It has tracked "your every move" ever since GPS was added.
What this is doing is using Bluetooth scanning for marking which devices are within X distance for Y amount of minutes; and keeping a rolling anonymous list for two weeks.
Then if you mark your device as being COVID-19 positive, it checks the global registry and notifies the devices who were in contact that they are at risk.
This is incredibly dangerous for nefarious uses. For example, what if you do contact tracing on someone for a dangerous, anti-tyrannical thoughtcrime?
(I'm going to repost this comment every time I see this story because I believe it's important for people consider the full background of the issue.)
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... pound sand."
Apple also does not sell their customers information (like Google, Microsoft, etc) because their primary business is making a killing by 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, which in turn sells more hardware.
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:
Every phone makes up a completely random code. Phones store a list of random codes they've been near for 14 days but have no idea who they belong to. If the owner of one of those random codes announces an alert, your phone sees their random code on a public list and lets you know. Not when, where, who, or anything else just, "Hey buddy, sometime in the last 14 days you may have been exposed, so heads up."
That's a fairly sane way to offer governments a method to track the rate of spread for a disease without giving over our 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.
Same can be said for the level of security/encryption in their iMessage vs traditional SMS, and FaceTime audio/video calls. I also keep my location services disabled unless I need them, disable automatic updates and stay signed out of the App Store. But as you stated in your post below, cell towers are an unavoidable method of tracking. I’ll still never own an android device again, and would choose Apple over them any day for the reasons you stated, along with these.
Generally it's not a good idea to install the latest update for at least a month or two. Many times they have bugs or glitches that cause problems. If there's no specific feature they are fixing that you need, it's better to let others beta test a new update and then get it a month or two down the road once it's considered stable.
Having said that, your phone has always been trackable and traceable by cell towers, and most large police forces use fake cell towers (known as Stingrays) to scan and track people, often in violation of their rights.
Honestly, it's almost impossible to truly be off the grid when it comes to wireless technology short of going to extremes like disposable burner phones and so forth.
Apple doesn’t comply with American agencies but do with Chinese. They handed all the iCloud and encryption keys to China years ago as apart of being able to operate in China.
Apple has two separate sets of servers, one for China and one for the rest of the world. And yes, you are right, the servers they host in China are 100% under the control of China because China does not allow any online service that isn't part of their Great Firewall of censorship and monitoring.
However, the servers that everyone BUT China use are hosted in the US and have separate encryption keys and are protected (although parts of iCloud are stored unencrypted by default, which makes them accessible by law enforcement through subpoena, so if you really care about privacy, don't use iCloud or only use it through FileVault).
Should Apple bend over to China in order to do business there? That's an economic question. Shareholders unfortunately do not seem to care about rights and freedoms when it comes to the opportunity to make billions in profits from China. See movie studios, video game companies, etc.
You need to download the apps that use the API..... This is just an API that makes it easier for apps to gather location data after you've already given them permission to
You're amazed because you don't understand how phones work and drawing conclusions based on your own misconceptions. Doesn't help that most of the folks here are pretty tech illiterate and it turns into an echo chamber. I don't blame you, but it doesn't bother me or any other conservatives in the tech industry I talk to. At the end of the day you and your decisions control your own data.
I have an LG smartphone , Android of course. I kid you not, every single time I unlock my phone, the front facing camera is on and I see myself on the screen. Am I just being paranoid?
Kek
It has tracked "your every move" ever since GPS was added.
What this is doing is using Bluetooth scanning for marking which devices are within X distance for Y amount of minutes; and keeping a rolling anonymous list for two weeks.
Then if you mark your device as being COVID-19 positive, it checks the global registry and notifies the devices who were in contact that they are at risk.
This is incredibly dangerous for nefarious uses. For example, what if you do contact tracing on someone for a dangerous, anti-tyrannical thoughtcrime?
You're a total rube if you don't realize you've been tracked the whole time.
(I'm going to repost this comment every time I see this story because I believe it's important for people consider the full background of the issue.)
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... pound sand."
Apple also does not sell their customers information (like Google, Microsoft, etc) because their primary business is making a killing by 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, which in turn sells more hardware.
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:
Every phone makes up a completely random code. Phones store a list of random codes they've been near for 14 days but have no idea who they belong to. If the owner of one of those random codes announces an alert, your phone sees their random code on a public list and lets you know. Not when, where, who, or anything else just, "Hey buddy, sometime in the last 14 days you may have been exposed, so heads up."
That's a fairly sane way to offer governments a method to track the rate of spread for a disease without giving over our 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.
Same can be said for the level of security/encryption in their iMessage vs traditional SMS, and FaceTime audio/video calls. I also keep my location services disabled unless I need them, disable automatic updates and stay signed out of the App Store. But as you stated in your post below, cell towers are an unavoidable method of tracking. I’ll still never own an android device again, and would choose Apple over them any day for the reasons you stated, along with these.
Generally it's not a good idea to install the latest update for at least a month or two. Many times they have bugs or glitches that cause problems. If there's no specific feature they are fixing that you need, it's better to let others beta test a new update and then get it a month or two down the road once it's considered stable.
Having said that, your phone has always been trackable and traceable by cell towers, and most large police forces use fake cell towers (known as Stingrays) to scan and track people, often in violation of their rights.
Honestly, it's almost impossible to truly be off the grid when it comes to wireless technology short of going to extremes like disposable burner phones and so forth.
Apple doesn’t comply with American agencies but do with Chinese. They handed all the iCloud and encryption keys to China years ago as apart of being able to operate in China.
Apple has two separate sets of servers, one for China and one for the rest of the world. And yes, you are right, the servers they host in China are 100% under the control of China because China does not allow any online service that isn't part of their Great Firewall of censorship and monitoring.
However, the servers that everyone BUT China use are hosted in the US and have separate encryption keys and are protected (although parts of iCloud are stored unencrypted by default, which makes them accessible by law enforcement through subpoena, so if you really care about privacy, don't use iCloud or only use it through FileVault).
Should Apple bend over to China in order to do business there? That's an economic question. Shareholders unfortunately do not seem to care about rights and freedoms when it comes to the opportunity to make billions in profits from China. See movie studios, video game companies, etc.
Leave it home.
You need to download the apps that use the API..... This is just an API that makes it easier for apps to gather location data after you've already given them permission to
Benefit of the doubt? Lol
You're amazed because you don't understand how phones work and drawing conclusions based on your own misconceptions. Doesn't help that most of the folks here are pretty tech illiterate and it turns into an echo chamber. I don't blame you, but it doesn't bother me or any other conservatives in the tech industry I talk to. At the end of the day you and your decisions control your own data.
Apple:
We know when you've been naughty,
we know when you've been nice.
You may be sent to jail,
but never Susan Rice!
Also, disable any autoupdate feature you have. I'm curious as to how long before they will force push the update to me whether I want it or not.
I previously blocked updates by signing apple tv profile to the iphone. But apple screwed that up so now I did this to block them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/comments/f0k16i/tutorial_block_ios_update_for_unjailbroken_device/
You can also jailbreak your phone and block shit that way as well. I just didnt feel like doing that.
COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS! Unless you are unmasked by a secret rubber stamp court.
Get rid of the phone or just leave it the fuck home and turned off.
Holy shit. It’s real
I have an LG smartphone , Android of course. I kid you not, every single time I unlock my phone, the front facing camera is on and I see myself on the screen. Am I just being paranoid?
Just say NO to "smart"phones. You don't really need all that crap.
I'm still on a Blackberry Bold. Does everything I need it to.
This should be labeled with shit post flair. Edit: thanks pede. I didn’t dig deep enough. Link to source to pic is here under iOS 13.5 release notes: https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/20/ios-13-5-released-features-exposure/