Apple spying on you?

[neufuse Veteran]

What do you guys think about this?

 

https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

[adrynalyne]

11 minutes ago, neufuse said:

What do you guys think about this?

 

https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

I don’t know if it’s unencrypted or not, but the whole fiasco yesterday with Apple screwing up Macs worldwide was due to this. it didn’t matter if you upgraded to Big Sur or not. 

[neufuse Veteran]

23 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

I don’t know if it’s unencrypted or not, but the whole fiasco yesterday with Apple screwing up Macs worldwide was due to this. it didn’t matter if you upgraded to Big Sur or not. 

I'm just waiting for all the outrage... I mean people flipped on MS for telemetry.... if what is being put out there is true, this is just as bad if not worse

[spy beef]

It's fine. I trust Apple with my data and my first born child. Apple is the best. No thing to see here. 

[adrynalyne]

32 minutes ago, neufuse said:

I'm just waiting for all the outrage... I mean people flipped on MS for telemetry.... if what is being put out there is true, this is just as bad if not worse

Yep, we are on the same page.

 

[+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹]

I own an iPad which is the only Apple product ever owned so never been a fan but this just ridiculous even for them. No idea how anyone could use an OS that may delay or prevent one from using their apps if Apple's servers are busy. WTF?

[Circaflex]

3 hours ago, neufuse said:

What do you guys think about this?

 

https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

Id Love to hear the thoughts of our resident Apple fans, @JHBrownand @derekaw You two have been some of the most critical Neowin users of Windows Telemetry and constantly bring it up almost every chance you can; I'd really like to hear your thoughts about this.

[adrynalyne]

33 minutes ago, Circaflex said:

Id Love to hear the thoughts of our resident Apple fans, @JHBrownand @derekaw You two have been some of the most critical Neowin users of Windows Telemetry and constantly bring it up almost every chance you can; I'd really like to hear your thoughts about this.

I suspect there will be an excuse about how it’s more noble of Apple due to “security” reasons. 

[neufuse Veteran]

I'm wondering what the data usage is like for this also, I mean there are people that still have data plans (not talking about cellular here, I mean your flat out internet connection)... being forced to send all this stuff back has to eat up a few MB at least, tell us what amount of data is being used for this because if you're costing me money on top of spying on me.... spying is one thing, but when it costs me money that I didn't anticipate.... (i know someone will say you paid for an apple product you can afford it, which is BS because apple does have lower priced items also)

2 hours ago, adrynalyne said:

I suspect there will be an excuse about how it’s more noble of Apple due to “security” reasons. 

security through lack of encryption 🤣

[spacelordmaster]

Who gives a damn. There is no such thing as privacy anymore and you all know it. Someone comes up with some system to block the snoopers and months later the snoopers come out with a way around and so on. The cycle never ends.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Is there any explanation as to why Apple have made this decision?

 

EDIT: I mean more a response from Apple rather than the extreme tinfoil hat explanation that Apple want to go Big Brother on their customers.

[adrynalyne]

6 hours ago, neufuse said:

I'm wondering what the data usage is like for this also, I mean there are people that still have data plans (not talking about cellular here, I mean your flat out internet connection)... being forced to send all this stuff back has to eat up a few MB at least, tell us what amount of data is being used for this because if you're costing me money on top of spying on me.... spying is one thing, but when it costs me money that I didn't anticipate.... (i know someone will say you paid for an apple product you can afford it, which is BS because apple does have lower priced items also)

security through lack of encryption 🤣

100% valid point on data use. This happened back in 2013. 
 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5544915

[adrynalyne]

5 hours ago, Nick H. said:

Is there any explanation as to why Apple have made this decision?

 

EDIT: I mean more a response from Apple rather than the extreme tinfoil hat explanation that Apple want to go Big Brother on their customers.

Yes. It’s a certificate service used by trustd to verify app legitimacy on launch. Phoning home is phoning home, regardless of the reason though. 
 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/macos-big-sur-launch-appears-to-cause-temporary-slowdown-in-even-non-big-sur-macs/

 

The comments here mirror my frustration from the other day. 

Edited November 14, 2020 by adrynalyne

[neufuse Veteran]

41 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

100% valid point on data use. This happened back in 2013. 
 

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5544915

My iPhone always uses a lot of data, and I have few apps on it... the ones that use the most data are "system services" and "Time and Location" lol........ sometimes 1+GB a month for them and all the stuff like iCloud backup and stuff are turned off and I still get that... I wish you could tell system services not to use the internet on cellular but nope

[jnelsoninjax]

OK, let me play devils advocate (just for a moment) would the MacOS community feel better if the data was being encrypted before being sent, or if Apple told everyone that this was happening? (perhaps they do it the license agreement, TOS? that no one reads?)

Having read the article, the author clearly stated that this has nothing to do with telemetry, so that rules that excuse out. What will Apple say about this? My guess is nothing, they will put on a big show trying to discredit this information and allot of the community will fall for it. (Just to be clear, this is not exclusive to Apple, other companies do it as well)

[+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹]

It is amazing to me everyone is mostly just taking about the privacy concerns (and the data usage LOL). News flash! Your phone is leaking your info no matter what phone you are using. The fact Mac owners were experiencing slow app starts and sluggish UI because APPLE'S SERVERS WERE OVER LOADED is being glossed right over. Hello!

[LaP]

People should stop being naive. Plot twist they all spy on you. All of them. China, russia, big American tech companies, big Japanese tech companies, ... all of them spy on you. Is it bad? yes. But as long as people will focus on a few players instead of the big picture nothing will change.

[adrynalyne]

8 hours ago, spacelordmaster said:

Who gives a damn. There is no such thing as privacy anymore and you all know it. Someone comes up with some system to block the snoopers and months later the snoopers come out with a way around and so on. The cycle never ends.

You don’t clearly, but stop projecting. 

59 minutes ago, jnelsoninjax said:

OK, let me play devils advocate (just for a moment) would the MacOS community feel better if the data was being encrypted before being sent, or if Apple told everyone that this was happening? (perhaps they do it the license agreement, TOS? that no one reads?)

Having read the article, the author clearly stated that this has nothing to do with telemetry, so that rules that excuse out. What will Apple say about this? My guess is nothing, they will put on a big show trying to discredit this information and allot of the community will fall for it. (Just to be clear, this is not exclusive to Apple, other companies do it as well)

Both. And a guarantee that their stupid servers won’t tank my machine again for having the audacity of trying to launch apps. 

[Depicus]

There's a lot of reaching for conclusions in the article some parts are just plain wrong. All of this is quite visible to anybody with a computer capable of running Wireshark and if you really wanted to block this information then run your own DNS and block it.

 

However I'm guessing this is simply apps with certification being checked because apps from the internet seemed to be fine. 

 

If you want a bit of conspiracy theory install BurpSuite and launch the browser and watch the data being sent

[Circaflex]

7 minutes ago, Depicus said:

There's a lot of reaching for conclusions in the article some parts are just plain wrong. All of this is quite visible to anybody with a computer capable of running Wireshark and if you really wanted to block this information then run your own DNS and block it.

 

However I'm guessing this is simply apps with certification being checked because apps from the internet seemed to be fine. 

 

If you want a bit of conspiracy theory install BurpSuite and launch the browser and watch the data being sent

I suggest you read the source; they are well respected in the InfoSec and tech community.

[LaP]

57 minutes ago, Depicus said:

There's a lot of reaching for conclusions in the article some parts are just plain wrong. All of this is quite visible to anybody with a computer capable of running Wireshark and if you really wanted to block this information then run your own DNS and block it.

 

However I'm guessing this is simply apps with certification being checked because apps from the internet seemed to be fine. 

 

If you want a bit of conspiracy theory install BurpSuite and launch the browser and watch the data being sent

It's something that always puzzle me. You can easily check which data is sent from your devices to the internet. Yet people believe everything without even checking. Like that time people really believed china was using some mb chip to spy on people. It was like really guys? I mean there was 0 proof of that despite many people (notably skilled hackers) and companies checking data going thru their network on a regular basis.

 

[adrynalyne]

35 minutes ago, LaP said:

It's something that always puzzle me. You can easily check which data is sent from your devices to the internet. Yet people believe everything without even checking. Like that time people really believed china was using some mb chip to spy on people. It was like really guys? I mean there was 0 proof of that despite many people (notably skilled hackers) and companies checking data going thru their network on a regular basis.

 

Easily? Give me instructions a typical consumer could easily follow. Your same argument applies to Windows though, which is why Apple shouldn’t get a pass from the fanboys since they were so critical with MS. 

 

My bigger issue with all of this is they TANKED my damn machine earlier this week with this nonsense. 
 

 

[neufuse Veteran]

2 hours ago, Superuser said:

It is amazing to me everyone is mostly just taking about the privacy concerns (and the data usage LOL). News flash! Your phone is leaking your info no matter what phone you are using. The fact Mac owners were experiencing slow app starts and sluggish UI because APPLE'S SERVERS WERE OVER LOADED is being glossed right over. Hello!

there is a difference between leaking info about how you use a phone and/or accepted access to contacts and photos etc and flat out logging everything you do down to potentially every key stroke...

 

and hows that being glossed over? that's how we came to this whole point was they figured this was going on because of the server load causing issues with devices... if that required to be working state wasnt there and their fail backs didnt fail people probably wouldn't of noticed...

[+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹]

1 hour ago, neufuse said:

there is a difference between leaking info about how you use a phone and/or accepted access to contacts and photos etc and flat out logging everything you do down to potentially every key stroke...

 

and hows that being glossed over? that's how we came to this whole point was they figured this was going on because of the server load causing issues with devices... if that required to be working state wasnt there and their fail backs didnt fail people probably wouldn't of noticed...

Who is logging every keystroke? LOL

 

Almost all the comments have been about the potential telemetry collection and little about people's Macs being crippled because of an unresponsive server which seems to be the real story here.

[Depicus]

4 hours ago, Circaflex said:

I suggest you read the source; they are well respected in the InfoSec and tech community.

Well I'm sceptical of anybody who claims you can determine a persons location by their IP address alone. If I VPN into my office I'd appear to be 76 miles away from home and even with a fixed ip at home it comes up as being located in Newcastle some 300 miles away.

 

Now I haven't extensively tested but I cannot get my copy of Big Sur to connect to that address while launching apps so either I have something turned off or Wireshark doesn't pick it up. Although I didn't have issues at the time either so maybe I am special or not worth spying on.

 

Out of the 80 apps in my apps folder I'd guess 75% phone home one way or another including Apple apps, indeed Chrome dials home with your IP address in the data before you even go to a page so these mystery military spooks have more than enough data already. I'd concede that if it does happen it should be encrypted but spying is a stretch especially when you don't encrypt things.