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Every employer I’ve work for who was opposed to open source either backdoored user data, knowingly ignored data security issues, or secretly sold user data. They all have violated GDPR and other regulations, and when I called it out, I got punished.
i had run across this report some time back - it provides some hard analysis behind the “both leak but android leaks more” theory
Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google
retrieved from doug leith’s web site, at trinity college in dublin: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/
Only 5 of the bullets are related to privacy. The first two regard Apple’s purported plans to implement client-side scanning, which have been paused and and don’t presently exist. The third one was FUD that has been debunked. The fourth one has a broken link. The last one regards Apples tracking of iCloud account usage in their apps and services, which is totally optional at least on macOS.
There are plenty of reasons to avoid Apple, and this page lists several, but the privacy argument is not strong here.
Here is the thing about the client side scanning, it was a way for them to fully encrypt iCloud while keeping law enforcement happy. In my mind it was a privacy win, as the alternative was to scan an unencrypted file in the cloud, much like Google, Microsoft, et al does.
Privacy isn’t an absolute, there is a push pull with the other needs of a society, if folks legitimately think that CSAM isn’t a problem then they have had a very sheltered internet experience.
I know this view is hugely unpopular with the privacy crowd but what Apple was doing honestly felt like a reasonable compromise to me. I guess it’s moot because they now have an encrypted iCloud option without the client side scanning.
My sentiments as well. When they wouldn’t open that shooter’s phone for the government and were about to goto war right before the FBI got it done with Azimuth Security (discovering nothing after spending nearly a million dollars lol). You would think they said to themselves “we have to do something to get out of the cross hairs.” And like you said, they soon released full end to end encryption to close the gap (which I’ve done and highly recommend).
The problem is that client-side scanning has been demonstrated to be a big threat to security by scholars in the field of encryption. In addition, client-side scanning can be circumvented by criminals by modifying the hash of images; this is why its introduction caused a big outcry and Apple dropped its introduction.
I think the reason it caused such an outcry was that it was a little more advanced than simply checking a hash, which could be defeated by cropping it or something similar.
Apples “privacy” moves are mostly about gatekeeping, meaning advertisers have to go through apple to get your sweet sweet advertising info. As for CSAM, if it wasn’t a misdirection to start with (introduce something completely onerous to either distract from something else or so that you can walk it back to what you really want and make the plebs think they’ve one) they you had better believe they’re bringing it back in a different form later on
