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

[cwt1nospam]

I actually think Software Services is what Apple needs to improve the most. I also think they arent releasing product fast enough. No new monitor or AppleTV in 3 years is really a bummer. I also think Apple should have their own Search Engine...why cede that ground to Google? Google doesnt cede hardware to Apple.

I agree about the software and AppleTV, although I think we'll see an update on that one soon. As for search engines, I see that being like iAds. Without resorting to data mining the way Google does it, I don't think anyone, including Apple, can compete well. I'd love to be proven wrong, but it seems that the big money is in selling your data, and I wouldn't want to see Apple get into that.

 

[lamina]

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.

Riiiiiight....

Also

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/nsa-backdoor-iphone-access-camera-mic-appelbaum/

Also another guy was talking about encryption and how it's end-to-end. That's great, except encryption itself has been compromised by the NSA.

I am in shock and disbelief that Tim Cook can stand up and boldly lie to the world about his concern for privacy.

 

[cwt1nospam]

Also another guy was talking about encryption and how it's end-to-end. That's great, except encryption itself has been compromised by the NSA.

You're probably referring to me. Yes, the NSA has compromised some (many) of the industry standard encryption techniques, but that doesn't mean it's easy for them to get in. They still need to spend the time and resources to do it, and even for (especially at $20 Million per year!) them, resources are limited. That's why they'd like a back door, and some slide showing that they've added Apple to PRISM doesn't mean that Apple has (or hasn't) given it to them. It just means they've targeted Apple devices.

Apple has a strong financial incentive to avoid giving it to them. No device is 100% secure, and handing out back doors to anyone would make Apple's devices less secure. That would cost them sales.

By the way, from the link you provided:

The U.S. National Security Agency has the ability to snoop on nearly every communication sent from an Apple iPhone, according to leaked documents shared by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and German news magazine Der Spiegel.

An NSA program called DROPOUTJEEP allows the agency to intercept SMS messages, access contact lists, locate a phone using cell tower data, and even activate the device’s microphone and camera.

Why would a program that "has nearly complete backdoor access to Apple's iPhone" need to locate the phone using cell tower data? GPS not good enough?

 

[tunerX]

Riiiiiight....

Also another guy was talking about encryption and how it's end-to-end. That's great, except encryption itself has been compromised by the NSA.

I am in shock and disbelief that Tim Cook can stand up and boldly lie to the world about his concern for privacy.

Encryption hasn't been compromised by the NSA... Just some forms of it.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...ay-to-monitor-isis-online-encrypted-messages/

Its fox so if you like to call it faux then take it with a grain of salt. But modern IPSEC end to end encryption with AES-256 or greater with SHA-256 or greater isn't going to be compromised anytime soon by the NSA as long as you use good phrases and self compiled products. SSL encryption can be just as good as long as your PKI is private/enterprise with strong keys and self compiled products. If you know how to do it you can evade... I just don't care to set it up for myself so I can send texts to my friends and family.

It just depends on what you know about encryption.

 

[Tycho24]

I still do not know if people here really want total privacy in their communications when using Apple's services.

Please be honest.

Do you want to be assured that people, perhaps planning terrorist attacks, or child abuse, can use Apple's services in total safety, and can be certain of no one in authority able to access what they are up to?

Is this genuinely what you want?
For Apple to be THE same place for people like this to use as they know they are untraceable.

You can't have it both ways.

Either you want total 100% rock solid security that is safe for these people to use.
Or you want them able to be detected and caught, in which case you don't want what Tim is saying.

what do you want?

Nobody can say you don't keep things silly & entertaining, Piggie!!!
Sooooo.... let me see if I've got this right. According to you, police could never catch drug dealers, I don't know... by the showy use of money, amount of traffic, lack of tax returns, fact that big dealers use guns, travel in ostentatious groups, constantly get ratted on by other scumbags, etc? No? They can't catch drug dealers that way? They absolutely MUST have access to each and every one of our text messages & all of our electronic information and messages for us to be protected?? The only evidence possible is detailed text messages of their guilt?? Lol. And child abusers text & email about it a lot, right? As you said, that's a crime that people are "planning", right? Requires a lot of correspondence to beat a child, does it? That's how they're caught?? It's not family, friends, teachers, etc. that notice signs of abuse and report it? The only way to fight child abuse is to give up all fundamental notions of privacy?
Well, golly Piggie!!!! That sounds 100% correct to me. Thanks for taking the time to correct all my misconceptions about crime. I'm sooooooo surprised that we had overcrowded prisons even before cell phones came out... I mean, as you intimate, criminals simply CAN'T be caught unless the government has all of their private text & emails!

 

[Bawstun]

Plenty of people care about privacy, many just don't have a clue how little privacy remains until it bites them.
Fact link: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...americans-dont-know-what-a-privacy-policy-is/

If you don't care, fine, but don't speak for everyone else.

I'm speaking for you, me, any registered users of this forum, and the billions of people worldwide using the internet every day. You don't own a single post you make using this software, MacRumors does. You can't delete your account. You signed a lengthy TOS to even get here, gave up your e-mail, etc. Not just a forum - Twitter, Photobucket, Facebook, Instagram, basically any app requiring an account. And all the ones you can just link with Facebook, or some other means of social media? Now they already know who you are.

If en masse people cared about privacy...we wouldn't have what we have today, companies generating billions of dollars just on our data alone.

 

[cwt1nospam]

I'm speaking for you, me, any registered users of this forum, and the billions of people worldwide using the internet every day. You don't own a single post you make using this software, MacRumors does. You can't delete your account. You signed a lengthy TOS to even get here, gave up your e-mail, etc. Not just a forum - Twitter, Photobucket, Facebook, Instagram, basically any app requiring an account. And all the ones you can just link with Facebook, or some other means of social media? Now they already know who you are.

Good thing we have throw away email addresses!

 

[casperes1996]

I'm speaking for you, me, any registered users of this forum, and the billions of people worldwide using the internet every day. You don't own a single post you make using this software, MacRumors does. You can't delete your account. You signed a lengthy TOS to even get here, gave up your e-mail, etc. Not just a forum - Twitter, Photobucket, Facebook, Instagram, basically any app requiring an account. And all the ones you can just link with Facebook, or some other means of social media? Now they already know who you are.

If en masse people cared about privacy...we wouldn't have what we have today, companies generating billions of dollars just on our data alone.

I am going to offer you a million dollars, to sniff a camel's trumps. Will you do it? Would you do it if I didn't offer you money?
I am going to offer you a million dollars, not to sniff a camels tumps... Do you see my point? It's a bit vague I know.
Point is that there's incentive, and there's no solution that protects our privacy and offers thae same as the privacy lacking solutions. It's like ecology and food. People buy non-ecologic things, not because they want pesticides and *****, but because they want cheaper things.
We want privacy, we just have enough incentive to give it away. But if someone came along and changed that...

 

[cwt1nospam]

People buy non-ecologic things, not because they want pesticides and *****, but because they want cheaper things.

That's overly simplistic. People buy non-ecological things partly because they're not aware that they're doing it. To most people, GMO bananas are bananas, and "organic" bananas are some newfangled, new-age thing. They've been lied to so effectively for so long, that it would take a huge marketing effort to correct the lies.

Another important reason they buy these items is that they have little choice. Organic food isn't expensive, but GMO food is cheap, and people make less money than they used to. Wages aren't just flat, they've been decreasing for decades, and freedom, including freedom of choice, is a pipe dream when you haven't got the means.

 

[tentales]

I'm speaking for you, me, any registered users of this forum, and the billions of people worldwide using the internet every day. You don't own a single post you make using this software, MacRumors does. You can't delete your account. You signed a lengthy TOS to even get here, gave up your e-mail, etc. Not just a forum - Twitter, Photobucket, Facebook, Instagram, basically any app requiring an account. And all the ones you can just link with Facebook, or some other means of social media? Now they already know who you are.

If en masse people cared about privacy...we wouldn't have what we have today, companies generating billions of dollars just on our data alone.

There's a difference between caring about privacy and being clueless about the consequences of malicious intent to exploit the lack thereof. Ask those people that have lost their job, their partner or their money after saying something inappropriate on fb or getting caught out or scammed. As the collateral damage circle grows, more and more people will reduce their participation or get off of social media. At the very least VPNs and throwaway email addresses are a start to limit your exposure.

 

[casperes1996]

That's overly simplistic. People buy non-ecological things partly because they're not aware that they're doing it. To most people, GMO bananas are bananas, and "organic" bananas are some newfangled, new-age thing. They've been lied to so effectively for so long, that it would take a huge marketing effort to correct the lies.

Another important reason they buy these items is that they have little choice. Organic food isn't expensive, but GMO food is cheap, and people make less money than they used to. Wages aren't just flat, they've been decreasing for decades, and freedom, including freedom of choice, is a pipe dream when you haven't got the means.

But this just works to improve my point? It's still analogous to the privacy thing.
I simplified it a bit, but you're right. I just said it to prove a point.

 

[canman4PM]

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.

Exactly.