Apple Plans to Allow Developers to Add Communications Safety Features to Their Apps
Lily Hay Newman, of Wired, also reported on today’s privacy announcements from Apple. In addition to confirming it has stopped its iCloud photo scanning efforts, it told her about its plans for its existing child safety features: The company told WIRED that while it is not ready to announce a specific timeline for expanding its Communication Safety features, the company is working on adding the ability to detect nudity in videos...
Apple Pushes iOS 16.2 Release Candidate With Optional End-to-End Encrypted iCloud Backups
Apple: iCloud already protects 14 sensitive data categories using end-to-end encryption by default, including passwords in iCloud Keychain and Health data. For users who enable Advanced Data Protection, the total...
NSO Group’s Claim of Sovereign Immunity Will Likely Fail, Increasing Legal Pressure
Ellery Roberts Biddle, of Authoritarian Tech, after linking to a series of stories about the extreme oppression faced by people in China and Tigray, in Ethiopia — stories which should not be ignored, mind you — in...
Apple’s Advertising Spend on Twitter
I made a mistake. In my piece about the first month of Twitter’s new ownership at the hands of someone who is, at best, an unreliable narrator of his own reality, I did not add the word “alleged” to the phrase “Apple’s reduced advertising spend”. For some unknown reason, I decided that was the one claim I could take literally, even though the person making that claim is, at best, an unreliable narrator of his own...
The Twitter Fizzle
Todd Spangler, in a mess of a Variety article: The new disclosures, touted as “The Twitter Files,” were posted in a lengthy Twitter thread by investigative reporter and author Matt Taibbi (and retweeted by Musk). It’s based on “thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter,” according to Taibbi — shared with him, it would appear, with the blessing of Musk, the conservative tech mogul who is the world’s...
Extension of Copyright Law in Canada Will Take Effect on December 30, Threatening Public Domain
Andrea Mills, of Internet Archive Canada: With the passing of Bill C-19 this past June, the Copyright Act was amended to extend the term of copyright for literary, dramatic or musical works and engravings to life of...
⌥ One Wild Month
We are officially one month into Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter. One month of needlessly cruel layoffs, of cozying up to far right goons, of uncertainty about the direction my favourite bar is taking. It is under new management which thinks few people are unwelcome to stay regardless of their behaviour, and fired most of the bouncers so there are fewer people keeping an eye out for things that drive others away. At best, he is...
Last.fm Turns Twenty
Last.fm on Twitter: It’s our 20th birthday today . A huge thank you to everyone who supported us and scrobbled with us throughout that time. You make http://Last.fm possible. Bring on the next 20. Via Jacob Kastrenakes at the Verge: I was a little surprised to see that Last.fm was still around when I first started writing this story, let alone that it had new communities flourishing around its data. (The company didn’t respond...
⌥ Oh, the Places Your Apple ID Will Go
Here is a short and curious Twitter thread from app developers and security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry: Apple’s analytics data include an ID called “dsId”. We were able to verify that “dsId” is the “Directory Services Identifier”, an ID that uniquely identifies an iCloud account. Meaning, Apple’s analytics can personally identify you. Apple states in their Device Analytics & Privacy statement that...
Younger Generations Have a More Complex Relationship With Data Privacy
I looked between the couch cushions and found some news for you that is not related to Twitter. A pre-emptive caveat that fixed generational boundaries are not my favourite way of grouping people, but I thought the results of this survey were interesting enough to share. Jordan Marlatt, Morning Consult: Although complicated, Gen Z’s relationship with data privacy should be a consideration for brands when strategizing their data...