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Comment by flarex | Hacker News Reader

Not really they are moving into homomorphic encryption where the entire query and processing is encrypted and Apple has no knowledge of the what you actually requested.

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Completely unclear how much they're moving into homomorphic encryption. The only resource I'm available to find about it is an announcement from 30 July saying that they can now do caller ID lookup using homomorphic encryption and they've announced an SDK that developers can use to leverage it. But the announcement is so vague that it's entirely unclear how much this can actually be used for practical workloads. And, the idea that they're going to go all in on homomorphic encryption is speculative based on what Apple has revealed so far.

That's notable, as we're discussing a case where Apple said they would do something, and then not only didn't do it, but went out of their way to pretend that they never said they would.

I'm not aware of any other company of Apple's size (or anywhere approaching) that have been as committed to privacy tech. Of course they are not perfect and sometimes get it wrong but they constantly release new technologies that are furthering our privacy. Who else does it better?

These companies shouldn't be graded on a curve. Everyone knows Microsoft is crap for privacy. But Apple has their reality distortion field, and it's important to show people that their privacy promises are BS.

Okay but from an evolutionary sense which company should we be supporting. The one company that is somewhat moving towards privacy or the 10 others that don't give a shit. Which one should survive. Would you like to see companies that copy Apple's privacy approach or Facebook's dumb fucks approach.

It comes down to what you identify as privacy. Apple is commited to not give your data to any other company and keep it protected in their ecosystem. They'll sell access to you for ads, but only exposing your cohort to the advertiser.

From that lens, Google is also commited to never give your personal data (think Gmail content, Maps behaviour, pins etc) to other companies and keep it all in their ecosystem, for themselves only. Your data is their key advantage, the base of the ad empire, and they won't let another company run away with it.

If we call Apple privacy focused, Google also fits the bill, the question just falls down on whether we see Apple or Google as part of our intimate circle, within our private life. I assume you do for Apple but not for Google.

There is no serious person that could think that Google is a privacy focused company. Their entire business is founded on knowing everything about their users. It's an ad company. They need user data to function and they will never release tech that compromises their business. Just look at the direction of ad blocking and chrome to see where they are headed.

The Apple side is the similar: their current entire business is to middle man your relationship with other companies. You buy Apple products, purchase and subscribe to apps and services from the App store, use Apple Cloud, etc.

They need you in their ecosystem, the same way Google needs you in theirs.

And I totally agree with you, I wouldn't't call Google privacy focused, and I don't call Apple privacy focused either, even as they market it harder than anyone else.

Google is a privacy antagonist. Apple is privacy focused because it suits their business. Apple has been privacy focused for years and has built several technologies to prove it. It's not hollow marketing to build privacy software.

Google is a "privacy antagonist" with an Open Source OS you can build locally and modify to your heart's content? And Apple's been privacy focused, suing security researchers for copyright violation when they try to analyze iOS?

Methinks you're holding a double standard. Compared to Android and Linux, Apple's "promise" is no better than the one Microsoft offers Bitlocker customers.

I don't define "privacy" as "only a single company has access to all my stuff", so to me Apple's claims are just marketing. I'd buy an argument about good security and some protection against other companies, just not "privacy".

Also, the homomorphic encryption is a requirement for third-party caller ID providers, not Apple themselves. Apple's first-party "Contact Photos" caller ID feature operates primarily on the "trust Apple" security model AFAIK.

I was unaware there exists a fully homomorphic encryption scheme that has the right trade offs between security and computational effort to make this economically viable for even moderate to small workloads.

I’ve always thought it was either far too time or far too space intensive to be practical.

Do you have sources on this, either from Apple or academic papers of the scheme they’re planning on using?

They posted about this recently [0][1]. They are using Homomorphic Encryption in iOS 18 for Live Caller ID Lookups.

[0] https://www.swift.org/blog/announcing-swift-homomorphic-encr...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41111129

I've posted about this above a little after you did. Reading the article, I'm unable to determine whether or not this has any practical utility outside of niche applications or if it has the potential to be broadly useful. Has anyone reviewed the SDK that can render an opinion?

Homomorphic encryption is broadly useful and in fact should be ubiquitous for remote computation that leaks private data (not to comment specifically on Apple's implementation). They did open source it though, which gives you an idea that they want others to follow.

Can you point to other ways this is used or is intended to be used?

It's useful for situations that would otherwise be illegal, so that tradeoffs are less relevant.

Following through on a public privacy promise does not require R&D.

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