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

[Trixanity]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

 

 

just turn off the frickin ads, man are you frickin kidding me. If you like them go nuts, if not they let you turn them off, what the hell more do you want? You even brought bing to the discussion, bing, come on. 

I could go one and answer point by point but honestly i give up, you do this for everything, do i have to agree with you by force. I give up, windows and ads are a problem, are you happy, i have no ads on my windows, but hey go nuts. And the "agree to disagree" was a polite way of putting it

I think the problem isn't so much the ads themselves but that it's enabled by default. Microsoft knows if it was opt-in they'd have zero adoption because they know no one would willingly enable ads.

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, asus killer said:

You even brought bing to the discussion, bing, come on. 

I think you missed the point. What I said was that even when you do a local search for something on your computer. Let's say you search for "MPC-HC" in the start menu. Windows will call home to Bing. And yes, it still does that even when you have everything related to online searching disabled. When I do a local search, nothing should leave my computer. It just shouldn't.

 

13 hours ago, asus killer said:

just turn off the frickin ads, man are you frickin kidding me. If you like them go nuts, if not they let you turn them off, what the hell more do you want?

11 hours ago, Trixanity said:

I think the problem isn't so much the ads themselves but that it's enabled by default. Microsoft knows if it was opt-in they'd have zero adoption because they know no one would willingly enable ads.

If it was just ads then it would be fairly fine with it. However, the dangers of data collection goes far beyond just showing me some ad.

 

 

The real danger comes from things like prediction behavior analysis. For example, police has begun feeding a bunch of data into an AI, which then determines if a suspect should be kept in custody. Even if we assume Microsoft aren't working with government agencies (even though there is a lot of evidence saying they do), the NSA can just force Microsoft to had the data over, and also force them to not inform the user.

 

 

Another problem is the risk of data leaks. I shouldn't even have to post a link to show how bad leaks have gotten these days. Once the data leaves your computer, you are no longer in charge of it. It is in your best interest to limit the amount of information companies has on you, once the inevitable data leak occurs.

A few years ago ISIS were sending letters to "non-believers" in Sweden that if they did not convert, they would be decapitated. I don't think I want a group like ISIS having access to things like my messages, on top of my home address, where I usually am at certain times of the day, and other useful information.

 

 

One very worrying issue with always being watched is that our behavior changes, even if we don't realize it. Our computers has essentially become panopticons. In short, a panopticon is a construction where a guard could watch the prisoners, but the prisoners did not know where the guard's attention was. The guard could only really keep track of one person at any one point in time, but since the prisoners did not know who was being watched they all behaved as if they were constantly being watched. It was a form of physiological terror which caused them to behave as the guard wanted.

There have also been several studies such as this one where people will avoid doing things such as research controversial subjects if they know they are being monitored, and this one which shows people will censor themselves unconsciously once they know they are being monitored.

Merely knowing that your activities are being logged will cause you to behave differently, even if you don't think it does.

 

 

Then there are also problems such as what responsibilities companies has to help criminal cases and investigations. Would you say Microsoft has to hand over data collected from your computer if it could help catch a criminal? If your answer is yes, because it seems reasonable at first, you have to remember that not all laws are good and just. For example you might think Microsoft should be compelled to hand over information on a suspected murderer, but by the same ruling you must also allow the Russian government to use the data collected by Microsoft to track down and imprison people supporting gay rights in Russia (it is illegal to spread "gay propaganda"), or to punish people in China who speak ill of their government.

Even if you believe Microsoft will only help in some cases where your values align with theirs, you are still essentially handing them power over the law, which people should be imprisoned and which criminals should go free. That is not a power a company should have.

And even if you trust the justice system in let's say the US, remember that there is always a risk that some crazy person comes into power and abuses it. Hitler was elected fair and square. And if you think times has changed please bear in mind that not only was Trump elected, but now people are cheering for Oprah to run for president too. It's a fucking circus with a bunch of TV celebrities.

 

 

I could go on but hopefully I have made myself pretty clear. Data collection in this manner is an actual threat far beyond what some people can comprehend. It's not "damn, I don't wanna see relevant ads". It's "damn, it is an actual threat to freedom of though, my safety and democracy".

[billstelling]

If my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle.. "What if's" mean absolutely nothing..

 

They all try to collect what they can to help tailor products your way. Microsoft lets you turn it all off. As for what they are, adds for apps in the store, nothing else.. They are attempting to showcase the apps devs have worked so hard on for the platform and that is all there is to that. The telemetry, all of which can be shut down aside from the necessary stuff like what is used for windows update. Again, none of it tractable to an individual. It is nothing more than blind statistics that, if there are many for a certain issue, it triggers a flag and bumps up it's priority.

 

Also, NONE of what they were collecting in the past regarding to windows back end was assigned to any particular user. They did dial it back a bit over the chickens with there heads missing syndrome though. Totally unnecessary as they were not collecting personal data in the first place. Were the entire flap came from was the addition to Windows the ability to tie into social media and having that stuff on out of the gate instead of an option you can select during install and you had to manually go into settings and turn that stuff off.. Again, nothing to do with the telemetry(stats) collection as well as the fact that it is all able to be turned off.

 

I was going to go into the whole what and why, but it would be an utter waste of time, like this bit was.. Bottom line, stop confusing telemetry with user data.. They are two total different and separate things..

[YoBoiAang]

On 5/5/2018 at 11:50 AM, DrMacintosh said:

Apple takes no measures to prevent you from getting serviced by a 3rd party. 

Wooah, now you went too far with that, most companies try to centralize the repair business in one way or another:

 

- Bricking the phone for replacing the fingerprint sensor is unlikely to be an accident, not to mention that the fingerprint is not stored in the button (is processed and stored in the SoC) so the "security reasons" makes no sense.

 

https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/apple-apologizes-and-updates-ios-to-restore-iphones-disabled-by-error-53/

 

- After an update, devices with screen replaced by 3rd parties suddenly stopped working

https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/10/ios-113-upgrade-fatal-for-some-repaired-iphone-8-screens-done-by-third-party-shops

 

- They just lost a sue in Norway against a 3rd party who was openly refurbishing iPhones (which is different from counterfeit)

 

https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/13/apple-loses-court-battle-over-counterfeit-iphone-parts-in-norway

 

Coming from the company with the most optimized OS, these situations were not "oopsies". When you are using porpietary connections, using solder and glue everywhere, machine-gunning legal actions and making difficult for non original parts to reach the US, you are definitely making hard for 3rd parties to repair the devices.

 

Also, the "Mecca for hackers" thing also makes no sense if the data on the phone is fully encrypted, giving information about how to repair and selling parts have nothing to do with security. Not to mention their lobbying against Fair Repair Act.

 

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgxgpg/apple-tells-lawmaker-that-right-to-repair-iphones-will-turn-nebraska-into-a-mecca-for-hackers

 

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/nz85y7/apple-is-lobbying-against-your-right-to-repair-iphones-new-york-state-records-confirm

 

No public company care about their customer's well being, as longs as they get the money and their shareholders are happy.

 

Edit: typos, english is not my native language

Edited May 7, 2018 by Andresteare

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Andresteare said:

Coming from the company with the most optimized OS, these situations were not "oopsies".

 

This is the most comical argument to me from fanboys of any company, they claim the product is almost perfect without flaw,  except when said company gets caught doing something shifty, in which case it was an unforeseen accident.   Either they are perfect or they aren't, law of averages dictates that mistakes happen across the board, not just in one very specific area of service.

 

EDIT: I feel I need to qualify this before I am flamed with stupid comments,  Fortunately there are only a few people on this forum who are that biased/naive.   But I do see these moronic arguments made across the net regularly.

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, billstelling said:

-snip-

Almost everything you have said in this thread is demonstrably wrong and stem from ignorance and assumptions.

I strongly recommend you actually read the posts I have made in this thread, and look at the sources I linked which includes technical documentation of what is being collected, what regulatory bodies have concluded, legal documents defining things such as personal data and what investigations from several governmental bodies from different countries have found.

[asus killer]

as a little experiment i downloaded what MS, Apple, Facebook and Google keeps about me: (Facebook and Google i had already a lot of features turned of)

 

Google and Facebook are by far the most scary ones. For my case in particular what Facebook had was more concerning.

Apple was fairly benign (not a great customer of theirs to be fair, had a phone/ipod once and itunes user) and Microsoft didn't knew much, i guess me not having windows phone and not using edge helped.

It's difficult to compare by my personal experience because i can use some in one way more or less them others.

 

but we can see the links or consult the articles on what they keep about us:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/18/how-to-download-a-copy-of-everything-microsoft-knows-about-me.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/25/how-to-download-a-copy-of-apple-data-about-me.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/23/how-to-download-a-copy-of-facebook-data-about-you.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/25/how-to-download-a-copy-of-apple-data-about-me.html

 

personal preferences for using more or less of each companies products aside Google and Facebook really seem to be in a league of it's own. I guess it applies to most people that MS more invasive products  are also products most couldn't care less.

 

I used the experiment to tune the preferences and turn off a lot of tracking features from all this companies.

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, asus killer said:

as a little experiment i downloaded what MS, Apple, Facebook and Google keeps about me: (Facebook and Google i had already a lot of features turned of)

 

Google and Facebook are by far the most scary ones. For my case in particular what Facebook had was more concerning.

Apple was fairly benign (not a great customer of theirs to be fair, had a phone/ipod once and itunes user) and Microsoft didn't knew much, i guess me not having windows phone and not using edge helped.

It's difficult to compare by my personal experience because i can use some in one way more or less them others.

 

 

personal preferences for using more or less of each companies products aside Google and Facebook really seem to be in a league of it's own. I guess it applies to most people that MS more invasive products  are also products most couldn't care less.

 

I used the experiment to tune the preferences and turn off a lot of tracking features from all this companies.

See:

On 2018-05-05 at 12:10 PM, LAwLz said:

"Anonymization" and the closed source nature of these services makes the whole "download your archive" thing nothing more than just a charade.

If you request your archive then they most likely won't include the anonymized data, because it is technically not about you. It's about a profile called "12235235" which could very easily be linked to you, but isn't really right now. Ask Microsoft for all data on you and they probably won't include all the telemetry for example, despite it being found to be very easy to deanonymize.

 

Did the data you download from Microsoft include any of the anonymized data such as telemetry? 

 

3 minutes ago, asus killer said:

I guess it applies to most people that MS more invasive products  are also products most couldn't care less.

I care a whole lot about Windows 10 and what it collects, and so should other people too. Info about how the "anonymized" data isn't actually anonymous can be found in this legal investigation done by the Dutch PDA.

[asus killer]

34 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

almost every product has telemetry, asks if we wanted to accept it or not. Windows is not an exception and you can turn it off. Not going to enter in conspiracy theories if it's really anonymous or not, if you go down that path about any product can lie to you and use your data even if they say they don't or that is anonymous.

 

What's in the Dutch investigation related to telemetry at default settings, just turn it off, just turn the ads off and your problems are solved. What's in there is also about apps, something that it's in the "download". I would prefer they didn't had that info, doesn't seem pertinent to telemetry, but it also seems less invasive than what i've seen in google or facebook like keeping my search history, my location history, conversations,... on top of having tons of personal data that MS doesn't have on me. Google and facebook stop a little short of knowing the color of it's users underwear... and even that can be an issue if you buy it online

 

Or better yet install Linux, why use windows with that level of paranoia? i use facebook for some benign use only, but i use google search engine because there is no viable alternative and android because i don't like the only alternative (mostly i don't like Apple as a company, i prefer iOS to android), but still it's on me i could use iOS. I had ubuntu phone installed but sadly that didn't pick up.

 

[LAwLz]

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

almost every product has telemetry, asks if we wanted to accept it or not.

The shitty behaviors of one company does not excuse shitty behavior from another.

"Others are doing it too" does not make a company immune to criticism for doing it. 

 

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

Windows is not an exception and you can turn it off.

Please tell me how to turn it off. I have asked you several times already and I have yet to get an answer.

 

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

Not going to enter in conspiracy theories if it's really anonymous or not

Not a conspiracy. A governmental body found that it is not truly anonymous and that Microsoft was breaking Dutch privacy laws. Several other countries are currently investigating them too. You can't brush it off as a conspiracy theory when it has been proven to be true.

Hell, even Microsoft has posted what they are collecting and it does fall under the definition of "personal data" according to the EU GDRP law.

 

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

if you go down that path about any product can lie to you and use your data even if they say they don't or that is anonymous.

Not true. For example with Firefox they are very direct and transparent about it, and you can check and validate what information they collect, as well as verify that it is actually turned off. It's one of the benefits of open source software.

Also, software can not hide if they send data or not. You can monitor that with packet sniffing (which I did for Windows). You can check if they send data, and where the data is sent. What they can do is hid what data is being sent however, if the program is closed source.

 

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

What's in the Dutch investigation related to telemetry at default settings

I can see that you did not actually read the document I linked. If you had then you would know that they go through both at default and at basic settings. I also strongly recommend that you actually go through the technical documents I linked a few pages back, which is straight from Microsoft and is in fact about the basic telemetry settings, not full.

 

 

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

just turn it off

How? Please tell me how I turn off all data collection Microsoft has included in Windows 10. Please remember that some data collection doesn't actually get turned off when you disable the feature (as I showed in my video where I sniffed packets leaving my machine when I was doing local searches), and please bear in mind that telemetry is not the only type of data harvesting in Windows 10.

 

20 minutes ago, asus killer said:

Or better yet install Linux, why use windows with that level of paranoia? i use facebook for some benign use only, but i use google search engine because there is no viable alternative and android because i don't like the only alternative (mostly i don't like Apple as a company, i prefer iOS to android), but still it's on me i could use iOS. I had ubuntu phone installed but sadly that didn't pick up.

1) I use Windows because I have to. Partially for work but also because of reasons similar to yours for why you use Google search instead of let's say DuckDuckGo. Because the alternatives have some drawbacks.

2) It is not paranoia. Paranoia is delusions, while everything I have said regarding Windows 10 in this thread are strictly factual and evidence based. You might not like the reality I have described, but it is the true reality.

3) The entire reason why I care so much about this is because I want Microsoft to improve. You seem to think that I make these posts because I just want to shit in Microsoft for some reason. I don't. I bring these things up to educate people like you, who are spreading harmful misinformation which hinders things from becoming better. I want Microsoft to change, and that is why I inform people so that they can join in and protest against these practices. I talk shit about Microsoft because I am a user of their products and want them to improve. 

 

Now I would like you to stop being condescending. Labeling things like "urban legends", "conspiracy theories" and "paranoia" will get you nowhere. It makes you look incredibly ignorant when you dismiss facts and evidence as untrue. You're on the same level as anti-vacc people, or the flat earth society when it comes to ignorance. 

[asus killer]

10 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Please tell me how to turn it off. I have asked you several times already and I have yet to get an answer.

you quote a document to show that your concerns are valid, that document clearly states that the telemetry issues apply to the default setting of data collection, it also enumerates the other settings. How can someone that pretends to know so much, missed that crucial piece of information? Is like someone pretending to read science books about the nature of elephants and asking me if they are big or small. What do you think is the answer to your question?

[billstelling]

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-now-lets-you-turn-off-tracking-but-only-if-youre-a-business/

 

A nice little article that tries to make out like it's a big deal while showing exactly what is true at the same time. Only necessary data for the self maintaining OS is collected for the the sole use of product stability and the social data storing can be turned off if you choose not to participate. It is not shared, sold of otherwise used outside of your personal use in streamlining your data intake.

 

Enterprise said 'I can handle my own diagnostics, thank you very much', and got their way.. The article also stated that Microsoft has tailored the settings to per user request as well, as was stated. Thus the benign telemetry still being used and mandatory still being collected. There are a lot of dumb ass end users out there and they need all the help they can get...

[asus killer]

11 minutes ago, billstelling said:

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-now-lets-you-turn-off-tracking-but-only-if-youre-a-business/

 

A nice little article that tries to make out like it's a big deal while showing exactly what is true at the same time. Only necessary data for the self maintaining OS is collected for the the sole use of product stability and the social data storing can be turned off if you choose not to participate. It is not shared, sold of otherwise used outside of your personal use in streamlining your data intake.

 

Enterprise said 'I can handle my own diagnostics, thank you very much', and got their way.. The article also stated that Microsoft has tailored the settings to per user request as well, as was stated. Thus the benign telemetry still being used and mandatory still being collected. There are a lot of dumb ass end users out there and they need all the help they can get...

the article explains it very nicely. I have windows pro so i guess i have the "basic" and i'm fine with what they collect if they collect it the way they say they do. I turned everything off a long time ago. This is always on a "they say we believe" basis. I don't think there is anyone actually able to audit this companies in their servers, that would be the desirable scenario.

EU has some new privacy law aimed specially at this big companies, but i must confess i don't know the specifics. The US and China seem to also be looking into this.

[billstelling]

Keep in mind, 'their way in' is just that... I worry more about them getting their hands on the data than say Apple, who is just trying to make a buck.

[LAwLz]

On 2018-05-08 at 11:27 AM, asus killer said:

you quote a document to show that your concerns are valid, that document clearly states that the telemetry issues apply to the default setting of data collection, it also enumerates the other settings. How can someone that pretends to know so much, missed that crucial piece of information? Is like someone pretending to read science books about the nature of elephants and asking me if they are big or small. What do you think is the answer to your question?

Cut that bullshit out.

Here is one of the many quotes from the investigation:

Quote

The AP found during its investigation of the Anniversary Update that Microsoft collected data of a sensitive nature at the most limited (basic) level of telemetry, for example about the use of apps.

Microsoft did update it so that basic no longer collects that particular info at basic, but the report still brings up other points which does apply to basic telemetry. On top of that, you have the entire list of things I posted earlier, which I'd estimate to be a couple of thousand different data points which Microsoft still collects. A lot of which is classified as personal data.

 

 

23 hours ago, asus killer said:

EU has some new privacy law aimed specially at this big companies, but i must confess i don't know the specifics. The US and China seem to also be looking into this.

GDPR.

That is not really related to what we are discussing though, which is your complete denial that Microsoft collects anything to begin with, which they most certainly do.

 

 

23 hours ago, billstelling said:

A nice little article that tries to make out like it's a big deal while showing exactly what is true at the same time. Only necessary data for the self maintaining OS is collected for the the sole use of product stability and the social data storing can be turned off if you choose not to participate. It is not shared, sold of otherwise used outside of your personal use in streamlining your data intake.

This is wrong on several points.

1) Please define what you mean by "self maintaining OS" means and what kind of data that is. I don't see why my OS needs to call home to Bing when doing local searches for example. Surely that is not for stability purposes.

2) Microsoft does share data with third parties. They explain it in this article (emphasis is mine).

Quote

Microsoft doesn’t share organization-specific customer information with third parties, except at the customer’s direction or for the limited purposes described in the privacy statement. However, we do share business reports with partners that include aggregated, anonymous telemetry information. Decisions to share info are made by an internal team that includes privacy, legal, and data management professionals.

3) You can not turn the data collection off except in some SKUs such as Enterprise.

 

 

23 hours ago, asus killer said:

the article explains it very nicely. I have windows pro so i guess i have the "basic" and i'm fine with what they collect if they collect it the way they say they do. I turned everything off a long time ago. This is always on a "they say we believe" basis. I don't think there is anyone actually able to audit this companies in their servers, that would be the desirable scenario.

Explain to me "what they collect" and "in the way they say they do" please. 

And no, you did not turn everything off. You dialed it down as far as you could, which is not turning it off.

[Jito463]

On 5/5/2018 at 4:39 PM, 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.

File size says nothing about what a company collects.  The size of the data is beside the point, what matters is how relevant that data is to you personally.

[Commodus]

14 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

File size says nothing about what a company collects.  The size of the data is beside the point, what matters is how relevant that data is to you personally.

It can mean something is how I'd put it, but I'd certainly agree that a tiny file size doesn't mean there's little actual data.

[Mira Yurizaki]

The article writer is trusting that what those companies allowed them to download was most or all of the data the company had on you. In reality, that's just how much data they were willing to package up and share with you.

 

If you really want to analyze how much and what data a company is getting from you, sniff the network traffic out of the device. Well, short of raiding their databases.

[TroubleKlef]

Makes sense though. With Apple, they sell you a product. With competitors, you are the product.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

On 5/9/2018 at 7:26 PM, billstelling said:

-snip-

So basically you have no decent arguments and are now resorting to pointing out spelling errors ... despite making a complete and utter mess of your punctuation throughout the thread.

[NMS]

I'd rather show Microsoft the photos of my balls then switch to Apple.

 

And as far as I'm concerned, the data Microsoft collects is "anonymous".

[captain_to_fire]

3 hours ago, NMS said:

I'd rather show Microsoft the photos of my balls then switch to Apple.

 

And as far as I'm concerned, the data Microsoft collects is "anonymous".

Not quite