Apple CEO Tim Cook Speaks on Importance of Privacy, Encryption at Champions of Freedom Event

[dragje]

Google's free photos service was the first non-Apple platform that actually made me consider using it. However, after I remembered that Google makes their revenue through advertising I thought against it.

Smart decision. Google and Facebook are trying to conquer the hearths of people in the most poorest en isolated parts of the world by bringing people "free" acces to the internet. "Free" acces to the internet and free acces for Facebook and Google to mine all the private data people come up with using the only acces to the internet made possible by either Google or Facebook.

It's a smart move by Google and Facebook. Unfortunately, only consumers with income can afford payed acces to the internet without having to give up their entire private information about their lives.

 

[69650]

Develop a master key for the NSA and the Chinese government will demand access to it, then all governments will want access to it. Freedom from government surveilance is a basic human right wherever you live.

 

[gnasher729]

Apple isn't exactly innocent of this. They just do it on a smaller scale. If they didn't, how could Apple know what type of music I like and make "Genius Recommendations?" They keep and use data from past music purchases and gather data from my iTunes Match.

Please tell me how iTunes Match could possibly work without some server at Apple knowing what music files you have. The point that this is your information and nobody other than a computer with your AppleID will ever get access to it. Same with "Genius Recommendations".

Google on the other hand reads your posts at MacRumors and gives the data straight to advertisers. There was a brilliant example here where someone made a post mentioning some product, and then made another post with a screenshot of his browser, where Google had already added an advert for that product.

I'm glad that Cook has carried on the commitment to privacy that Apple enjoyed under Jobs.

He needs to do more of this—address something that directly affects Apple's products—and less spouting off on 'social rights' shenanigans, which have nothing to do with Apple products and everything to do with using his position at Apple to make his own personal political statement, something which Steve Jobs rightly never did.

Tim: if you wish to be a politician, then retire from Apple and knock yourself out with political causes. Otherwise, please shut up about polarising issues and stick to your bread and butter. Apple will be stronger for it.

In other words, you don't like what he is saying. Why not be honest and say that you don't like it, instead of claiming that the CEO of Apple shouldn't voice his opinion?

 

[nikaru]

Only if you can imagine what a person can do with your photos, electronic documens, browsing history, etc., only then you can get how serious the problem with privacy is.

When I use iCloud I want to know that only I can access my data with my user name and my password and nobody except me can use this data. Its quite simple concept.

Cookies, browsing history, saved passwords, everything must be disable by default in your browser except if you dicede expressly, to share it on page by page basis.

I have secrets and I want to keep some things private. I dont want google to know that Im lookging for a wedding ring or viagra on the internet. I dont want google to know what kind of porno I like. I dont want to

 

[rdlink]

...In addition, iCloud on my iPhone is painful. I frequently noticed that iCloud Keychain is switched on, which I never did myself. This should never be possible and it still makes me really uncomfortable that I don’t know what my iPhone does sometimes...

Sorry, but turning on iCloud Keychain on my devices ALWAYS requires me to SPECIFICALLY approve it from another one of my devices. Not sure how your iCloud Keychain could be turned on without you doing it yourself.

 

[MH01]

Tim is a good bloke and means well, though there are aspects of Privacy that are beyond his control.

 

[Piggie]

So please, let me get this 100% straight.
And please confirm this point.

What Tim is saying here is 100% that.

Nasty, Evil people around the globe can now use Apple services, Emai etc for any and all illegal activities around the world and be safe in the knowledge that no one can ever know.

Is that correct?

We have Tim's guarantee and total assurance this is the case as Apple's services can be used without anyone, ANYONE being able to see what you are doing?

 

[Popeye206]

How are iAds generated? Is it completely random?

I think the big difference with Apple iAds and Google is, you have to be using a service from Apple - like their radio service to get the Ads and they don't monitor your emails, and web browsing to gather info on you. They use very specific points that you opt-in to for the data. Google grabs everything it can and you often don't have a choice.

In many ways I don't mind either approach, but I'm more concerned about the blind user data mining that Google does. There's way more potential for problems someday.

 

[gnasher729]

So please, let me get this 100% straight.
And please confirm this point.

What Tim is saying here is 100% that.

Nasty, Evil people around the globe can now use Apple services, Emai etc for any and all illegal activities around the world and be safe in the knowledge that no one can ever know.

Is that correct?

We have Tim's guarantee and total assurance this is the case as Apple's services can be used without anyone, ANYONE being able to see what you are doing?

Just like in the USA and many other countries, nasty, evil people live safe in the knowledge that their home cannot be searched without a search warrant. Nasty, evil people will not go to jail until crimes are proven beyond reasonable doubt.

On the positive side, nasty, evil government agencies can't use the scary image of "nasty, evil people" to get access to the data of totally innocent citizens. They can't search the homes of innocent people without a search warrant. They can't throw innocent people into jail unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

 

[Bernardus88]

"The American people demands it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it"

Now I know Apple is a US company, despite the fact that it does not want to pay US taxes, but as a UK citizen, I pay as much as if not more for Apple products and the phrase "The American people demands it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it" rings hollow. Do American customers deserve more from Apple than others?

 

[FieldingMellish]

Tim on that monitor looks like the big brother visage on Apple's famous ad from 1984.

 

[till213]

"The American people demands it, the constitution demands it, morality demands it." - and your users demand it! Now go and implement OpenPGP support in your Mail app on iOS/OS X already! Can't read my bloody facebook notification emails on my iPhone anymore, because, y'know, facebook just started to go one step further and now uses OpenPGP and your public key which can now be stored on your facebook profile to encrypt all email!

Didn't get that news, Apple? Now here you have it! We want native OpenPGP support in Mail!

 

[Rogifan]

I like what Philip Elmer-Dewit said over at Fortune.

Still, I have to believe that Apple’s best response to Google Photos is not to make a speech, but to make a better product.

Amen.

 

[lamina]

Does he think we suddenly forgot about the Snowden documents? Believe who you want, but the US Government has full access to Apple's data. Apple has been the biggest boldface liar about this.

 

[gotluck]

How about the freedom to have root on our devices or install whatever we want? Apple may not data mine you as much, but that is not freedom in any sense of the word.


We have the right to try to believe Apple about whatever they say about our privacy apple has just as much access to data as just about anyone else, if not more. I don't understand why I should trust them just because they are paid a different way than alternative companies.

 

[springsup]

Apple isn't exactly innocent of this. They just do it on a smaller scale. If they didn't, how could Apple know what type of music I like and make "Genius Recommendations?" They keep and use data from past music purchases and gather data from my iTunes Match.

Apple does collect personal information - not only music data, but also location data throughout your day. They've never claimed otherwise.

The difference, as Tim Cook pointed out in this speech, is what they do with the data. With an Apple product, you've already paid for everything and your data is used (with consent) in sensible places to improve the product quality - such as using that location data to calculate traffic and road congestion. With a Google product, you never pay for the service and your use of it requires submitting your data for 3rd-party purposes which you are not fully aware of. The point of this speech is to say that Apple don't agree with that business model and are not softening towards it.

I wouldn't say Apple's data collection is "smaller scale" than Google's - they both have incredible amounts of data. The difference is in what they do with the data, and how much control you have over which data is sent. Since Apple's data collection is feature-focussed, you are usually (always?) able to opt-out. Since your data is your payment, you obviously can't do that with Google.

 

[Rogifan]

Does he think we suddenly forgot about the Snowden documents? Believe who you want, but the US Government has full access to Apple's data. Apple has been the biggest boldface liar about this.

How much did you pay for that black helicopter?

 

[dragje]

He needs to do more of this—address something that directly affects Apple's products—and less spouting off on 'social rights' shenanigans, which have nothing to do with Apple products and everything to do with using his position at Apple to make his own personal political statement, something which Steve Jobs rightly never did.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. But in my opinion Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs and the world is spinning on, even after the Steve Jobs era. Meaning, the more various techniques involves around each individual his or her life the more relevance is the question about privacy becomes.
There is one issue even Apple can't change with chips and machinery; ethics. Therefore it's good to point out the differences towards people. Tim Cook isn't saying that Google Photo service is a bad product, he just points out that with handing over all of your private data towards one company that actively is using that data for commercial reasons is something to be aware of. It's not that, for example, 'Face recognition' is a bad thing, it becomes bad when it's been applied towards so called services towards a person that he or she didn't asked for.
Almost nobody does read the agreement rules when applying for a services and without being aware of the consequences people, especially youngsters, give companies everything they need.
The next step is just a small one to take, for example, insurance companies that have full access of your daily life activities and based on this information grand you or denying you acces to their services. That's just one of many situations one shouldn't agree on.

Next worrying fact is that these companies becoming increasingly larger each year. It has come to a point that users find it more difficult to subscribe to a given online service because they have a hard time finding a login method other then using the quick "login with Facebook or Google". Many users are not even aware what it means to use your login account from Google to make use of a service other then Google. Each activity will be stored and used for a more detailed profile of that user.

In Europe we've, god thanks, strong laws against this way of privacy mining by companies.

In short, one can't be to gentle with these matters, it's good that Tim Cook made this speech, he should it do more often.

 

[Sasparilla]

Great to see Tim standing up for what is right.

Word is one. Products is another. To really show this commitment, have 'em hire Edward Snowden. Been told Apple has a very low profile office in Moscow.

There's a difference between fighting back on encryption and government overstep and making yourself the absolute enemy of the U.S. intelligence apparatus's executive leadership (which Apple is probably already close to). Remember, its already been revealed that the CIA was attempting to compromise Apple's compiler (and who knows what else - firmware comes to mind):

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/10/ispy-cia-campaign-steal-apples-secrets/

 

[springsup]

Does he think we suddenly forgot about the Snowden documents? Believe who you want, but the US Government has full access to Apple's data. Apple has been the biggest boldface liar about this.

If you have been following the issue, you'd know that Apple's data is some of the most secure around.

iMessage, for example, is end-to-end encrypted. Any copies of iMessages which are temporarily stored on Apple's servers while waiting for delivery are only stored in an encrypted state, and Apple does not have the keys.

Apple can afford to do that because they don't care about the content of your messages. They aren't scanning them for metadata to use to sell products to you. Google Hangout messages, on the other hand, are stored on Google's servers in a decryptable format so that they can be scanned. Same with Facebook messages.

That means that if the courts come with a warrant for your IMs, Apple can only give them encrypted jargon. Google will have to give them the message content.

That's how these things Tim Cook is speaking about play out in practice. Apple can be more secure than Google or Facebook can be, because they can afford not to listen.

 

[Sasparilla]

/agree
Not on facebook.

Wish I could drop Google, but GApps domain hosting is just so freaking good. Need to look closely at office365, just so much time investment required at this point, and microsoft tends to lag.

I wouldn't drop Google to run to Microsoft when it comes to data mining. Microsoft is already doing everything Google does but without the moral judgement of Google (the level Google appears to have) - as Microsoft was / is the willing partner of the NSA to go above and beyond what NSL's (national security letters) require and Google was not:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

 

[69Mustang]

Please tell me how iTunes Match could possibly work without some server at Apple knowing what music files you have. The point that this is your information and nobody other than a computer with your AppleID will ever get access to it. Same with "Genius Recommendations".

Apple data mines your data. Plain and simple. There's no arguing that fact. It's easily proven. They use that data for targeted advertising. Also easily proven. Apple has never denied the fact.
Bolded from your quote: That's true. No one else will get access to your information. That doesn't change the fact that Apple will data mine that information to create a profile of you for ad targeting. Saying we don't share your personal information is not the same thing as we won't use your personal information for advertising purposes. And just like Google, Apple most definitely uses your information for advertising purposes. Again, easily proven because Apple tells you this. Some just choose to ignore it and take a Pollyanna view of Apple.

Google on the other hand reads your posts at MacRumors and gives the data straight to advertisers. There was a brilliant example here where someone made a post mentioning some product, and then made another post with a screenshot of his browser, where Google had already added an advert for that product.

Bolded from your quote: You made that up and you know it. It's really funny how you pretend to lack knowledge when it suits your narrative. I'm pretty sure you know how targeted advertising works. You know it's a fact that Google doesn't give anyone's data to advertisers. Pretending to be dumb just to be able to post stupid stuff is beneath you. You're better than that.

 

[philosopherdog]

I was surprised by the negative comments on the Guardian. You would think it's a bit of a no brainer that privacy violations are not acceptable. Everyone turns a blind eye when Google holds out the "free" service.

 

[LordVic]

While I agree completely with Tim's words. He's being a bit disigenous and hypocritical.

As long as Apple is also participating in Data mining and targeted advertisement via iAds platform, they are participating in the exact same business practice that they're pointing fingers at others for.

When you use an Apple device / service. if you actually read the EULA, they clearly and outright say they are doing this.


is it on the same mass scale as Google? No. But thats hardly relevant. If you're going to accuse someone else of doing something, and telling them they're bad for it. Don't be doing the same thing

 

[gnasher729]

Does he think we suddenly forgot about the Snowden documents? Believe who you want, but the US Government has full access to Apple's data. Apple has been the biggest boldface liar about this.

Believe what you want. Snowden reported things that the NSA tried to pull off a few years ago, and that wouldn't work anymore. But that was attacks against individual users, and the most promising attack was grabbing iPhones before they were delivered to the user, hacking into them and delivering the hacked iPhone. That doesn't work if the user is careful; if you buy a new phone and take it out of the box, you can do a factory reset, and your phone is just as it left Apple, with anything the NSA might have added gone.

There's no doubt that the NSA is trying hard to get into Apple's system, but no indication so far that they ever succeeded. And "US Government has full access to Apple's data" is rubbish.