I'll have to check it out. For two years I ran a OnePlus5 with LineageOS then a little over a year ago I upgraded phones and am back on OxygenOS. It's possible to use a non factory ROM without the Google Cloud Messaging and underlying Google apps but sacrifices have to be made. Not everything is a easy to do but it's certainly tolerable. The only thing that's miles ahead with Google is navigation. But you can get by with OpenStreetMaps.
It may be time to get back on that path. Been flirting with trying to produce less trackable data for years now and never used face of finger unlock but this is some serious invasion of privacy.
I know Apple is a pretty cucked company in most regards (inclusivity bullshit, woke gay CEO, green energy nonsense) but there is one thing that Apple does do right:
Privacy
Apple is the only major tech company that routinely tells the FBI to fuck right off. "No we will not unlock phones for you, no we will not put in backdoors for you, no we will not develop cracking tools for you. If you got a warrant and someone uploaded it to our servers, we will comply, otherwise... best of luck."
Apple does not sell their customers information because they already make a killing selling overpriced hardware. So for them, they have no problem making poor business decisions and even losing money if it supports their idea of privacy.
Case in point: Apple tried to create their own ad network and sell ads. But they refused to track demographic information on the people viewing the ads. Consequently no companies bought those ads and the program folded.
The cucked part of Apple wants to go along with this COVID-19 bullshit, but the privacy-oriented part of Apple wants to make sure it's as private as possible. The end result is everything has been pretty thoroughly anonymized. Phones store a list of random codes for 14 days and have no idea who they belong to. If the owner of one of those random codes announces an alert, your phone sees the random code in the list of contacts and lets you know. Not when, where, who, or anything else just, sometime in the last 14 days you may have been exposed.
That's a fairly sane way to offer governments a way to track a disease without giving over personal information.
The final thing to note is that some authoritarian governments are refusing to use Apple's new system precisely because it doesn't turn over personal information. They are instead suing Apple to force them to let their government app read the user's name and other information and track that all centrally on government servers. Good fucking luck making Apple go along with that.
So, while I am generally unhappy with Apple as a company, if I had to choose any company to trust not to fuck me over for a dollar and a pat on the head from the Gestapo, it would probably still be Apple.
There is. Don’t update. Or jailbreak and guaranteed Cydia devs will have a tweak to disable it shortly. If you have anything older than and including an iPhone X you are free to update wantonly as the jailbreak is now hardware based and cannot be patched via software
I don't use it for personal reasons, but it still goes with me everywhere I go for work purposes, so it still has a good idea of my personal life, just through meta-data.
Is this real? I just checked my iOS 13.5 upgrade info and it says nothing like that. It does however point me to that same link, and when you follow it, there is no mention of COVID tracking. I’m leaning towards fake
Edit: looks like it’s real
It looks like my update package is also larger than the one in OPs picture. I’m running 13.3.1 right now, maybe the COVID message only appears for folks already running the latest OS?
Yup. Android user here, we should expect the same soon enough. Time for an old phone or flashing to lineageos
Nice to know facial recognition works while wearing masks
Yessir. Can’t wait
I'll have to check it out. For two years I ran a OnePlus5 with LineageOS then a little over a year ago I upgraded phones and am back on OxygenOS. It's possible to use a non factory ROM without the Google Cloud Messaging and underlying Google apps but sacrifices have to be made. Not everything is a easy to do but it's certainly tolerable. The only thing that's miles ahead with Google is navigation. But you can get by with OpenStreetMaps.
It may be time to get back on that path. Been flirting with trying to produce less trackable data for years now and never used face of finger unlock but this is some serious invasion of privacy.
Ill have to start wearing balaclavas I guess.
Damn you two speaking my language, +1 to all of the above
Tech Pede here.
I know Apple is a pretty cucked company in most regards (inclusivity bullshit, woke gay CEO, green energy nonsense) but there is one thing that Apple does do right:
Privacy
Apple is the only major tech company that routinely tells the FBI to fuck right off. "No we will not unlock phones for you, no we will not put in backdoors for you, no we will not develop cracking tools for you. If you got a warrant and someone uploaded it to our servers, we will comply, otherwise... best of luck."
Apple does not sell their customers information because they already make a killing selling overpriced hardware. So for them, they have no problem making poor business decisions and even losing money if it supports their idea of privacy.
Case in point: Apple tried to create their own ad network and sell ads. But they refused to track demographic information on the people viewing the ads. Consequently no companies bought those ads and the program folded.
The cucked part of Apple wants to go along with this COVID-19 bullshit, but the privacy-oriented part of Apple wants to make sure it's as private as possible. The end result is everything has been pretty thoroughly anonymized. Phones store a list of random codes for 14 days and have no idea who they belong to. If the owner of one of those random codes announces an alert, your phone sees the random code in the list of contacts and lets you know. Not when, where, who, or anything else just, sometime in the last 14 days you may have been exposed.
That's a fairly sane way to offer governments a way to track a disease without giving over personal information.
The final thing to note is that some authoritarian governments are refusing to use Apple's new system precisely because it doesn't turn over personal information. They are instead suing Apple to force them to let their government app read the user's name and other information and track that all centrally on government servers. Good fucking luck making Apple go along with that.
So, while I am generally unhappy with Apple as a company, if I had to choose any company to trust not to fuck me over for a dollar and a pat on the head from the Gestapo, it would probably still be Apple.
There needs to be an opt out for this
There is. Don’t update. Or jailbreak and guaranteed Cydia devs will have a tweak to disable it shortly. If you have anything older than and including an iPhone X you are free to update wantonly as the jailbreak is now hardware based and cannot be patched via software
Work will require me to update eventually, they bought me the phone.
If it’s entirely a work phone then who cares? You shouldn’t be doing anything personal on a work phone anyway. That’s just stupid.
I don't use it for personal reasons, but it still goes with me everywhere I go for work purposes, so it still has a good idea of my personal life, just through meta-data.
I know, but if I am not actively working, it is easier to just let my phone watch the trees grow at home.
You don’t have a personal phone at all?
My wife does. I got a CB in the Jeep, does that count?
It is opt in only
It appears to be just the API. Potentially nefarious, or maybe just a tracking API.
Yo have to opt in or download a tracker for it to even be active. Go to below to see what it says
Settings>privacy>health>COVID-19 exposure loggin
They’ve been here for awhile.
Is this real? I just checked my iOS 13.5 upgrade info and it says nothing like that. It does however point me to that same link, and when you follow it, there is no mention of COVID tracking. I’m leaning towards fake Edit: looks like it’s real
Settings>privacy>health>COVID-19 exposure logging
https://imgur.com/gallery/eCk0JLS
Nope, I’m a Floridian
It looks like my update package is also larger than the one in OPs picture. I’m running 13.3.1 right now, maybe the COVID message only appears for folks already running the latest OS?
I have the same as you.
i just checked my phone its on there...
So would I be fine if I just don’t do the update and have location services turned off?
Couldn't you just cover the front facing camera?