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This article is highly misleading, making it sound like Siri is collecting data from apps and sending it to Apple. This is not the case, Siri Suggestions are fu

by fh9302 2y ago

This article is highly misleading, making it sound like Siri is collecting data from apps and sending it to Apple. This is not the case, Siri Suggestions are fully on-device, though they can sync accross devices with mandatory E2EE. Apple never gets access to any of this data.

lrvick 2y ago
Apple can remotely execute code on any internet connected device running an proprietary Apple operating system. It is only a matter of time before courts realize this. The CCP controls the Apple software signing HSMs in China for a reason.
- madeofpalk 2y ago
  But if this is your threat model - that you have no trust of the operating system or the vendor - then all of this is pointless because at any time they can just backdoor themselves. Apple could just never ask or collect this, but still they're one update away from starting to collect it. Of course that's always a threat with any computer, but you must place some amount of trust somewhere.
  - eviks 2y ago
    > from starting to collect it. So even then they would have no data before that point!
  - lrvick 2y ago
    If Apple did not collect the data today, then a court order in the future will not allow them to collect data that was not stored today. Personally I only use reproducibly built FOSS software and I isolate most of my hardware and workloads from each other with virtual machines via QubesOS. Proprietary software is not at all required to be well integrated into modern society.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - staplers 2y ago
    you must place some amount of trust somewhere. Using something and trusting it are different things.
- threeseed 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - lrvick 2y ago
    Apple operating systems automatically apply patches to devices for critical security updates so long as those patches are signed by a cryptographic private key held by Apple. That is in fact an RCE system that already exists. There also exist humans that have access to those private keys, and those humans can be controlled by money, court orders, or violence. In China the CCP has control over the software signing keys, so they can push any software to any apple device they like. How long before US politicians start demanding the same? Or maybe they just make a security mistake. Maybe a state actor performs a side channel attack on the known vulnerable Apple Silicon that powers their HSMs. SPOFs always tend to fail.
    - nicce 2y ago
      You cannot really use that as argument. Everyone does that so it does not make Apple ”worse”. Same applies almost every Linux distribution since their builds are not reproducible. It is just a matter of who you want to trust. Eventually you need to trust someone.
      - staplers 2y ago
        Eventually you need to trust someone. There are plenty of things I use but don't trust.
      - lrvick 2y ago
        Not everyone does this My core area of research is supply chain attacks, and I run a company where we regularly train high risk organizations how to remove trust from any single human or system in critical areas of their stack like key management, CI/CD, etc. Many of our clients are fintech companies where trusting a single person, even a system administrator, would seriously endanger them. Meanwhile Apple sysadmins still manage most of their infra with centrally controlled Puppet nodes last I heard. Speaking of Linux distros, I created a 100% reproducible and full-source-bootstrapped Linux distro where every package is signed and reproduced by multiple people to avoid having to trust any single human, including me. https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex Guix comes close to this mark too, so we are hardly the only viable option in town. There are always alternatives to centralizing trust and you do not need to have an Apple-sized budget to afford them.
rcarmo 2y ago
Siri suggestions might more accurately be termed "Springboard suggestions". From what I recall, it essentially works as a fuzzy matcher for suggesting applications to launch in similar contexts (time window, previous app used, etc.). It's like a smart history feature, and no, I don't think it ever leaves the device at all or even syncs via iCloud, since I have completely different suggestions across my iPhone and two iPads.

by fh9302 2y ago

lrvick 2y ago

Apple can remotely execute code on any internet connected device running an proprietary Apple operating system. It is only a matter of time before courts realize this. The CCP controls the Apple software signing HSMs in China for a reason.

madeofpalk 2y ago
But if this is your threat model - that you have no trust of the operating system or the vendor - then all of this is pointless because at any time they can just backdoor themselves. Apple could just never ask or collect this, but still they're one update away from starting to collect it. Of course that's always a threat with any computer, but you must place some amount of trust somewhere.
- eviks 2y ago
  > from starting to collect it. So even then they would have no data before that point!
- lrvick 2y ago
  If Apple did not collect the data today, then a court order in the future will not allow them to collect data that was not stored today. Personally I only use reproducibly built FOSS software and I isolate most of my hardware and workloads from each other with virtual machines via QubesOS. Proprietary software is not at all required to be well integrated into modern society.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- staplers 2y ago
  you must place some amount of trust somewhere. Using something and trusting it are different things.
threeseed 2y ago
[flagged]
- lrvick 2y ago
  Apple operating systems automatically apply patches to devices for critical security updates so long as those patches are signed by a cryptographic private key held by Apple. That is in fact an RCE system that already exists. There also exist humans that have access to those private keys, and those humans can be controlled by money, court orders, or violence. In China the CCP has control over the software signing keys, so they can push any software to any apple device they like. How long before US politicians start demanding the same? Or maybe they just make a security mistake. Maybe a state actor performs a side channel attack on the known vulnerable Apple Silicon that powers their HSMs. SPOFs always tend to fail.
  - nicce 2y ago
    You cannot really use that as argument. Everyone does that so it does not make Apple ”worse”. Same applies almost every Linux distribution since their builds are not reproducible. It is just a matter of who you want to trust. Eventually you need to trust someone.
    - staplers 2y ago
      Eventually you need to trust someone. There are plenty of things I use but don't trust.
    - lrvick 2y ago
      Not everyone does this My core area of research is supply chain attacks, and I run a company where we regularly train high risk organizations how to remove trust from any single human or system in critical areas of their stack like key management, CI/CD, etc. Many of our clients are fintech companies where trusting a single person, even a system administrator, would seriously endanger them. Meanwhile Apple sysadmins still manage most of their infra with centrally controlled Puppet nodes last I heard. Speaking of Linux distros, I created a 100% reproducible and full-source-bootstrapped Linux distro where every package is signed and reproduced by multiple people to avoid having to trust any single human, including me. https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex https://codeberg.org/stagex/stagex Guix comes close to this mark too, so we are hardly the only viable option in town. There are always alternatives to centralizing trust and you do not need to have an Apple-sized budget to afford them.

rcarmo 2y ago

Siri suggestions might more accurately be termed "Springboard suggestions". From what I recall, it essentially works as a fuzzy matcher for suggesting applications to launch in similar contexts (time window, previous app used, etc.). It's like a smart history feature, and no, I don't think it ever leaves the device at all or even syncs via iCloud, since I have completely different suggestions across my iPhone and two iPads.