Apple 2016 Stand Was Never About One Case | Hacker News Reader

Apple 2016 Stand Was Never About One Case

hugston.com

31 pointstrilogic45 comments

I clicked through this link and the writing reminds me of the early days of GPT-3.5. What is this?

Hi, the author here. I can confirm that writing is not my best skill, plenty to criticize on it. All the rest (like the content and facts) should matter though, that was the point of the article.

If you wrote it, then there's no shame in asking ChatGPT to gussy it up a bit for your target audience.

But then the audience will complain it looks AI-written.

Someone will always find a reason to complain, missing the real point. That´s why the privacy is a lost battle, because some prefer to focus on makeup, not on the real point. This is so disappointing.

> there's no shame in asking ChatGPT to gussy it up

Strongly disagree; there is plenty of shame in using LLMs to "improve" writing.

nah, only in asking it to write for you (from bullet points or a convo or something). I'm glad I don't see life in black and white, since the shades of gray are beautiful

> I'm glad I don't see [problems with using technology trained on stolen material, which consumes resources exorbitantly and disproportionately affects people in poorer areas, in the name of generating soulless, "easier-to-digest" content that looks like everything else on the internet], since [striving for mediocrity] is beautiful

FTFY.

The "content" is indecipherable due to your awful writing. no idea what point you're trying to make, it seems to repeatedly contradict itself

If you feed it into ChatGPT and request a shorter version, it comes back more or less the same. I’d sort of hoped for a nice summary.

You are right, I will do my best and work harder to write better and have a better webpage. Is that I like writing but I am not good at it even in my mother language. The most concerning factor however is what people prioritize. Same thing like when a PHD thesis (in science) got criticized for missing comas and grammar errors, while the defendant was explaining a new strain of bacteria.

That's an appallingly acerbic way to phrase your complaint -- perhaps in the future you might find a way to indicate your confusion without trampling on others directly.

There's a lot of wtf here. Are you an AI agent?

* This article is barely-readable AI slop. If writing is not your best skill (and that's putting it mildly), why are you publishing a blog like this?

* You have an ad for an AI app on every page of your website. Couldn't you use that to fix your writing?

* Clicking 'Explore' on the top of the page opens a pop-under to office.com for some reason? I also clicked the text of one of your articles, and it sent me to kaspersky.com, probably another ad.

I'm not normally judgemental to people with poor writing skills, but that doesn't seem to be what's happening here. This feels malicious.

Replying to: * Clicking 'Explore' on the top of the page opens a pop-under to office.com for some reason? I also clicked the text of one of your articles, and it sent me to kaspersky.com, probably another ad.

I don´t know what you talking about, all in the website works quite well (beside the ugly articles page that is a work in progress). The page is under heavy traffic and some users click HGMI (that is a hypergraph in 3d with clickable links and memory demanding). Then changing page under heavy traffic takes longer and users are still clicking the hypergraph links.

How easy you missing the point of the article which is: No matter the good will certain paths are meant to be walked. Then I offer a choice with HugstonOne App to whom may be interested. And yes, credits to legendary TIM COOK for his great contributions to society.

I don't necessarily blame people for using AI to help them write or spruce something up, however I find the tone particularly off-putting.

These excerpts show off that "AI"-tone I'm sure most people see.

>The San Bernardino case is gone from headlines. >But the backdoor? It’s in your phone. >It’s in Google’s servers. >It’s in Meta’s messages. >It’s in the legal system that always wins. >Apple’s 2016 stand wasn’t forgotten. >It was buried under the next headline. >But it’s still true.

I noticed the somewhat confused flow of the post as well. Reads a bit like a stream of consciousness. It could just be that the author didn't proofread what they wrote down over the course of the night. But I think your AI suspicion is a more likely explanation given the times we're in.

I've never used a browser reading mode until just now.

As I understand, they're meant to hide all the cruft so you can see the content.

I did it for some paragraph breaks, because that site is formatted as legibly as one big run-on sentence.

FTR I had no problems reading this. I think the writing style conveyed a gritted-teeth tension and added to the seriousness of the subject for me.

I switched from Android to iPhone for this reason (months ago). Not because Apple doesn't have faults (boy does it have a lot it then) and not because GrapheneOS isn't actually a better alternative. I switched because I wanted to send a market signal.

This is what I hate about all this. We have to play these stupid games because everyone is using data in stupid ways. Everything has become incredibly myopic. Yes, I could buy a Google phone and root it but Google takes their sale and uses that to justify that their actions don't change things. But in the world we are in there's really just two choices: Apple or Google.

Which is why I find the fighting comments here so dumb. Fight me, go ahead. But if you are going to just know I hate them both. Think of it like a presidential election if you will. I'm at "any functioning adult" at this point. Yes, that means they're nonexisting.

What happened to the old days? When programmers were the counterculture. When we believed in unfettered freedom. When we believed in encryption by default. When did that dream die? We've never had more of a chance of this dream succeeding due to technological advancements yet we've never been so far because of will. Was it the money? Was it that we got too hung up in tribalism? Or was it that we are petty as fuck and let perfection destroy good enough for small open source companies but don't hold these megacorps to the same standards? Is it the complexity of the system and how there's no actually good choice? Is it just that we're too dumb? Maybe we just like the cyberpunk style so much we just wanted to make it a reality ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Apple being a better choice is just marketing. They bend over backwards the moment something is at stake. They made a big deal with FBI, because it was an easy decision. When it is a tough decision, Apple is the first to kiss the ring.

See Apple in China. They need China for manufactoring and for the market, and no qualms about "privacy is human right" there. They say nothing about it there.

Atleast Google had the balls to pack up and leave China. I'll respect Apple the day when they sacrifice profits for their principles. It is all empty talk otherwise.

[flagged]

Relax bud. I wasnt "fighting", even though it is clear that you're here for a fight.

I was adding my perspective into the conversation. It stands on its own, and isnt off-topic.

Also, no need to fucking swear.

[flagged]

> Apple’s 2016 stand wasn’t forgotten.

> It was buried under the next headline.

> But it’s still true.

Yeah right. Just in 2017 they started backdooring Chinese iCloud servers for the CCP: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/business/apple-china-data...

I was thinking the same thing. What if making gold trophies isn't enough and DOJ wants a backdoor? The appearance of values can't be that important anymore because we are witnessing decisions by the company and CEO in his personal capacity.

Since 2022 they rolled out icloud end to end encryption meaning whoever runs the data center in china doesn't get to snoop if you switch it on.

Chinese iCloud servers do not have HSMs, which means that the encryption keys are all stored server-side, domestically, in plaintext.

Enabling data protection will not save you if, like in China, your government demands backdoored servers.

What do HSMs have to do with anything? Using HSMs doesn’t make it harder for a provider to decrypt your data, they can just ask the HSM they control to decrypt your data whenever they want.

HSMs exist to make it harder for outsiders to exfiltrate keys, not make it harder for insiders to decrypt stuff.

I can’t speak for China. But outside of China iCloud E2E uses keys that are only stored on customer devices. I.e. your iPhone is the HSM. In theory iCloud needs zero crypto capabilities server side, because all the crypto happens client side, and servers are just moving opaque encrypted blobs around.

Actually many people criticizw Apple's AI power, but they forget that the reason Siri is stupid because Apple want to (or at least they explicitly show) protect your privacy.

Iphone AI core is basically Edge AI, which means they deploy it inside the Iphone, not relying on a remote cloud. This can help protect customer data, but it also means they can not update their AI with new training data, and the Chip is kinda small so the model is not smart.

Just know this fact so ppl won't criticize Apple without knowing the sacrifice to protect their privacy

> Iphone AI core is basically Edge AI, which means they deploy it inside the Iphone, not relying on a remote cloud

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iphe3f499e0e/io...:

“For more complex requests that require more computational capacity, Apple Intelligence can use Private Cloud Compute, which extends the privacy and security of your Apple products like iPhone into the cloud to unlock even more intelligence. Private Cloud Compute uses larger, server-based models powered by Apple silicon.“

but it's core is still edge AI, which can not compare to other AI models with larger parameters that can be called via API, right?

Siri is dumb for an edge model though. It’s like ~2 years behind. It’s just bad and shouldn’t be excused, everything about it is bad.

Only ~2 years behind is generous, I think. It's unbelievably bad even when compared to Google Assistant circa 2018

I think the bigger issue is that even the "cloud" stuff seems pretty stupid. Meanwhile while I wouldn't really trust any of these companies very much in actuality, it's not like nobody else is doing "edge" AI: Google is basically treating Gemma models like A1 steak sauce and pouring them on everything. (And although I don't know that any of those use cases really are particularly interesting, Gemma itself can be pretty impressive IMO.)

Apple doesn´t have a good reputation regarding privacy. I have to agree though that they fight for it. It is strange that siri is obsolete, comparing company evaluation, and compared to other tech giants. Also facts show a real battle, harder than other companies. My best thoughts to TIM COOK.

yeah men, I am not a fan of Apple too, just don't agree if ppl critize them thoughtlessly

This legit sounds like a bot reply

How does a human reply? Maybe I am turning into a bot with all this AI around me :)

Are you evaluating in a vacuum against some ideal company/community efforts or against their commercial competitor Google when you say that they don’t have a reputation for privacy?

Nah, a lot of Siri requests really on Apple servers to fulfill. Supposedly they have recently supported more requests types entirely on-device, but 2 years ago I lived in an apartment with an underground parking garage and I constantly has basic requests like creating timers and reminders fail due to spotty cell service.

Which iphone was it? One of the newer ones which are advertised "built for Apple Intelligence"? I'm pretty sure that's their selling point and they even have a separate chip for it, if it still needs to connect then that's pretty stupid.

Those phones weren’t sold 2 years ago.

Sooo what's the complaint? that edge AI didn't exist when it didn't exist?)

Not a complaint, just pointing that out.

I turn off the AI shit on most devices I use. Microsoft and Apple are topping my list of most hated for shovelling AI drivel my way.

don't know why this comment is downvoted by so many :)

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