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Apple's Tim Cook Makes Blistering Attack on the 'Data Industrial Complex' (techcrunch.com)
Apple's CEO Tim Cook has joined the chorus of voices warning that data itself is being weaponized against people and societies -- arguing that the trade in digital data has exploded into a "data industrial complex." From a report: Cook did not namecheck the adtech elephants in the room: Google, Facebook and other background data brokers that profit from privacy-hostile business models. But his target was clear. "Our own information -- from the everyday to the deeply personal -- is being weaponized against us with military efficiency," warned Cook. "These scraps of data, each one harmless enough on its own, are carefully assembled, synthesized, traded and sold. Taken to the extreme this process creates an enduring digital profile and lets companies know you better than you may know yourself. Your profile is a bunch of algorithms that serve up increasingly extreme content, pounding our harmless preferences into harm. We shouldn't sugarcoat the consequences. This is surveillance," he added. In a series of tweets, Cook added: It was an honor to be invited to ICDPPC 2018 in Brussels this morning. I'd like to share a bit of what I said to this gathering of privacy regulators from around the world. It all boils down to a fundamental question: What kind of world do we want to live in? GDPR has shown us all that good policy and political will can come together to protect the rights of everyone. We believe that privacy is a fundamental human right. No matter what country you live in, that right should be protected in keeping with four essential principles.
First, companies should challenge themselves to de-identify customer data or not collect that data in the first place. Second, users should always know what data is being collected from them and what it's being collected for. This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn't. Anything less is a sham. Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users and we should make it easy for people to get a copy of their personal data, as well as correct and delete it. And fourth, everyone has a right to the security of their data. Security is at the heart of all data privacy and privacy rights. Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn't want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. That part takes all of us. We are optimistic about technology's awesome potential for good -- but we know that it won't happen on its own.
First, companies should challenge themselves to de-identify customer data or not collect that data in the first place. Second, users should always know what data is being collected from them and what it's being collected for. This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn't. Anything less is a sham. Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users and we should make it easy for people to get a copy of their personal data, as well as correct and delete it. And fourth, everyone has a right to the security of their data. Security is at the heart of all data privacy and privacy rights. Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn't want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. That part takes all of us. We are optimistic about technology's awesome potential for good -- but we know that it won't happen on its own.
I like this attitude, at this rate my next phone my be an iPhone. At least they do more than lip service for this sort of thing.
Like every other consumer device.
It is not possible to securely use any modern computer.
That changes nothing. He didn't call out any specific companies. People WANT their data mined and in order to be profitable you have to give people what they want. Sounds like he wishes people would wake up so everyone could do work for good.
Shorter Tim Cook "You can trust us, but don't trust our competitors."
Not a shocking position for a CEO to take I suppose.
No. Fishing expeditions for 'social' crimes, YES.
No, they do nothing more than lip service. Apple is blatantly providing data to the Chinese government; the iPhone has been allowed to succeed there. Apple isn't "selling your data" ... it's much to precious to sell. They're leasing you to the advertisers instead. Remember, Apple's walled garden isn't to protect you, it's to cage you.
Facebook already has a database on trannies to hand over the government as soon as the legislation is signed.
Unlike Google and Facebook, Apple does have real products.
With Google and Facebook, YOU are the product. And Google and Facebook and Twitter will go all Miracle Max on the all-dead corpse of your privacy looking for loose change.
STOP ALLOWING DATA MINING COMPANIES TO PUT APPS ON YOUR PLATFORMS. PERIOD.
ANY company that collects or offers to store your data is a potential harvester and security risk of that data and any tangential connection that could be made to that data.
Maybe.
Cook is still full of sanctimonious shyte.
Dreamer. Personally, I'm ready to throw my phone away and be done with it for good.
This has got to be the joke of the century! Tim Cook is so insanely great.
Microsoft's job: proletariat surveillance.
Apples job: bourgeois surveillance.
Googles job: everyone surveillance.
Facebook: propaganda
Twitter: propaganda
Amazon: surveillance storage and retrieval.
and the list goes on.
Apple loves to control what its users do with its products, but the moment there is something like data that it can't control, they complain? I know that people love to hate various companies, from Microsoft to Facebook to Google, but NONE of them are as bad as Apple when it comes to trying to control the users.
Apple is the only one taking privacy at all seriously.
Even for determining how to make Maps better, Apple has said they don't sample whole routes, just fragments of routes to see how Maps is performing...
They also do things like keep Face and Touch ID all local on the device, nothing goes to Apple.
So once again, just what do you claim they are mining?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah he's just mad Apple's not a part of it. At the end of they day the data is where the money is and Apple's devices are just windows to data (Well, services. Services are just applied data).
Some tech economists crunched numbers and figured out that if you tried to self-host all of the services Google provides you for free, it would cost about 20K/yr
Google is pretty much giving you 20k in services in exchange for slurping data off of your online activities and showing you ads and that gives you an idea about the money at stake here.
Says the CEO of a company that bends over backwards to help a communist government to suppress its people so they can make a better profit.
10 Troll posts . . . that have no clue.
1) At very least, Apple is beating the drum, everyone else is saying don't worry
2) Apple has gone on record FOR protecting users, putting themselves in a spot where, if it's ever found out that they're lying, NO one will trust them
3) The comment about China? Let's see some sources that say what's provided to the government, and whether it's the carriers or Apple; don't forget, the biggest provider is owned by the government . . .
Get out of your basements, get some sun, it's 2018
No, Tim Cook just wants everyone to be locked into an Apple controlled environment, and other big businesses being out there stops him from being the one in charge of what they see, don't see, what programs/apps they can use, etc.
It's been pretty clear for a while that Apple's privacy stance is for two purposes: marketing, and also marketing.
The first marketing is simply that "privacy" is "in" right now, so they're trying to market themselves as "the privacy company." The second marketing is to try and explain away why their "smart" features are so bad: it's not that Apple is a bad software company that can't program something as simple a watch that doesn't enter a reboot loop when DST starts, it's that they're "respecting your privacy" and that's why their recommendations are terrible and their speech recognition doesn't work.
But as anyone who's bothered checking the data that Apple collects on them can attest, they gather the same data Google does, as best as they can. Their privacy stance is a smokescreen, for one purpose: marketing.
Dear Tim,
While I appreciate your pro-privacy stance in the face of an ocean of tech companies who disagree with you, I unfortunately think of this quote:
"As long as people make money from war, there will always be war."
Just replace "war" with "data mining of your personal life". The point is, it's easy to say war is bad. It's hard to end war, when people are making so much money from it.
While we obviously can't know for sure, there so far hasn't been any evidence that Apple does this. They do collect data with respect to services that they specifically provide that requires them to use such data (eg: Siri, maps, etc) but I've read past reports from people who have wiresharked the traffic coming out of their iDevices and Apple was true to their word. iDevices did not send unnecessary data to Apple.
Nor is there evidence that they buy up data from elsewhere like Facebook or Google does.
They have positioned themselves as data privacy champions. If they were exposed as data miners of the likes of Google or Facebook, don't you think that exposing that hypocrisy would be massive news? I know I haven't seen any such news yet. Please feel free to link such news stories in case I simply missed them.
They're leasing you to the advertisers instead.
What exactly does that mean? It sounds great but what are you thinking is happening - if there's no transfer of data from Apple to advertisers, then how can you claim anything like "leasing" is occurring, which is just another form of buying... leasing is just another form of buying.
Remember, Apple's walled garden isn't to protect you, it's to cage you.
What are the reasons divers use shark cages I wonder.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I tried using DuckDuckGo for a while since it doesn't track me like Google does, omg, it's fucking impossible to find anything with that damn thing. If I search for something, I expect the result to be a website in my own country or even a website targeting people in my city and my group of interests specifically. Not a website on the other side of the world. I love the fact that Google knows what language I develop in when I search for a function. Any language could have the same function, but Google always shows me exactly what i'm looking for without extra effort. And I love targeting. Do you want to watch ads for tampons if you're a male? Or do you want to quickly find out about a cool new game similar to another one you might be interested in? Oh man, I couldn't function in society were it not for tracking... besides, before Google, "in the good old days" all your neighborhood stores "tracked" your grandparents... the grocer knew what to keep in stock for them, and it was good. It was called personal service, and was desireable. Would people quit getting their panties in a knot because of automated statistics? Nobody gives a fuck what type of porn you watch...
It is surveillance, plan and simple, just as he says.
Tim Cook, however, represents the same type of corporation as the ones he critizies. I suspect that he maybe would like to know everything about Apples' customers, too. And the potential Apple customers. And control their behaviour to purchase more Apple products and services. It is hard to distinguish any ernest concern for a surveillance society, from being upset for not having competitive technology in this field.
Data collection has come to be the new level of expectation for businesses. I saw Dragon's Den the other day, where some app developers, however brilliant in marketing and technology, were flamed for not collecting and monetizing on the user data.
It is ironic how the society that led the world in the fight against oppression and for freedom, now leads the world into a world of digital slavery...
doesn't matter what he wants. his point is still valid. quit trying to distract from the subject.
lots of that going on in this thread. sheesh. et tu, Slashdot?
At the end of they day the data is where the money is
How can you say that when Apple is the living proof that statement is wrong? Or at best partially correct.
Oh there is money in data to be sure. But that is not where even MOST of the money is. Apple has managed to amass more money than any other company with a philosophy of not selling data on customers, period.
Obviously it is possible to make money via a different path than selling data.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If you think it's just about ads I have some beach property for sale in Arizona.. The very act of ranking and choosing what people see when they search is manipulative. Doesn't anyone remember the California republican parties main ideology is Nazism? God you guys are sleeping with your heads in the sand. So much so that when someone tries to educate you about it you just balk and say 'well you're just jealous'?
Really?
If he can't be truthful about something this obvious, how can anyone trust his evaluation of Apple's supply chain security.
I think you forgot to make your hat shiny side out buddy.
WOW, I didn't expect all of this bullshit comments on slashdot.
What is it with corporations and their leadership these days? They criticize others about the behaviors they themselves engage in.
They have positioned themselves as data privacy champions.* If they were exposed as data miners of the likes of Google or Facebook, don't you think that exposing that hypocrisy would be massive news? I know I haven't seen any such news yet. Please feel free to link such news stories in case I simply missed them.
*Offer not good in the People's Republic of China.
This is the only way to empower users to decide what collection is legitimate and what isn't.
You CAN`T "empowers users", because the stupidity of users knows no bounds. It expands as far as it must in order that they will dis-empower themselves.
I'm getting tired of people saying "[Noun] Industrial Complex" without apparently understanding the meaning of the original Military-Industrial Complex. That original phrase meant that the Military and Industry were in a Complicated relationship with each other. It's not talking about an "Industrial Complex" (whatever that is) run by or about the Military.
"Data Industrial Complex" implies that there's something separate from Industry called Data, and that Data and Industry are in a Complicated relationship with each other. That does not seem to be the the way it's used, though.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Apple could help enhance privacy for everybody : just make an iMessage client for Android and Windows. I am tired of relying on WhatsApp just because it is the greatest common denominator.
Third, companies should recognize that data belongs to users
This is the fundamental issue, and we went the wrong way back in the 1980's when companies starting building computer databases. Your electric bill and phone bill should be your data. Your bank account transactions should be your data. But we went the wrong way and decided that your bank account information really belongs to your bank, and they just license you to access it. Wrong wrong wrong, and it's going to be a really difficult slope to go back and fix that.
That sounds like China's problem to me, and doesn't negate the fact that Apple might be a better choice for pricacy-conscious people in much of the rest of the world.
It's so cool he says that given that Apple boasts the biggest margins in the industry only rivaled by the sellers of drugs and weapons.
And also, what's their fee on purchases in App Store? Something close to 30%? I would love to have a business like that.
I'm not downplaying his concerns about data mining but you cannot expect Facebook (LinkedIn/Twitter/Google/etc.) to offer their services completely for free - they want something in return and it's your data which you part with. Meanwhile you are free not to use Facebook ever or use it without giving FB any of your information.
If you're really paranoid and value your privacy, you don't have a smartphone. You don't use the Internet. You don't visit public places (CCTV everywhere). You don't fly. You may as well don't exist at all nowadays: if it's not for these large companies (your data-leaking friends have enough data on you anyways) then the government will keep tabs on you until you die.
Names and addresses of people who "WANT their data mined"
No people do not want their data mined. They don't want their data collected period. Point of fact, nobody asked them in the first place.
Moron.
Google, Facebook and other background data brokers that profit from privacy-hostile business models
It's worth noting that Apple sells thick-client product that are deeply threatened by thin-client cloud-based solutions like the products Google is selling. When you can buy a Chromebook for $250 that lasts for a decade, convincing people to drop $2000 on a Macbook becomes a much harder sell.
If you're Cook, your primary way to attack this market erosion is to seed doubt about data in the cloud.
What data needs to be"wire sharked" (also, why aren't they using encryption?)?
Tracking services need what you visit (in reality, on the web and app) and where you are.
They already have all that information:
- gps: sent under the guise of maintaining their AGPS database (which they were caught storing a complete history)
- apps: they know which you download and use because you can't get anything off the store in an reasonable fashion.
- web: autosuggestion in the url bar already sends complete address
- contacts \ social circle: your contacts is by default uploaded to i servers.
So yeah, those wire sharkers are pretty stupid if they don't think information is sent back to Apple. Google does the same things.
Is this the power of the autism industrial complex?
What data needs to be"wire sharked" (also, why aren't they using encryption?)?
They are encrypted. Anyone who actually carefully monitors the data an iPhone sends will see it send a giant glob of encrypted data whenever the phone is charging and connected to wifi. This is presumably to avoid the power costs because Apple's phones have woefully poor battery life and to avoid being caught by people carefully monitoring mobile data usage.
But yeah, all that data is sent to Apple as part of their encrypted data bursts.
Apple supports privacy now, they're a corporation. They're a couple bad quarters away from selling your info to Advertisers same as everybody else. You're safe so long as the profits from their hardware biz are strong, but that's not the most reassuring thing in the world...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES KEN DOLL AND FOR YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY YOU DISHONEST COWARD.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Exactly. What a lying hypocritical sack of shit he is.
Pulled this one out of the classic apple book of dirty tricks. We cant beat them so lets try and be vocal and ridicule the primary revenue source of apples biggest competitors.
I am not always convinced Apple is sincere about any issue they bring up. Other then its a potential marketing angle they think is attractive. Notice that just as the privacy concerns are heightened in users minds. Apple just happens to come along and say they feel your concern. Yes, I do think there is a shred of sincerity from Tim Cook about privacy. But I also know how Apple probably thinks it can make some money from selling privacy now.
Okay. I will have to agree, but the content of his talk was spot on. Literally awesome. Thank ths stars Apple doesn't make all their money from data or no one in industry would be speaking up.
Data is better than money. It is power, from which you can generate money.
>Your profile is a bunch of algorithms that serve up increasingly extreme content,
What did he mean by this?
How is it increasingly extreme and towards which extremitie(s) based on what personal information?
They're selling ads from their servers on behalf of advertisers.
Ok... but since Apple doesn't sell ads, just WTF are you talking about?
Hence "leasing", for a lack of a better term.
Hence "wrong" because you are wrong about Apple leasing data to third parties. They don't even have data to lease!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Name Check: to mention approvingly by name
I have to say that namecheck, press-ganged into a verb, with the mainsail of semantic drift inflated to a D cup, made me throw up a little bit in my mouth.
Perhaps "blamecheck" could step into the breech, initially sounding twice as hipster refurb, though about 10% as asinine.
I can't wait until he goes after Apple for their monopoly abuse, garbage quality standards, illegal labor practices, and price fixing. Oh wait...
Which is another form of selling your information.
Which Apple does not have since they do not collect it.
Your information is being provided to another party.
To who, and what exactly do you think Apple is selling since they do not collect information from me?
What a truly precious little snowflake you are....
What an ignorant child you are...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm sure we'll take his words to heart and make some smart decisions like we did with the MIC.
And just think of the possibilities of a combo.
Peter- "Oh, wonderful, we have to get these two together."
Egon - "I think that would be extraordinarily dangerous."
Only a matter of time.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES KEN DOLL YOU DISHONEST COWARD AND YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Apple is one of the largest offenders when it comes to user data collection. You know they aren't keeping it private. It is worth too much, and is one of the main reasons Apple is worth $1T... it's not the phones. It's the data they possess about you.
Some tech economists crunched numbers and figured out that if you tried to self-host all of the services Google provides you for free, it would cost about 20K/yr .... Google is pretty much giving you 20k in services ....
Self-hosting cannot be comapred with Google hosting, as it ignores the economies of scale.
"How dare the data of my browsing habits be retained!"
You tiny peenie stalker... you're obviously deranged. Everyone can see how tiny you are in so many important places XD Each time you write it confirms what we know about you
THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES KEN DOLL YOU DISHONEST COWARD AND YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
He's just grumpy because Apple's not the only company in the game.
Those are probably the same economists that said a few decades ago that every song downloaded illegally was worth thousands of dollars.
There's no fucking way that Google's services are worth 20K per year per person.
Where is the GNAA when you need them???
Apple has a different vice: vendor lock in. That is also a user-hostile behavior. So you get to pick your poison in vendors for handset computers: one is aggressive about vendor lock in (iphone) and the other is aggressive about data collection (android). The right way forward is, as it has always been, open standards. The closest solution right now is third-party android.
I shouldn't have to use icloud as my online storage, I should be able to use any number of vendors that I can choose to trust and who are not so big that I cannot sue them if they cheat me. Or do it myself. With a server that is literally my own property. Note that this means that your idea that no "unnecessary" data is sent to apple is a polite fiction. Almost nothing that people store on icloud is "necessary" to send to apple, but they are really good at locking in their users. Also this idea that the user owns the data while someone else is holding it seems mostly inconsistent with current legal precedents, and therefore also fiction.
As pointed out in other replies, given its level of vendor lock-in, there would be trouble if Apple decided it could make even more profit by mining all that data they hold.
These pronouncements always come around the time of new iPhone sales. The Washington Post story (re: embedded Chinese chips) came out around the same time the new iPhones came out and Cook suggested a retraction - not demanded, did not sue. Everyone called it an unprecedented move by a CEO but all he did was passively suggest the story was wrong... Bottom line: he just wants to make sure the iDevices, filled to the brim with data-slurping apps and FaceID, get sold to make investors and stocks prices tingle.
Yeah he's just mad Apple's not a part of it. At the end of they day the data is where the money is and Apple's devices are just windows to data (Well, services. Services are just applied data).
I'm no fan of Apple for a lot of things, but this is just a dumb statement. Apple is literally the most valuable company on the planet as of this posting at over 925 billion dollars. That is 150 billion dollars more than the number 2 company Amazon and 175 billion over Alphabet which is arguably the largest data mining company of them all. I don't think he is mad that they are not getting much of a slice of that pie because if he were then they wouldn't be making these statements constantly and you would suddenly see lots more data collection going on from their side.
They are doing a lot of things that I dislike, but data privacy is not one of them. They could improve more for sure, but they are so far ahead of almost all the other companies it is pathetic.
Some tech economists crunched numbers and figured out that if you tried to self-host all of the services Google provides you for free, it would cost about 20K/yr
Google is pretty much giving you 20k in services in exchange for slurping data off of your online activities and showing you ads and that gives you an idea about the money at stake here.
In reply to this, I seriously scoff at that figure. Google provides a SHITLOAD of services and all, but only the most die-hard of Google fans come close to using all of them. Most of them also have alternatives available in the market that don't require you to give away your data too. That figure is highly suspect even if someone were using all their services. Maybe if you bought everything (servers, licenses to run them, etc.) and did all the work yourself it might come close, but no one is going to do that and it defeats the purpose specialist services in our economy anyway. Lets break down some of the major services Google offers, look at their costs, alternatives etc. to get a better picture:
They do have an ad platform everyone is forced to use.
Oh you mean this one?
The one that no developer was ever forced to use, and that was shut down - in part because Apple wouldn't give advertisers user data?
They do have an app that suggests what to watch.
You mean TV? That simply displays what is popular to download, based on downloads only and nothing sent to Apple from users?
The only time Apple uses data like that is ratings, where USERS CHOSE TO SEND RATINGS TO APPLE. Apple did not collect the data from the users.
You may have the last word since you know nothing about anything and reading your posts further would just be insane.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Shorter Tim Cook "You can trust us, but don't trust our competitors."
This is actually a valid point. Apple makes money selling hardware, and has no inherent need to mine data. Google and Facebook make money from targeted advertising, and data collection and mining is the core activity of their businesses.
This is interesting. Essentially, Google and Facebook monetize user data obtained via surveillance of their platform to make money. Apple and Microsoft sells hardware and software to make money. Increasingly, Microsoft is also monetizing user data obtained via surveillance, while Apple isn't. Probably this is because Apple is doing very well at making money in the way it traditionally does. This is less so for Microsoft. Hence the difference: Apple is criticizing Google and Facebook, while Microsoft is joining them. Apple sees greater upside from positioning itself as a platform that is at least nominally opposed to surveillance, than becoming such a platform itself. Hence it can point out the truth here, where its competitors would rather not.
Yes. Apple is being undercut by competitors who are willing to work for data. There are arguments to be made, but be mindful of who is making the argument in this case. Not a neutral third party. Someone whose fortune depends on you to pay more for (possibly just the illusion of) anonymity.
I would rather be Googles product then have apple hold my hardware hostage every time it needs to be repaired.
has no inherent need to mine data
Insomuch as public companies have stock holders, this is incorrect.
Looking at the comments and arguments on this topic so far, it appears that a lot of people on this board would rather cut their dicks off than admit Apple is doing something right.
Society is improved when we applaud good things and reject bad things.
No, Tim Cook just wants everyone to be locked into an Apple controlled environment, and other big businesses being out there stops him from being the one in charge of what they see, don't see, what programs/apps they can use, etc.
What twisted world view do you come from? Data privacy is data privacy, and he's all for it. Apple has yet to indicate they're doing anything other than exactly what they say with regards to data privacy. Just because you don't like the "walled garden" or have the mistaken belief that a mac doesn't allow you to run anything you want doesn't apply in any way to their stance on privacy.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
...a number of Chinese could see the advantage of owning a phone that doesn't give everything over to the Chinese government.
fix the extremely annoying bugs in iOS 12.0.1 I'm tired of my iPhone 6+ behaving as if a ghost has gone crazy hitting keys randomly, and the display jittering right and left about 1mm at about 3 or 4 jitters per second.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Don't be a DIC! AKA "data industrial complex."
Undercut in what sense? People seem to be buying Apple
Stuff at ever-increasing prices in ever-increasing numbers.
I shouldn't have to use icloud as my online storage
Is there anything forcing you to? As far as I know you can set up ownCloud and use that instead of iCloud if you want, at least for documents, photos and videos. Granted, I don't think they support contact info and such but still...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
As an American I have to ask:
Why cant I as the user being spied on get a copy of this data?
Why cant I use this data for self reflection, or actively help fix mistakes they inevitably make?
Why cant I benefit from it the same exact way the company does?
Why cant I get paid residuals somehow?
Why cant I block the company from sharing this data?
Why cant I be free?
Tim Cook should look for blisters downstairs. Apple sucks and is just as evil as Google. Nothing to see here.
Undercut in what sense?
Undercut by Android, which is nearly free. Google doesn't make money from selling Android. They make money by using it as a data collection platform.
People seem to be buying Apple Stuff at ever-increasing prices in ever-increasing numbers.
Apple's market share peaked in 2012.
The good kind of gov/mil surveillance that should never be mentioned?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
That doesn't mean that iPhone's user base isn't growing. Try to be better at math.
numbnuts
but I've read past reports from people who have wiresharked the traffic coming out of their iDevices and Apple was true to their word.
How does using WireShark determine this? The data in encrypted before it's sent to Apple.
There's nothing to encrypt if data isn't being sent. Even if you can't see the data itself, you can still tell that data is going out, and where it is going to.
Hey dummy.
Every iPhone X buyer, every SMART anything owner is litterally begging to be sniffed, snooped, spied upon, collected, catalogued and anal probed. Even after Wikileaks and Snowden these snowflakes fantasize of someone actually giving a damn about their scumbag consumer addictions.
No, you change elections with data. Money become secondary.
Apple makes money by trapping their customers' data into their ecosystem so they will continue to buy Apple products. A hardware neutral datasphere is Apple's worst nightmare.
Even if Apple does collect data, that does not mean we should ignore the warnings from Tim Cook. Maybe it's a good idea if the villains stand up and say "we're out to get you!" so that people took their privacy seriously.
If you did a survey which Apple strategy would be the most important to consumers?
1 - Maintaining Privacy and continuing to strengthen it
2 - Restoring the headphone jack
"Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil." - Niccolo Machiavelli
spy on their people and weaponize the gathered data to the point of MURDERING anybody they choose to eliminate, while he himself is enriched by the use of communist slave labor.
Do the world a favor, Mr Cook, and improve the global moral condition by offing yourself; you're absolutely no better than an 1850's southern slave owner or a WWII NAZI collaborator.
There's NOBODY in the big offices of Facebook, Google, or Apple who has an ounce of morality and none of them are eligible to point a finger at anybody else.
I shouldn't have to use icloud as my online storage
Is there anything forcing you to? As far as I know you can set up ownCloud and use that instead of iCloud if you want, at least for documents, photos and videos. Granted, I don't think they support contact info and such but still...
For contacts Apple supports LDAP and CardDAV. In addition, they can be synchronised via Google, Yahoo etc.
When Apple resellers (not even Apple related) sell Apple gear, they don't hesitate to collect the customers data and shove Applecare down their throats.
Apple cares about other companies getting data.
In fact, they have their own ad platform, where they use data they collect to profit from ads.
But itâ(TM)s not really undercutting if theyâ(TM)re not gaining anything from it. Appleâ(TM)s profits are going up, not down.
Fucking iPhone character encoding.
What you can't tell on an encrypted communications channel (without finding a way to bypass the encyrption) is what is being sent. In particular whether the information being sent is the minimum required to complete the action at hand or whether additional data is being exfiltrated.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
At one point, Hitler talked shit about the SS.
Godwin time, but it's still true, and apt.