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Today Tim Cook spoke at a Privacy conference and asked that we set new policies for privacy. He asked for four things: 1. the right to have personal
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – 31 days of Paranoia – Day 24]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Tim Cook blah blah… Why did it take the Europeans to wake us up to the need for privacy and control of our data? Their GDPR, in force for almost half a year now, is no joke. Want to do worldwide business? Get serious about not preying on people for their personal data.
-Noel
The personal information Amazon throws around for marketing purposes is real and in my opinion, understandable. At the same time the customer does pay for Amazon’s service through purchasing and yearly subscriptions to Prime. So it really isn’t free, we do pay, and yet our personal preferences are being used to boost sales. I’m okay with this practice. But I wouldn’t stand in the way of Amazon adding more protection for their customer’s privacy.
When a corporate networking scheme opens its doors saying “Sign up for free” and takes your personal and private user info for the sole purpose of making billions, small beads of sweat begin to appear and a need to form a coalition comes to mind. This is how I see Facebook’s operation. People have become entranced by the powerful ship and its Commander Z. Not only an addiction with rarely a cure, but a runaway train, no end destination in sight. It’s a venue open to the world of sharing, for better but mostly worse.
Not sure Tim Cook can curb or stop this “privacy attack” by massive corporate greed. But I am optimistic of his plan to develop a strong interface to counterattack more aggressive individuals and entities to stop this crazy invasion of privacy. Whatever he and his staff at Apple take into the think tank of beta testing, it is without doubt he can take it to the forefront and become the lead in running a clean, well protected and viable OS. I have faith in Apple. Cook’s intentions seem honorable and directed at the consumer, not a ploy to merely take the lead. However, being at the top isn’t so bad. Now is a good time to put the pedal to metal and instill confidence for the end user.
MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS
Tim Cook see’s opportunity in marketing privacy now, nothing more. Privacy online is not a given, you have to seek out solutions to take it back. Companies who benefit from information on you won’t do so out of the kindness or respect. Obviously Apple is unique that it makes lot’s of money on everything they sell. Google, Facebook, Twitter etc not so much.
Q: “But can we trust our vendors to do the right things in regard to privacy?”
A: Trust, but verify.
“Trust is good, control is better.” – Vladimir Lenin :).
Every time I see articles pertaining to our Privacy it makes me chuckle remembering something that happened many-many years ago. Back in the days when having to opt-in to allow anybody to share your personal information was the norm. Then all of a sudden one day out of the blue we’re required to REQUEST an opt-out to this practice with no guarantee it would be honored.
The first time this happened to me I was rather dumbfounded and since a neighbor was a County Legislator I confronted him about this and asked if he would campaign against this ridiculous practice. This was back in the mid 90’s mind you… when everybody including my neighbor didn’t have a computer so he wasn’t familiar with what I was talking about and told me he would “look into it and get back to me”.
About a week later he stopped by while I was mowing the lawn and told me from what he can tell there were PAC’s with some really deep pockets lobbying heavily for the Advertising Industry and this “opt-out thing” (his words) was needed to boost the Advertising Industry’s revenue.
Well… we can clearly see how THAT all worked out now, can’t we?
The discussion on privacy/data gathering is focused on PC based software. Susan asked ‘what do I want to see from vendors’….
– Stop providing car manufacturers with software that allows them to gather data on drivers that has nothing to do with improving the driving experience. Car manufacturers are putting spyware in vehicles. They are collecting information that has nothing to do with improving car design, mileage per gallon, safety, or anti-theft mechanisms. They want to know what radio stations you listen to, what malls you visit, what gas station brand you use, wifi domains you access, etc. etc. It is all about selling this data. There is a lineup for it.
– Secondly is the software that is produced to spy on people in their homes. Why does a robot vacuum cleanser have to take pictures of your furniture, your pets and your small children? The only reason for this is to sell products to people who have pets and small children. It has nothing to do with the functioning of the vacuum cleaner. They all suck, literally and functionally.
– Lastly, IOT in appliances. Refrigerators, washing machines, coffee makers, toasters, etc. etc. The only purpose of making these devices internet connected is to gather usage data to sell people other products. The data is not used to improve the products – it is a ruse.
IoT at the consumer level (automated home, smart speakers, cars reporting to insurance companies) is a whole other can of privacy worms. Unfortunately, not one for us to discuss in this thread. We can split off onto another topic thread if we wish.
-- rc primak
Cook got his headlines. Just part of Apple PR pushback after a few negative stories recently (chinese chips etc). The industry will never change the use of data for gain – far too many deeply vested interests and business models based on that very thing.
The only effective measure would be a massive shift in global society’s attitude to social media and connected devices where the likes of Facebook (and all the others, just an example) become social pariahs for privacy breaches and people force a meaningful change by not using their services.
I cant see it happening though. At the moment not enough people understand the underlying issues and/or care about it to get that groundswell of opinion shifting. Social engineering writ large.
Microsoft tried selling respect for user privacy with their “Scroogled” campaign, and look where they are now. If people cared about the privacy MS was selling, I think we’d be in a very different place now as far as Windows 10.
It’s a good move by Apple to capitalize on this, but actions are what counts. They already inherit the title for the last commercial OS written only for the desktop form factor (including laptops with a discrete pointing device). Tim Cook has previously said they were not interested in converging iOS and MacOS because it would result in an inferior experience for both (exactly!).
They appear to be going squishy on that now, with their wish to bring iOS apps to the Mac, which is way too close to what MS tried to do with UWP, and will almost certainly lead to the decline of the “pure” Mac experience. If independent developers think that an iOS app is “good enough” for the Mac platform, odds are there won’t be as many native Mac programs that take advantage of a large screen, a precise pointing device that has discrete pointing and selection events, more RAM, more CPU speed, more GPU speed… all that real-computer goodness will be wasted if all Mac users get out of it is a dinky iOS app meant for a phone.
Apple was always the smart one to not follow Microsoft, Canonical, GNOME down that garden path. Microsoft saw their mobile ambitions fall apart after they tried it (twice), while Canonical abandoned the Unity project completely. GNOME managed to trigger not one, but two forks in their own code base when they decided to go the “one UI to rule them all” path. It’s never been clearer than now that it’s a fool’s errand… and now Apple gives in despite their previous wisdom.
I’m not an Apple user nor a particular fan, but competition is a good thing. It’s the lack of it that’s making Microsoft do what they are doing. Apple seems to be pulling a Firefox here.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
They are pushing IOS apps integration, but they don’t change the desktop, which is not a bad thing to do. It shuts up the voices that says there are so many cool apps you miss on the desktop, but they can keep the normal OS interface.
I am not too worried about this. I think Apple is very smart and they sure looked at the issues that plagued Windows and Ubuntu. I think they might see there is a brighter future for them on the desktop than Microsoft. If only they could capitalize on this and get a bigger foot in the enterprises market, but that would require a lot of changes on their part and I am not sure it is compatible with their kind of strategy.
Remember Tim Cook said a long time ago that he understood they made a mistake with IOS 11 and promised a faster IOS 12 on older devices, with less new features and more stability and performance. In our days, it is refreshing to hear that. I think they did a pretty good job at delivering on their promise and reacting positively to user feedback (although to be fair, they often seem like they ignore feedback because they don’t respond publicly to a lot of things).
As for privacy, I always felt respected by Apple. Sure, they entice you to join lots of “cool” cloud features and things, but they ask for your permission and you can deny, then they will respect your choice and won’t sneakily switch it for you during the next IOS upgrade. You don’t want Siri? You don’t have to enable it. They always made iMessage encrypted end to end and designed it in a way to favor privacy (and maybe to not have to give up information when asked by just not having access to it, which permits them to avoid having to choose between helping law enforcement authorities and not compromising user privacy). They also designed TouchID in a very thoughtful way as to try to minimize the risk of having your fingerprint stolen, unlike maybe some other company who just thought it would look so trendy to add a cheap fingerprint reader to easily unlock your PC.
For IOS 12, they disable third party cookies in their browser, which will create a force by number on the web to have web sites that can work even if you disable third-party cookies. Meanwhile, the school portal for my kid switched to a solution using Microsoft technology that is supposed to work with Firefox, but if I don’t enable third-party cookies, it gives an “internal server error” with no more explanation…
I would make the hypothesis that since Tim Cook is a clear representative of a minority among CEOs due to the fact that he publicly disclosed his sexual orientation, he probably had to deal with issues all his life that made him well aware of the value of privacy and I would tend to think he is sensitive to those questions and sincere in his attempt to steer the ship of personal data issues toward less than more.
I was referring to how Apple appears to be trying to follow the market leader, and in doing so, cut off their most notable and valuable feature, just as Firefox did in trying to copy Google. Open source doesn’t mean the dev team can’t collectively lose its mind and start going in some terrible direction. It seems that the longer a product is developed, whether it be open source or proprietary, the greater the odds that its devs will, in the minds of much or most of their user base, lose the plot and attempt to destroy their own product.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
Ah, I get your point now. Yes, the parallels are sometimes stunning.
-- rc primak
The problem with the saying “if you don’t pay for something, you are the product” is that it implies that you aren’t being sold if you pay. You still are. In the business world, if you want to stay in business you “use the whole cow.”
This is just virtue signaling wrapped up in marketing spin.
Unless or until there’s an ironclad contract between user and provider spelling out the rights and obligations of each, this is just fluff. Tim Cook could be gone tomorrow, Apple change the Terms of Service, and sell out everything to the highest bidder, and everyone would be SOL.
He left one off his list, anyway. How about “The right to be forgotten?” Does anybody believe its actually possible to “delete” their footprint off of these cloud services? Can anyone actually tell Apple or Facebook or Google or Microsoft “Hey I don’t want to play in your sandbox anymore, delete me and everything you have on me?”
Anon^5 replying. I really liked your “The right to be forgotten?”. That stood out to me as well, but I like your chosen word better. Leaving that out of the discussion is a problem.
I also agree that this is a marketing gold star event at this time. But it is only a restatement of Cook’s beliefs. Privacy was a very large issue three years ago (?) with unlocking a dead criminal’s device. I say Cook’s beliefs because when you get down to what is and is not private, each facet of the topic may not be consistent with your view of privacy, or mine either.
That does suggest it could change with the CEO. It could also remain. It could be an unusual alignment of both marketing and morality.
Tim Cook is the CEO – he doesn’t have ultimate policy-setting authority. That is up to the board of directors. If the Apple board likes what Cook is doing, then they will continue it even if he leaves.
Privacy and security are of the utmost importance for me. And I have observed that Apple respects my privacy and security more than any other big company. And that is truly amazing when you think about the fact that Apple is a for-profit company, not an open-source, non-profit company. In other words, they are foregoing a potentially huge source of revenue by not making money off of my data.
I don’t have a smart phone; but if I did, it would be an iPhone, because of Apple’s respect for my privacy. And it would most definitely NOT be an Android, because of Google’s total disregard for my privacy.
Skepticism is healthy, as long as it is not systematic and carried too far. Because then it degrades into reflexive nay-saying.
The thing to do about Cooks’ speech is to wait and see what actually follows. This might be a marketing ploy, or the start of a much-needed phase change in the IT business world that will propagate beyond anything Cook or Apple actually do, or some combination of the above: the world is complicated, life is messy, and neither care about what we think. For all we know, decency, however imperfectly, might be breaking out. Because, why not?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
This author is mostly left-leaning but IMO in this case he nailed it. All big techs have become monopolies which need to be broken up into small units which compete with each other. Would also open the door to competing small start-ups. Regulation won’t work for long on a moving target but market forces will favor the vendor with the best options for its users. My $0.02…https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/facebook-leadership-is-lipstick-on-cancer-nyu-professor
From here…
“These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold. Taken to its extreme, this process creates an enduring digital profile and lets companies know you better than you know yourself.”
Funny he should say that while apple right now is busy building their second gigantic data center here in tiny Denmark…
Which will allow Apple to abide EU law now and going forward without extending similar respect and protections to the western hemisphere. They will be able to compartmentalize their compliance. I do not know if that is the intent, only recognizing a possibility.
They will be able to compartmentalize their compliance.
They could do that. (Facebook already has to some extent done exactly this.) But it would cost money to maintain two separate Apple Stores, two separate iTunes sites, etc. Not to mention the administration headaches. I don’t think Apple will do this.
As mentioned previously in this thread, Apple has gone to great lengths not to compartmentalize their iPhone encryption, even in China. I think that alone says a lot about Tim Cook and his Company.
-- rc primak
apple right now is busy building their second gigantic data center here in tiny Denmark
As rc primak stated above, the EU has better privacy laws than the US. The folks at startpage.com, my preferred search engine, are very concerned about privacy of user data, and for this reason they have set up their operation in the Netherlands (?) so that user data is as well-protected as it can be from the government getting ahold of it. By locating in the Netherlands, the NSA can’t legally get to the users’ data. I believe that is precisely why Apple is building a data center in Denmark. They may be afraid that the FBI might be able to legally force them to crack their own encryption if their data center is located in the US.
I use both Startpage and Duck Duck Go. Basically, if I am unable to set Startpage as the default search engine, I choose Duck Duck Go. (Sometimes in Linux / Firefox, I have been unable to select Startpage as the default search engine.)
I always say if you don’t pay for something, you are the product.
Ordinarily i would agree with you but look at john deere tractors: if you pay several hundred k for the product you’re still the product.
http://locusmag.com/2018/03/cory-doctorow-lets-get-better-at-demanding-better-from-tech/
Software can be proprietary. That’s fine. But the ability to repair hardware should not be unduly restricted by software which is aimed at preventing independent replacement of hardware parts. Except where mandated by laws, such as the EPA mandate you cite.
-- rc primak
John Deere believes that they, not the customer, own the tractor that the customer has purchased, at least as far as repairs go. They don’t allow you to repair your own tractor – you must instead put in a service call and wait for a high-priced John Deere repair technician to come diagnose the problem, order the parts, and install them. If you get a used replacement part and install it yourself, it won’t work unless John Deere activates the part digitally, forcing farmers to let John Deere do the repairs.
https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
Although these restrictions may not be in place for John Deere lawn mowers, I will never buy a John Deere lawn mower. I don’t want to take the risk.
Not to mention that we do not need to be financially supporting companies with whose policies we strongly take issue.
-- rc primak
This is not about software. It’s about the right to repair hardware you own.
The best analogy is Apple insisting that only Authorized Repair Technicians can repair iPhones, and they (Apple) will often charge huge premiums to fix minor issues.
I think this part of this discussion is getting off-topic.
-- rc primak
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