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Siri and iCloud Banned at IBM Headquarters over Security Risks
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It's important to remember that absolutely nothing in Atlas Shrugged is applicable to the real world.
Yes, Apple collects intimate information on it's users when they interact with their devices.
So does Google and Facebook and Microsoft etc. etc. (so do the telcos and ISPs)
If you have a device that interacts with a cloud / remote servers then data on you is being collects.
People should be aware of this and treat information as such.
So does Google and Facebook and Microsoft etc. etc. (so do the telcos and ISPs)
If you have a device that interacts with a cloud / remote servers then data on you is being collects.
People should be aware of this and treat information as such.
Completely agree. It is yet another example of **** up **** journalism. It is all about head lines and clicks. Apple sells plan and simple. Make a non story huge by making the fan boys all pissed off.
Come on this is SOP for a lot of company. They block a lot of things Non internal. I used to work for a company that was pretty lax with security and guess what things like dropbox were block plan and simple. Siri, iCloud ect would of been blocked as well.
What IBM did is more of the norm than the exception to the rule.
I'm expecting a story regarding how Apple engineers can't use Siri on the job too. Horror!
Personal Data Risk
on a very serious note. what are they doing with our stored info? are we being constantly being monitored? do we truly have freedom of speech?
it may seem like a simple matter but believe me our information out there for scrutiny by the FBI CIA NSA and god knows whichever agency privy to our personal life plainly putting it use sucks!!!
prisoners in our own homes is not part of the American Constitution and if this is where we have gotten to then truly this is a very sad case.
on a very serious note. what are they doing with our stored info? are we being constantly being monitored? do we truly have freedom of speech?
it may seem like a simple matter but believe me our information out there for scrutiny by the FBI CIA NSA and god knows whichever agency privy to our personal life plainly putting it use sucks!!!
prisoners in our own homes is not part of the American Constitution and if this is where we have gotten to then truly this is a very sad case.
And what exactly would IBM gain from making people question the iCloud service? Do you have any proof that IBM's motivation is what you claim it to be?
Have you thought that maybe IBM doesn't want security leaks? Imagine: You're the VP of hardware engineering and you're meeting with a component supplier to discuss manufacturing ramp-up of a new product you plan on releasing in 6 months. You use Siri to setup appointments and/or dictate a message to the supplier. Would you want this transmitted to a cloud-based server that you have no control over, especially knowing Apple's terms of service allow Apple and its business partners to use the data as they see fit?
This isn't a "Let's instill fear in the public" move by IBM; it's actually sensible on their part.
This mentality of bashing anything that could potentially be construed as anti-Apple really is pathetic.
I hold the view that pretty much everything "officially" told to you is not the whole truth, if there's any in it at all.on a very serious note. what are they doing with our stored info? are we being constantly being monitored? do we truly have freedom of speech?
it may seem like a simple matter but believe me our information out there for scrutiny by the FBI CIA NSA and god knows whichever agency privy to our personal life plainly putting it use sucks!!!
prisoners in our own homes is not part of the American Constitution and if this is where we have gotten to then truly this is a very sad case.
Are we being "watched"? Depends on what your defininition of that term is, I suppose. Are we being monitored? Without a doubt in my mind.
Have you considered that I do not care what they do behind the scenes? Obviously it is in their right to do what they need to do for security. My argument is that allowing it to be discussed in a interview is an underhanded move, especially by such a large and respected company. Simply putting the words "security," "risk," and "SIRI" together is enough to add to the growing public fear of privacy policy and Apple. It builds on public consciousness.
SIRI doesn't do anything that isn't already done by every other Internet e-mail and calendar service. It is a unfortunate but seemingly necessary aspect of the cloud.
Actually, yes, Siri does do things that aren't presently being done by other Internet e-mail and calendar service : It sends everything you tell it to Apple, regardless of if you decide to scrap it or not or if your application is local or not.
If I type a draft e-mail in my Mail.app or other e-mail client and decide to not send it, nothing was sent over to the Internet, this can be done offline, analysed offline for privacy/security issues and discarded or sent afterwards. If I enter some calendar appointment in my calendering software locally, it stays local on my device.
With Siri, once you said it, it's in the Cloud.
But really, there was no underhanded move in discussing this in an interview. People need to be made aware that Siri, even if used for offline purposes like setting Reminders or Calendar appointements in local applications, will send things to Apple.
Did you even RTFA?!?! IBM's CIO isn't even quoted as putting those words ("security", "risk", and "SIRI") together in any given sentence. And do you have ANY reference that you can cite that IBM's intention was to be underhanded? If you read the article, you'll note that Ms. Horan has banned other technologies/apps as well, like Dropbox and public mail services.
The article isn't a blast against Siri; it's about the risks that a company should consider when they institute an open technology policy (such as allowing employees to use their own devices).
At least read the article before jumping to conclusions and posting your hate.
First, I am comparing SIRI to other online services, not local services. But even keeping a physical notepad is not 100% secure. Ever heard of the term "digging through trash"? It used to be a big deal, that's why shredders were invented. The best way to store information securely is to memorize it. But that's not my point.
The point is, every online service stores information onto a remote server and to protect themselves, every company uses the language that Apple is using to give themselves breathing room to manipulate data and transfer data to multiple sites for storage. Hell, read the MacRumors EULA. It has very similar language regarding forum posts.
No one needs to be aware of IBM's practice. First, it's not their job to inform us, and second, they are hardly an unbiased source to tell consumers what is and what isn't secure. If you notice, the article states that another organization has already released a report "to make people aware." Hence, why I feel that this is an underhanded move by IBM.
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Perhaps you should take a closer look at what I said and grab a dictionary while you are at it.
#1 - I am questioning the companies motive and stated an opinion, not a conclusion.
#2 - As I stated in my post, I believe IBM to be a respected company, but that I consider this action to be underhanded. That's not hate, that's called disappointment.
Then that's your mistake. Siri uses Apple's server even when only using it for local applications like calendering, note taking, dialing, music and reminders.
Siri is more than other online services. Even for local functions, it will transmit anything you input into it to Apple.
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The company's motive is simple : Not transmitting their internal data to Apple. Everything passed through Siri is sent to Apple. Hence, Siri is not allowed to be used by employees in their work.
How is it underhanded to enforce company policy as far as trade secrets go ?
There is no big anti-Apple conspiracy here. IBM is in their right to not use a service which transmits everything to Apple.
I believe this much overblown story is being taken out of context, and possibly a complete misquote. IBM expressly forbids using ANY public cloud based service for company work, so this has nothing to do with Apple. Unless there has been a change in policy, the only forbidden use of Siri is from the lock screen before you've typed in your password. It is possible that the CIO is planning a policy change, but I'd be surprised.
IBM has a leading edge BYOD policy that is a model for other companies. Striking the right balance between personal and business use is always a challenge, but I've happily used my Mac and iPhone for years when neither are "official" company platforms. Most company's IT departments would never allow this type of thing. When an employee is permitted to connect their personally owned device to the company network, that comes with some limitations and constraints that provide a layer of data security to the company.
I hope with this attention it will cause Apple to realize they need to better support the enterprise in iOS. RIM has set the standard here with their new OS, in providing a walled off area for protected enterprise functions, while allowing consumer activities outside the box. I would like to see in iOS, this type of thing. There is no reason that you should have to enter a hard password to get to games, music, GPS, phone, and internet browsing. But to access VPN, company email/calendar/contacts, and selected other business apps, there should be the correct authentication and time out controlled by company policy. It would see that this could easily be built into iOS and I think would really give Apple the upper hand in enterprise acceptance.
IBM has a leading edge BYOD policy that is a model for other companies. Striking the right balance between personal and business use is always a challenge, but I've happily used my Mac and iPhone for years when neither are "official" company platforms. Most company's IT departments would never allow this type of thing. When an employee is permitted to connect their personally owned device to the company network, that comes with some limitations and constraints that provide a layer of data security to the company.
I hope with this attention it will cause Apple to realize they need to better support the enterprise in iOS. RIM has set the standard here with their new OS, in providing a walled off area for protected enterprise functions, while allowing consumer activities outside the box. I would like to see in iOS, this type of thing. There is no reason that you should have to enter a hard password to get to games, music, GPS, phone, and internet browsing. But to access VPN, company email/calendar/contacts, and selected other business apps, there should be the correct authentication and time out controlled by company policy. It would see that this could easily be built into iOS and I think would really give Apple the upper hand in enterprise acceptance.
Wrong... the quote from Ms. Horan concerns IBM itself. You took the comment out of context. The article states:
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"We found a tremendous lack of awareness as to what constitutes a risk," says Horan. So now, she says, "we're trying to make people aware."
Horan isn't only trying to educate IBM workers about computer security. She's also enforcing better security.
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It's obvious she's trying to make IBM employees aware of the security risks with using various technologies/products/apps. She isn't singling out Siri/Apple in some sort of conspiracy to undermine Apple in an underhanded way.
You're questioning IBM's motives because, like many other companies, it has security policies that prohibits its employees from accessing certain technologies? Again, read the article carefully... this isn't an attack against Siri (in fact, Siri is only mentioned once, amongst a list of other products/apps). Feel free to provide some proof that this is just about Apple and Siri...or feel free to read the article.
I'm starting to think you haven't read it... The only other service directly named on the ban list is Dropbox. Seeing how it is linked to Tech Review and MIT, it is not very surprising she would mention it or that Tech Review would press her for information regarding its status.
Let me spell it clearly for you since you obviously need a step-by-step critical reading analysis to understand why I believe IBM is out of line here. My problem starts and ends here (about 6 paragraphs up from the bottom of http://www.technologyreview.com/business/40324/):
"The IT crew also disables public file-transfer programs like Apple's iCloud; instead, employees use an IBM-hosted version called MyMobileHub. IBM even turns off Siri, the voice-activated personal assistant, on employees' iPhones. The company worries that the spoken queries might be stored somewhere."
1) Do a Google search for news pieces building off this article, these two sentences are the highlights for most. As I said earlier, just mentioning these words are enough to add to the public consciousness.
2) You could remove these two sentences and not affect the story what so ever.
3) Not only does it say that Apple's iCloud service is inadequate for their use, they state an in-house version as being the supported version. Why not simply say we no longer allow Apple's iCloud service?
4) They take it a step further by also specifically calling out Siri.
5) A company like IBM does not "worry" about things. They analyze and make a decision. Stating that they worry about the spoken queries being stored elsewhere (as if they didn't already know that -- Wired was quick to point out that the information is indeed stored), further causes me to question their motive.
You've never spoken to an enterprise security architect and it shows. Those guys are more paranoid than the tin-foil hat crowd.
You are mistaken. Local applications like calendaring, note taking, dialing, music, and reminders are all part of iCloud and stored regardless of how you use Siri.
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You fail to get the point. The context of "worry" in the article means to "not know for certain." I call Bulls**t on that, especially when its clear that information IS stored.
("SecurIty", "RIsk", and "SIRI")
Im guessing it also picks up and sends background noise and conversation snippets from people nearby when being used as well??
It would make the ideal corporate spy if you could search siri data with a specific location
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Excellent point, it's most likely something Apple just doesn't care about. They're too caught up in their own self perceived superiority.
You have to pick out what are quotes and what are obviously words from the specific reporter.
It sounds like IBM might've showed him a list of banned sites and apps.
However, it's very likely that the reporter only mentioned items that made personal sense to him and/or that he thought others would be interested in. In other words, iPhone related stuff.
Hahah...you do realize that the snippet you quoted came from the reporter and is NOT a direct quote from Ms. Horan (as pointed out by kdarling), right? So if you want to claim: Technology Review has it out for Apple and are trying to instill fear...then yes, maybe I can see your point. But your original stance that IBM is being underhanded in an attempt to unjustifiably alarm the public about Apple and Siri...well, that stance has no basis. Again, cite us some references that IBM is doing this as a direct attack pointed solely at Apple.
And saying that a company doesn't "worry" about things proves you're not too in-tune with how businesses are run. People are paid to think of risks, and then paid to analyze those risks, make them visible, and mitigate against them. Isn't the act of thinking about risks (prior to an in-depth analysis) the act of worrying?
Uh ? None of that crap uses iCloud. I don't use iCloud (not subscribed or even registered) and I use all of those.
You're just making stuff up. Dialing especially... what the heck ?
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So you admit IBM's worries are legitimate since you state yourself that Apple probably stores all of the Siri input. Gotcha, nothing underhanded to their policy then.