Apple must provide opt-in or opt-out for the lockdown.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/03/11/why-facebook-is-so-upset...
I have not heard similar tantrum from FB over Android. Makes sense as it is made by an Ad company.
You:
>Then Facebook will grant its app all permission entitlements, and will direct all users to opt-out lockdown for the app to work.
input_sh:
> Are they doing that on Android right now?
So is Facebook granting its app all permission entitlements, and directing all users to opt-out lockdown for the app to work on Android?
The OS should anyway sandbox everything, and be as isolated as possible from any app running on top of it. That's the real security, everything else is mostly privacy - as in it's not really a security issue that the FB app siphons all the data I allowed it to access.
The market for sideloading apps is anyway much smaller than the whole mobile market because most people can’t be bothered to do it. The ones determined to install that shady flashlight app they downloaded from the internet will just as well give their banking credentials to any app that asks for them.
I’m not as supportive of this ability for computers, but the market is so broad and large for mobile devices that I feel it’s a bit of a different creature.
And yes, I agree that for sideloaded apps all bets are off. That’s why I mentioned Apple having a kill switch only on automated distribution, e.g. through app stores (first party or otherwise). So for example if it turns out that Facebook has been making constant use of exploits for a while, jumping from one to the next as they’re fixed — in this situation Apple can stop it from being installed or updated from any app store (even one run by Meta), meaning the only way to install or update it is through fully manual side loading until they clean their act up.
Whatever technical tricks Meta is using today pass Apple’s review and implicit endorsement. Whatever tricks they use in the future to escape the sandbox and access (hack) the OS with the sideloaded app are unilateral. Could open up a legal can of worms.
I’d be more concerned about the shady flashlight app downloaded from some corner of the internet. Or the Fakebook app, the all-in-one social media aggregator, the fake banking apps.
Some apps are de-facto unavoidable, like Facebook, Whatsapp and X.
I use Twitter everyday because of my politics interest but it isn’t that popular any more (I know the supposed numbers say otherwise)
Whatsapp is probably the hardest to avoid for most people in parts of the world where it's dominant. The number of people who need to use Facebook or Twitter is likely much smaller, and very few of those need to install a native app instead of using the website.
If I got off WhatsApp which I use for like 10 minutes a week, I’d have a harder time communicating with a handful of people outside the US
How is it that the answer to an American megacorp trying to hoover all of your personal data is to try to get another American megacorp to add universal barricades to your device?
Because only Apple has the power to stop Chrome from being the only browser (like IE) or to stop Meta from insisting you give up all privacy. A government may be able to do it within their own borders for a period of time, but Meta, Google and Apple are all larger and more powerful than the majority of countries out there.
Part of the problem is the governments are proving they aren’t interested in doing it. Aside from the fact that law enforcement agencies are happy to have easily legally compelled data like this, the governments are actively fighting e2e encryption and strong on device encryption. And then on top of that, if they really were interested in solving that problem, you’d think they’d be spending legislative power on solving that before solving forcing the 2nd place market competitor to open their OS up.