iCloud Was Storing Deleted Safari Browser History for Months, but Apple Fixed the Issue

[steve333]

Apple tries to force people to use icloud, then when you try to turn it off it says that files on your computer will be deleted.
Why?
Why can't iCloud just be turned off without it affecting files stored already on your computer? I don't get this.
Right now iCloud is not signing in because they want me to update my password. I'm basically not doing it but everytime I start my computer I have to click 'later' when it prompts me to go to iCloud settings.
Very frustrating

 

[moonjelly]

so someone is going to see all my youp()rn links?

BTW if google did this some of you guys would have an uproar but if it's apple - well whatevers right?!

Wha...? Is that satire? You realize Google's primary line of business is that they DO collect every bit of data on us imaginable and store it forever? [Then sell it.]<--Editing this to more clearly reflect that they plumb this data for advertising profiles and other research, while reserving the right to sell their information (about you) directly.

Search history, browsing history, where you physically go [maps], your social circle, your family circle, your demographics [age, race, sex, income bracket, geographical location, who owns your address, where you work etc.] What genres of media do you watch, who calls you [google call forwarding], who is in your pictures [google photos]. How do your patterns differ now from 5 years ago. They even have a sister company that is building a genetic profile on everyone indirectly and directly so they can sell your health risk info to insurance and target you with custom pharmaceutical advertising.

Did you think all their free services were free?

Lest you think this is tin foil hat territory. Here is a link to a respected science journal. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...fying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/

 

[crescentmoon]

Wha...? Is that satire? You realize Google's primary line of business is that they DO collect every bit of data on us imaginable and store it forever? Then sell it.

Search history, browsing history, where you physically go [maps], your social circle, your family circle, your demographics [age, race, sex, income bracket, geographical location, who owns your address, where you work etc.] What genres of media do you watch, who calls you [google call forwarding], who is in your pictures [google photos]. How do your patterns differ now from 5 years ago. They even have a sister company that is building a genetic profile on everyone indirectly and directly so they can sell your health risk info to insurance and targeted you with custom pharmaceutical advertising.

Did you think all their free services were free?

Lest you think this is tin foil hat territory. Here is a link to a respected science journal. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...fying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/

Privacy is a thing of past..... I have never liked safari and use firefox and tor.

 

[Jyby]

Science Rules!

 

[meaning-matters]

Next thing to fix on Mobile Safari are ghost/launch image of last page visited, after clearing today's history.

 

[pat500000]

Holy ****. Time to destroy cloud crap.

 

[2128506]

"Cloud" is just another person's computer. ©

 

[Alenore]

Wha...? Is that satire? You realize Google's primary line of business is that they DO collect every bit of data on us imaginable and store it forever? Then sell it.

Search history, browsing history, where you physically go [maps], your social circle, your family circle, your demographics [age, race, sex, income bracket, geographical location, who owns your address, where you work etc.] What genres of media do you watch, who calls you [google call forwarding], who is in your pictures [google photos]. How do your patterns differ now from 5 years ago. They even have a sister company that is building a genetic profile on everyone indirectly and directly so they can sell your health risk info to insurance and target you with custom pharmaceutical advertising.

Did you think all their free services were free?

Lest you think this is tin foil hat territory. Here is a link to a respected science journal. https://www.scientificamerican.com/...fying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/

They don't sell YOUR datas. They sell datas collected, among other channels, from you.
They then build a profile for "you", and sell to advertisers ads space targeting different profiles, which might be (or not) related to you, among other kind of service.

At no point do they sell a file containing your email address or name or any other cleartext information about you, or what you did.
doing so would simply spell they doom, both legally and economically : their database and their profiling technologies are what they make a living of.

Please stop spreading FUD about what Google does or not, as you clearly have no idea how they monetize ANY of their service.

 

[2128506]

They don't sell YOUR datas. They sell datas collected, among other channels, from you.
They then build a profile for "you", and sell to advertisers ads space targeting different profiles, which might be (or not) related to you, among other kind of service.

At no point do they sell a file containing your email address or name or any other cleartext information about you, or what you did.
doing so would simply spell they doom, both legally and economically : their database and their profiling technologies are what they make a living of.

Please stop spreading FUD about what Google does or not, as you clearly have no idea how they monetize ANY of their service.

That is true, they don't sell you data. They give it to governments for free.

 

[sudo1996]

Chrome lets you encrypt the synced data with a separate password so that Google, or anybody who subpoenas Google, never sees your history/tabs. No such feature for iCloud. These days, Apple just talks security without being able to execute on it.

This feature is meaningless. How do you know Google doesn't just store your encryption key and use it to see your data? Anybody who truly cares about security can't be using a client that manages keys by itself; even worse, it's closed-source. Edit: Actually would be fine if it were open-source, but it's not.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

People have choices.

Cloud sync of data among devices can be very useful. If a user depends on the cloud, then the cloud service provider had better provide reliability - no premature/accidental/non-recoverable deletion by the service. And many users appreciate an undelete/data recovery function to save themselves from their own errors. I think Apple's motivation in this particular case was reliability-based. Others are free to believe in the "nefarious government plot" scenario. We have no proof to back up either belief.

Any kind of data storage (local or cloud) exposes that data to risk of exposure. That's the principle behind Private Browsing (where no history is maintained). Browsing "publicly" and then going back to try to cover your tracks carries greater risks. If privacy is important to you, use the right tool!

There's something to be said for greater granularity of settings (say, separate settings for syncing of bookmarks and history), but the more complex settings become, the harder it is for any but the most knowledgable to set them correctly. It's really not that hard to end up with a situation where a person gets just the opposite of what they set out to accomplice. I'd go for "straightforward" here: Either you want cloud syncing of your browser activity, or you don't. Private Browsing activity never hits the cloud, period (which is the way it works now).

 

[coolbreeze]

I thought Apple was the pinnacle of user privacy and Google was the devil.

Oh.

 

[Cineplex]

I thought Apple and Tim Cook righting on his white horse of social justice was supposed to be your privacy warrior. Seems like he's just another douche running a greedy corporation. BIG SHOCK!

 

[sudo1996]

Privacy is a thing of past..... I have never liked safari and use firefox and tor.

So it's not a thing of the past, provided you're very careful about what you use. Also, in the past (thinking 2000s), nobody paid as much attention to security, and everything was super hackable, so it really was worse back then.

 

[C DM]

But don't you use Safari?

But what this article talks about doesn't really apply if the Safari sync aspect of iCloud isn't enabled, right?

 

[sudo1996]

Apple tries to force people to use icloud, then when you try to turn it off it says that files on your computer will be deleted.
Why?
Why can't iCloud just be turned off without it affecting files stored already on your computer? I don't get this.
Right now iCloud is not signing in because they want me to update my password. I'm basically not doing it but everytime I start my computer I have to click 'later' when it prompts me to go to iCloud settings.
Very frustrating

Yeah, file management with iCloud is ridiculous. I'd see the file deletion warning, back everything up, then disable it. I use git instead. I only use iCloud for browser history, email, and calendar, for which it works nicely and seamlessly.

 

[Populism]

You're deleting it wrong.

 

[KJL3000]

Not good.

 

[joueboy]

If you think Apple is not mining our data you're all wrong. It's not as creepy as Google and I trust them more than any other tech company. Mostly for in-house development to improve their services. Unlike Google or Facebook their selling your data to their customers.

 

[bstpierre]

You guys read this part, right?

"Even before Apple made the server-side fix to make sure deleted browsing history is permanently removed in a timely manner, it was difficult to get ahold of the information. Forensic software like Phone Breaker was required, which doesn't come cheap, and Phone Breaker only works with a user's Apple ID and password, or an authentication token pulled from a user's computer."

It isn't like Forbes pulled 7000 of someone else's deleted records. It was 7000 of their own deleted records.

 

[sudo1996]

If you think Apple is not mining our data you're all wrong. It's not as creepy as Google and I trust them more than any other tech company. Mostly for in-house development to improve their services. Unlike Google or Facebook their selling your data to their customers.

The only evidence I've ever seen of Apple mining data was when an iMessage spokesman, explaining why they won't port it to other OSs, said at some point that they already have enough data for any potential AI projects. So much for end-to-end encryption.
[doublepost=1486676919][/doublepost]

It isn't like Forbes pulled 7000 of someone else's deleted records. It was 7000 of their own deleted records.

Yes. Nobody said others can take your records. They're concerned about Apple having access to the records.

 

[MuseumVisitor]

God only knows what else they are keeping on those Clouds. Probably once the round pentagon is finished all the data will be filed under our bios and dna (although those who left more traces of data will be better recreated in the future). Apple is political party, they do not care about business part anymore. I feel scared and concerned for my beloved, good old Apple. I long for the days when we had 3% of the pc market. Except for my emails, I put nothing on anyones' server, no clouds, no boxes for me.

 

[tkatz]

I can imagine the same lengthy defence/explanation/riposte/excuse if it were Google………...

If your imagining it would be the same response, with exception of "Google" instead of "Apple", then you'd be correct, because it would be. I'm not defending anything nor granting a pass if my thought of what might have happened was indeed the case.
[doublepost=1486677299][/doublepost]

LET ME TILT AT MY WINDMILLS!

Sorry!

 

[moonjelly]

They don't sell YOUR datas. They sell datas collected, among other channels, from you.
They then build a profile for "you", and sell to advertisers ads space targeting different profiles, which might be (or not) related to you, among other kind of service.

At no point do they sell a file containing your email address or name or any other cleartext information about you, or what you did.
doing so would simply spell they doom, both legally and economically : their database and their profiling technologies are what they make a living of.

Please stop spreading FUD about what Google does or not, as you clearly have no idea how they monetize ANY of their service.

Of course they do not sell their proprietary data. That would be selling the cow instead of the milk. They are the intermediary. But hey its not just Google. That is what your club cards are for too. These companies do reserve their right to sell their data [about you] to other entities. Read the fine print. And read the article linked previously about 23 and me.

They absolutely do collect a creepy amount of information tied to your real identity. Technically much of the information is stored in non-relational, big data, databases. The real technology in big data is the proprietary algorithms that can relate the information between identities and other data. Yes, they use it to sell profiles for marketing and other research in other spaces.

They can and do tie those advertising profiles back to a list of devices and real identities for targeted advertising. They route Hawaiian vacation ads to websites you happen to be visiting, after you browse an article about Hawaii, even on other devices.

If the general public ever saw what they could provide about an individual if they ever chose to, that would be their doom. But its all too abstract for most people to really care.

 

[Yojimbo007]

And how do we know its been corrected?/