> despite nothing in this article being “big tech’s” doing
Of course it is their doing. Why are they even storing messages and metadata to begin with? Why are they exposing us to this risk? There should be nothing there for any government to find. In an ideal world they'd be connecting us to each other peer-to-peer so that our encrypted communications don't even touch their servers.
Bit Tech's insatiable hunger for personal data is a massive liability for all of us. Their guilt is not to be excused. Governments would have nothing if not for their extensive non-consensual data collection.
That's not what most people want. Most people want a third party to store their messages. Look how most people react when they switch phones and their message history isn't there, or the change devices and there is no message history.
Or how livid people get when their photos are gone. Most iPhone owner's backup plan is "iCloud".
Most people don't care about privacy, they care about convenience.
They don't want to lose their data if they lose their password/device. The only way that is possible is for the third party to have access to the data.
I would posit most people don't care if a 3rd party has access to their data, all they care about is not losing their stuff when they lose their device/password. They don't care about the technology behind it, which requires the 3rd party to have access.
There are other methods to ensure access. Extra devices. Postits on the back of their TV. Codes their friends have, with 3 of 5 needed. Carving it into jewelry.
Sure, but all of those are for more complicated than "sign up for iCloud". As I said, most people only care about convenience above all else. They are willing to trade convenience for 3rd party data access.
You can backup your iPhone to a local computer and even encrypt it without using iCloud. It's certainly an option. No one chooses it because iCloud is easier.
> Backing up to a computer could be made somewhat easier, though.
How? It's about as easy as it gets. It's just easier to use iCloud backups because it takes less steps.
> And iCloud could have a warning instead of being on by default.
Why? If it had a warning and the person doesn't have another computer to back up to, they wouldn't have backups at all. That actually makes things worse for the consumer.
You could theoritally make an argument that the phone could auto-detect if you have a suitable computer for backing up to and then suggest that instead of iCloud, but why would Apple do that?
And furthermore, there would then need to be additional warnings about how you need to back up your computer too otherwise if you lose your phone then your computer is your only backup until you get a new phone.
I think you're grasping at straws here. It's a better user experience for the average user to just have iCloud on by default. They made it plenty easy for power users and even non-power users who care about privacy to avoid iCloud. I don't think they have a legal or moral obligation to steer you away from iCloud.
Every 4-5 years I buy a new phone. I manually move all my data from my old device to the new one. Many tens of gigabytes. Nothing has ever been lost. I still have every single message, photo and video I've ever sent or received since I first installed WhatsApp about 10 years ago. I have backups too.
None of this cloud storage stuff is necessary. It's nice to have the option to use it but it should be optional. I'm sure these companies are smart enough to automate this process without requiring third party servers or even an internet connection.
The point is what I do shouldn't be hard at all. Two phones with wireless radios. Why can't they transfer data peer-to-peer? They should make it easy to do that.
I don't know about Andriod, but Apple has had this for a while. You just put the phones next to each other on a good wifi network. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210216
Companies wouldn't obscure privacy violations if very few people cared. And Apple wouldn't have a privacy marketing campaign. Or bother end to end encrypting anything.
That sounds very nice, do tell us if you have come up with or know of a (successful) business model where you do not have to collect the data of users. Nothing comes for free.
Early ad companies didn't collect a ton of information and relied on clickthrough ratio to make money, I worked for one of the biggest in the late 90s.
As time went on, people wanted more and more user data, click bots made targeting entirely neccesary.
>That sounds very nice, do tell us if you have come up with or know of a (successful) business model where you do not have to collect the data of users. Nothing comes for free.
Really? I'm not so sure about that.
If the FBI wants my data, they'll need to come to my premise with a warrant.
Otherwise, they're SOL. And how much does that cost me over and above what I spend for the infrastructure I require? Zero.
How many companies that mine my personal information (for whatever reasons) do I use? Zero.
You are substituting your trained-in prejudices for the laws of nature, IMHO.
> do tell us if you have come up with or know of a (successful) business model where you do not have to collect the data of users. Nothing comes for free.
http://valueflo.ws asset backed flow -protocols built on top of the holochain dweb framework.
Of course it is their doing. Why are they even storing messages and metadata to begin with? Why are they exposing us to this risk? There should be nothing there for any government to find. In an ideal world they'd be connecting us to each other peer-to-peer so that our encrypted communications don't even touch their servers.
Bit Tech's insatiable hunger for personal data is a massive liability for all of us. Their guilt is not to be excused. Governments would have nothing if not for their extensive non-consensual data collection.