Comment by throw0101c | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throw0101c | Hacker News Reader

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> First, iCloud E2EE is opt-in. The setting is buried, and there are no prompts to enable it, so approximately 0% of iCloud users have turned it on. It might as well not exist.

This is a feature, not a bug. If my mom or Aunt Millie forgets her password then I still want her to be able to recover data.

The main issue for most regular people in the CIA triad most of the time is not confidentiality but rather availability: avoidance of losing photos and videos of (grand) children is the highest priority.

Human rights activists and journalists can enable more stringent controls separately from the general public because their threat model is different. Apple has added a suite of extra features for these individuals in recent releases:

* https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/apple-lockdown-mode-ios-16...

* https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/07/apple-expands-commitm...

* https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-advances-user-s...

For all of Apple/iOS's imperfections, are there other vendors with out-of-box experiences that are at a higher level in this (security/privacy) regard?

> Human rights activists and journalists can enable

This is completely missing the point of why one needs privacy. Lack of it harms journalism and activism, making the government too powerful and not accountable. If only activists and journalists will try to have the privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.

> are there other vendors with out-of-box experiences that are at a higher level in this (security/privacy) regard?

Yes: Purism with their Librem devices, including Librem 5 GNU/Linux phone.

In a perfect world, yes. In reality, a friend lost his phone and forgot his Apple password. They were able to help him recover his data after he proved his ID to them.

For most people, data loss is much more of a risk than privacy loss.

I'm a member of the EFF. I backup all my own data. I have Advanced Data Protection turned on. I keep my handful Dogecoin in a hardware wallet stored in a safe deposit box. I am perfectly competent and willing to take responsibility for irrecoverably losing my data. Most people are not you and me, and defaulting to perfect privacy would cause much more harm than choosing best-effort.

> Yes: Purism with their Librem devices, including Librem 5 GNU/Linux phone.

I think they meant other vendors making devices targeted at the general public. There's always been a demand for devices that trade convenience for security for the relatively tiny market of people like you and me who value that choice. No way I'd set my older relatives up with it.

> In a perfect world, yes. In reality, a friend lost his phone and forgot his Apple password.

I fail to see how this is relevant concerning unencrypted communication with Apple servers. There is no reason not to have it except malicious as far as I can see.

> targeted at the general public

This is HN, not a general forum. People here who care about privacy should be able to use such devices. So I recommend them.

> This is HN, not a general forum. People here who care about privacy should be able to use such devices. So I recommend them.

I think the spirit of respectfully challenging what you're stating is the nuance of privacy versus the entire world.

Even within the HN audience, I don't think it's a stretch to say some individuals would prefer a secure(data enc in transit)-and-available (note: not a complete E2E private against 3 letter agencies) versus perfect privacy.

FWIW, I'm one of those folks that have iOS devices that turned on E2EE for iCloud. I'm attempting a "close as I can get to amazing privacy but also balancing the nuance of life" strategies.

I don't think your lifestyle choice conflicts with educating people about backdoored systems. It seems to me that Hackers and civilians can work together to identify obviously backdoored systems (eg. Dual_EC_DRBG) and encourage review.

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