How Much Does Apple Know About You? (Basically Nothing)

[asus killer]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

How is Windows balanced? They probably take more data than Google these days, on top of charging for it.

"probably", what does that mean? that's like some urban legend. I don't know what they even do with it, there's no ads, there's no emails, there's no personal data, etc...

[Linus_torvalds]

7 hours ago, MorganO said:

apple for sure doesnt tell me what i want and need

Sure it does! It tells you that you do not need 3.5 jack and you agree. It tells you that you need some app to transfer files to your phone you agree. It tells you not to arrange icons on your iphone as you wish and you agree. It decides what is best for you in it's opinion and do not give a fuck what you really want/need. To me this is exactly what is going on. And people who buy apple products are the people that can't think for themselves. Why would you buy macbook for 2x/3x the price of lighter and faster PC? Why? You can't think and you just do what others do. Apple products are expensive and rich people are willing to pay for it. So do poor people to look like rich in sociaty. To be part of it. They do not realize that they are part of sociaty already even without apple products. Only apple product owner is willing to buy case for their phone with a hole in the back to let others know that they have iphone. Only they take pictures in toilet with stupid face where you can clearly see that they took this picture with an iphone! They are so dumb that if you tell them that first gen iphone is the new apple iphone and it costs much higher then current iphones they are willing to pay for it. And they agree with you that it's the best iphone, even without seeing it.

 

 

As i said apple makes products for DUMB people. And this is a FACT!

[DrMacintosh]

5 minutes ago, mate_mate91 said:

As i said apple makes products for DUMB people. And this is a FACT!

I mean it is fact that that is your opinion, but that is about it. 

[MorganO]

1 hour ago, mate_mate91 said:

-snip-

 

So you managed to find a few videos that fit your narrative, marvelous.

 

The lack of headphone jack is a moot point as I have wireless headphones which have great battery life, I don't think it impacts my usage at all

 

I've had multiple high android phones (s8+,note8,op3t/op5), I mean they are great n all with all dat customization, but the battery life really isn't that great IMO

 

on the other hand, the iPhones I've had have had excellent battery

 

I don't use MACos so that's also a moot point.

 

Also as another user pointed out, your 'fact' is merely your personal opinion

 

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, MorganO said:

So you managed to find a few videos that fit your narrative, marvelous.

No, you're wrong. The only uninformed buyers are those that buy iPhones. The remaining 85%+ of smartphone users are tech savvy individuals who know what they're doing, that's why companies have almost completely eliminated their IT departments.

[MorganO]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

No, you're wrong. The only uninformed buyers are those that buy iPhones. The remaining 85%+ of smartphone users are tech savvy individuals who know what they're doing. 

/s ?

[79wjd]

Just now, MorganO said:

/s ?

Either that or delusional.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

And you really believe that's all the info they actually have?  

[Cheezdoodlez]

6 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Well there is no evidence of that so keep thinking it if you want. 

 

 

I know. But yeah I have a vague recollection about some news story about Apple and location tracking from years ago. Can't recall the details of it or even the source. But my recollection of it was that Apple was basically tracking your every move. 

 

But it could easily be a recollection of a misinformed mornic article written by a non-techie. Anyways I tend to assume the worst about big companies, even Apple.

 

That said even the pessimistic side of me don't believe for a second that Apple is gathering data secretly on the level of Facebook or Google. 

[DrMacintosh]

1 hour ago, Captain Chaos said:

And you really believe that's all the info they actually have?  

Why wouldn’t I?

[Commodus]

On 5/5/2018 at 9:21 AM, The Viking said:

Huawei also runs online services:

 

Wallet, Store, Cloud, HiCare. There's a huge array of Huawei services.

 

And I'll go and call bullshit on the Facebook numbers too.

 

900 mb????? HOW? Did that "journalist" untic the information and crap? I just download my own .zip and here's how big it is:

 

you have to untick all the top options, we don't care about your facebook posts or images or whatnot, we want DIRECT information.

 

stop believing information from Apple sheep, they just want to make Apple look good. There, Facebook has 1mb of real data on you.

 

 

edit: facebook data breakdown:

 

• Ads_interests
• Advertisers_who_uploaded[...]
• Advertisers_you've_interacted[...]
• Calls_and_messages: NONE (if you use messenger without giving them access to your phone number....)
• Location history; NONE (If you don't give Facebook access to your phone GPS)
• Network information: NONE
• account_security
• administrative_records
• authorized_logins
• login_protection_data
• logins_and_logouts
• used_ip_addresses
• where_you're_logged_in
• index

 

I'm not trusting the "Apple sheep."  I'm trusting the journalist who conducted what looks to be a reasonable comparison of what Apple shares versus Facebook and Google.  File size doesn't say everything about what a company collects, but I don't think there's a dispute that Facebook and Google collect more identifying (or potentially identifying) information about you.  You don't have to be one of those hyperbolic "omg Google is spying on you" types to acknowledge that.

 

I'm definitely aware that Huawei collects info, too, since its phones wouldn't be very useful inside China if there wasn't an alternative.  But that doesn't mean the scope of its collection is the same, or that the policies are the same.

 

It sounds more than anything like you don't want the assessment of Apple's data gathering to be correct, rather than that you have evidence it isn't (because, so far, you have none).  You need to show that Apple is collecting more data than claimed, not just make assumptions, and everything I've seen in the findings lines up with what we already knew about Apple's behavior.

[LAwLz]

4 hours ago, asus killer said:

"probably", what does that mean? that's like some urban legend. I don't know what they even do with it, there's no ads, there's no emails, there's no personal data, etc...

Not sure what you mean by "that's like some urban legend".

Microsoft are fairly open about collecting a huge amount of data about their users. Here is just the different telemetry data (which does not include things like data collected from searches, Cortana or other features), on the most basic settings. By the way, these are the fields AFTER Microsoft decided to cut down on telemetry. According to them, it used to be about twice as much data collected when Windows 10 launched. Then they started getting into legal trouble with France among others and had to back off on some of it.

 

What they use it for? They do have ads all over Windows, as well as ad services within UWP.

They do scan your emails if you use their mail service (like outlook or hotmail).

There are copious amounts of personal data which they collect.

 

As for what they do with it... Well on top of all the services I already listed (such as ads), they also share it with some third parties as outlined in this document under "usage".

There is also the possibility that they are collecting it for future use. Some of the stuff they collect right now might not be useful at this point in time, but could be useful in the future.

[Guest The Viking]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

I'm not trusting the "Apple sheep."  I'm trusting the journalist who conducted what looks to be a reasonable comparison of what Apple shares versus Facebook and Google.  File size doesn't say everything about what a company collects, but I don't think there's a dispute that Facebook and Google collect more identifying (or potentially identifying) information about you.  You don't have to be one of those hyperbolic "omg Google is spying on you" types to acknowledge that.

 

I'm definitely aware that Huawei collects info, too, since its phones wouldn't be very useful inside China if there wasn't an alternative.  But that doesn't mean the scope of its collection is the same, or that the policies are the same.

 

It sounds more than anything like you don't want the assessment of Apple's data gathering to be correct, rather than that you have evidence it isn't (because, so far, you have none).  You need to show that Apple is collecting more data than claimed, not just make assumptions, and everything I've seen in the findings lines up with what we already knew about Apple's behavior.

nope.

 

it's just people constantly jerking off apple everytime apple "does something good"

 

the irony is, what you quoted was the answer to some dude saying "but huawei doesn't have an OS and store and subscription service like apple does so that invalidates the company".

 

but then why are you guys comparing Apple to f*cking google or facebook????? last time i checked apple doesn't have a social network nor a search engine with the biggest video platform out there & tons of services we all use directly or indirectly.

 

I just go deeper and check what data is collected. I requested my own files, and posted the result. Facebook may have hundreds of megas of data on you, but it's mainly comments, likes and pictures you posted. Nothing wrong there, right? delete that, and hop, Facebook "only" has 1 mega of data on you, between your logins, advertiser preferences, etc etc etc

Google is even worse, if you don't untick anything it counts all the emails on your gmail, your drive & even your youtube videos. Oh, no, the horror, google has 700 gigs of data on me! (except it's all videos I uploaded on youtube). Google obviously  has a lot more data on you, between your android device & all the google services one uses, so they'll have logins, locations, searches, history, favourites, etc etc

 

So no I don't agree with the way the data was collected. I checked the articles, and the guy doesn't mention or show what boxes he ticked. He did say he has stuff on icloud and whatever, but left those out. Then why did he include his facebook pictures? or why did he (probably) leave most of his emails from gmail?

 

So what, Apple has 9 megas of data on you? So what? how does that make them better than others? all the important data from facebook holds in less than 1 mega, 9 is already huge.

 

But whatever, my point will get ignored because I don't know what new reason they'll find to protect apple.

 

I don't even know if you'll get it. I hopse so

 

ps: downloaded my basic linkedin data, it's 7KB. 7KB for all my personal data. 

 

So, linkedin is by far the ones collecting the least info. Do I go jerk off linkedin or do they not count because they are not apple, don't have a subscription service, OS, and a multide of other crap? but it's like facebook, right? so why compare apple to facebook and not linkedin?

[asus killer]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Not sure what you mean by "that's like some urban legend".

Microsoft are fairly open about collecting a huge amount of data about their users. Here is just the different telemetry data (which does not include things like data collected from searches, Cortana or other features), on the most basic settings. By the way, these are the fields AFTER Microsoft decided to cut down on telemetry. According to them, it used to be about twice as much data collected when Windows 10 launched. Then they started getting into legal trouble with France among others and had to back off on some of it.

 

What they use it for? They do have ads all over Windows, as well as ad services within UWP.

They do scan your emails if you use their mail service (like outlook or hotmail).

There are copious amounts of personal data which they collect.

 

As for what they do with it... Well on top of all the services I already listed (such as ads), they also share it with some third parties as outlined in this document under "usage".

There is also the possibility that they are collecting it for future use. Some of the stuff they collect right now might not be useful at this point in time, but could be useful in the future.

my windows has no ads, in fact i never seen an ad in any version of windows and i used most of them. They don't know my email, never asked me. They don't know anything not even my name and again never asked.

I know they started the telemetry thing but you can turn it off. But if you don't they can know lots about my IP but that's it, no name, no email, no personal data.

Comparing  windows to google or facebook makes no sense to me.

 

never talked about things like outlook or hotmail but those aren't windows, you use them if you care to. UWP i don't like it, don't use any apps. I have windows store account but that's my decision because i had a 360, has nothing to do with windows.

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, The Viking said:

nope.

 

it's just people constantly jerking off apple everytime apple "does something good"

 

the irony is, what you quoted was the answer to some dude saying "but huawei doesn't have an OS and store and subscription service like apple does so that invalidates the company".

 

but then why are you guys comparing Apple to f*cking google or facebook????? last time i checked apple doesn't have a social network nor a search engine with the biggest video platform out there & tons of services we all use directly or indirectly.

 

I just go deeper and check what data is collected. I requested my own files, and posted the result. Facebook may have hundreds of megas of data on you, but it's mainly comments, likes and pictures you posted. Nothing wrong there, right? delete that, and hop, Facebook "only" has 1 mega of data on you, between your logins, advertiser preferences, etc etc etc

Google is even worse, if you don't untick anything it counts all the emails on your gmail, your drive & even your youtube videos. Oh, no, the horror, google has 700 gigs of data on me! (except it's all videos I uploaded on youtube). Google obviously  has a lot more data on you, between your android device & all the google services one uses, so they'll have logins, locations, searches, history, favourites, etc etc

 

So no I don't agree with the way the data was collected. I checked the articles, and the guy doesn't mention or show what boxes he ticked. He did say he has stuff on icloud and whatever, but left those out. Then why did he include his facebook pictures? or why did he (probably) leave most of his emails from gmail?

 

So what, Apple has 9 megas of data on you? So what? how does that make them better than others? all the important data from facebook holds in less than 1 mega, 9 is already huge.

 

But whatever, my point will get ignored because I don't know what new reason they'll find to protect apple.

 

I don't even know if you'll get it. I hopse so

 

ps: downloaded my basic linkedin data, it's 7KB. 7KB for all my personal data. 

 

So, linkedin is by far the ones collecting the least info. Do I go jerk off linkedin or do they not count because they are not apple, don't have a subscription service, OS, and a multide of other crap? but it's like facebook, right? so why compare apple to facebook and not linkedin?

People compare Apple to Facebook, Google and similar tech companies in part due to scale and ambitions.  LinkedIn is technically part of Microsoft now, but by itself it's tiny in comparison to tech giants.  And while Apple is primarily a hardware company, it has a cloud presence that's both large and important to many of its products (a HomePod isn't very useful without Siri and Apple Music, for instance).  Comparisons to Google are certainly valid given that both companies create operating systems and frequently have comparable services.

 

I wouldn't completely rule out media files, either.  Remember, it's possible to stitch together a profile of someone based on their sharing habits.  Your comments might hint at your political leanings, for example, while your photos and videos may give a sense of what you and your family look like, what you're interested in... you get the idea.  A good parallel is the NSA's call metadata collection.  It might not record the conversations of Americans without a warrant, but the metadata (when you called, who you called, that sort of thing) can say a lot about what you're doing.

 

Yes, this thread was started from a pro-Apple stance, but that doesn't mean the heart of the argument is flawed.  Apple is known to have a tougher stance on privacy (it was encrypting entire device storage partitions by default well before Google, for instance).  For a lot of us who've been following security and privacy issues in tech, the report was more of a confirmation of what we knew than a revelation.

[Guest The Viking]

23 minutes ago, Commodus said:

People compare Apple to Facebook, Google and similar tech companies in part due to scale and ambitions.  LinkedIn is technically part of Microsoft now, but by itself it's tiny in comparison to tech giants.  And while Apple is primarily a hardware company, it has a cloud presence that's both large and important to many of its products (a HomePod isn't very useful without Siri and Apple Music, for instance).  Comparisons to Google are certainly valid given that both companies create operating systems and frequently have comparable services.

 

I wouldn't completely rule out media files, either.  Remember, it's possible to stitch together a profile of someone based on their sharing habits.  Your comments might hint at your political leanings, for example, while your photos and videos may give a sense of what you and your family look like, what you're interested in... you get the idea.  A good parallel is the NSA's call metadata collection.  It might not record the conversations of Americans without a warrant, but the metadata (when you called, who you called, that sort of thing) can say a lot about what you're doing.

 

Yes, this thread was started from a pro-Apple stance, but that doesn't mean the heart of the argument is flawed.  Apple is known to have a tougher stance on privacy (it was encrypting entire device storage partitions by default well before Google, for instance).  For a lot of us who've been following security and privacy issues in tech, the report was more of a confirmation of what we knew than a revelation.

i guess

 

apple's perfect, indeed.

[Commodus]

44 minutes ago, The Viking said:

i guess

 

apple's perfect, indeed.

Didn't say that.  There are plenty of problems at Apple.  It's just that sometimes, hey, the reports can be on the mark.  We have this odd notion that accurately assessing a company means either praising it to the skies or blasting everything it does.  The truth is often somewhere in between, and often not squarely in the middle.

[Guest The Viking]

15 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Didn't say that.  There are plenty of problems at Apple.  It's just that sometimes, hey, the reports can be on the mark.  We have this odd notion that accurately assessing a company means either praising it to the skies or blasting everything it does.  The truth is often somewhere in between, and often not squarely in the middle.

that's fine.

 

Apple's filled with issues everywhere else, so for once that they do something "better" than other, bigger companies, they won't get a pass on the rest.

[divito]

Apple doesn't need data because they hit you with incredible margins. Other companies take the opposite approach.

[vorticalbox]

23 hours ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

Problem is android flagships costs around the same as iPhones (X included) so if you were to buy a flagship, not only did you spend roughly the same amount of money but you're also getting your data harvest. That's a lose/lose scenario ya know  

Unless you install something like netguard and block all apps but the ones you use/need.

 

 

[Eaglerino]

21 hours ago, Okjoek said:

I don't honestly care all that much about privacy. They can send all the targeted ads they want, I feel there's bigger problems in my life.

The dream sentence every government wants to hear from every citizen

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, asus killer said:

my windows has no ads, in fact i never seen an ad in any version of windows and i used most of them.

If you haven't seen any ads in Windows 10 then it's because:

1) You have seen them but doesn't realize it was ads.

2) Have tweaked your Windows install so that ads doesn't appear.

3) Doesn't use the things which triggers the ads to appear.

 

Regardless of which one of these it is, Microsoft do have ads in Windows (here is a fairly complete list of them). You can not deny it. Besides, even if you do deny it it doesn't invalidate my point.

 

10 hours ago, asus killer said:

They don't know my email, never asked me.

Well they did ask for your email when you installed it, but they gave you a (fairly hidden) option to create a user account without an email.

That doesn't counter my point though.

 

10 hours ago, asus killer said:

They don't know anything not even my name and again never asked.

They know a lot, possibly your name. You don't have to give it to them directly for them to know it.

I never told Google my age, work, or interests either and yet they have all that info. They have it from picking other pieces of info and puzzling it together. For example check nearby WiFi and GPS to figure out where I am, then checking when I am there and for how long, and voilà they know where I work now. Things like names can be acquired with similar methods.

 

10 hours ago, asus killer said:

I know they started the telemetry thing but you can turn it off.

The link I posted is the what collect when you have it set to basic, which is the least amount of info Microsoft allows you to give them. Can you please explain to me how you turned telemetry off? Microsoft has introduced several techniques for making the user believe they have turned things off, but they are still active in the background. For example if you turn off offline search it will still call home to Bing whenever you make a local search.

 

10 hours ago, asus killer said:

But if you don't they can know lots about my IP but that's it, no name, no email, no personal data.

No, they do collect personal data, and a lot of it. They do anonymize it but when Microsoft were forced by hand over their own tools they found that it was extremely easy to deanonymize it.

Check the links I posted earlier, from Microsoft's own website. There are a lot of personal data in there.

With the new update it will even collect what programs you run, when you run them, as well as which documents are open within the programs. It's called "Timeline".

If you open a file that contains your name, Microsoft will have it, unless you change settings to disable it (but even then they might do it through some other setting which you missed).

 

10 hours ago, asus killer said:

never talked about things like outlook or hotmail but those aren't windows, you use them if you care to. UWP i don't like it, don't use any apps. I have windows store account but that's my decision because i had a 360, has nothing to do with windows.

You can't just go "well I don't use that" when you have called the entire Microsoft data collection an urban legend.

Here is how the conversation played out.

You: Windows has a balance between paying money and having privacy.

Me: How is Windows balanced? They probably take more data than Google, on top of charging for it.

You: That is an urban legend.

Me: *Post links explaining some of the data they collect, and the reasons why*

You: I haven't noticed it and I don't use some of those features.

 

I mean, what is your point? Should I say it is an urban legend that Google collects data on their users? I don't see ads (because I use adblock) so does that mean they don't run ads? I don't use Google drive so does that mean Drive shouldn't be included when talking about Google's data collection? Even though it is deeply integrated in other Google services I use.

 

I really don't get your train of thought here. Why did you say Windows' data collection is an urban legend when even Microsoft themselves have posted articles about what they collect and what it is used for?

[mr moose]

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but apple have my name, Bank details and CC number, phone number and email address. They know what devices I own, what apps I have brought/use and my IP for the instances when I use their products/services.  Depending on which data you consider more valuable/identifiable, that's more than google has on me.

[Valentyn]

23 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but apple have my name, Bank details and CC number, phone number and email address. They know what devices I own, what apps I have brought/use and my IP for the instances when I use their products/services.  Depending on which data you consider more valuable/identifiable, that's more than google has on me.

If you’re in Europe you’ll be able to access that all directly; and even ask Apple to omit or remove what they collect with the new GDPR laws coming into affect.

 

will be interesting how easily Apple and others implement those new laws and features. The GDPR goes live this month.

[Trixanity]

47 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

With the new update it will even collect what programs you run, when you run them, as well as which documents are open within the programs. It's called "Timeline".

If you open a file that contains your name, Microsoft will have it, unless you change settings to disable it (but even then they might do it through some other setting which you missed).

I'm pretty sure Microsoft already collects that. At least with enhanced telemetry and/or UWP apps. I don't see any chance of Microsoft not having that knowledge. Microsoft will probably enhance their dataset with Timeline.