Apple Discusses iOS Privacy Issues Before Congress

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier today, Apple's VP of software technology, Guy L. 'Bud' Tribble appeared before a congressional hearing on mobile privacy to address concerns that were first brought to the forefront following the 'location tracking' controversy that emerged a few weeks ago."

Comments

NoooooO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Business: "Blah balh balh baahh ab;lhnz'l;kcj[a'j hatever ..."

Congress: " Well balhh abllhaofha;fh;adh;afh"

business: No sir because: "alfja;dfhadf;af;a"

Congress: "You're right. here's some laws that benefit you!"

End of story.

Just Like Hearings About The Economic Collapse

[crow_t_robot]

Considering that the hearings about the economic collapse didn't result in any jail time or even any fines for the perpetrators, Tribble should just show up in flip-flops and a t-shirt while drunk and say "What's up, sluts? I hope this isn't going to take very long....yea, we violate privacy but considering you didn't do anything about Wall Street execs that literally raped this country out of trillions of dollars I'm sure as shit you are going to get off your fat asses for some lousy cellphone privacy issues! Peace out, bitches, catch you on the flippity flop!"

Re:Just Like Hearings About The Economic Collapse

[geminidomino]

Wall Street execs that literally raped this country out of trillions of dollars

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Just Like Hearings About The Economic Collapse

[LordLucless]

So "literal" now means "not literal". Now I'm just hanging out for "true" being an informal use of "false" so we can discard useful communication altogether. Reminds me why I speak English and not American.

Re:while Apple deserves blame...

[thetartanavenger]

While Apple certainly deserves a lot of blame, so do all the people who purchased their products. It has been clear for ages that their model is one of lockdown and control. If you support that kind of thing financially, you bear some of the responsibility for the direction that our society seems to be going: erosion of personal ownership and transfer of control to multinational corporations.

Those purchasing deserve blame for what exactly. Yes they lock down their devices, so what. Some people want that, others don't which is why we have competition and alternatives like Android. When Apple crossed a line with personal privacy people stood up and complained and it was resolved. Yes there should be more protections in place to prevent this kind of incident, but those purchasing clearly didn't like what happened and Apple was put in its place. If they didn't, /then/ go ahead and transfer the blame, but until then all the consumers have done is purchase a device in a safe ecosystem that they can't break. If you don't like the restrictions then don't buy it..

Apple AND Google Discuss Privacy Before Congress

[Cogneato]

Is there any chance at all that Slashdot might make a tiny amount of effort to report about Apple and Google in the same tone when they are sitting side by side talking about essentially the exact same stuff?

When you present a story like this in such an slanted way, it begins to reek of the technics used by right-wing radio hosts about stuff they consider liberal. There are plenty of legitimate things to criticize Apple for, that you don't have to reconstruct reality to create new ones.

Re:How it went...

[DJRumpy]

If you had read the article, you would know that the info Apple stores relates to cell tower locations, and wifi hotspots. No identifying information is sent to Apple at all, and they would have no way of identifying you even if approached by the FBI. They would have to get their hands on your phone, which within a few days, already had a fix to remove the cache after a few days, and you can permanently delete it just by turning off the location services.

If it got to the point where warrants were issued, they could easily collect device specific info from the Cell providers. Apple's data didn't even have device specific identifiers.

Google on the other hand started talking about 'Openess' and finding 'balance', when their response was anything but. They basically stated that they weren't responsible for how the app's handled location data and that it was up to the app developers to be responsible. Of the two, I think Apples response was appropriate, both in patching the bug in the OS, and in anonymizing the data they do collect to begin with.

From TFA:

Subsequently, a notable exchange between Google rep Alan Davidson. Trying to dance around how Google handles location settings in Android, Davidson explained:
We’re trying to increase openness, but it’s not no-holds-barred. We do have a content policy in our market. We don’t go after trucking companies for carrying faulty goods, you go after the manufacturer. There’s a balance.
Not buying it, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse fired back:
You do go after the trucking company if they know what they’re carrying. Google’s in a better position to know what’s going on than a seventeen year old that wants to try a cool app. I don’t think that’s a comfortable analogy for you to rely on.

This kind of response from Microsoft or Apple would never be tolerated on slashdot. This thread just seems to be glossing over Google's response. The proper response from both companies is to work to provide better protections. Apple has already taken those steps within a few days of the bug being reported. Google just sidestepped the question with no commitment to finding a better approach.

Disappointing.

Re:Trouble with Tribble

[Angostura]

You know what, the hard disk in this PC I'm using records *every piece* of personal data that I produce on it, documents, spreadsheets - the lot. It even records some passwords. That's bad right? As far as I know, the data isn't being sent to HP, but do you think I should format the drive every day?

Re:while Apple deserves blame...

[Fahrvergnuugen]

Locked into what, exactly?

I keep hearing everyone throw out there that iOS locks you in, but I am failing to see how this is true. All of the content on my iPhone (besides the apps) will work on any device because they're JPGs, MP3s, M4As, etc. Apps aren't portable on any platform (besides Java, and I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as a good cross platform Java app).