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Comment by endgame | Hacker News Reader

I was shocked at the amount of registration info a new mac asks for. Haven't bought one since.

You can skip it

Can one buy Apple products for cash, without supplying any personal information or identication?

Edit: This is a prerequisite for meaningful privacy. Plus having a pseudonymous account, funded by Bitcoins, for buying apps and stuff. Otherwise it's all based on trusting Apple, and so there's a single point of failure.

Yes; even if that's not true for Apple stores, plenty of resellers.

Can one setup a pseudonymous Apple account, funded via Bitcoins?

That's just moving goal posts. Not sure why you even want an Apple account if you want to maximize privacy.

I'd want an Apple account so that I can buy stuff. Maybe I could get by with open-source apps, but that would be a pain. Even if I take Tim Cook's speech at face value, there's the catch that Apple knows who I am. If Apple really wanted to make a point about being privacy-friendly, they would allow account creation via Tor, and accept Bitcoins.

Sure. Make up a name and address and load it with gift cards bought with cash. Done.

Buying gift cards for cash is too insecure.

But I do see https://giftoff.com/gift-cards/apple-store for buying Apple Store gift cards with Bitcoins.

I'll give it a go.

Edit: It seems legitimate: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=970780.0

I don't see how buying gift cards for cash in person is less secure than buying something online for bitcoin. Cash would seem the least identifying and/or trackable way of purchasing gift cards.

One can easily use VPN services and Tor to anonymize IP address. And one can easily anonymize Bitcoins using various mixing services via Tor. But in buying gift cards with cash, there is in-store video. There's also cellphone tracking, for those who are careless.

How does this have anything to do with Apple?

Can we do refunds yet with Bitcoin ? That's why.

There are escrow systems for that. They're not widely implemented, but that can change.

Your needs are such that buying gift cards with cash is not secure/anonymous enough for you, yet it is too painful to use open-source software from outside the App Store?

I would suggest that this may be too small of a market to be commercially viable.

You may be right about open-source software being sufficient on Apple gear. But I wouldn't want to go through the hassle of buying gear anonymously, and then discover that I need something via Apple.

I'm sure that I represent a small market. But it's arguably a market that Apple must serve well for Tim Cook's claims about privacy to be credible.

The Apple Store is extremely Tor-friendly, I find. There are no CAPTCHAs. In creating Apple IDs, there are no requests for personal information. Gift cards purchased with Bitcoins are recognized. I am gobsmacked! Maybe Apple is actually walking its privacy talk.

However, using ever-changing Tor exit IPs does trigger account locks, which require password reset. But that's arguably a feature, and not a bug.

It's disingenuous to ask for it in the first place when one touts itself as a privacy advocate. Vast majority of users will do what they are told to do by default and Apple knows and exploits that.

They're not exploiting it. They're asking for it to register your products, to you.

There's a big skip button.

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