An interesting read

Covers Tim Cook's statement about the tradeoff we make between convience
and loss of privacy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/technology/what-apples-tim-cook-overlooked-in-his-defense-of-privacy.html?_r=0




--
PeterN

| Covers Tim Cook's statement about the tradeoff we make between convience
| and loss of privacy.
|
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/technology/what-apples-tim-cook-overlooked-in-his-defense-of-privacy.html?_r=0
|

I didn't think there was really much new in that.
Like David Pogue before him, Farhad Manjoo gets
paid to lob ads disguised as softball criticism at
tech companies, saying idiotic things like, "I just
tried the Acme WooHoo and now I realize why
owning 5 cameras simply wasn't enough." The NYT
is "all the big-business-skewed drivel we dare
to print". Manjoo does make some criticisms of
Tim Cook, but he's very gentle about it, and doesn't
forget to counterbalance those with pro-Apple
tidbits near the end.

In today's column, Manjoo talks about how he thinks
Twitter could improve. This is a man who admits to
reading Twitter comments about a basketball game,
in real time, while he watches the game. It's like a
columnist who reviews soap operas. Why would I
care about the artistic reviews of someone who
spends their time watching soap operas? Why would
I care about the musings of someone with no more
sense than to spend his time gossiping on Twitter,
even when he's already doing something else?

It is rather interesting, though, in light of another
development:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/11/87...k-safari-ios-9

Apple is going to support writing ad blockers on
iOS. Taking the two stories together, it looks like
Apple may have decided to try and pull off yet
another "we're the good guys" marketing campaign.
Apparently their own success with web ads has been
very limited. And they're battling with Google over a
number of things. And Google is all ads all the time.
Allowing ad blockers screws Google, makes Apple look
honest, and puts them out in front of all the hypocrites
claiming they support privacy, and at a time when
privacy is becoming more newsworthy.

The NYT had another article last
week about how spying entities like Facebook should
offer the option for people to pay for the service instead
of being spied on, especially given that FB only makes
about $.20/month from each Facebookie through the
spying-enhanced ads. It all sounds good to imagine
Facebook growing up a bit and catering to adults, but
then what about the people who don't pay? How can
Facebook spy on some and not on others? And why would
they stop, anyway? Google made billions without spying,
but they wanted billions more. Legislation is the only
solution that might work. Hoping that web companies
might somehow start respecting privacy is simply not
realistic. At best they'll just be opportunistic, like Yahoo
when they bragged that their webmail wasn't spyware....
until they changed their minds and made it spyware.

That dovetails with another report last week:

http://betanews.com/2015/06/07/inter...-they-know-it/

The usual: Nearly all people online feel hopeless about
protecting their privacy. An increasing number regard
online spying as generally malefic, yet very, very few
are willing to do anything about it if it means lifting a
finger.

Yesterday I was in Sears buying a shirt. The clerk
nonchalantly asked for my phone number, with the
assumption that I was a member of the chummy Sears
shopping club. I said no and paid cash, as I always do.

Her: "You don't want to save money?!"

Me: "I don't like being spied on. It doesn't bother you?"

Her: "Oh, there's nothing you can do. I didn't want
to serve on jury duty, so I didn't vote. They still got
me! And if you file taxes then your information is
all out there."

There was no hope that the woman could possibly
think about the topic at all. Her head was just a jumble
of glib, false maxims. Like most people, she just wants
to swim through her day making as little effort as
possible.... Which is a lucky break for Tim Cook. He
knows that all people really care about is the *pretense*
of respecting privacy. Like the car salesman, his job is
not to lie to you. His job is to help you lie to yourself.
People don't want to worry about privacy, but they
also don't want to be exposed as suckers *in their own
minds*. So the lazier they are, the more they'll lionize
Tim Cook for taking a noble stand and helping them to
go back to sleep.

On 6/12/2015 1:15 PM, Mayayana wrote:
| Covers Tim Cook's statement about the tradeoff we make between convience
| and loss of privacy.
|
|
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/technology/what-apples-tim-cook-overlooked-in-his-defense-of-privacy.html?_r=0
|

I didn't think there was really much new in that.
Like David Pogue before him, Farhad Manjoo gets
paid to lob ads disguised as softball criticism at
tech companies, saying idiotic things like, "I just
tried the Acme WooHoo and now I realize why
owning 5 cameras simply wasn't enough." The NYT
is "all the big-business-skewed drivel we dare
to print". Manjoo does make some criticisms of
Tim Cook, but he's very gentle about it, and doesn't
forget to counterbalance those with pro-Apple
tidbits near the end.

In today's column, Manjoo talks about how he thinks
Twitter could improve. This is a man who admits to
reading Twitter comments about a basketball game,
in real time, while he watches the game. It's like a
columnist who reviews soap operas. Why would I
care about the artistic reviews of someone who
spends their time watching soap operas? Why would
I care about the musings of someone with no more
sense than to spend his time gossiping on Twitter,
even when he's already doing something else?

It is rather interesting, though, in light of another
development:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/11/87...k-safari-ios-9

Apple is going to support writing ad blockers on
iOS. Taking the two stories together, it looks like
Apple may have decided to try and pull off yet
another "we're the good guys" marketing campaign.
Apparently their own success with web ads has been
very limited. And they're battling with Google over a
number of things. And Google is all ads all the time.
Allowing ad blockers screws Google, makes Apple look
honest, and puts them out in front of all the hypocrites
claiming they support privacy, and at a time when
privacy is becoming more newsworthy.

The NYT had another article last
week about how spying entities like Facebook should
offer the option for people to pay for the service instead
of being spied on, especially given that FB only makes
about $.20/month from each Facebookie through the
spying-enhanced ads. It all sounds good to imagine
Facebook growing up a bit and catering to adults, but
then what about the people who don't pay? How can
Facebook spy on some and not on others? And why would
they stop, anyway? Google made billions without spying,
but they wanted billions more. Legislation is the only
solution that might work. Hoping that web companies
might somehow start respecting privacy is simply not
realistic. At best they'll just be opportunistic, like Yahoo
when they bragged that their webmail wasn't spyware....
until they changed their minds and made it spyware.

That dovetails with another report last week:

http://betanews.com/2015/06/07/inter...-they-know-it/

The usual: Nearly all people online feel hopeless about
protecting their privacy. An increasing number regard
online spying as generally malefic, yet very, very few
are willing to do anything about it if it means lifting a
finger.

Yesterday I was in Sears buying a shirt. The clerk
nonchalantly asked for my phone number, with the
assumption that I was a member of the chummy Sears
shopping club. I said no and paid cash, as I always do.

Her: "You don't want to save money?!"

Me: "I don't like being spied on. It doesn't bother you?"

Her: "Oh, there's nothing you can do. I didn't want
to serve on jury duty, so I didn't vote. They still got
me! And if you file taxes then your information is
all out there."

There was no hope that the woman could possibly
think about the topic at all. Her head was just a jumble
of glib, false maxims. Like most people, she just wants
to swim through her day making as little effort as
possible.... Which is a lucky break for Tim Cook. He
knows that all people really care about is the *pretense*
of respecting privacy. Like the car salesman, his job is
not to lie to you. His job is to help you lie to yourself.
People don't want to worry about privacy, but they
also don't want to be exposed as suckers *in their own
minds*. So the lazier they are, the more they'll lionize
Tim Cook for taking a noble stand and helping them to
go back to sleep.



Now that you are off your rant, I read the article as saying that Tim
Cook left out some information, such as: Apple's future plans to evelop
its own search engines. etc. Read again.
I am also deliberately not resonding to your comment about the integrity
of The New York Times, except to remind you that many right wing nuts
accuse it of being a left wing tool.

--
PeterN

| I read the article as saying that Tim
| Cook left out some information, such as: Apple's future plans to evelop
| its own search engines.

I don't know where you got that. He specifically
says that Apple perhaps should provide free search
if they really care about privacy, but that they're
not doing that.
The general theme is that Tim Cook is criticizing
the spyware ad companies like Google and Facebook,
and saying "we don't need your data". Manjoo points
out that's a bit disingenuous because Apple has deals
with the ad companies. But he's actually being very
gentle in his criticism. Apple takes in vast data and
says so in their privacy terms. Cook is just pretending
that it's somehow not so sleazy because Apple is *only*
spying in order to provide good service.

Yet, a few years ago they were caught storing a
permanent, full location record on iPhones. Only
after demands from senators did they finally respond
and say, "OK. We won't store the data so long."
As far as I know they never promised not to keep
a copy themselves. They adopt an attitude that
all they do is for the sake of their customers, while
Google adopts a less reassuring attitude, that they
slurp every bit they can but "anonymize" it. I don't
see any difference. Any data collection should be
opt-in only. ...Perhaps you think that's more ranting,
but why else post this if not to discuss it?

| I am also deliberately not resonding to your comment about the integrity
| of The New York Times, except to remind you that many right wing nuts
| accuse it of being a left wing tool.
|

Don't they accuse all media of being left wing?

I have a daily subscription to the NYT. (Not by choice.)
I consistently see them skew things slightly in favor
of business. For instance, a few years back credit card
companies were forced to be more fair in their dealings.
I counted 5 articles about that in the NYT, with a
general theme that finally the consumer had won. In
only one of those articles did they mention that the
law wasn't going into effect for more than a year,
to leave the banks a chance to rework their strategies.
The NYT didn't lie, but they did present it more as
public relations for banks than as straight news. I see
that same pattern over and over. (The NYT also wasn't
picked by Edward Snowden to share with, while WashPo
was.)

If you read Pogue and Manjoo consistently I think
you'll find that they're pro-business in the sense that
their columns are generally positive and generally
about "consumer products". It's a kind of soft
advertising.

But of course, everyone can decide for themselves.
I highlight this issue because the NYT has an unusually
good reputation as a newspaper and I simply don't see
the justification.

In article , Mayayana
wrote:

| I read the article as saying that Tim
| Cook left out some information, such as: Apple's future plans to evelop
| its own search engines.

I don't know where you got that. He specifically
says that Apple perhaps should provide free search
if they really care about privacy, but that they're
not doing that.

apple offers duck duck go as a default option for those who don't want
any tracking.

they are also actively working to minimize google's access to user data
on macs and ios devices.

The general theme is that Tim Cook is criticizing
the spyware ad companies like Google and Facebook,
and saying "we don't need your data". Manjoo points
out that's a bit disingenuous because Apple has deals
with the ad companies. But he's actually being very
gentle in his criticism. Apple takes in vast data and
says so in their privacy terms. Cook is just pretending
that it's somehow not so sleazy because Apple is *only*
spying in order to provide good service.

a significant amount of data is anonymous.

for example, google recently announce google photos where you upload
photos and they're analyzed (and data mined) so that you can do
intelligent searches.

apple has a similar capability, but the search is done locally on the
device.

apps with ads are entirely the work of third party developers, not
apple.

Yet, a few years ago they were caught storing a
permanent, full location record on iPhones. Only
after demands from senators did they finally respond
and say, "OK. We won't store the data so long."

nope. that is complete utter bull**** and you know it since you've been
told this many times before.

what apple did was collect *anonymous* wifi location data to improve
geolocation for the user, which was then aggregated and uploaded
without any user identifiable information whatsoever.

a subset of that data is cached on the device, since it's expensive to
ping apple's servers and wait for a response, versus do a lookup
locally.

the only mistake apple made that the cached data on the device was
backed up and restored, thereby allowing for the possibility that
someone who had access to the backup could see that data. since that
person is almost always the owner, it wasn't actually an issue.
nevertheless, the location data is not kept in the backup anymore.

google and microsoft do exactly the same thing, by the way, but i don't
see you bitching about that.

As far as I know they never promised not to keep
a copy themselves.

what they kept was *anonymous* data to make geolocation work better.

They adopt an attitude that
all they do is for the sake of their customers, while
Google adopts a less reassuring attitude, that they
slurp every bit they can but "anonymize" it. I don't
see any difference. Any data collection should be
opt-in only. ...Perhaps you think that's more ranting,
but why else post this if not to discuss it?

there's a huge difference between the two companies.

google's revenue is from advertising so they *must* collect personal
data in order to target ads.

apple's revenue is from sales of hardware, software and services, so
they don't need personal data at all and in fact, they go out of their
way to *not* collect it.

send a text message via google voice and it's data mined. send a text
message via imessage and it's encrypted end-to-end.

in fact, apple devices are so secure that the fbi is ****ed they can't
access them anymore.

remember google 'accidentally' collecting wifi passwords when they were
doing street view? do you really think the engineer who 'accidentally'
coded it didn't know what he was doing?

On 6/12/2015 3:59 PM, Mayayana wrote:
| I read the article as saying that Tim
| Cook left out some information, such as: Apple's future plans to evelop
| its own search engines.

I don't know where you got that. He specifically
says that Apple perhaps should provide free search
if they really care about privacy, but that they're
not doing that.
The general theme is that Tim Cook is criticizing
the spyware ad companies like Google and Facebook,
and saying "we don't need your data". Manjoo points
out that's a bit disingenuous because Apple has deals
with the ad companies. But he's actually being very
gentle in his criticism. Apple takes in vast data and
says so in their privacy terms. Cook is just pretending
that it's somehow not so sleazy because Apple is *only*
spying in order to provide good service.

Yet, a few years ago they were caught storing a
permanent, full location record on iPhones. Only
after demands from senators did they finally respond
and say, "OK. We won't store the data so long."
As far as I know they never promised not to keep
a copy themselves. They adopt an attitude that
all they do is for the sake of their customers, while
Google adopts a less reassuring attitude, that they
slurp every bit they can but "anonymize" it. I don't
see any difference. Any data collection should be
opt-in only. ...Perhaps you think that's more ranting,
but why else post this if not to discuss it?

| I am also deliberately not resonding to your comment about the integrity
| of The New York Times, except to remind you that many right wing nuts
| accuse it of being a left wing tool.
|

Don't they accuse all media of being left wing?

I have a daily subscription to the NYT. (Not by choice.)
I consistently see them skew things slightly in favor
of business. For instance, a few years back credit card
companies were forced to be more fair in their dealings.
I counted 5 articles about that in the NYT, with a
general theme that finally the consumer had won. In
only one of those articles did they mention that the
law wasn't going into effect for more than a year,
to leave the banks a chance to rework their strategies.
The NYT didn't lie, but they did present it more as
public relations for banks than as straight news. I see
that same pattern over and over. (The NYT also wasn't
picked by Edward Snowden to share with, while WashPo
was.)

So Snowden is the arbitrater of a fair press. He never told me anything
about that. Did he tell you is reasons?


If you read Pogue and Manjoo consistently I think
you'll find that they're pro-business in the sense that
their columns are generally positive and generally
about "consumer products". It's a kind of soft
advertising.

Readers can form their own conclusions.


But of course, everyone can decide for themselves.

Yep!

I highlight this issue because the NYT has an unusually
good reputation as a newspaper and I simply don't see
the justification.

Truth is a good justification.



--
PeterN