway so whatever.

[–] panicnow 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I read it….

[–] thrawn 1 points 8 months ago

Well shit, thanks. I used to do this (being long comments) on Reddit but long comments naturally filter out some readers. Which I get, cause sometimes I’m not looking to read a whole thing too, so it never offended me.

People on Lemmy seem to have longer attention spans though, shouldn’t be too surprised. This site has me returning to older habits of thinking through comments and spending almost 20 minutes typing haha, back on the other site I just stopped commenting in the years before the API changes since I’ve never been the type for quippy one liners. So yeah weirdly thanks, odd how it kind of feels nice to have these read again. I obv can’t text monologue irl (cause it’s not text) and I’m one for brevity with text messages

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Here are Apple's most basic promises to developers.

If their stated capabilities don't sound like a security nightmare for users then you are willfully blind.

Of course you have to make a purchase and sign an NDA to get more specific info on their capabilities. Why? Because it's a nightmare.

Yes they absolutely talk out both sides of their mouths when it comes to security and it doesn't take a "genius" to put 2+2 together.

[–] thrawn 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Please quote anything that comes close to OS-level spying for developer benefit. When did it become acceptable to fake source by posting just a link and no context? I read through several of the sections and not a single one indicates you can get significant information outside your own app. Again, I am not claiming Apple is benevolent. I was reasonably clear that they should be criticized for the many unethical things they do engage in.

In fact, none of what you said directly confronts anything I mentioned. I’d need more than vague innuendos to change my stance on what is, again, reputation ending and unprecedented spying for the benefit of small time companies.

Also recall that Apple employees have leaked completely uninteresting things for twitter clout, leading to firings and legal action. You cannot claim with a straight face that employees will leak that but not OS-level spying. They’re bound by the same NDAs but are willing to face jail time to leak information about the next iPhone and not this? Remember that NDAs are not magic documents with 100% effectiveness.

And that’s just Apple employees. Individual developers can leak. A software dev at Google (king of advertising) being laid off for shareholder value can leak.

These conspiracy theories always play to the same desire to feel like the believers and their fellow theorists are the only ones who haven’t had the wool pulled over their eyes by some borderline omnipotent organization moving in the shadows. Only the special few know the truth; though they cannot prove it, they know it to be true. And these all fall apart at the foundation: plausibility. To save time, I won’t respond if you can’t provide direct quotes or real evidence that realistically suggest Apple tracks keyboard strokes to deliver ad opportunities to third party developers— implications and leaps of logic need not apply. This reminds me too much of flat earthers, and while I do enjoy reading this stuff, it’s not productive to either person to engage too much. I wouldn’t want to waste your time. Stay safe out there!

(Feel free to respond with the innuendos anyway though, I will read it for fun. I just won’t respond if there’s no real evidence. For inspiration, think past basic ads and consider the limitless potential for US government or Chinese government spying with real time keystroke tracking, and how that is potentially connected to seasonal Covid rate spikes or military plane flight patterns. Maybe they add to Covid numbers when iOS users type “let’s eat the rich next week” too many times?)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

If their stated capabilities don't sound like a security nightmare for users then you are willfully blind.

You need tech Jesus to cure your tech blindness.

Nothing a mere mortal such as myself can do.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Your example should be someone else claims that you ate a sandwich but you did not. Even if you keep saying you hate sandwiches and no one ever saw you do it. But everyone else eats sandwiches, so how could you not.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

As funny as this is to you, many are working on getting these corpos to back down. I already handed in a privacy complaint this month against apple which is currently being pursued by the State Office for Data Protection Supervision (a machine translated this).

If this is actually something we can prove somehow, we‘re probably putting a new record for class action lawsuits in the guinness book.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (6 children)

No. If someone is telling you that Apple is doing that, they are lying to you. Demand proof, because no one can provide that. Because Apple is not doing that, and if they’re telling you they are, they are lying.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

If you demand proof to state they do, you should provide proof when stating they don't. It's not like Apple is the most trustworthy company in the world. With big tech it's always reasonable (definitely not certain) to assume they could be spying on your activity, and unless you are able to download your software source code, check it and compile it yourself, it's almost impossible to tell.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago

Until it's proven the data is E2E encrypted, it's a fair assumption it can be read by a 3rd party, either now or in the future. E2EE is the only proof that matters, everything else is just a corporate "trust me bro".

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›