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Apple Aims for Greater Transparency With Comprehensive New Privacy Site

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goofy1958

macrumors regular
Oct 7, 2011
156
20
Alenore said:
Right.
Most of their ads tracking is done using cookies, that you can delete at anytime. they even explain it here :
http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

You can also disable ads tracked from the google activity here :
https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads?


But since it's google, they're obviously evil :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You do know that you have to SIGN IN to google to do anything with these, right???? I do not have an account to sign into, so exactly how is this supposed to help me?
 
S

SusanK

macrumors 68000
Oct 9, 2012
1,676
2,655
neversink said:
So you know exactly what Jobs was thinking and did behind closed doors. :eek:
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Not a clue.

I know I was not targeted for advertising. Nothing was pushed to my devices. If I wanted something updated, installed or changed I initiated the action.
 
K

Keirasplace

macrumors 601
Aug 6, 2014
4,059
1,278
Montreal
kdarling said:
This. Apple really wanted iAds to take off. Remember when they were charging a minimum $1 million buy in, because they felt that selling ads to Apple users was worth so much more money?

However, Apple's target audience failed to buy like they were supposed to, so iAds has continuously dropped in price and popularity among advertisers.

Not to mention that Apple only took the money and never gave the users anything in return, unlike Google with all its free services.



Typical Apple handwaving. You'll notice Apple only named certain information vectors, and carefully avoided listing the things they DO collect and sell, such as our credit, demographics, locations, buying preferences from iTunes, etc:

View attachment 493027

View attachment 493028



As pointed out here many times before, each person's Google Dashboard has had much more info than Apple will ever tell us about what they collect, and very similar control abilities to turn it off.

TL;DR - Whenever Apple makes an announcement, look carefully not at what they did say, but at what they didn't say. The former is always used to mask the latter.
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Everything is there, there is no conspiracy, that's what transparency means. IF they do collect anything, you'd know about it. By putting it out there so clearly, they now stake their reputation on following their own rules.
 
John.B

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,193
705
Holocene Epoch
goofy1958 said:
You do know that you have to SIGN IN to google to do anything with these, right???? I do not have an account to sign into, so exactly how is this supposed to help me?
Click to expand...

And when you sign in with your real-name unified Google account, they link all of your internet activity to an actual user profile.

They did the same thing when they let people "opt out" their routers from the WiFi Wardriving cataloging project: Sign up for an account, tell us who you are, where you live, and your router's MAC address. As if that wasn't a bigger gold mine for Google than just having the SSID name of your router.
 
Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,828
7,620
Los Angeles
John.B said:
In case you haven't been keeping up, the conventional wisdom is being turned on it's head: http://xkcd.com/936/
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I like Mr. Munroe's comics but his famous strip is misleading. It shows that you can remember one secure password, but the fact is that we need dozens of passwords these days. Because it's too hard to remember them all, people slip into bad habits: using the same password in multiple places and/or shortening and simplifying their passwords. Theory is nice but people need a more pratical solution than using dictionary words in combination.
 
I

iWe

macrumors regular
Jul 18, 2012
152
0
John.B said:
Thanks for posting this, I had never heard of Disconnect before today. It seems as though Google kicked it out of their Play store for interfering with 3rd party ads, so it can't be all bad. It looks interesting, I'll have to check this out tonight.

:cool:
Click to expand...
Disconnect is great. Blocks and visualizes the crazy amount of tracking going on on most webpages. The Disconnect Mobile for iOS/Android also blocks ads in apps/web if you buy the additional malvertising filter pack.
 
John.B

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,193
705
Holocene Epoch
Doctor Q said:
I like Mr. Munroe's comics but his famous strip is misleading. It shows that you can remember one secure password, but the fact is that we need dozens of passwords these days. Because it's too hard to remember them all, people slip into bad habits: using the same password in multiple places and/or shortening and simplifying their passwords. Theory is nice but people need a more pratical solution than using dictionary words in combination.
Click to expand...

The point is that four dictionary words strung together in succession has a much higher level of entropy than 8 characters where we all replace the "o" with a zero, "e" with a three, and "i" with an exclamation point. Or whatever.

Ideally, yes, you'd need a password manager, and some way of securing that list. I use 1Password, if you are solely on the Apple platform and only need one list you can just use the new Keychain for iOS 8. Then the four dictionary words (or whatever) are your master password.

But what you can't do is answer the password reset security questions honestly and expect that your passwords will be secure from being changed by a determined individual.
 
A

AaronEdwards

macrumors 6502a
Feb 10, 2011
729
1
goofy1958 said:
You do know that you have to SIGN IN to google to do anything with these, right???? I do not have an account to sign into, so exactly how is this supposed to help me?
Click to expand...

Use a browser that only keep certain cookies when you close the browser.
Don't keep Google's cookies.
etc.

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Cloudane said:
What about this disappearing warrant canary though?

https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/apples-warrant-canary-disappears-suggesting-new-patriot-act-demands/
Click to expand...

Don't read that. Look at this new shiny thing!
 
Joz3d

Joz3d

macrumors member
Jul 19, 2008
81
19
Pfs

If Apple really wanted secure privacy, they'd enable Perfect Forward Secrecy.
 
Dave.UK

Dave.UK

macrumors 65816
Sep 24, 2012
1,286
481
Kent, UK
Dear Tim Cook,

I appreciate your company’s strong stance on protecting customer privacy. I strongly agree that Apple is an industry leader in privacy. After all, recent product launches prove this is true: Apple knows absolutely nothing about its customers. And from what I’ve seen, neither does Siri.

What pioneering bravery it took to ignore consumer demand - despite an overwhelming amount of data – and insist on launching small screened iPhones until privacy breaching company’s like Google and Samsung exploited this information. What principle it took to release the Apple Watch with a rectangular face, while Google excavated consumer’s deepest desires for optional round-faced smart watches. Keep up the good work and fight the good fight! #IgnoranceIsBliss

Love,
Phandroid

PS: thanks for the leaked celebrity pics!
Click to expand...
http://phandroid.com/2014/09/18/tim-cook-google-rant/
 
X

X-X

macrumors 6502
Aug 22, 2014
401
9
Last edited:
Cloudane

Cloudane

macrumors 68000
Aug 6, 2007
1,627
217
Sweet Apple Acres
X-X said:
And here we go...

Apple included language in its first Transparency Report to say that it had not been subject to a Section 215 Patriot Act request. That language is now gone.

The disappearance of Apple’s warrant canary thus suggests that the company too is now part of FISA or PRISM proceedings. Apple did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/apples-warrant-canary-disappears-suggesting-new-patriot-act-demands/
Click to expand...

As I mentioned earlier and I'm kind of wondering why this isn't BIG news particularly on Slashdot (though that site does tend to be "yesterday's news tomorrow" these days)
 
gnasher729

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
xero9 said:
One thing that I think they worded interesting is this bit:

I read this as it's encrypted when I send and when the other party receives it, however, for that time that it's sitting on an Apple server, it's readable.
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There are always people who will work as hard as they can at misinterpreting whatever Apple might say.

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bigpoppamac31 said:
I'm skeptical on that. Same with iCloud. I'm sure Apple can view anyones iCloud content anytime they want to. It's why I don't use iCloud or any other "cloud" service.
Click to expand...

Excellent. Stay away from it.

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paradox00 said:
Before Apple banned it, ad servers used UDID to track you. That is a unique hardware identifier that cannot be changed. Once they have that, they can track your device for eternity.
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They could indeed track it long after it seized to be your device. Hand over your phone to a relative, sell it on eBay, the UDID stayed the same. So all the collected information (but also things like high score in some games) belonged now to the new owner. Totally stupid.

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John.B said:
That said, the real weakness is the "security questions" frequently used to reset passwords, more than weak passwords themselves. If your mother's maiden name or your father's middle name can be looked up on Ancestry.com, or your birth date is on your Facebook profile, or your favorite sports team is obvious from your Twitter posts, then it's far easier to reset a password than to try to guess it.
Click to expand...

Only if you are daft enough to enter your mother's maiden name when there is a security question asking for your mother's maiden name. You can enter something like 8dw820axn instead.
 
B

b3ats

macrumors member
Aug 27, 2012
68
95
UK
It's probably been said already but there's no Apple Pay privacy section on the UK site. Hope they can make a deal with UK banks soon so that I can take full advantage of this.
 
Doctor Q

Doctor Q

Administrator
Staff member
Sep 19, 2002
39,828
7,620
Los Angeles
John.B said:
But what you can't do is answer the password reset security questions honestly and expect that your passwords will be secure from being changed by a determined individual.
Click to expand...
People have a natural tendency to answer questions honestly, without realizing that they'd better off if they treated security answers as additional passwords. If a site wants my mother's maiden name I enter something like FL,.s2V@RfJ$4ogRe8\CzW, safely stored in my password manager. And if they phone and ask to speak to Mrs. FL,.s2V@RfJ$4ogRe8\CzW I'll be rather surprised!
 
gnasher729

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
Piggie said:
Do we believe this story 100%

So any terrorist around the world should be using Apple products, as Apple have now stated they are 100% secure and impossible to be spied on?

That's the story, yes?
Click to expand...

That's what terrorists would do if they were clever. Fortunately, they are mostly brain damaged.

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Cloudane said:
What about this disappearing warrant canary though?

https://gigaom.com/2014/09/18/apples-warrant-canary-disappears-suggesting-new-patriot-act-demands/
Click to expand...

What about explaining what a "disappearing warrant canary" is? And what about telling us what _you_ think about it since you are bringing it up?
 
I

iBug2

macrumors 601
Jun 12, 2005
4,532
852
samcraig said:
Truth is - iAds hasn't been a success and they would have really liked to have a revenue stream (not business model) like Google and other ad delivery platforms have. But they don't.
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They didn't launch it to make money off it. They launched it so the developers could make some money off it, and seems like they are. So it's a success.
 
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