Posted on 10/18/2014 9:33:39 PM PDT by This Just In
Good day. I downloaded the new and improved OS, OS X Yosemite. At first blush, there are some features I miss about Mavericks, but I need to waste.....I mean, spend more time with Yosemite. It's too early to say "yay" or "nay", or perhaps the conclusion won't be so black and white, unless you're a "I HATE! all things Apple...including those snobby Mac Users", of course.
What say you about OS X Yosemite? Any pointers/advice/recommendations by you techies out there?
Yes I know, close our dhimmi eyes and think of England.
The problem is I’m American.
Those were a lot of words backed by basically nothing in the way of evidence. Instead of pervasive monitoring, I see Apple simply trying to make things better for its customers. For one example, look at the fingerprint reader - no data leaves the device, it’s sequestered in a secure chip. No Big Brother biometric conspiracy after all...
In fact, I think you’re wrong on pretty much all counts, but Linux is a nice fallback option regardless.
Perhaps a little time away from computers altogether is a good idea - we’ve been having some outstanding fall weather in these parts lately. :-)
Maintain perspective.
All electronics are monitored. When I was a juror I was amazed at what the Feds knew just from Cell Phones.
I never advocated closing our eyes. Being an American doesn’t mean much; South, Central or North American?
No, Tallisker, Apple has NOT been "open about moving all their OS architecture to the 'i' style", that has been the ANALYSTS talking among themselves. Apple has been pretty much mum on the subject. What Apple has been doing is moving to interactivity between all Apple devices but NOT making everything the same as Microsoft has attempted to do.
So everyone else is doing it too? Yep, they are. I won’t even address the Seattle idiots, they’ve always been obvious. And of course Google just laughs in your face and has hipsters spit out arrogant data-grabbing declarations between lattes. But Apple’s refusal to admit they’re just as bad makes them even worse to me. They add an insult to injury, a demand I accept their Big Mommy assurances and that I make myself 9 years old with trust. Sorry, no sale. And the attempt is more than annoying - its enraging. Because its a demand and a lie that reveals Apples contempt for everyone. In other words, pure liberalism.
Nor is Apple attempting to do the same thing that Apple or Google is trying to do. It is different. You are simply NOT PAYING ATTENTION. You are tied into the FUD echo chambers of the analysts who are also not paying attention to the actions that Apple HAS announced. You claim that "Apple's refusal to admit they're just as bad" is really ridiculous. Perhaps it is because THEY ARE NOT PLAYING THE GAME YOU ACCUSE THEM OF PLAYING!
Your assumption that it has to be a lie flies in the face of the facts. No other company has taken the actions that Apple has taken. Google jumped on the bandwagon with a limp "Me Too" after Apple refused to provide the keys to their Cloud encryption to the government. . . but Google still can decrypt what is stored with them. Apple cannot. That is a BIG DIFFERENCE you refuse to recongnize.
And if any of you think this little drama about the FBI being unable to reach data is true because of Apple’s heroic software encryption standards, you haven’t been reading the same articles I have on hardware back doors, or lack of cloud security. Doesn’t anyone get curious when the FBI starts yelling about Apple’s impenetrable security right after Apple’s biggest and most embarrassing software security failure in its history? Well I do.
Tallisker, after over thirty-five years in the computer industry, I suspect I know one HELL of a lot more about computer encryption than do you, and I can tell you that what Apple is saying is true. Apple iCloud was NOT penetrated, contrary to your claims. The articles you have been reading about lack of security in Apple's iCloud are FUD. . . pure and simple. I've read them, but I've also read the ones contradicting them from people who DO know what they are talking about. One idiot at the New York Times claimed Apple's pass codes could be broken by anyone's computer in an afternoon. . . based on what he claimed he read in their current Security paper. But he didn't read far enough. He assumed a six character pass code made of lower case letters and numbers, 36 characters, 36 6 possible combinations of pass codes. Apple actually allows a 256 character pass code made of any of the 227 characters accessible from the Keyboard! That means there are 256 227 possible combinations of passcodes (actually, a bit less because the rules of pass code construction will not allow more than two identical consecutive characters but at this size, that is a minuscule deduction) to try by brute force. . . and Apple has built in a requirement they must be done ON the device. . . and it has an increasing wait time between attempts. The amount of time it would take to test all of them would exceed many multiple quadrillions of years. . . far longer than it is estimated for the Universe to reach heat death.
The individual celebrities were hacked because of their choosing stupid security questions and answers that could be learned by anyone reading their fanzine biographies. The few iCloud accounts that were compromised were gotten into by the completely prosaic method of researching their security questions through phishing, reading fanzines, and talking to friends, and changing their passwords, which gained the invaders full access to their accounts. The people involved have come out and described how this was done. Nothing more.
NO ONE HACKED INTO iCLOUD. No ONE. In fact, analysis of the published images' Metadata showing where they came from and what devices created them revealed that many of them were never stored on iCloud in the first place, coming instead from Instagram, photobucket, picasa, Flicrkr and other sources including Google sources. . . and while some came from iDevices, others were often taken with Android devices and Windows PC webcams which would never have been stored on Apple servers. The photos, even some of those from the first group, date back before Apple iCloud. Ergo, there was no breach in iCloud. . . but just in individual accounts that were weakly protected.
You are welcome to your own opinion, but you are not welcome to our own facts. I saw the images. Later research shows they were, in fact, posted on the Web one week before the iBrute script that could have broken Apple ID passwords through brute force in FindMyiPhone was published. . . and were ignored until the guy posting them finally, in his attempt get attention and sell them, falsely claimed he "got them from iCloud." Since then, MORE celebrity nudes have appeared, and they come from the same source: an underground networked community of collectors who hack into celebrity computers, social sites, and other sources to steal compromised photos—a community of which this guy was a member who broke their rules, attempting to sell, rather then trade photos, outside their closed group.
Like I said, I’m a fanboy. I use a Mac, and I love it. But what’s going on with Apple (as well as most of the rest of the computing world) has me pretty depressed. It’s all about tracking people now - all of it, everywhere. And it’s grown so stark that Apple’s Happy Face looks like a clown in one of those slasher movies to me.
You are failing to recognize that Apple has made it possible that everything I send to the iCloud is already encrypted with MY 256 bit key, not Apple's, and they do not have access to it. . . nor can they get access to it. My key can be as large as I choose to make it.
Nor is Apple attempting to do the same thing that Apple or Google is trying to do.
Make that read “Nor is Apple attempting to do the same thing that Microsoft or Google is trying to do.”
Thanks
So is all that expertise why you knew enough to stick to software and not address my point about back doors in hardware, since Apple is, of course, the SOLE provider of the hardware their "safe" software runs on?
And does the logic behind your insults towards me in every paragraph concerning what you say is me "not paying attention" the same as you not paying attention to, or addressing, my hardware back door point?
LOL, thanks for playing. You admitted far more than you realize. And I too have over thirty-five years of experience, but my experience is in dealing with people like you.
That you can say something that brazen on Free Republic is a sad, sad thing.
American, as you well know, means neither "South, Central or North American." Your attempt to erase its meaning, however, identifies you beyond doubt as NOT an American, no matter what your ID says.
You'd be funny, except you're not. You'd also be naive, except you're not. And you'd be ignorant, except you're not.
That pretty much narrows the field concerning what you actually are.
I like Yosemite, but I had my first post-Yosemite crash today. Black screen, white mouse pointer, no action.
I rebooted and everything was restored, but it confirms that it’s not done yet.
I don't address the existence of the tooth fairy either. There is no credible evidence anywhere for the existence of back doors in Apple products. If one existed, it would be irrelevant, anyway.
However, for the moment, let me grant you the existence of your mythical hardware "backdoor." Let's hypothesize the government or a thief siezes your iPhone and then uses this "backdoor" to get into your device. What have they gained, Talisker? Not a damn thing!
Why? All they have succeeded getting is access to an encrypted pile of gobble-de-gook. Without YOU entering your passcode to unencrypt the data as you access it, the data remains encrypted! Your passcode isn't stored anywhere on the device, and neither is the entangling code, which has to be calculated each time your passcode is presented. Their break-in attempts through your magical "back-door," to look at the data, whether through hardware or software, can get them only diddly and squat! That's it.
Try reading the technical specifications and protocols of exactly what Apple is doing instead of relying on some ill-educated pundits' or analysts' theories. . . It really is pretty straight forward. The data on the iPhone and iPad is by default encrypted as soon as the user sets a passcode. That passcode is entangled with a hardware hash unique to the device created from the UUID. If the device has a finger print sensor then the hash of the prints are entangled as well, as I understand it. For the iCloud, you can set Two-Factor ID, which requires Apple to send a six digit passcode to a device known to be in your control, which you must enter, before you may gain access, change anything, etc.
About the only way they could access your data would be to grab your iPhone/iPad out of your hand after you've entered your passcode and it's open.
As I told you, you are entitled to your own opinion, including opinions about "people like me," but since you know nothing about me, you are not entitled to your own facts. . . especially when you post things that are blatently not facts. . . like uninformed, opinionated claims about mythical "back doors." . . . especially when they are essentially irrelevant to gaining access to data.
I am a United States Citizen and a veteran.
That’s how it’s done.
Many years ago some electronics manufacturers were making their products in Mexico and nations further South. They advertised them as being American Made, and lots of people didn’t question what that meant.
No, that's how you do it. Shame being a vet you're still not exactly sure what country you served.
Source considered. Zero impact.
Well then you better rush your good news to MIT, NSA, CIA & the DOD, Mr. Invisible, because they seem to be a little worried about it. Maybe they just don't have your professional expertise in the matter. Or maybe they don't realize that software encryption makes hardware backdoors irrelevant. Go get 'em, Tiger, and remember to castigate them for their "theories." LOL, you're dismissed.
NSA’s Own Hardware Backdoors May Still Be a “Problem from Hell”
Says the vet who can't locate his America across two continents. LOL, whatever, sport.
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