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Comment by mrpippy | Hacker News Reader

It’s worth noting that use of NEHotspotHelper requires a special entitlement (com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotHelper) that you have to apply for, and presumably Apple won’t grant unless your app has a legitimate need for it.

That said, this maybe shows an incompatibility between Apple’s privacy strategy and “super-apps” like WeChat and AliPay. When a company shoves all functionality into one app, that app suddenly has all the entitlements, and it’s harder to tell when and how any sensitive data is being used.

The West generally doesn’t develop apps this way. For example, Comcast has a separate “WiFi Hotspots” app. Although LOL, they posted 2 days ago that its functionality is being combined into the main Xfinity app. Maybe the West is catching up.

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Is there a way for an end user to see which apps have this entitlement?

I don’t think you can unless you have a jailbroken device. If I remember correctly, entitlements are store in the AppStore receipt file.

You can view the entitlements from the extracted ipa by using the codesign tool. So it is totally possible to see if an app has this entitlement.

Oh, I only remembered seeing them inside the mobileprovision file. I’ll take another look, thanks.

Facebook is a SuperApp. It had a WiFi-hotspot-finder in it for years.

I love when I launch an app and then get a bevy of requests to access my Camera, my Microphone, my Contacts, etc...

I nope out and if the functionality of the app is trashed, so goes the app....

Google Maps constantly hounding me to turn on precision location services, asking me if I am navigating for a friend and to allow access to my contacts... Wow, no.

You don't think location is useful for a map ... ?

Well, a physical map certainly doesn't keep pestering me for my location...

It wants precise location — which I take to mean war-driving WiFi. GPS I am okay with for a map app.

IIRC, Non-precise location is cell tower level location or the like, possibly a 12 square mile area. It is also very cheap if the device is already connected to a tower.

Precise location may be from Apple's SSID database or from a GPS system.

Non-precise location may help with getting more appropriate search results but won't help you with turn-by-turn navigation.

Reading the documentation I can't figure it out. It sounds like there are a lot of things that feed into "Precise Location" that go beyond GPS. It could be true though that only cell-tower reckoning is used without "Precise Location". I generally only pull up Google maps on longer road trips that aren't really turn-by-turn, so maybe I have the only use case for a map with weak location services.

Precise location _is_ GPS, not the other way around.

> com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotHelper

Where do you revoke this entitlement on iOS? Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network? Or is this something else?

AFAIK entitlements are not necessarily exposed as toggles.

You can’t revoke entitlements, entitlements is the term used for developers who indicate that they intend to use a feature.

Users are asked for permissions and those permissions can be revoked. This entitlement doesn’t correspond with its own unique permission, either it works without permission from the user or it might be bundled into Local Network or Location Permissions.

This is one of the special ones so you're not allowed to; Apple picks for you per app.

General > Reset > Reset Location and Privacy Settings

You didn't grant any location access in the first place, so why would this work?

So Apple decides which companies should have your location data? Niiiice

Musk wants Twitter to be a super app.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23808796/elon-musks-x-eve...

> presumably Apple won’t grant unless your app has a legitimate need for it.

Increasingly clear that Apple is in charge of what happens on your devices not the users themselves.

Wasn't it ever thus?

I had the first iPhone up to the 3GS. It didn't feel that way then. Now there are continuous software updates that keep changing arbitrary and invisible policies.

> I had the first iPhone up to the 3GS. It didn't feel that way then.

The history of smartphones is control being tightened further and further over time. With the phones you had, apps could track your location lots of different ways, and over time those data leaks are being bricked shut. Everything is moving in the direction from "Apps can do whatever they feel like" to "Apple controls what apps can do" to "The user controls what apps can do".

This specific leak seems like it's stuck in the "Apple controls what apps can do" stage, so hopefully this post will help get it moving again.

You’re just more aware of it now. The privacy controls are MUCH tighter now than they were in that era.

If you’re a software developer, you must understand that the user cannot actually understand what any code is doing. Even if you’re using open source, it’s an illusion to think you know what it’s doing. Heck, even the developer doesn’t know what it’s doing a lot of the time (how long does it take to figure out what’s happening with a tricky bug?).

So yes, Apple’s policies do mediate what a developer can do on behalf of the user. That’s how it works.

It might surprise you but a lot of people want that and buy apple specifically because of that. I would even go so far as to say it is a major competitive advantage.

Big whoop. Consent is paramount and the assumption here that apple and you have aligned interest is pretty darn weak argument.

The only thing of note here is that apple don't want you do know about it, which kind of circles back to aligned interests...

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