• narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee
    5·
    3 months ago

    This feature makes use of homomorphic encryption, so apparently the photo itself can’t be “seen” by Apple’s servers.

    It’s still very confusing wording as in the Settings app it states “Allow this device to privately match places in your photos with a global index maintained by Apple”, which to me implies that the device either downloads the whole index and then looks up places on-device or at least queries it online without sending any photo data, but it seems to send some encrypted and/or hashed variant of the photo(s) instead.

    It seems to be done in a privacy-respecting manner, but being on by default and primarily the poor wording in the Settings app is not good.

    I do think the article is a bit over-dramatic though when the author starts mentioning “that Apple computers are constantly full of privacy and security vulnerabilities”, which - while not entirely wrong - is true for basically every (complex) system.

    ~EDIT: fix two typos~

    • mbirth@lemmy.ml
      3·
      3 months ago

      Here’s a post that popped up on Mastodon earlier today:

      https://social.coop/@eb/113804992987558055

      Conclusion from the linked blog post:

      But, what information is really leaving your device? There is no trust me bro element. Barring some issue being found in the math or Apple’s implementation of it, for the first time the cloud is able to act as a sort of extension to your device and your data, which is an immensely exciting proposition. Apple has managed categorise photos without knowing anything about what they contain. How cool is that.

  • Autonomous User@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    No suprise.

    iOS and macOS, anti-libre software, fails to include a libre software license text file, like GPL. We do not control it.

        • Ugurcan@lemmy.world
          1·
          3 months ago

          Android is “libre” everywhere yet Google violates every fucking privacy concern for 99% of Android users. Google is an ad company, not a tech company, sharing what you scream during sex with every ads company imaginable, selling your identifiable data with anyone with a thousand bucks.

          Apple, on the other hand, is a hardware selling company.

            • Ugurcan@lemmy.world
              1·
              3 months ago

              You don’t control Android either. You only have delusion of control over Android. And Google is willing to spend every dime to keep you disillusioned about what “free” Android really is.

              It’s a mass data harvester for ads companies, and the world’s most widespread and lucratious billboard, owned by Google, for the end user concerned.