Fellow humans, there are alternatives to Apple and Google! Your neck need not be under FAANG's boot! You don't even need to give up any functionality:
CalyxOS: https://calyxos.org/ Privacy-respecting Android distribution that replaces Google spyware with MicroG, so you can have your cake and eat it too. Most everything will work as you're used to, but it does still talk to Google to make that happen.
GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org/ Very much like Calyx, but extra-hardened and with no MicroG. No involvement with Google at all.
LineageOS: https://lineageos.org/ The successor to CyanogenMod, will work with many different phones. More privacy and control than stock Android.
There are also many others: Sailfish, Replicant, e
Hardware-wise: CalyxOS and GrapheneOS run best on Pixel 3, 3a, 3XL, 4, 4a, 4XL, 5, 6, 6a. The path of least resistance is to get one of these phones and run CalyxOS (if there is an app you need to use that needs Google services like Firebase Cloud Messaging...note that many that can use FCM will run fine without), otherwise run GrapheneOS.
There is also https://e.foundation/ that is a degooglized Android with micro-g + a cloud offering based of Nextcloud.
They provide roms but also sell phones with the OS pre-installed
It's about Apple's plan to add content-scanning to phones and reporting to the government if content matches images in the database. The concern is that it will be used by governments to identify political enemies who share memes, which is exactly the point. Apple's excuse to the world is that they want to protect children by identifying people who receive known CSAM and reporting them. There's no money in that, however, so the most obvious explanation is that Apple wants to keep operating in various countries whose governments want the feature.
He is interested in the protection of user privacy. Author of "Better Blocker", an ad bocker for iOS/macOS.^1 Apple's decisions are making user privacy increasingly more difficult if not impossible when using an Apple computer.
So, the "old friend" is an Apple that the author originally considered an acceptable compromise.
I have to confess that in this particular case, and maybe at this particular time, I was "hoping" that this was about a real human being, and the process of saying goodbye to him/her. I guess I was looking for a peek into the feelings of someone else, who cared deeply about another person.
I don’t want Apple to do client side scanning. But if they do it, I wouldn’t be getting off their ecosystem. At this point, its a total fiction of choice as a consumer...all my devices are Apple devices. I have a equitable choice for cellphone network providers. I don’t really for device ecosystems. It sucks but I also think that leaving Apple has a very high cost as a consumer; that the right solution may be through regulations.
I know this sounds crazy, but even 10 years ago humans happily existed in a world where we didn’t have ubiquitous cloud providers that ruled our lives.
Why does it matter? I took plenty of pictures. I still have all of them. In fact there are some physical logistics, but they will probably still be around in 30-40 years. Who knows about my Dropbox account. Every so often I do ship an encrypted hard drive down to my parents house. It is a backup of everything.
What is it about modern phones we actually can’t live without? Or modern cloud? The answer is not much. They are recent inventions. Not required for a convenient or fulfilled life. I do use an Apple phone, I’m typing this on one. But I’m ready for when or whenever I feel like ditching them. I recommend everyone with the means be likewise prepared.
Also backblaze is a nice place to warehouse data for now. They will get bought. Another independent broker will come along. Anyhow. Don’t be a slave.
>I don’t want Apple to do client side scanning. But if they do it, I wouldn’t be getting off their ecosystem. ... It sucks but I also think that leaving Apple has a very high cost as a consumer;
Isn't it a big mistake that many people unfortunately make when they are trying to evaluate personal freedoms rights and values in terms of consumer costs?
"I wouldn’t be getting off their ecosystem." One thing to consider is that if you would not you'll pay much more later even though at the moment it decisively appears relatively safe. Nevertheless by staying with them in such case you'll give them a clear sign that they can abuse you much more and they will. Why not?
>that the right solution may be through regulations.
The full control of devices you own is absolutely essential. It requires a complete transparency of basic components like cpu micro-code, firmware and hardware otherwise it can and will be abused.
Client side scanning is clearly the search without warrant. Hard to see it any other way.
I don't understand this argument, in fact I'd argue the opposite. Non-Apple devices are way cheaper, both for the device itself and considering the fact that one isn't paying a premium for each peripheral (headphones, freakin charger etc). And if you're referring to the interconnectedness of devices this is attainable with alternatives (even FOSS like KDE connect) albeit with some setup time.
I will leave. I'm already all linux on PCs I gave my two macbooks to relatives. If they push the full project on iphone they will completely lose me as a customer. I'll move my data and forget about them as an option. If you want to give up that's fine I guess.
What is it about Apple that makes them hard to leave?
There are some switching costs to be sure. I wrote a custom MP3 tag identifier at one point when switching off an Ipod. But do they just make exports cumbersome, expensive, or what?
Why do you need Apple or Google to make phone calls, or send SMS messages? You don't.
You've gotten used to a lifestyle with subsidized services in "the cloud" aka Someone else's computer. It's going to be an adjustment, but you're going to have to either give up your freedom completely to own your data, or actually pay for your own infrastructure.
It would suck if google and the rest went away in a flash, with no notice... but we'd all recover, likely in a few months, a year tops. Remember how things changed when remote work became a fact of life, and now nobody wants to go back? It would be the same if the tech giants disappeared, and forced the decision.
What exactly do you need them for? Start planning your post Google life now. I had a digital life pre FAANG and I will have one post them too. It’s easier than ever to be independent of them for everything but transiting which is very ephemeral and solvable.
LineageOS+MicroG or GrapheneOS. I'm using Lineage right now without any material compromises, though it did take some effort to set up. Once it's setup though, it works like any other phone, but without apple or google trash on it.
I liked the article because I have some of the same occasional but recurring desire to use my System 76 Linux laptop more, give up my smooth and efficient digital work flow based around iPad, Apple Watch, and iPhone.
My problem is that there is so much to do in my life that giving up Apple devices would slow me down too much.
I’m not sure why he is singling out Apple. All the services scan cloud content for child porn, like Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.
Apple is not looking at images, it makes a hash of the images and then looks to see if they match known child porn. Only it there is an excessive amount (30 images is what I read previously) do they do anything.
There is a lot of evil in this world, including child porn, and up to this point not a whole lot is being done about it.
I think this is a good step.
Do I want them look for anything further, no, of course not.
But as I said, Apple isn’t alone in this. Google is reported to censor user documents in the Google Cloud. That to me is far, far worse than what Apple is doing.
You’re safest on an Apple device, far more than Windows or Android, but people single out Apple.
You really can't see the problem with collecting data on the images stored on your personal devices? Google doesn't plan to scan your personal files on your own device and then call law enforcement if it finds something suspicious.
Can't say it enough, we need "framework" -type devices for all hardware. Then we won't need the iPad because we can use the fPad and create our own OS or apps without having to be bent over a barrel by the government or corporations.
The next thing they'll try to "lock down" will be Internet infrastructure. We need some sort of cheap wireless decentralized networking for Internet 2.0. Curious what thoughts are from others around that?
I want to point out that people who use iPhones don't have any obligation to use Apple's iCloud services.
As the technical summary [1] explains, this scanning process only affects data that is being uploaded to iCloud – which, by the way, never offered end-to-end encryption of photos in the first place. Apple is fully within reason to prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers, and if you read the technical paper they seem to have implemented the technique in a way that goes out of its way to avoid collecting data about you.
Instead of using iCloud, you can have your photos automatically upload to any other cloud photo service including self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud Photos. At no point does iPhone ownership require that you use Apple's services beyond the App Store. You can completely back up and restore your phone and sync a variety of content entirely with local storage via a cable or WiFi just like it was an iPod. Or, you can use a wide variety of non-Apple apps for storing and accessing content.
You can enable/disable each iCloud service individually.
I know the author really has some decent points here, and certainly Apple and Google's smartphone duopoly needs more customer protections, but the article as a whole feels ruined by a bunch of whining about a single customer-specific issue (Something about migrating a developer account? I have no idea what he's talking about.), no more useful to the rest of us than a blog post complaining about a restaurant server who forgot to bring him a side of BBQ sauce.
> prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers
This is an approach to avoid having some law enforcement agency using CSAM as an excuse to be granted access to paw through those servers. Otherwise it’s hard to deflect such requests.
What makes it really challenging to leave Apple is all the integrations it has with its own products. If a friend of mine has an iPhone, I can share my wifi password with them from my iPad. If I want to send them a photo from my MacBook, I don’t have to ask for their email. If they’re nearby, I just airdrop it directly onto their phone.
You can’t escape from their ecosystem without seriously limiting your ability to interact with friends. The only way out I can see is If someone makes a phone that can interop seamlessly with all these features. That seems like a really hard technical challenge with a very small market.
I have an Android phone. All my friends have iPhones. I have never had issues dealing with them. Wifi passwords can be shared through QR codes. Messaging can be done through apps like Signal if you can't use iMessage.
> What makes it really challenging to leave Apple is all the integrations it has with its own products. If a friend of mine has an iPhone, I can share my wifi password with them from my iPad. If I want to send them a photo from my MacBook, I don’t have to ask for their email. If they’re nearby, I just airdrop it directly onto their phone.
It's interesting that you feel this way; I don't feel like either of those things are hard for me to do with friends without using any Apple devices or services, but obviously these sorts of things are very subjective. On my Android phone, I can either manually show them the password or read it out to them or even show them a QR code to scan to add the network from my phone's wifi settings. It's a bit more work than automatically adding it, but I feel like it comes up so rarely that having it take ten seconds instead of one really doesn't matter. For photos, I don't really ever email my friends; I generally have their info on any number of potential messaging apps which deliver faster than email and don't have nearly as small a limit on the attachment size. It's kind of surprising to me that there's nothing more significant than that stopping you from migrating to a new ecosystem.
I have used MacBook Air and macOS (OS X back then) for more than a decade and I never had this issue; I haven't used iPhone at all. True, the Apple-only ecosystem might be slightly easier to use, but not too much compared to the mixed Apple-Android-whatever ecosystem.
I had to force-quit Apple because I couldn't afford them any longer. I have the shittiest Android you can get. My gf has iPhone 12. There is no problem with us communicating. She never texts anyone. She uses Snapchat and Insta with her friends as far as I can tell. We talk over Skype, Insta and TikTok. I have texted her exactly once. Just so she had my actual phone number.
The market would be ALL android phones. Apple would never allow seamless interop. It's not in their interest, let alone opening themselves up for more exploit possibilities.
Once again RMS is being proved correct. If you use non-free software, then don't expect your autonomy to be respected. I'm confident that within our lifetimes the absolute worst case you can imagine for this technology will look fair and reasonable compared to what will be coming.
Isn't the client side scanning done only on stuff that is about to be uploaded to the cloud, and thus stuff that would be scanned server-side anyway as it has been the case for most cloud stuff for years?
In that case, yeah, a bit sneaky to offload their electricity usage to me and save on hardware by using mine. but it is not "The End of Privacy as We Know It".
Hilarious how in late 2021 people are still blaming Trump's Justice Department for something evil that Apple does.
Didn't you guys vote him out of the office? And if you did, but Apple still continues with their evil sinister plan, maybe it's not on Trump's Justice Department, after all?
What an easy way to dismiss an article and inject bias without saying anything substantive yourself. There are several interesting bits about specific acts by apple, as well as an introduction to the Small Technology Foundation, which seems like a worthwhile effort to counteract the subject of this "rant".
[+] [-] NoImmatureAdHom|4 years ago|reply
CalyxOS: https://calyxos.org/ Privacy-respecting Android distribution that replaces Google spyware with MicroG, so you can have your cake and eat it too. Most everything will work as you're used to, but it does still talk to Google to make that happen.
GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org/ Very much like Calyx, but extra-hardened and with no MicroG. No involvement with Google at all.
LineageOS: https://lineageos.org/ The successor to CyanogenMod, will work with many different phones. More privacy and control than stock Android.
There are also many others: Sailfish, Replicant, e
Hardware-wise: CalyxOS and GrapheneOS run best on Pixel 3, 3a, 3XL, 4, 4a, 4XL, 5, 6, 6a. The path of least resistance is to get one of these phones and run CalyxOS (if there is an app you need to use that needs Google services like Firebase Cloud Messaging...note that many that can use FCM will run fine without), otherwise run GrapheneOS.
You can also buy a Librem 5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ If privacy and security and hacking are really important to you.
Or a pinephone: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
[+] [-] boudin|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rootsudo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sprkwd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mgarfias|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdowling|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1vuio0pswjnm7|4 years ago|reply
He is interested in the protection of user privacy. Author of "Better Blocker", an ad bocker for iOS/macOS.^1 Apple's decisions are making user privacy increasingly more difficult if not impossible when using an Apple computer.
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20211219053624if_/https://better...
[+] [-] acomjean|4 years ago|reply
https://better.fyi/
It is no longer a thing as of Dec 15, 2021
[+] [-] donohoe|4 years ago|reply
I can to the comments hoping someone has context.
Otherwise it’s just a rant, and not a very lucid one at that.
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|4 years ago|reply
I have to confess that in this particular case, and maybe at this particular time, I was "hoping" that this was about a real human being, and the process of saying goodbye to him/her. I guess I was looking for a peek into the feelings of someone else, who cared deeply about another person.
[+] [-] pm90|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitexploder|4 years ago|reply
Why does it matter? I took plenty of pictures. I still have all of them. In fact there are some physical logistics, but they will probably still be around in 30-40 years. Who knows about my Dropbox account. Every so often I do ship an encrypted hard drive down to my parents house. It is a backup of everything.
What is it about modern phones we actually can’t live without? Or modern cloud? The answer is not much. They are recent inventions. Not required for a convenient or fulfilled life. I do use an Apple phone, I’m typing this on one. But I’m ready for when or whenever I feel like ditching them. I recommend everyone with the means be likewise prepared.
Also backblaze is a nice place to warehouse data for now. They will get bought. Another independent broker will come along. Anyhow. Don’t be a slave.
[+] [-] lovelyviking|4 years ago|reply
Isn't it a big mistake that many people unfortunately make when they are trying to evaluate personal freedoms rights and values in terms of consumer costs?
"I wouldn’t be getting off their ecosystem." One thing to consider is that if you would not you'll pay much more later even though at the moment it decisively appears relatively safe. Nevertheless by staying with them in such case you'll give them a clear sign that they can abuse you much more and they will. Why not?
>that the right solution may be through regulations.
The full control of devices you own is absolutely essential. It requires a complete transparency of basic components like cpu micro-code, firmware and hardware otherwise it can and will be abused.
Client side scanning is clearly the search without warrant. Hard to see it any other way.
[+] [-] demux|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stjohnswarts|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomrod|4 years ago|reply
There are some switching costs to be sure. I wrote a custom MP3 tag identifier at one point when switching off an Ipod. But do they just make exports cumbersome, expensive, or what?
[+] [-] eddyg|4 years ago|reply
Do you prefer the server-side scanning that every other “big player” that stores end-user data in their data centers is already doing?
[+] [-] duxup|4 years ago|reply
Some hacky devices?
[+] [-] mikewarot|4 years ago|reply
Why do you need Apple or Google to make phone calls, or send SMS messages? You don't.
You've gotten used to a lifestyle with subsidized services in "the cloud" aka Someone else's computer. It's going to be an adjustment, but you're going to have to either give up your freedom completely to own your data, or actually pay for your own infrastructure.
It would suck if google and the rest went away in a flash, with no notice... but we'd all recover, likely in a few months, a year tops. Remember how things changed when remote work became a fact of life, and now nobody wants to go back? It would be the same if the tech giants disappeared, and forced the decision.
[+] [-] bitexploder|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colordrops|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_arun|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FullyFunctional|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|4 years ago|reply
My problem is that there is so much to do in my life that giving up Apple devices would slow me down too much.
[+] [-] davidw|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|4 years ago|reply
Apple's crazy App Store regulations are slowing me down ...
It's funny how large corporations tend to become like bureaucratic government institutions given enough time. Well, it's not funny really.
[+] [-] flaxton|4 years ago|reply
Apple is not looking at images, it makes a hash of the images and then looks to see if they match known child porn. Only it there is an excessive amount (30 images is what I read previously) do they do anything.
There is a lot of evil in this world, including child porn, and up to this point not a whole lot is being done about it.
I think this is a good step.
Do I want them look for anything further, no, of course not.
But as I said, Apple isn’t alone in this. Google is reported to censor user documents in the Google Cloud. That to me is far, far worse than what Apple is doing.
You’re safest on an Apple device, far more than Windows or Android, but people single out Apple.
I just don’t get it.
[+] [-] another_story|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexfromapex|4 years ago|reply
The next thing they'll try to "lock down" will be Internet infrastructure. We need some sort of cheap wireless decentralized networking for Internet 2.0. Curious what thoughts are from others around that?
[+] [-] dangus|4 years ago|reply
As the technical summary [1] explains, this scanning process only affects data that is being uploaded to iCloud – which, by the way, never offered end-to-end encryption of photos in the first place. Apple is fully within reason to prevent CSAM content from reaching their servers, and if you read the technical paper they seem to have implemented the technique in a way that goes out of its way to avoid collecting data about you.
Instead of using iCloud, you can have your photos automatically upload to any other cloud photo service including self-hosted solutions like Nextcloud Photos. At no point does iPhone ownership require that you use Apple's services beyond the App Store. You can completely back up and restore your phone and sync a variety of content entirely with local storage via a cable or WiFi just like it was an iPod. Or, you can use a wide variety of non-Apple apps for storing and accessing content.
You can enable/disable each iCloud service individually.
I know the author really has some decent points here, and certainly Apple and Google's smartphone duopoly needs more customer protections, but the article as a whole feels ruined by a bunch of whining about a single customer-specific issue (Something about migrating a developer account? I have no idea what he's talking about.), no more useful to the rest of us than a blog post complaining about a restaurant server who forgot to bring him a side of BBQ sauce.
[1] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
[+] [-] Isamu|4 years ago|reply
This is an approach to avoid having some law enforcement agency using CSAM as an excuse to be granted access to paw through those servers. Otherwise it’s hard to deflect such requests.
[+] [-] internet2000|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reidjs|4 years ago|reply
You can’t escape from their ecosystem without seriously limiting your ability to interact with friends. The only way out I can see is If someone makes a phone that can interop seamlessly with all these features. That seems like a really hard technical challenge with a very small market.
[+] [-] nightfly|4 years ago|reply
I've lived 34 years with this _never_ being an issue. Ever.
[+] [-] xmprt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saghm|4 years ago|reply
It's interesting that you feel this way; I don't feel like either of those things are hard for me to do with friends without using any Apple devices or services, but obviously these sorts of things are very subjective. On my Android phone, I can either manually show them the password or read it out to them or even show them a QR code to scan to add the network from my phone's wifi settings. It's a bit more work than automatically adding it, but I feel like it comes up so rarely that having it take ten seconds instead of one really doesn't matter. For photos, I don't really ever email my friends; I generally have their info on any number of potential messaging apps which deliver faster than email and don't have nearly as small a limit on the attachment size. It's kind of surprising to me that there's nothing more significant than that stopping you from migrating to a new ecosystem.
[+] [-] lifthrasiir|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] calvano915|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingcharles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samplatt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bullen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] User23|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elzbardico|4 years ago|reply
In that case, yeah, a bit sneaky to offload their electricity usage to me and save on hardware by using mine. but it is not "The End of Privacy as We Know It".
[+] [-] throwawaymanbot|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jonathantf2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] low_tech_love|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Andrew_nenakhov|4 years ago|reply
Didn't you guys vote him out of the office? And if you did, but Apple still continues with their evil sinister plan, maybe it's not on Trump's Justice Department, after all?
[+] [-] chmaynard|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colordrops|4 years ago|reply