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iPhones send call history to Apple, security firm says
- galad87 10y agoCall history is synced between devices via iCloud, so what's the news here?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 10y agoWell, of course it does. The question is - why?
- M4v3R 10y agoApple's response in the article explains it - so the user of multiple devices has the call log on all of them, so he can respond to calls on any device. Also, this helps when you set up a new phone.
- unethical_ban 10y agoI feel like "sync" is an iCloud feature.
- huxley 10y agoIt is, but they are talking specifically about iCloud's backup feature being switched off, not iCloud itself. Syncing is not the same as backup.
- givinguflac 10y agoYup, this is exactly it. Even with backup turned off you can answers calls from your Mac/iPad... Why is this surprising?
- kimshibal 10y agoi'm still using my trusty motorolla razr
- faitswulff 10y agoIf you're not joking, I'm curious how long the battery lasts nowadays. Has it significantly declined since you first got it?
- mi100hael 10y agoIt has one of those old-fashioned replaceable batteries, so he could always just buy a new one if it goes downhill.
- slededit 10y agoThat's assuming they are still manufactured. With my old blackberry there were batteries on Amazon, but they were clearly expired stock and could barely hold a charge.
- joosters 10y agoSome batteries seem to live on. I bought a no-name cheap dashcam for my car, and was surprised to see that its battery was identical to the one in my first Nokia phone.
- cptskippy 10y agoIf he's referring the flip phone, and not the Droid Razr, then we're talking about a phone that had a standby time measured in weeks. At best it lasts probably 10x longer than today's smartphones so even a 75% reduction in battery life is still better than what we deal with today.
- shinratdr 10y agoIt's amazing how long a battery can last when it's connected to a device that doesn't do anything. Have you ever measured the battery life of a battery still in the package? It's amazing, standby time is like years.
- pksadiq 10y ago> Apple's Reply: >> Device data is encrypted with a user’s passcode, and access to iCloud data including backups requires the user’s Apple ID and password. Can't Apple ID password be reset? If so, how can it be a true encryption?
- murukesh_s 10y agoThat is a valid question.
- redial 10y ago> Device data is encrypted with a user’s passcode I think it uses the passcode you set on your phone, not the password of your iCloud account.
- pksadiq 10y ago> I think it uses the passcode you set on your phone, not the password of your iCloud account. May be true, but > access to iCloud data including backups requires the user’s Apple ID and password. probably doesn't requires the passcode that the user have set, because this data is available across several devices, and the only common thing would be the Apple ID and its password.
- jsolson 10y agoIf you've recently set up iOS devices you'll have seen it ask for the passcode for another device before you can access iCloud data on the new one.
- droopyEyelids 10y agoNote to media companies (and everyone else) talking about security: You have to put security elements in context to say anything reasonable That means both: 1) Consider your audience, and 2) Do a 'risk analysis' (Meaning figure out where the security issue starts to outweigh the convenience and describe the actual impact of the issue.) This article (and Forbes') are both severely damaged by a failure to do either. Without stating the contexts where this call logging is a problem, and who it is likely to affect you end up writing alarmist nonsense- especially when the audience is the general public.
- cndjckdovj 10y agoI wonder if The Intercept will qualify as "fake news" in the near future for exposing things like this.
- Amir6 10y agoWhat (TF) are you talking about??!!
- cndjckdovj 10y agoThe Intercept is an upstart news outlet that so far meets all of the criteria that have been thrown around over the last fews days for what's now being referred to as "fake news." -TI is small -TI is new -most of what TI publishes makes our politicians look bad -TI relies on word of mouth through social media You're really playing with fire if you think it's a good idea to let other people mark things as "real" or "fake" for you.
- xndjxncnd 10y agoPeople have been talking about shutting down "fake news" outlets in recent days, but The Intercept matches many of the criteria that they have been discussing so far. -TI is new -TI is small -TI primarily publishes content that makes politicians look bad -TI relies on word of mouth through social media You're really playing with fire if you think it's a good idea to let other people classify things as "real" and "fake" for you.
- maxerickson 10y agoAren't people talking about shutting down outlets that just make shit up? I hadn't realized they were going after outlets on things like age and size and editorial focus.
- svachalek 10y agoIf you don't see the point of the former, you become convinced of the latter.
- peterkelly 10y agoI'm not sure how this is "secret". If you're using iCloud on your mac and your iPhone, and open up Facetime on the former, you'll see a call list (including regular phone calls, not just facetime). I agree it's undesirable that call history is sent to Apple - but it's pretty easy to notice if you use facetime across devices that the call history is synced.
- wklauss 10y agoWhy undesirable? I found call log sync quite useful.
- typicalbender 10y agoI think the lack of control is undesirable. I agree the feature itself can be very useful. The title of this post sounds way more sinister than it appears.
- threeseed 10y agoWhat possible controls can Apple put in place though other than a checkbox for do/do not sync ? And remember Apple is a positioning iCloud as a cloud for dummies solution so adding choice comes with trade offs.
- MAGZine 10y agoCouldn't I apply the same argument for while google needs to send your call history to its servers to perform number lookup? Yet people cry fowl (rightfully so) about privacy implications.
- eridius 10y agoGoogle has a track record of disregarding user privacy. Apple has the opposite, a track record of protecting user privacy as much as they can.
- 10y ago
- jamisteven 10y agoPlease tell me they didnt spend any money to figure this out.
- snowwrestler 10y agoThe key detail for me is that if you delete the call from the log on any device, the next sync will delete it in iCloud. So the probably-good-enough-for-most-folks way to deal with this is to just delete calls from your log that you don't want to get archived in iCloud for 4 months. The sure way is to disable iCloud entirely, but that reduces convenience in all sorts of ways (syncing iTunes music, for instance). The ideal would be for Apple to figure out how to provide the services of iCloud in such a manner that they don't have access to user data. Apparently they are working on that but it would obviously be a major change, and risky too. Most people don't care that Apple has to see their data in order to sync, but boy will they be pissed if Apple makes their data permanently unreadable. Most people want to be able to go into an Apple store and get problems fixed. Imagine being an Apple retail tech and explaining to some 50-something lawyer that because they lost their password there is absolutely nothing you can do. "Sorry man--encryption."
- anondon 10y ago> The key detail for me is that if you delete the call from the log on any device, the next sync will delete it in iCloud. I highly doubt that it is a hard deletion of data. My guess is that it would be a soft delete, so your call log won't show up on your iPhone, but the data will be retained on Apple's servers.
- snowwrestler 10y agoI'm just going by the article: > One way call logs will disappear from the cloud is if a user deletes a particular call record from the log on their device; then it will also get deleted from their iCloud account during the next automatic synchronization.
- cmdrfred 10y agoDoes apple delete it from all their backups as well?
- NumberCruncher 10y ago
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoiCloud phone backups contain all sorts of other data, too. But it's encrypted.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoIt has to get from one device to another somehow, right? There's total[0] privacy and then there's degrees of privacy and convenience. You can't have total privacy and total convenience. At least not presently. [0] Total is one of those words like 'always' and 'never' that people should try and avoid. Myself included.
- babuskov 10y ago> You can't have total privacy and total convenience. At least not presently. Encrypt the data using a password you enter on both devices and only transfer it encrypted across network?
- haikuginger 10y agoCost to convenience: if you lose or forget your password, you lose your data.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agothat's total convenience?
- romjak 10y agoSome other items that get synced through iCloud are phone numbers and emails of people you text, or send email to, even if they are not in your address book. Searches you put into Maps are also synced this way as far as I know. Most of this data can be viewed on a macOS if you are signed in with the same iCloud account. It is stored in plist-files in a special folder called "SyncedPreferences". ~/Library/SyncedPreferences ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.corerecents.recentsd/Data/Library/SyncedPreferences It has bothered me for a long time that there is no way to disable call log, text and email recipients syncing in preferences. While I can see how users might find this feature useful, it should be made more obvious what is actually happening when you sign into iCloud. And by the way, disabling iCloud Drive does not disable the syncing of "SyncedPreferences".
- MaysonL 10y agoI'd be more worried about my carrier keeping call history forever than Apple keeping it for a few months.
- junto 10y agoI've never enabled iCloud on any of my iOS devices, since I find it a bit creepy. What real benefits am i missing out on that outweigh the privacy aspects of not using it? Find my iPhone would seem to be an obvious benefit, but are there any others?
- dkonofalski 10y agoWhat privacy aspects are you referring to? iCloud is extremely secure unless you disable certain aspects of its security or choose to use a weak password.
- 6u54wuwu5w 10y agoI'm only using "find my iphone" myself. The rest is of dubious use to me.
- jwtadvice 10y agoThe thing to note here is that it includes all information about the calls including the times and durations and the logs also intercept communications from third party apps like Skype, WhatsApp, and Viber, and that all of this information is available to law enforcement. This is despite Apple's PR statements claiming that the company has designed the phone and its logs to minimize or eliminate the amount of information will be used to feed into law enforcement surveillance requests.