Apple blocks Facebook from running its internal iOS apps
theverge.com
theverge.com
It's also a step up from the warning they gave with the whole Onovo thing. Strike two...
Facebook got caught, and then they tried to use their enterprise cert to get around App Store review because they knew it would get rejected.
I do agree that this is measured. The question is how long, if ever, before Apple grants them a new cert. If Apple lets them back into the Enterprise Developer Program, this is a few days of inconvenience. If they keep them out, this effectively kills their apps on the iOS app store because FB can't effectively work on the apps internally.
https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/757381...
And Apple has shown with Maps that they are capable of building a decent competitor to Google.
http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-eng...
I'm guessing Tim Cook is not ready to give that up in the name of "fighting for privacy." Otherwise he'd have already made DuckDuckGo the default search engine.
There's no doubt in my mind Steve Jobs would've kicked Google out, but Tim Cook is much more of a bean counter to make such a move.
https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-screwed-u...
Unfortunately, I won't be able to completely disconnect because I've got a number of friends who share photos through Google Photos (and I would like to keep access to those), a number of friends who only use Hangouts (not sure if that's better or worse than FB Messenger), and YouTube doesn't have any real competitors.
Search for ‘Google Cloud’ in the following:
PS: On the otherside migrating all services out of Google Cloud would be a technical challenge (their needs are huge) but at the end of the day a minor annoyance for Apple.
TechCrunch at least caught on.
But the page is still available in cache https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RqQCNF...
The page asks users to trust Google Inc.
Unless FB and Big G start charging for their services, I don't see how they can change their behaviour.
It's easy to occupy the high ground when everyone else is in the gutter.
I assume that they gladly take my cash to then nevertheless sell me out to the highest bidder.
They knowingly stole money from kids (via their parents credit cards) and did so knowingly and for years. They did just about everything possible to keep the stolen loot, including trying to automate their disputes on charge backs. [1]
This carcinogenic pustule of a company is unredeemable and is unable to learn anything. Money and growth is the only goal to be achieved. Fuck all consequences!
Why would I ever trust such a company with money and believe they're not lying to my face.
[1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/facebook-knowingly-duped-...
I'm sure "employees" is defined loosely enough in the agreement to include "contractors", and the bar there is pretty low, getting paid pretty much makes you a contractor.
And on top of that all of those from other companies doing the exact same thing for data gathering.
It doesn't appear Google is interested in doing anything here. They would likely have to do something about the thousands of other trojan horse VPN apps, too. It's just that those are not as transparently owned by a privacy-invading internet giant (and those apps probably sell your private information directly to the highest bidder even more eagerly).
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onavo.spac... - the positive, uninformed reviews of this app give me a feeling like I'm reading a dystopian novel.
If Google is concerned about competition, they might.
If Google is more concerned about being accused of being anti-competitive, then they probably would not.
Those teens in the FB case tho.
They have no visibility into what companies are doing with enterprise certificates. The whole point of which was to allow internal apps to be built that Apple should have no knowledge of.
They did the best they could which is to revoke the certificate once they learnt of egregious behaviour.
Looks like Google even sends people routers to intercept ALL their traffic, and has special devices to constantly listen to their TV to analyze what people are watching. Yuck.
Then I started thinking about what this app really is. At $20/month per user, it's clearly impossible to recoup that money on a per-user basis via better ad targeting. This app is a market research app with a very small opt-in panel, just like having a Nielsen box on your TV.
I've never felt like Nielsen's data collection is evil, so it makes me wonder if my reaction is rational.
Also, looks like Nielsen has a similar program: https://computermobilepanel.nielsen.com/
> Be 18 years of age or older and capable of entering into a binding contract. You expressly declare that you are the owner of or lawfully exercise control over any Device onto which you authorize the downloading of the Software.
Facebook's spyware was pushed to teenagers as young as 13. But yeah, same thing.
1) Nielsen doesn't explicitly target children.
2) The data that Nielsen collects is far less intrusive than what FB collects.
3) The consumer is much more likely to be informed about the data Nielsen collects, where as with FB, it's unlikely that a user (especially a minor) understands the extent of what FB was collecting.
And yes, Facebook was requiring "parental consent" to collect this data, but as we all know that is very hard to verify and children have been ticking the "I'm 13 or older" box for years without their parents knowing.
What Facebook did clearly crossed a line. End of story.
Obvioisly someone is still free to respond, and then that won’t be the end of the discussion. So what’s the point of saying it? It seems to escalate the stakes basically: “if you disagree then you are a LABEL!”
By taking a hardline stance, I'm opening the opportunity to prove me wrong. This is an open forum and I'm not calling anyone names for disagreeing with me. In fact if you do have a valid counterargument, PLEASE DO disagree. I'm more concerned about getting to the truth than being right.
But if there isn't a counterargument, then I want my comment to stand out as a stark reminder that we should not accept or be complicit to these types of practices going forward. If we don't take these types of stances, I do not think we will change the culture in tech.
1) Nielsen does explicitly target children, insofar as Nielsen families are supposed to give them data on the usage habits of every member of the family, including the kids. That said, the decision of whether or not to become a Nielsen family remains firmly in the hands of the heads of the family. Perhaps regardless of the consent of its younger members.
2) They do also now track participating families' Internet usage at large, like Facebook's app was doing. I don't know whether it relied on a VPN or some other technology.
3) I think that most people could understand the TV consumption tracking that used to be Nielsen's bread and butter. But, at least based on the recruitment materials that were sent to me, I didn't have a clear understanding of the extent or nature of Internet usage data collection. I assume the story would be similar for most other users, especially minors.
Based on that, I think that a lot of these comparisons are comparing what Facebook is doing now to what Nielsen was doing 20 or 30 years ago. Which is fair comparison to explore, but let's be careful not to absolve the Nielsen of today from any scrutiny in the process.
I'm not here to defend Neilsen at all, but I do think Facebook has a bit more responsibility to make the right decisions here given their ubiquity, reach, AND the invasiveness of how a root certificate allows them access to encrypted traffic and even text messages (really?).
Totally non-scientific evidence: The only acquaintances I can think of who still have cable TV subscriptions do so because their TV consumption is dominated by sports.
He hated the show and tried to indicate as much throughout the showing. But when the lights came back on he realized that he'd had the pad backwards the whole time.
He never forgave himself for that one time he "got Lost in Space green-lit".
I'm not sure what you mean by this because Nielsen absolutely targets children. The parents are explicitly consenting to having the box in the home but the box is constantly monitoring what is on the TV and invasively forces you tell it every 30 minutes or so exactly who is watching the screen.
My family was a Nielsen family for a time when I was in college and my 8-12 year old brothers were living at home.
> The parents are explicitly consenting
Nielsen asks the parents to consent to monitoring. The parents are adults, and adults are in a position to be able to give such consent. Parents routinely make decisions for their children that the children are not in a position to make on their own. This ensures that children, who do not have the education and life experience to be able to make such decisions on their own, have their interests looked out for by responsible adults.
Facebook skipped the parents and pitched their app to the kids directly.
A television not just like your iPhone. This is in no way similar.
With regard to Nielsen's mobile program they are playing by Apple's rules on privacy and FB blatantly circumvented them.
> "Children watch an average of 2.8 hours of video content each day – the majority use devices other than a traditional television set to watch this. "
http://www.childwise.co.uk/bits--blogs/children-are-spending...
Seemed like the WSJ described this tool pretty well [ https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-me... ] -- reportedly Facebook employees can just plug in "Snapchat" into the Onavo metrics and see "we estimate [XX] MAU, declining [Y%] year over year and [Z%] month over month", and they can use this info to short/long SNAP or to prioritize building/buying a competitor. Such a great idea.
I am confused that the Google product which also says it can collect usage data from 13-17 year olds [ https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/756613... , https://support.google.com/audiencemeasurement/answer/757381... ] is still allowed by Apple. Maybe Facebook is just learning for the first time that Apple's control over what applications can be installed is arbitrary and capricious at best?
I do feel bad for whatever PM in Facebook (on Project Atlas or whatever) has been watching this news for the past few days and saying "whoa, this seems disproportionately unfair, given that Google and others do the same thing on iOS". I'm just wildly speculating here but that project team is probably getting a firsthand lesson in the "New York Times test" rule: if what you are doing were published on the front page of the NYT, would you regret it? (This is a particularly rough area because I think a lot of current employees probably feel like the NYT and peers have some kind of vendetta against them and probably don't really understand the hostility.)
Legitimate market research focus groups pay $100-200/hr, or more, to regular people for verbal approximations of their own behavior.
They've definitely crossed the line in the past.
For example around 2005 they were stealth-installing NetRatings spyware bundled with file-sharing apps.
(And similarly with comScore. It's probably best not to use these organisations as examples of good practice.)
Hoping Apple demonstrates its commitment to privacy by doing more than hurting internal functionality and speak to the only thing that matters to FB - its ability to surveil people.
How is that "clear"? It's true that FB has received a lot of bad press and push back in recent times, but none of that changes the fact that FB is pretty much still the 10.000-pound Gorilla in the room with no real alternatives for a lot of people.
Don't get me wrong here: I don't like it either, I just don't see their days as being "numbered", but FB is too entrenched in a whole lot of sectors for it to simply vanish without some kind of competitor actually gobbling everything up they do right now.
Too many people forget that at this point FB isn't just "social media", for a whole lot of small and medium businesses FB has become their sole online presence, due to ease of use and reach.
If Apple had a true commitment to privacy, this wouldn't have happened by design. Apple just has less commercial interest in gathering data about users outside its garden.
What design changes would have prohibited this from happening? The only changes I can think of would make it more difficult to debug things in development.
And you can't have Apple knowing too much about internal apps since they could reveal trade secrets or other confidential information.
It's not a simple situation to fix.
However, it's very possible that if a smaller company did this that all of their certs, apps, and dev accounts would get pulled. Facebook does still get some special treatment.
I am pretty sure others have had their entire accounts nuked for less.
Users can always access Facebook through safari.
But I still think they are wrong for blocking 3rd party apps. I understand they believe it is for my safety and security, but there needs to be a happy medium. They should have a way for experts to side load apps.
Only their own apps. You can't use that mechanism to distribute an app to other "experts", which makes it of limited use in practice. You can distribute as source and require them to build it, but then everybody who wants to install your app on their device also needs a Mac.
Possible arguments:
1. More security because of smaller attack surface for malware.
2. Higher average quality of apps because of curation.
But no. I have to buy a $1200 mini-computer and then accept the arbitrary whims of Apple on what code I can run when.
That's the clue: You don't _have_ to. Buy a Pixel if you want to root something.
I don't think it's controversial to say opening up ways to load apps outside of the app store will make it far, far harder for Apple to make any performance, security and stability guarantees about their devices. So if you choose to bypass Apple's ecosystem, you are on your own and can't blame Apple for anything that goes wrong.
> make it far, far harder for Apple to make any performance, security and stability guarantees about their devices.
You mean like my laptop? Somehow they manage to maintain guarantees despite the fact that I can load any software I want.
It would nice if I could just go to a web page, click a link, and say "load this app, I accept the performance/security risks this entails". Like I do with my laptop.
As I've mentioned in another reply, you want to use Cydia Impactor to resign apps.
I don't think that's true. I bet an iPhone is a lot more secure and stable than a Macbook Pro.
Why would this necessarily be the case? Apps on iOS are already pretty restricted as to what they can do - they can only access files they create (or have to ask for permission), they have to get permission to use the camera/microphone/etc, they're throttled pretty severly when they're in the background, and they can't modify any parts of the system UI. Even if you did install a malicious app, what would it be able to do?
So you support apps like this Research one being made available to teens ?
Because that's what side loading apps gets you. Only except Apple can't stop it.
The argument is whether Apple should be the arbiter of what is considered a proper use case for an app or whether an individual should be. This argument is as old as the hills. Should the government be able to dictate to me what the correct size of a soda at McDonald's is? This is roughly the same argument. Although in Apple's case I think the restrictions have more to do with creating a reputation for consistency and quality.
I can install most any software I want on my PC but because of that you could argue the overall experience on a PC is sub-optimal compared to an iOS device. It's all about what's important to you. Personally I think Apple should be able to enforce whatever restrictions it chooses for its apps and customers are free to pick a different device with fewer restrictions. The developers are the ones who don't have a choice in this because they have to make apps for iOS if they want to get the largest possible user base so they have to abide by Apple's rules. I think the antitrust case for developers against Apple is pretty strong at this point, but I think the argument that I should be able to install what I want because it's my device is pretty weak.
I 110% support that. Freedom is good. Hopefully their parents are involved enough in their lives to have explained the dangers of such things to them. Or perhaps Apple provides a parental control to allow that, but at least it would be possible for the parent to allow.
This is not something that apps can generally do.
“I want to live without all the hoops of death”
I want a way for a 16 year old kid to make an awesome app and then distribute it to whoever wants it. Like back in the shareware days.
FWIW, I have a few ssh clients on my iPhone (Termius, Prompt, iTerminal) that came from the App Store. Termius even offers mosh. Why wouldn't they be approved?
Why is that even remotely important?
The only thing I can think of that would be a problem for that 16 year old kid (or alternatively, a sneaky black hat) is permissions. Maybe a color coded permissions model where green means can only access the most basic systems, yellow means could access some personal data, red being can access very important or practically all your data, you must trust them implicitly before installing.
Different companies will risk-assess that differently.
Let's not kid ourselves though, this is mainly about preserving the huge app store profits.
Their purpose was generally-accepted as just in this case, but what if next time, it's because someone started competing with them and they didn't like it?
* Microsoft and the games they played with 4DOS, undocumented calls, testing for id strings and then claiming windows woulden't run on the "Incompatible" DOS variant
* Apple re-implementing shareware utilities in the System 6/7/8/9 days right into the operating system, sometimes not compensating the original developer for the idea
* MS Word using undocumented API's for better UX + integration over all word processors in the 90s/00s
* Twitter Changing Platform API and kicking out all sorts of useful apps on their platform
* Facebook doing the same
At least this time around, there's a clear kill switch so they don't have to be underhanded about it. And in this instance there was a clear and unambiguous ToS violation in play. Most of the instances I've listed went unpunished, or were only given a slap on the wrist after the damage was done.
In many ways this is a good punishment, disruptive to the bad actor and minimally disruptive/invasive to the consumer.
>Apple has shut down Facebook’s ability to distribute internal iOS apps, from early releases of the Facebook app to basic tools like a lunch menu. A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other pre-release “dogfood” (beta) apps have stopped working, as have other employee apps, like one for transportation
What we see here are two monopolists fighting, it's hard to pick a side but imagine what chances a startup has in this environment. The robber barons are back.
Facebook is constantly paranoid about new social media networks taking away their advertising space. This is them admitting a startup has a chance in the environment. Social media platforms gain huge traction and lose favor every year. Facebook sticking is an unnatural position and they know it.
Apple's flagship product, the iPhone is suffering from longer and longer upgrade cycles as the category matures. Many people are starting to ask if a new product category can replace smartphones. This is coming at a time when Apple doesn't have Jobs, and it's possible they won't be in the early wave of innovators on the next tech wave. A small innovative team could outperform Apple on this front.
You're not going to get a self-imposed GDPR.
Sure they can. GDPR was necessarily because tech has largely obliterated the right to privacy online, with like buttons, analytics, ad networks, etc.
Trump has outright said that he is in favor of jailing journalists for spreading “fake news”. You know if the government passed a law to “protect privacy” they would give themselves an exemption and want a backdoor.
I find Facebook a far more significant currently active risk to my privacy than I do the government. I'd love to see a GDPR in the US.
Having a government that is actively hostile to minorities - religious, race, nationality, or sexuality only takes a populist leader who speaks toward their prejudices....
If we're going to go historical, we'll have to include company towns (which Facebook is revisiting as a concept, incidentally) and debt slavery, the Pinkertons machine gunning strikers...
Who would have thought ten years ago so many people would be willingly give companies a live feed video stream of the inside and outside of your house, along with voice recordings of everything?
A Democratic society ruled by the majority never passes laws that discriminate against minorities and is never hostile against minorities....
But tech companies, and especially FB lately, aren't smart. And, like the three year olds their maturity reflects, they bitch and moan when the hammer comes down. Well hey, Ayn, I've got an idea: stick a finger to the wind and sort your shit before the Big, Bad Government(tm) comes a-knockin'. Because when they come, shit's going to change and probably not in a way you like. Might as well get out in front of that narrative.
https://bulletin.represent.us/much-time-congress-members-spe...
Especially in the south, the only thing they have to do is demonize “them”, wave a bible in one hand and a gun in the other to get re-elected while raising money from corporations.
Neither they nor their constituents vote based on “privacy”.
That being said, the incentives for Apple to become more like Facebook are quite strong and you can see it in the direction Microsoft has gone with Cortana and in-OS ads.
Given that Apple has the ability to control what software can and cannot run on your device (to a large extent), this is a praiseworthy use of this power, however, on the whole, it would be preferable for Apple not to have this ability.
Have appropriate app permissions (which we mostly already have).
State that only apps within the app store are monitored to be privacy-friendly/"trustworthy", while still allowing a relatively hassle-free way of installing apps from outside it, similarly to how Android does it (except that I don't necessarily trust Google to ensure that the apps within the Play Store are "trustworthy").
Label "untrustworthy" apps (similarly to how F-Droid labels potentially unwanted features).
Now, since Apple currently has more intrusive control, I want them to use it for "good", but I don't want them having this power in the first place. As an analogy, if there were policemen stationed on every corner in the city, I'd probably want them to prevent suicidal people from jumping off bridges, but that doesn't mean that I want the policemen to be there.
(For the record, I use Android.)
Do you mean on a phone or on any computing device? I'm pretty confident that I've set the privacy settings to my liking on my GNU/Linux laptop. (Well, with the giant exception of tracking by websites, but I think that uBlock+uMatrix on Firefox still deal with that slightly better than Safari's blocking.) You could argue that in this case Debian (or the like) is my powerful advocate, but it's a powerful advocate who doesn't take away control of my device.
Apple and Google, these corporations signed a license agreement to conduct themselves a certain way and failed to do that WRT the enterprise org cert. They were not forced into signing an agreement and have access to excellent legal council. This is a manifestation of the prevailing culture.
Furthermore Facebook is ruthless about enforcing their IP to "their" data (also voluntarily offered by users) and Google dictates the same way, except much of Google's data is hoovered up. These companies have all have a history of dictating and exclusion.
At the same time I think it is good to have someone ... make the right call. It's just that we have to hope they keep making the right one.
But still a clear statement from Apple.
One expects the reason they reused their primary enterprise cert is so they wouldn't have to justify their spyware in a new request to Apple...
You build a house out of kerosene jugs, don't go crying when it burns down.
> Apple has shut down Facebook’s ability to distribute internal iOS apps, from early releases of the Facebook app to basic tools like a lunch menu. A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and other pre-release “dogfood” (beta) apps have stopped working, as have other employee apps, like one for transportation.
I'm totally fine with this house burning down. Just noting that this is apparently having very significant internal effects, even if the public Facebook app is fine.
And this is ALL on Facebook and NOT Apple. Facebook understood the consequences when they decided to abuse the Enterprise Cert. They took the risk and got called on it. This is Facebook's fault. Full stop.
Almost every single employee that has an iPhone is running beta/dogfood releases signed with the enterprise certificate. Facebook, Workplace, Messenger, Work Chat, Instagram all fall under this umbrella. The "lunch app" people are talking about also lists open tasks and calendar events.
It's going to be internally catastrophic.
But - i guess there will be negotiations. FB is in a position to make deal.
Bad press in the dev-world - on dev-topics - didn't hold the masses and average Joe back to continue using FB. And this fail won't, too. Me sounding fatalistic, i know. But this outrage in the dev-world isn't enough to demask the beast.
Red lines crossed - and next week the PR department will fix it.
I don't know what needs to happen until the masses of FB-addicts switch to "open technology" and leave their silos.
They'll just cut a check to another company and proceed from there and/or a company will just sell them the data on "teen social and mobile usage" and Facebook will be able to truthfully state that they had no idea the means by which it was collected.
Correct.
> Is this not available to regular apps distributed on the store ?
No, this is OK; VPN apps do exactly this, but they go through review to make sure that they are actually VPN apps and not, well, essentially what Facebook is trying to do here.
> This app was not on the app store but distributed out of band.
Yes.
> In order to sideload apps on iOS, they still need to be approved by Apple ? So Apple maintains a whitelist of developer certificates who can side load apps.
You haven't mentioned it, but I think it's important to make the distinction about the two ways to sideload apps on iOS: you can self sign your app yourself for your device (generally via Xcode), which Apple doesn't really check at all, or you can be a company, get an enterprise certificate, and use this to sign apps and distribute them to other iOS devices, as Facebook was doing here. The catch is that you are supposed to only do this internally inside your company.
> the article says, "Revoking a certificate not only stops apps from being distributed on iOS, but it also stops apps from working." How does this work exactly ? Apple triggers all the clients in the world to freeze/remove these apps ?
iOS, as of iOS 8.4, periodically checks for revoked certificates and will refuse to run apps that were signed with something that Apple has blacklisted.
>VPN apps do exactly this, but they go through review to make sure that they are actually VPN apps and not
A vpn app can tunnel network traffic, but it doesn't meddle with system certs or the CA. It doesn't doesn't get to decrypt TLS connections by default. So which one did fb do ? Did they just tunnel traffic, or did they MITM TLS traffic as well ? All the coverage about this story seems to be vague. If it's just the former, it doesn't seem that egregious since it is explicitly called out as a data collection app.
>iOS, as of iOS 8.4, periodically checks for revoked certificates and will refuse to run apps that were signed with something that Apple has blacklisted.
Again, I don't know how the system cert store is handled, but even if you can't run the app with the blacklisted dev cert, are the modifications that it made in the past (such as enrolling a CA) also reverted ? In this case, that may be the desired outcome, but in general, that state is not really a part of the app.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. Most VPN apps tunnel traffic, but the Facebook app is going further and inserting its own root certificate, allowing them to intercept TLS traffic. Some apps, like Charles Proxy, do this, but it obviously has a legitimate use for this.
> are the modifications that it made in the past (such as enrolling a CA) also reverted
I haven't tried it, but I'd like to think that this is the case.
Now waiting for Facebook's response.
It you think an unilateral revoke, and shutdown of a company internal tools, because of an external issue, without recourse is a good thing... I'm guessing you have no issues with Crazy EULA's, Monopolies, Corporate abuse, Corporations doing as they please. ( I can keep going down this slope.. )
Facebook had a program, with willing participants, that broke a third parties rules. We can argue infinitum about this.
But this is a company, STOPPING your usage of YOUR hardware, AFTER you purchased it (I'm talking about apple stopping Facebook from distributing internal tools as well, this is the side effect of this ). Think deep and clear about this. Are you ok with this?
Secondly, from the company (apple ) that literally turned everyones devices into wiretaps, globally, and ignored the issue for who knows how long... This is just.. wow. ( and they continue not to issue a formal reason for this ).
Just.. wow.
You're introducing a straw man argument by trying to make this about hardware ownership.
Would you be ok with Tesla disabling cars because you were using illegal drugs in them? Now do you get it? I'm not defending facebook. I'm telling you this behavior from Apple is truly scary. Apple is not law/moral/societal enforcement "police".
This is the ONLY way to run internal apps. and it wasn't one cert btw. Google has a similar "research app", their certs have not been revoked. Maybe because apple relies on google more? Maybe because they generate revenue from their search and app placement deals? Hrrm?
My point is simple, arbitrary revokes, without process, are a scary thing. Specially when they are done POST purchase, and have real tangible effects.
Tesla disabling cars -- tell us how you feel about that!
using illegal drugs -- Wow, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
not defending facebook -- Are ya?
behavior from Apple is truly scary -- Elaborate.
Apple is not law/moral/societal enforcement "police". -- Right, they just wrote the EULA and have the right to deny service.
Google does the SAME DAMN THING! and yet apple did not go heavy handed, because, well, money???
But its great to see how an informed crowd like HackerNews behaves just like any other inflamed mob.
[0]https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/googles-also-peddling-a-da...
Do you think apple does not have reports of the number of users that have apps installed via an enterprise cert?
That's pretty much the basic type of stats you would gather when having an enterprise licensing/authority system. Fact is, they knew about this, this was not hidden by google OR Facebook.
Apple decided to release this the DAY after they had a huge privacy flaw in Facetime.
Android has something similar. Remember the Fortnite fiasco?
I'm glad that Microsoft's business model won out in the PC wars and I look forward to a time when Apple loses again in their home field. As a power user, I can't stand the amount of control has over my own hardware. In my profession, I can't afford to ignore Apple though. I really hope they lose their anti-trust case!
You can just right click the app and choose “Open”. That deliberate action will allow you to open an app from an unidentified developer without changing your Gatekeeper preferences.
Its not like they shut down their macbooks.
> Secondly, from the company (apple ) that literally turned everyones devices into wiretaps, globally, and ignored the issue for who knows how long... This is just.. wow. ( and they continue not to issue a formal reason for this ).
If you think there's a major equivalency of the bug on facetime, I can't help but think you're hopelessly biased.
I can't hide a small grin right now.
Apple can't risk their integrity being associated with what Facebook are pulling.
Certainly would be ironic that the biggest data hoarder in human history ends up breaking the biggest monopoly in the mobile space.
Now, as Apple is forbidding what Facebook does in their store ToS, Apple may be prohibiting Facebook from reaching the (not small!) target audience "iPhone users" for their data collection and thus unfairly hindering Facebook's business.
I for one would be really happy if the Store ToS were to be torn down in the courts so that the only reason to block an app rollout is covert spying, malware or other user deception, but not open data analytics, porn (case in point, every porn site but especially Tumblr), firearms or using a different html/js engine.
If they don’t like it, there are plenty of Android variants for them to choose, which differentiate themselves precisely by having this difference.
Apple having this power benefits everyone.
There is no alternative for iMessage or you may have invested a serious load of money into the Apple ecosystem (e.g. Apple Music, but also games and other apps) that moving would amount to losing said money. Especially for those who got in in the early days with jailbreaking being a routine thing...
Breaking up the stores and especially forcing the various platform providers to provide synchronization abilities (why can't I sync my Fallout Shelter vaults for example or why should I need to buy my Plague Inc expansions again) is desperately needed.
On desktops this works just fine (best showcase being the Adobe apps, and I believe that at least the MS Office subscriptions are valid across Win and Mac), so why are the mobile walled gardens still a thing?
The rest of your comment is weird - of course there is software that isn’t cross platform. You seem to want to legislate against that.
Here’s a question: if Facebook is willing to breach this important contract with a company as powerful as Apple and think they’d get away with it, how much do you think they respect contracts they make with their customers?
Not at all? I don't trust any government or company pretty much these days. It's all a game of "who is most likely to screw you up in the least bad way", (corporate) ethics have gone totally downhill.
Basically, Apple wants to extract the maximum profit - and thus bans competing app stores, forcing their cut on every transaction, and banning everything which may be legal but not in their "ethical desires" (like porn) and thus hindering the informed choice of their customers.
That being sad, what Facebook is trying to do here is deeply disgusting, but if it helps break Apple's walled garden, I'm willing to cut them some slack.
Worth noting that Apple has massive and vigorous completion in the phone market in the form of the many Android variants which have exactly the open market you want, and only a minority of customers choose Apple, and they do so in the knowledge that Apple controls the App Store.
On the other hand Facebook actually does have a near monopoly on social networking with no viable competitor at all.
It makes no sense why you’d want to excuse clearly dishonest behavior by an actual monopolist, in order to harm the business of company who has clear and viable market competitors keeping it in check.
Why do you care about Apple at all, when you can just buy an Android phone?
Which should be broken up and Facebook forced to re-introduce federation (their Messenger long ago offered XMPP), but that is a different question.
> Why do you care about Apple at all, when you can just buy an Android phone?
Actually I am an Android owner, who is a bit unhappy with Apple locking down their ecosystem so hard that a migration (in both directions) is next to impossible.
Any large organization resorts to using enterprise certs for beta and QA distributions of an app as the device limits are unrealistically low for them. These things tend to have cycles where a features have to get in by a certain date and then builds are sent off for beta and QA testing. There's no question this issue throws a wrench in this process.
A solution to this problem is signing it with another enterprise cert. I don't know if all of Facebook's enterprise signing certs were revoked or just the one used for this app and even if FB tried applying for a new one (maybe through a subsidiary?) that takes time.
About negative six years. They already tried and it flopped:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Home
I can't see it going any better if they tried again, since they've been working hard in the mean time to burn all the trust and goodwill they have.
This "data research" app has hardened my views, though: I now believe Facebook is rotten to the core. After all, as a security researcher pointed out, that "market research" app was basically just the previously removed Onavo app, reskinned (https://twitter.com/chronic/status/1090394419902197761). Facebook knew they got caught, and they tried to workaround by using their enterprise cert so the app wouldn't go through App Store review. Screw them, I hope this forces the heavy hand of government regulation on them. They have proved the cannot manage themselves.
When will the HN crowd start treating Zuckenberg (no 'Zuck' please) as amoral piece of * with rest of the company following?
You're telling me that the average plumber and teacher and waiter didn't complain when Facebook introduced an interface for developers? No way.
> Bro, did you see the new API that FB put out that totally foobars luser privacy?
> Dude, I teach kindergarten, wtf is an API?
Obviously people trying to explain it aren't going to be using that language, but to outsiders it'll sound that way. And tech nerds aren't known for being able to explain things to laymen in the first place.
Not even trying to defend them. Just curious how much it will actually affect facebook.
This is a company that had the motto "move fast and break things". They prefer to "fail forward" and push things live sooner rather than safer.
It doesn't surprise me at all that someone just saw that something was possible and did it without considering the consequences.
If some rogue team just got ahold of the certificate and keys and signed binaries meant to be distributed to the public, it meant either a major internal security failure or a willful disregard of Apple’s policy on enterprise distribution.
Disclaimer: I work for apple, unrelated to all this.
"Cleared by Legal" is (and has to be) a basic assumption when working on directed projects at real companies.
What do you think would happen if you used your Azure, AWS, or GCP account to knowingly do DDOS attacks?
Or more realistically if you do Pen testing on your own AWS resources without getting the approval of AWS and your entire organization is dependent on it? It is explicitly stated in your agreement with AWS that you can’t do that.