You can de-Google an Android phone with a custom ROM and have a phone that you have control over and know nobody is spying on you by running a firewall on the phone.
Actually, you can, with Lockdown for iOS or Lulu for macOS. There are other alternatives available, these are just a pair of FOSS examples. You can totally block *.apple.com if you really want to.
It’s not quite the same though. With a custom android ROM, you can be pretty confident that everything kernel-and-up is not spying on you. On iOS and macOS, you don’t have the same level of verifiability, as the OS could just circumvent any VPN/firewall you might have configured. They might pinky promise not to, but without running another external firewall it’s not really verifiable.
It said that Google put it in their aggregated report. Not that they disclosed it.
There is a big difference between ‘we got 100 requests’ and ‘we got 10 requests for X info, 30 for Y info’.
ETA: I just looked at the data again, it’s broken in to categories like FISA NSL etc, then it just gives a range of requests 0-1000 etc.
You can’t really go anywhere on the internet without using Google in some capacity. Cookies and trackers in all the things. Ads aplenty, and blocking them is perpetually an arms race.
This is why I have always said you shouldn’t trust Apple. They have absolute power over you.
Did you read the article? It says the federal government compelled Apple to comply and gave them a gag order.
You can de-Google an Android phone with a custom ROM and have a phone that you have control over and know nobody is spying on you by running a firewall on the phone.
Can’t do that on an Apple.
Actually, you can, with Lockdown for iOS or Lulu for macOS. There are other alternatives available, these are just a pair of FOSS examples. You can totally block *.apple.com if you really want to.
It’s not quite the same though. With a custom android ROM, you can be pretty confident that everything kernel-and-up is not spying on you. On iOS and macOS, you don’t have the same level of verifiability, as the OS could just circumvent any VPN/firewall you might have configured. They might pinky promise not to, but without running another external firewall it’s not really verifiable.
Which means Apple can’t be trusted. My data stays local.
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As the article says, Apple and Google both do it. Apple disclosed it, Google did not.
How is your conclusion ‘I don’t trust Apple’?
The Ars article on this said Google had been disclosing this for the past decade already whereas Apple didn’t.
It said that Google put it in their aggregated report. Not that they disclosed it. There is a big difference between ‘we got 100 requests’ and ‘we got 10 requests for X info, 30 for Y info’.
ETA: I just looked at the data again, it’s broken in to categories like FISA NSL etc, then it just gives a range of requests 0-1000 etc.
Fine, I don’t trust google or apple. I don’t use any of there services anyway.
Well, you do. You just don’t know it or like it.
I do? I don’t use google services at all. On my phone I run Lineage os and for file sharing I use self hosted nextcloud.
You can’t really go anywhere on the internet without using Google in some capacity. Cookies and trackers in all the things. Ads aplenty, and blocking them is perpetually an arms race.
Just trust me, I’ve always got contingency plans. I’m not naïve about them