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Comment by lizardactivist | Hacker News Reader

Possibly. The type of data they collect and what entities have access to it is what is crucial.

Least amount of user data or not, reports like these are alarming: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

It seems that even with maximum security settings, Apple will always know where I am, who is nearby, what mobile networks I use, and what computer networks I use.

Espionage and sabotage aside, that's the kind of information the US government has used to decide whether someone, or an entire location full of random people, should be the target of a drone strike.

I don't worry about being killed by a drone strike, but the fact that this data is collected from everyone everywhere is worrying, and in my opinion it means Apple and Google are complicit in killings like these.

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> It seems that even with maximum security settings, Apple will always know where I am, who is nearby, what mobile networks I use, and what computer networks I use.

I don’t see how you could have a mobile phone, that also uses wifi, without those things being true. (One correction: I don’t think Apple knows who is near you unless they’re also on an Apple device or uses an Apple app on said device)

Genuinely curious how you think a company can route your traffic effectively and efficiently without knowing those things…

    (a) Nobody is forcing you to turn on the "Find My" or "Share My" features
    (b) If you use a mobile phone network, then frankly its game over. You can't bash Apple for that.  If you use a mobile network, then your mobile network can track you, the government can track you, and any man and his dog with an IMSI tracker in a box can track you.  Doesn't matter if you use an iPhone or $insert_name_of_whatever_phone_you_think_is_more_secure.

(a) "even with maximum security settings"

(b) Yes, it's possible my mobile operator and my government can do that. Which I am ok with. What is not ok is that Apple and the US government can, in particular since I am not in the US nor was I ever given the option to decline this data collection.

> US government can, in particular since I am not in the US nor was I ever given the option to decline this data collection.

I suspect if you were given access to the NSA's dataset you would likely find they have more than enough data on you already, they don't need Apple for that !

Especially if you live in a FVEY country or a US-friendly country, or your data transits such a country.

So it's OK to let them spy since we get spied on from other sources anyway.

That's pure whataboutism.

Apple is the safest company according to their PR. It has this feature which lets you decide on your security preference. But in fact it doesn't on most important aspects.

And your argument is: that's fine, because others are doing too and more?

There's a huge difference between "if I use an iPhone, the US government can potentially find out where I am etc" and "if I use an Android phone, Google is actively mining every bit of data they can about me and everyone around me in order to monetize it to the greatest possible degree; if I use Facebook, they're doing the same; Amazon is manufacturing cameras that not only spy on you for Amazon themselves, but also hand over the camera data to the police without your consent"....

Do I really need to go on?

The kind of person whose threat model includes worrying about being targeted by governments is not the average person. Everyone is being targeted by ad behemoths like Google and Facebook, all the time, in every way they can possibly manage.

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