> Sad state of affairs really when you get punished for being rational, respectful, and adult.
Do you honestly think your comment was "respectful"?
Hacker News is all about rationality and respect, and a big part of that is backing up your opinions/assertions with evidence. Challenging people for unsubstantiated claims is a staple here. If you want to be able to say something like "You'd also be wrong about Apple's privacy protection," expect to be challenged.
You are correct about Apple's privacy, but it is far from a well-known self-evident fact (in fact to most people it's widely considered that Apple is the darling of privacy), so being challenged on it is (IMHO) reasonable and even expected. Obviously you don't have to back it up, but the result of that is going to be downvotes. Also, any criticism of Apple on HN is risking downvotes too. It's not rational, but it is reality.
> Do you honestly think your comment was "respectful".
Yes, it very much was.
I didn't waste their time, I didn't preach, I didn't lecture on something they did not ask or want to hear. I simply said they were mistaken. It was civil conversation, not disparaging in any way.
If they were receptive to learn more, they would have followed up, and could have asked, and they did not. That was the choice they made.
Any other structure would allow a trap, similar to what's shown in Serenity's The Operative, and I have no time for games.
You really can't be more respectful of their time, attention, or choice.
You are right about challenging with argumentation and building support for persuasion, but that challenge was never accepted. There is an order to these things.
You can't communicate by talking 'at' people, both parties need to engage.
> Apple on HN is risking downvotes too...
Honestly just breathing on HN with an unpopular, but right opinion, risks down-votes. I've already spoken to Daang about the structural issues, not that anything will come of it.
You're being a dick. If you didn't realize that, that's what is going on here.
To follow up on GGP(?), if I was going to look into the Apple privacy protection stuff, where would I start? Are there search terms, or specific sites or individuals you can point me to?
I'm being mature, and there is an important distinction though not mutually exclusive.
If OP wanted to know more they could ask, and they didn't so I was right in my initial assessment regardless of how others feel.
I would start with google keywords: "apple telemetry -site:apple.com" are a good place to start.
From memory some of the important highlights were in 2016, there was an issue with the fast-fail network code in macOS and other devices where applications would not launch locally. Apple was forced to briefly disclose the cause of the outage, which amounted to a telemetry server update, a check-in at each application launch and other actions was required and could allow apple to decide what you can and can't run in realtime without your knowledge; there were several news articles about it at the time.
There is the more recent articles about client-side scanning, which they rolled back but they largely by default upload everything to their cloud and do it there. This is good for catching predators, bad if one of those hashes they match against (which are not unique, one hash matches many potential files, an inherent property of modular arithmetic) cause a false positive, or if those hashes match material that is not illegal, but seek to censor. They don't disclose what they match specifically so you'll never know, nor will you be able to dispute or correct any mistakes.
There have been several blog posts by System Administrators about the AppleTV and other Apple devices probing/mapping their internal networks over the years, and sending data up to the cloud. Its largely been encrypted so we don't know what it is they are sending but its a lot according to netflow and wireshark. If one were to find out, and publish what they found, it would serve as proof of violating the DMCA. So it is unlikely this will ever come to light from anyone domestically in the US or its allied countries.
SDR opens a whole new avenue to approach auditing Apple devices that broadcast that data over the em spectrum, its also important since anyone with an antenna can pick that information up.
Additionally, they don't disclose how long or what specific information they do collect about you, who they share it with, and even when you tell them to not collect info, they still do it.
The higher the amount, and time, that you store information, the more likely it is going to be stolen.
