[HN Gopher] EU antitrust: Apple shouldn't use privacy and securi...
___________________________________________________________________
EU antitrust: Apple shouldn't use privacy and security to stave off
competition
Author : webmobdev
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-07-04 18:32 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (appleinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (appleinsider.com)
| Lariscus wrote:
| I expected the worst when reading the headline but this is great
| news. If the EU forces Apple to allow side-loading apps I might
| actually buy an Apple smartphone.
| mistersquid wrote:
| > If the EU forces Apple to allow side-loading apps I might
| actually buy an Apple smartphone.
|
| This will result in different phones for different markets. For
| example, iPhone in Japan must play a sound when the camera
| takes a picture. This is not true of iPhones sold in the US.
| iPhones in some markets also are not allowed to have active 5G
| modems while, obviously, iPhones in the US are.
|
| I think splitting the market will be fine. However, I suspect
| many side-loading-capable iPhones are going to have many more
| security problems and privacy breaches.
|
| We'll have to wait and see.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| > I think splitting the market will be fine. However, I
| suspect many side-loading-capable iPhones are going to have
| many more security problems and privacy breaches.
|
| Security and flexibility are always at odd with each other.
| But for side loading, I'm not really worried.
|
| Users that are susceptible to security problems don't have
| the technical know-how to even do something as simple as
| sideloading. Those who are technical enough usually are not
| the entry point for malware.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| This is not true.
|
| Thanks to friendly YouTube and web tutorials, non-
| technical users are great at hacking themselves:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-XSS
| chomp wrote:
| So where can I go if I want a device that does not allow
| sideloading? I want a device that has a single trusted root that
| takes a hard stance on all apps to make sure they're not abusing
| privileges, and signs the apps that are validated. Is that going
| to be gone now? Should I just go to a feature phone?
| stale2002 wrote:
| > if I want a device that does not allow sideloading
|
| It's pretty simple. Just don't sideload apps.
|
| Or perhaps there could be a setting that you turn on, that
| disallows sideloading.
|
| If you turn on a setting, that disallows sideloading, then in
| that case you would have a platform that does what you want.
| danaris wrote:
| This does not solve the problem.
|
| If sideloading is available, there will be a nonzero number
| of developers who choose to provide their app _only_ through
| sideloading, and eschew Apple 's App Store.
|
| Some of these will be doing so merely so they don't have to
| take the extra effort (or pay the extra money) to submit apps
| to Apple. No malicious intent, but they still won't be
| reviewed, so unintentional danger can still get through.
|
| Others will be deliberately avoiding Apple's App Review so
| they can steal your passwords and spy on your banking apps,
| or hell, just install a rootkit if there's one available at
| the time.
|
| And still others will be trying to create commercial-grade
| apps that provide full functionality, but can violate your
| privacy without asking permission because that's their
| business model (particularly Facebook and Google).
|
| And some of these will _replace_ apps that are currently
| available from the App Store, with all the protections that
| entails. Particularly Facebook and Google.
| the8472 wrote:
| > Others will be deliberately avoiding Apple's App Review
| so they can steal your passwords and spy on your banking
| apps, or hell, just install a rootkit if there's one
| available at the time.
|
| Sideloading and app permissions are orthogonal.
| bobviolier wrote:
| I mean, you don't _have_ to install another marketplace for
| apps.
| chomp wrote:
| I do not want the option to install other apps, because it
| gives me plausible deniability when my employer or someone is
| like "install this app or you're fired". Or if someone gets a
| hold of my phone and now I have a brand new app with all
| permissions installed.
|
| Having the ability to side load gives the ability to people
| to coerce you into installing things that wouldn't fly under
| a single root model.
|
| I do not feel that computing is headed to a good place in
| terms of privacy and I feel like giving the Googles,
| Facebooks, and spyware companies more levers to pull is going
| in the wrong direction. (Well, maybe the right direction
| under normal circumstances if the tech industry was more
| ethical)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If you are being abused by your employer, and you want the
| rest of society to help, the way to do that is though
| employment law, and not through taking away rights from the
| rest of us and giving them to Apple
| marderfarker2 wrote:
| Just recently my company's HR forced us to download a
| payroll vendor's app on our phones. The app was downloaded
| from the App Store.
| extra88 wrote:
| Because it's from the Apple App Store, you can be
| reasonably sure it does what it says and isn't monitoring
| your communications. You can also use permissions to deny
| it things like background app refresh or location data.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| No review from Apple is a downside, but I doubt iOS'
| system permissions are tied to the App Store.
|
| On Android (and Windows/macOS, to a certain extent), the
| OS asks you if you let <app> access/use <feature>
| independently of how the app was installed.
|
| Also, can apps monitor your communications on iOS? On
| Android you can replace the apps that control calls, sms,
| etc, but that wasn't possible on iOS last time I used it.
| extra88 wrote:
| To be honest, I don't know what an app literally can't do
| on an iOS device (or Android device), regardless of how
| it gets there. I expect there are private APIs that could
| be exploited to do things an app otherwise couldn't do
| that could be against the user's interests.
| northwest65 wrote:
| >install this app or you're fired
|
| What sort of backward country do you live in where that's
| even remotely legal?
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| >it gives me plausible deniability when my employer or
| someone is like "install this app or you're fired"
|
| Employers can already sideload through MDM. If anything MDM
| will give them more control than just an app.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| > Or if someone gets a hold of my phone and now I have a
| brand new app with all permissions installed.
|
| System permissions aren't tied to the App Store as far as I
| know (same on Android). You still need to give apps
| permission to access your camera, mic, location, etc.
|
| While allowing sideloading would bypass Apple's review
| process (which can be bad), if someone has that type of
| access to your phone, there's nothing stopping them from
| installing tracking/spyware apps from the App Store right
| now.
| ginko wrote:
| >I do not want the option to install other apps, because it
| gives me plausible deniability when my employer or someone
| is like "install this app or you're fired"
|
| Tell your employer to give you a work phone then. No way
| I'm going to install work-related sw on a private device.
| doobeeus wrote:
| Apple does not actually "take a hard stance on all apps to make
| sure they're not abusing privileges" though they say that they
| do in their advertising.
| chomp wrote:
| I see plenty of complaints from devs about Apple dropping
| their app because it runs unverified code, and that's enough
| for me to know that the system is working.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "I want a device that has a single trusted root that takes a
| hard stance on all apps"
|
| Every corporate IT department configures windows this way
| webmobdev wrote:
| What you are asking can be implemented in the phone OS. Apple's
| macOS shows one way to do it - System Integrity Protection -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Integrity_Protection ...
| you need to disable it in macOS to make any system changes,
| like installing a Kernel Extension. Another way is how you have
| to jump through some hoops to enable root or unlock the
| bootloader in some phones.
| politelemon wrote:
| The headline is editorialized, which isn't surprising considering
| the biased news source. You can see in the body of the article,
| Apple is _stifling_ competition, which is what the antitrust is
| about. The headline reduces it to "stave off" to make it appear
| harmless.
|
| I'm glad this is being pointed out, as Apple has long subverted
| (and done damage to, IMO) the privacy conversation by telling
| users that privacy can be obtained by giving up their privacy.
| The main aim has not been privacy, it has always been to lock
| users into their ecosystem with carefully controlled images,
| misleading advertising campaigns, PR spins, and their
| analogues/equivalents to "think of the children".
|
| Realistically, I do not have any hope of anything being done as
| there is far too much support for, and normalization of, the
| current jail. This isn't the same landscape that punished MS many
| years ago - who have been relatively harmless when compared to
| FB, Apple and Google - these three companies have been playing a
| slightly more clever game with their EU ties and I fully expect
| them to get away with little more than a slap on the wrist, while
| relaxing in their tax haven.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _...Apple has long subverted (and done damage to, IMO) the
| privacy conversation by telling users that privacy can be
| obtained by giving up their privacy._
|
| If you listen to the interview, the actual message from Cook is
| "privacy and security go hand-in-hand", which is plainly
| obvious and supported by history and data.
|
| Maybe I'm missing something from a different source. Where has
| Apple said, "privacy can be obtained by giving up privacy"?
| saurik wrote:
| Well, I want decentralized peer-to-peer networks and the
| ability to pay for things using currencies like Monero and
| Zcash; only, to build the tools that make that world happen,
| I can't only build apps and platforms that only work for half
| the potential users: the network effects simply don't work
| like that :/. And yet, Apple insists that, for their own
| good, all push notifications for users must go through their
| servers--requiring apps to always have centralized backends,
| which they currently often outsource to Google or Amazon,
| further centralizing all data collection--and all payments
| for all products everywhere by anyone must be made with
| centralized credit cards through Apple's payment processor. I
| mean, this is the same company that implemented a feature
| that causes your computer to phone home to Apple every time
| you run a program, which they also claim is for your own
| good? Even the entire setup of their centralized App Store
| makes them a tool of oppressive governments to do further
| surveillance on their population, providing centralized
| chokepoints--ones that only exist because of Apple: Android
| phones that are marketed to these same regions do not have
| these issues, proving Apple's excuses are lies--to ban
| applications such a scam VPNs. The whole situation is
| ridiculous: centralized systems are inherently anti-private,
| if not in the short term then in the long term as their
| incentives wear out.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsazo-Gs7ms
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| With all due respect, this is not about your open source
| decentralized peer-to-peer crypto utopia. This is about
| third-party _app stores_. This is about Google- and
| Facebook-type companies gaining unfettered access to the
| most lucrative user segment (rich iPhone users) and data-
| mining the crap out of them. This is about billions of
| dollars of juicy advertising revenue.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Privacy is not the same as anonymity. Confidentiality is a
| technique for offering a degree of privacy without
| anonymity.
|
| Offering services to fully anonymous counterparties is
| fraught with challenges.
|
| Android is extremely vulnerable to third party attackers
| via apps.
|
| > I can't only build apps and platforms that only work for
| half the potential users.
|
| Are you sure even close to half of your potential users use
| (exclusively) iOS? I severely doubt that.
|
| Exactly for the reasons you mention, people who want self-
| managed security don't use iOS.
| novok wrote:
| If you're a mobile developer, the market numbers are
| pretty well known. About %50 in the USA is iOS & %15-%20
| is iOS internationally. And even in the international
| case, that %15-20 is around +%50 of the REVENUE. iOS
| users pay way more and these facts have been fairly
| stable for years.
|
| And what apple is doing is not giving their customers and
| users a choice other than an extremely radical one of
| abandoning the platform completely.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Of course Apple doesn't say that explicitly. That stance in
| implicit in Apples refusal to users to install without
| Apple's knowledge (i.e. use other app storea) and their many
| measure to force apple product users to pay for amy software
| features or services outside Apple's ecosystem.
| webmobdev wrote:
| What OP meant was that Apple has access to, and does datamine
| our personal information on every Apple devices.
|
| They sell the idea that Apple is the only "trustworthy"
| entity capable of handling and protecting your data, so you
| can trust them with your data and you should ignore how they
| are datamining it (because they are "trustworthy").
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| What personal data does Apple data mine?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Location traffic data. How do you think Apple Maps shows
| traffic flow on the most minor side streets?
| simondotau wrote:
| Maps location data is aggressively anonymized prior to
| being collated. By the time Apple "mines" this data, it
| is no longer "user data".
| simonh wrote:
| The do data mine user information, if given permission,
| but they anonymise it first.
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| According to their privacy policy, virtually anything you
| send them. The only promise they make is that they don't
| link it in an identifiable way with third party data.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| They pretend to care about consumer privacy by only
| encrypting on device and at the same time hand data over to
| governments through unencrypted iCloud backups.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| That's a user choice.
|
| iCloud supports storage if encrypted data and disabling
| unencrypted backups.
|
| It's fine that you reject the legitimacy of government, but
| unreasonable to expect huge organizations to do the same
| while serving hundreds of millions of users.
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| > "privacy and security go hand-in-hand", which is plainly
| obvious and supported by history and data.
|
| This doesn't seem to be true. Privacy here means "user
| privacy" whereas security means the security of the systems
| holding the user data.
|
| Almost any system that hold large amounts of user data is a
| counter example. Such systems are typically highly secured
| but are antagonistic to user privacy.
| purpmint008 wrote:
| Apple sells you privacy from everyone but Apple.
|
| When are they going to allow us to opt out of the baseline
| telemetry that we cannot opt out of as per their EULAs?
|
| When are they going to make their own ad targeting network opt-
| in instead of opt-out?
|
| When are they going to give us the _option_ of full E2EE for
| our iCloud data?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| MS is (slowly) reading off of the same script when it comes to
| security on Windows, as well.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Apple gives your emails to the US Government (PRISM) then runs
| ads for Privacy.
|
| Apple products are exploited near weekly, then run ads for
| Security.
|
| Apple makes everyone use the same app store and web browser, then
| run ads saying "Think Different"
|
| Apple runs on doublethink, merging the latest psychology tricks
| with their marketing department so their product departments can
| cut corners. Accounting and Finance departments love it.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| > Apple makes everyone use the same app store and web browser,
| then run ads saying "Think Different"
|
| Ironically, in the case of web engines specifically, mandatory
| WebKit on iOS is the only remaining substantial resistance
| against a Chromium monopoly. Safari/WebKit sits at ~18% while
| Firefox/Gecko has dwindled to ~3%[0]. If third party web
| engines were allowed on iOS, WebKit's share would almost
| certainly plummet to match that of Firefox with Chrome and
| other forms of reskinned Chromium taking its place.
|
| [0]: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
| doobeeus wrote:
| Given how Apple allows side-loading on Mac and obviously the 2
| other dominant consumer platforms (Android & Windows) do as well
| with no significant consequences, it's pretty disingenuous for
| Apple to engage in these privacy/security scare tactics to
| maintain platform control and profits.
|
| Add to this the fact that they only really started this campaign
| more than a decade after they launched the iPhone just compounds
| Apple's loss of credibility on this.
| Jcowell wrote:
| Apple allows sideloading on computers because that's how
| computers have always been. Introducing a Computer back then
| that had no means of getting needed software would be suicide
| for any computer. It had to open because computers for the most
| part were always open and Apple didn't have the leverage or
| starting position like they did with the iPhone.
|
| Something like a Chromebook would have absolutely failed
| decades ago. A lot of things done today would have failed
| decades ago and vice versa.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Something like a Chromebook would have absolutely failed
| decades ago
|
| Video game consoles existed decades ago, were locked down
| systems, and succeeded tremendously... starting all the way
| back in the 1970s with Atari 2600.
|
| > because that's how computers have always been
|
| Phones before the iPhone allowed any app to be installed.
| J2ME. There was no precedent to do what Apple did with a
| lockdown like that, as far as I remember. Glad to be
| corrected but don't forget to include the J2ME landscape in
| your analysis.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Video game consoles were extremely limited, as well as
| being cheap enough that people could buy several, as well
| as being completely inessential luxury toys, not tools for
| running businesses and lives.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Most (modern) Chromebooks allow you to run any linux software
| you want.
|
| Just because you have the ecosystem lock-in to force
| something new down the throats of users doesn't justify doing
| it.
| rank0 wrote:
| We're witnessing the death of general purpose computing
| smoldesu wrote:
| s/death/commercialization
| anoncake wrote:
| What? Computers have been made commercially for decades.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple has abused their position as a market leader for
| years. I'll burn karma if it bears repeating, but their
| unrivaled hostility has kinda destroyed the technology
| sector.
| xbar wrote:
| I won't downvote, but you need to clarify. Are you
| talking only about iPhone?
| anoncake wrote:
| I can't argue with that, but if you kill something,
| calling the result death seems more appropriate.
| freddealmeida wrote:
| well that is an unexpected twist.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Someone had to look at the world's most profitable company and
| wonder where all that money came from.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I don't think sideloading in itself is necessarily a threat to
| privacy. It's unquestionably a downgrade in security thanks to
| the existence of social engineering, but that might be something
| we just have to live with.
|
| Where the real threat, in my opinion, lies is with third party
| app stores. It's easy to imagine Facebook for example launching
| its own app store where rules for information gathering are lax
| or nonexistent and then forcing its success by making the
| powerhouse apps it controls exclusive to it - a _lot_ of people
| wouldn 't think twice about installing a questionable app store
| if that were the only way they could get Instagram, WhatsApp,
| Facebook Messenger, etc. There's also no shortage of unscrupulous
| developers who would jump aboard their platform for the anything
| goes policies.
|
| One could argue that users have a choice in that situation, but
| that's not really true, particularly where network effects are
| concerned. Most people are not going to switch to Signal for
| example if WhatsApp becomes a Facebook Store exclusive - they're
| just going to install the Facebook Store and get on with life,
| because the energy involved in getting entire social groups moved
| over just isn't there.
|
| Technical solutions to this privacy problem like sandboxing sound
| good on paper, but there will always be holes, and if the
| gatekeeper is happy to look the other way when developers use
| said holes (as Facebook themselves have in the past), those
| protections may as well not exist. Even if Apple puts maximum
| effort into closing off these holes, it'll be an endless cat and
| mouse game with user information dripping out the whole way.
|
| Some will point out that third party app stores and sideloading
| have been possible on Android since forever and the above
| described outcome hasn't occurred, but the incentives are quite
| different in the case of iOS/App Store, both financially (iOS
| user eyeballs are worth a lot more) and from a policy standpoint
| (the App Store, historically, has been much more strict than the
| Play Store). It could also still happen in the case of Android,
| and is perhaps even likely given how Google has been tightening
| the bolts on the Play Store's policies.
|
| So, my thought is that any legislation that forces the ability to
| sideload and install third party app stores _must_ be accompanied
| by parallel legislation that effectively takes the App Store 's
| privacy policies and codifies them as law, and potentially even
| criminalizes abuse of platforms to gain personal information
| without the user's explicit consent.
| adammenges wrote:
| Agreed, this is one of the main points of view often not
| brought up
| webmobdev wrote:
| Your last para is the key - unfortunately, the legislative
| process is so slow in most democracies that it might take a
| decade or more for most countries to setup such regulators.
| dmitriid wrote:
| And even when the laws do get passed, every big and small
| corp and business blatantly ignores them. See the many dark
| patterns around GDPR consent banners.
| danaris wrote:
| Sideloading is a threat to privacy because it allows apps to
| ignore the consent requirements the App Store enforces.
|
| As it stands, if any app wants access to your contacts, your
| camera, your microphone, your photos, etc, it _must_ ask first.
| Allowing sideloading removes this protection, and apps
| installed that way could simply siphon all your data silently.
|
| You even describe how that can be the case, but you couch it as
| being with third-party app stores. While what you say is not
| false, it is also not limited to that case: the removal of both
| privacy _and_ security protections happens as soon as you stop
| having the App Store be the sole source for iOS software.
|
| Yes, of course, a hypothetical "Facebook App Store" with all
| Facebook apps being exclusive to it would have a higher chance
| of getting nefarious data-siphoning apps onto users' iPhones
| than any old random sideloaded app, but it's hardly a necessary
| part of the threat to privacy. It's just a way of guaranteeing
| _much more widespread_ compromises of privacy.
| 8note wrote:
| I would imagine that the OS's APIs should be the ones to
| enforce that, rather than the app store
| vanviegen wrote:
| Sideloaded apps on Android have needed to ask the user for
| permissions since day one. This is not (necessarily) a
| feature of the store.
| shkkmo wrote:
| What about an EFF store that only allows strongly vetted open
| source apps? Wouldn't that allow users to have more security
| and more privacy?
| adriancr wrote:
| sideloading also disallows stores like f-droid.
|
| The same argument could have been used by microsoft a long
| tjme ago to lock machines to windows and kill linux. It would
| not have worked then, it should not now.
|
| What apple does is basically avoiding competition. That's not
| fine when you have 50+% market share
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Huh? Locking a machine to Windows is the manufacturer's
| choice, not Microsoft's.
|
| A better comparison is if MS banned installing apps not
| distributed by MS.
| cesarb wrote:
| > Locking a machine to Windows is the manufacturer's
| choice, not Microsoft's.
|
| Microsoft has hardware certification requirements for
| machines that ship with Windows, and these certification
| requirements mandate whether or not a machine will be
| locked to Windows. On traditional x86, these requirements
| mandate that it must be possible to both disable
| SecureBoot and enroll the owner's keys; on ARM, Microsoft
| changed these requirements to forbid both options
| (https://softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-
| confi...), so that these machines would be locked to
| operating systems signed by Microsoft.
|
| If manufacturers want to be able to ship machines with
| Windows, they have no choice but to follow these hardware
| certification requirements; and it's not hard to argue
| that Windows is a monopoly, such that manufacturers have
| no choice but to ship machines with Windows.
|
| > A better comparison is if MS banned installing apps not
| distributed by MS.
|
| Isn't that what "S mode" does?
| adriancr wrote:
| > Huh? Locking a machine to Windows is the manufacturer's
| choice, not Microsoft's.
|
| Microsoft used to tax OEMs on all pcs with x86 sold as
| having windows pre-installed on them (otherwise OEMs
| wouldn't be allowed to sell windows at all). This got
| them into anti-trust issues. By the same mechanism they
| could have asked OEMs to lock machines to windows.
|
| Anti-trust lawsuit could have lead to Microsoft being
| broken up into separate companies.
|
| It would be funny if Microsoft avoided that only for
| Apple to be broken down into separate companies. (one for
| app store, one for iphone, etc)
|
| > A better comparison is if MS banned installing apps not
| distributed by MS.
|
| If they did this what would be the consequences?, are
| potential anti-trust lawsuits going to appear again?
|
| Also see what happened with bundling internet explorer in
| europe.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I think that sideloading represents a greater security threat
| in terms of what the sideloaded app can do, but it's
| counterbalanced by the number of users sideloading -
| especially if sideloading is designed to be a highly
| technical process, the number of users doing it is going to
| be quite small. Even now very few Android users sideload.
|
| By contrast, third party app stores could open an entire one-
| click universe of privacy abuse. Even if individual apps
| can't do as much damage, the overall footprint is much larger
| as the information that's accessible is scattered across a
| far wider spread of companies/developers by giving them
| access to users who don't possess the technical aptitude to
| get themselves in trouble with sideloading.
| webmobdev wrote:
| > By contrast, third party app stores could open an entire
| one-click universe of privacy abuse.
|
| This is similar to the argument made for censorship - we
| should also censor newspapers, books, television, movies
| and the internet to ensure that people get the right
| information and values, and are not influenced by "harmful"
| content.
|
| At some point, you have to start treating adults like
| adults, rather than mollycoddle everyone as some immature
| and / or innocent being.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I think the key difference is that in the case of media,
| people aren't unknowingly signing up for anything - those
| partaking decide they like what they see and continue to
| partake. Media also has no element of lock-in... if one
| media source becomes untrustworthy in one's eyes, it's
| pretty easy to switch to some other outlet.
|
| With third-party app stores and even apps themselves,
| it's very easy for users to get more than they bargained
| for at mass scale. As I noted in my original comment,
| it's very likely that an app store run by the likes of
| Facebook would operate in such a way, and the worst part
| is that many users wouldn't have any choice but to go
| along with it -- they're forced to install the Facebook
| Store and accept all that it and the apps on it
| (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc) entail in order to continue to
| connect with their friends and family. Malicious app
| stores can effectively hold parts of users' lives hostage
| to force access to data.
|
| Which is why I'm not against third party app stores, but
| rather third party app stores without regulation that
| makes foul play a costly mistake on the part of the
| developer.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > Allowing sideloading removes this protection, and apps
| installed that way could simply siphon all your data
| silently.
|
| I don't have any iDevices, but are you suggesting that any
| iOS app has access to all of your files if the code makes it
| through the app store review? Because that would be a major
| issue in Apple's sandboxing in my opinion. I don't think
| you're right about how the OS security policies work, at
| least I hope so.
| chj wrote:
| You are right. Every app lives in its Sandbox, so it is
| really not an issue.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Sideloading is a threat to privacy because it allows apps
| to ignore the consent requirements the App Store enforces. As
| it stands, if any app wants access to your contacts, your
| camera, your microphone, your photos, etc, it must ask first.
| Allowing sideloading removes this protection, and apps
| installed that way could simply siphon all your data
| silently._
|
| There's no reason that the OS can't implement sandboxes and
| enforce protections for such data. There's literally decades
| of research on operating system security.
|
| Besides, when we forgo system safety in favor of corporate
| gatekeeping, that isn't security. In fact, such a scheme is
| responsible for mass distribution of malware. Apple's App
| Store is responsible for distributing over half a billion
| copies of Xcodeghost to iPhone and iPad users[1], and that's
| just _one_ piece of malware.
|
| [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bbmz/the-fortnite-
| trial-is...
| nodamage wrote:
| People always cite sandboxing as some kind of panacea but
| the reality is sandboxing is entirely incapable of
| preventing bad actors from abusing permissions that were
| originally granted for legitimate purposes.
|
| For example: I might be okay with granting a messaging app
| access to my contacts to make it easier for me to send
| messages to people, but that doesn't mean I'm okay with
| that app exfiltrating my contacts to build a shadow graph
| of my social network to sell to advertisers.
|
| Putting a permissions dialog in front of my contacts only
| solves the problem of whether an app is allowed to access
| my contacts in the first place, there are zero restrictions
| on what can be done with that data once access is granted.
| YmiYugy wrote:
| My preferred policy would be that platform stores either have
| to comply with strict regulation or open up the platform.
| purpmint008 wrote:
| I concur.
|
| And, people never bring up why iOS users eyeballs are worthier.
|
| It's first-world currency spending and the fact that a ton of
| the revenue generated via iOS comes from spending on games and
| from Google paying Apple to keep them as the default search
| engine.
|
| From what I recall, both of these add up to well north of
| $20bn/year.
|
| So, in effect, Apple is fighting for gaming and ad revenue
| here. It's rather obvious that after they're done kicking
| Facebook and other 3rd party ad-trackers off their platform:
| they will push their own ad-tracking platform. I like that
| Facebook is suffering.
|
| Personally, I find them a bit usurious in this regard. My
| opinion can change. But, there is something irksome about
| allowing platform owners the right to dictate what you can
| install on your device.
| [deleted]
| webmobdev wrote:
| "I think privacy and security is of paramount importance to
| everyone," Vestager said. "The important thing here is, of
| course, that it's not a shield against competition, because I
| think customers will not give up neither security nor privacy if
| they use another app store or if they sideload."
|
| Spot on! There is a point of no return for us consumers too when
| the manufacturers use the argument of "security and privacy" to
| take so much control away from us. At that certain point, can you
| really say that you own the device you have paid for?
| nobodyshere wrote:
| Well they use the "save the kids" argument pretty often in the
| US to take away what's left of the privacy out there.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| In the US? Everywhere. Also popular: "but terrorists could
| use this encryption thing"
| type0 wrote:
| Just for the record MS stated that they don't support older
| CPUs in Windows 11 because "security"; mind you not your
| security but security for the media companies that can feel
| safe with the new DRM being stronger.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| another example of bad amoral behavior doesn't make this
| example any less significant (whataboutism?)
| contravariant wrote:
| I'm pretty sure we already passed that point when we accepted
| the argument that users need to be protected against
| themselves.
|
| Forced updates, walled gardens, mandatory online accounts, all
| of it has been pushed down the throat of users with the
| justification that it is necessary to protect users against
| themselves.
|
| And in most cases it's pretty easy to see it wasn't primarily
| in the _interest_ of those users, since they weren 't given the
| opportunity to make an informed decision.
| dageshi wrote:
| I would feel fairly confident in saying the majority of the
| iphone install base is both incapable and completely
| disinterested in making an informed decision in these
| matters. They don't care how it works really, so long as it
| works, whichever product "just works" is the one they will
| buy.
|
| Power users like the majority of HN users are different, but
| they're not the majority of the market.
| graeme wrote:
| She isn't making a sensible assessment of tradeoffs though. You
| _do_ take a security hit from sideloading. There's no way
| around that.
|
| Society may find that it is worth mandating sideloading
| nonetheless and that the competition gain is worse the privacy
| loss. But it is senseless to argue there is no tradeoff.
| realusername wrote:
| That's debatable, you don't have any more control as a user
| on apps downloaded from the appstore compared to a sideloaded
| app. They are running in the exact same security sandbox and
| the lack of insights on what the app is doing is there in
| both cases.
|
| For me the most secure medium right now is the web (much more
| than any appstore) and it's designed to run code on demand.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| The sandbox is extremely limited protection. There's no
| recourse against misuse of data you grant permission to
| use, but in the main App Store Apple can kill a deceptive
| app
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _The sandbox is extremely limited protection._
|
| There's no reason that the OS can't implement sandboxes
| and protections for user data like that, either.
|
| > _There 's no recourse against misuse of data you grant
| permission to use, but in the main App Store Apple can
| kill a deceptive app_
|
| Apple can also distribute malware via the App Store, like
| it did with 500 million copies of Xcodeghost[1].
|
| Other mobile app distribution methods can be more secure
| than the App Store, as well. Users can enjoy the
| increased efficiency and lower costs that free markets
| and competition in app distribution, security, and
| payments can bring.
|
| [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bbmz/the-fortnite-
| trial-is...
| Retric wrote:
| You're assuming that App Stores have no influence. Not
| enough people make choices based on privacy to offset the
| profits from violating people's privacy, however
| gatekeeping App stores have real leverage. What they use
| that leverage for is a real question.
|
| We have plenty of examples where opening things up caused
| issues. For example the minimum quality of NES games
| massively declined after Nintendo opened the floodgates.
| realusername wrote:
| I can agree that having the appstore does maintain some
| quality standards, however it does not guarantee any
| security, that's not really a good argument considering
| that their security model still needs to catch up to
| reach something as good as the web which is completely
| opened.
| Jcowell wrote:
| It's never been about it the guarantee of security. There
| is no such thing and never will be. It's about the degree
| of security and having a Single App Store has a degree of
| security that multiple does not.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Apple should obviously inform users of the possible hazards
| when sideloading (like Android already does), but that's
| still no justification to withhold functionality from the
| user.
| ksec wrote:
| It doesn't have to be side loading though. What EU are really
| trying to suggest is that Apple is having too much power to
| dictate other business via App Store. Sideloading or Alt App
| Store are only some solutions.
|
| But instead Apple uses privacy and security to flat out deny
| any wrong doing.
|
| I have often thought the advice Steve gave to Tim Cook, "Dont
| think What he would do, do what you think is right" was all
| good intention but turns out to be possibly the worst advice
| ever.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Why?
|
| Steve Jobs was deeply anticompetitive and anti user control
| since 1980 or older. Wozniak fought him to get the tiniest
| bits of user freedom into the Apple computer.
| Jyaif wrote:
| > You do take a security hit from sideloading
|
| The security comes from the sandbox, _not_ from the app
| stores. This is why it 's secure to use the web even though
| the websites are not individually approved by Apple.
| Jcowell wrote:
| You're thinking of App security and not other aspects is
| Social engineering that will absolutely happen more with
| the introduction of third party app stores. That IS an
| inevitability when it comes to things like this.
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