That&#x27;s generally what &quot;on the server&quot; means, it&#x27;s only encrypted so their storage provider (shown to be GCP <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;26&#x2F;17053496&#x2F;apple-google-cloud-platform-icloud-confirmation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;26&#x2F;17053496&#x2F;apple-google-clo...</a> ) can&#x27;t see their user data.

Apple has a key for iCloud backups. [1]1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fixitalready.eff.org&#x2F;apple" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fixitalready.eff.org&#x2F;apple</a>

So not even photos are E2E encrypted? Nor Voice Memos, notes... nothing that is not written in the second list?

The iCloud security overview [1] says iCloud backups are encrypted &quot;in transit&quot; and &quot;on server&quot;, but indeed doesn&#x27;t say much about the encryption keys. There is &quot;end-to-end encryption&quot; on just a few items (iCloud keychain, WiFi passwords, etc.)1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303</a>

Tell me how I can choose to avoid buying fungible commodities from a particular source: suppose I want to avoid oil from BP because I disapprove of their handling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Avoiding BP-branded filling stations doesn&#x27;t actually mean I&#x27;m not buying oil that came from BP. Or suppose I want to avoid wheat from Archer Daniels Midland, or crops sprayed with Monsanto products. The idea that capitalism provides meaningful choice is a joke.

That&#x27;s not how that works at all. You can buy something you need because you need it and that&#x27;s not at all a vote saying you like the management of how it was produced.

That&#x27;s not always a democratic vote when there is a market monopoly, lockins and external pressure to use products from certain companies.

You vote wholesale (on all aspects of a product) and not just on those you like or don&#x27;t like, so the point is moot.Plus, to vote &quot;away&quot; from a company&#x2F;product, other products should exist that are better, and not just in this single aspect (encryption of backups), but in other aspects that count for your usage.

And just like an election between 3 smarmy, corporate-backed cantidates, sometimes the illusion of choice is just that.

Voting is a very bad way to send a message, especially if it is &#x27;voting with your wallet&#x27;.Its at most 1 bit information, often even less, since it could be a huge number of reasons for each person to vote one way or another, or maybe not vote at all or just random.You can boycott a company your whole life, and nobody not even the company will care.

You vote if you actually have a choice.What choice is there beyond Apple or Google in terms of smartphones? And I mean actual, ergonomic, everyday convenient choice -- my mother will firmly refuse me if I said &quot;I&#x27;ll buy you a phone but will have to tinker a full weekend to make it half-privacy-aware&quot;. And even if she was on board, she&#x27;ll just yell at me if she can&#x27;t do a basic task (this is a controversial topic around here but heavily modded and supposedly Google-less Android is absolutely not as useful as a Pixel or vendor-modded Android).So...Google is an ad company. There&#x27;s nothing they won&#x27;t do to get to your data. And of course, being a huge company, they will lie about it at Congress hearings, lobby against punishments, make PR campaigns to mislead the general public, cover up their work with China until they are caught, etc. They already did all of these, many times.Apple is seemingly a good citizen but do we really know what they do behind closed doors? As an Apple user I am still a realist and I know the answer to this question is a firm &quot;No&quot;.We seriously have no adequate choice. I like my iPhone; I don&#x27;t play games on it (well, a few brain-teasers and a bunch more serious like chess but you get the idea), and I read a lot of stuff on it: work- and hobby-related. Social media gets almost zero attention from me. So smartphones can be very useful if you don&#x27;t get hooked on BS.And so I ask you again -- what actual choice do we have? How can we really vote in a way that will make a difference?

Except that you only reasonably have two choices in smartphones: Android or iOS. So you can vote between plague and cholera.
And, no, you would have to be in a very privileged 
position already to have any other choice.The &quot;free market&quot; can&#x27;t fix things if there are no choices to choose from. Sometimes politics has to fix this instead.

You vote every time you decide to buy or not to buy.

&gt; it&#x27;s unclear that it&#x27;s in the best interests of humanity at large to make it easy for every individual to cipher their data in a way that no other human can ever accessUnclear on what exactly?How much damage is done through encryption alone?

And at the end of the day, these tools are powerful and it&#x27;s unclear that it&#x27;s in the best interests of humanity at large to make it easy for every individual to cipher their data in a way that no other human can ever access. Apple (and their peers in the big-cloud-data-storage world) may not even be in the wrong for not willing to hand the same tool to the just and the unjust for cheaper than those individuals rolling their own.

Some companies are better than others but there&#x27;s absolutely no reason to believe any one of them would ever be on &quot;your side&quot; for any reason. You can vote for who makes decisions in government, but you can&#x27;t vote for who makes decisions in companies.

Do they happen re-encrypt if I change my credentials a bunch of times or do they use my first ever password which was 123456?

For local backup, iMazing is great. It also does other useful things. It costs money though and you can decide whether that&#x27;s a feature or bug.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imazing.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;imazing.com&#x2F;</a>

&gt; iPhone&#x2F;iPad backups stored locally on iTunes (or Finder, in Catalina) are end-to-end encrypted.Optionally encrypted: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;sl-si&#x2F;HT205220" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;sl-si&#x2F;HT205220</a>

iPhone&#x2F;iPad backups stored locally on iTunes (or Finder, in Catalina) are end-to-end encrypted.iCloud backups always were encrypted based on a key derived from your iCloud account credentials, since the beginning...

Well, you just have to “trust” the server to not serve a website that will phone home your password. Apple pinky swears they won’t do that, and all your browser extensions running all the time do, too.As Mark Zuckerberg once opined: “They ‘trust’ me. Those dumbfucks.”<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;embarrassing-and-damaging-zuckerberg-ims-confirmed-by-zuckerberg-the-new-yorker-2010-9" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;embarrassing-and-damaging-zu...</a>And it’s not just mere words, here is he actually set up a honeypot site to get people’s passwords and break into their emails to satisfy his burning curiosity when he first launched Facebook:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-harvard-crimson-2010-3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-i...</a>Instead, he decided to access the email accounts of Crimson editors and review their emails. How did he do this? Here&#x27;s how Mark described his hack to a friend:Mark used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson. Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any of the Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. If the cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson members&#x27; Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them.In other words, Mark appears to have used private login data from TheFacebook to hack into the separate email accounts of some TheFacebook users.In a world where we are sending our Alexa data to “the cloud” and the companies are admitting people are listening to it, in a world where Facebook secretly records everything it can, why would you assume your password isn’t being sent?To the downvoters... you may say that this was only when Mark Z was a young man and now Facebook the company is far more responsible. But then we have this from just a few months ago:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;life-style&#x2F;gadgets-and-tech&#x2F;news&#x2F;facebook-app-recording-camera-iphone-ios-news-feed-bug-update-fix-workaround-a9200696.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;life-style&#x2F;gadgets-and-tech&#x2F;ne...</a>I can understand trusting a browser or a software release that can be tested by many people, and was signed with a checksum. But a website and all your extensions on every website?? Those can ship new code at any time.(Am I wrong? Any counter-arguments?)

In that case, isn&#x27;t the web server storing the E2E key to decrypt for serving it up via the icloud web front-end?

You cannot see your device backups on iCloud.com, so that doesn&#x27;t prove (or disprove) anything.

Why would you think it was end-to-end encrypted? Did you never use icloud.com where you can simply access all your icloud data with a usernam+password?

They can’t be; users lose their devices, then forget their passwords and need to reset and restore.Also, all your photos and notes and email and other stuff in iCloud are available to Apple (and by extension the FBI et al) as well. Even Apple CSRs have a ton of access to the contents of a lot of iCloud services.The situation is a lot better if you have all recent devices and 2FA turned on, then it can use iCloud Keychain for some stuff which is trust-circle based. You can read more in Apple’s latest platform security doc released late last year.

I already use Duplicacy for backing up family personal macs to the cloud (in addition to local Time Machine backups).For linux servers, borg is great, and me and my companies are happy users.

Are there any advantages of using borg over rclone?

After looking at a few alternatives (Borg, Duplicacy etc.), I setup Arq on my Mac yesterday.One thing that irks me about these solutions is that they seem to scan my folders each time they want to backup. Are there tools that are smarter about this? For e.g., while running, they could keep a log of what&#x27;s changing and only scan those while backing up.

How does this help with the context we&#x27;re dealing with here: the iPhone (and other iDevices) being heavily encrypted&#x2F;secure and iCloud not being secure?Quickly looking at Borg&#x27;s website (thanks for the heads up - great tool&#x2F;option) I see it doesn&#x27;t support iOS or backing up an iOS device.I assume you&#x27;re just suggesting it as a general purpose option for general backups on the desktop?

You should look into the &#x27;borg&#x27; backup tool - it has become the de facto standard for remote backups because it does everything that rsync does (efficient, changes only
backups) but also produces strongly encrypted remote backup sets that only you have a key to ... your cloud provider has no access to the data.The borg website is here:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;borgbackup.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;stable&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;borgbackup.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;stable&#x2F;</a>and a good description of how it works and why you should use it is here:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stavros.io&#x2F;posts&#x2F;holy-grail-backups&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stavros.io&#x2F;posts&#x2F;holy-grail-backups&#x2F;</a>

It&#x27;s huge problem that you believed something that was never suggested by Apple and never part of the threat model. Apple runs the closed source OS on your phone. You obviously can&#x27;t hide information 
on your phone from Apple.

Nope. I actually thought this was well known.What did suck on Apple&#x27;s part was that they wouldn&#x27;t allow you to disconnect the actually end-to-end encrypted iMessages from the iCloud backups for many years.So since most people kept their iCloud enabled, that meant their &quot;iMessage end-to-end encryption&quot; was nothing of the sort, as all messages had a copy that Apple could read on its servers.I actually don&#x27;t know if this is still true since I haven&#x27;t used an iPhone in some time, but I sure hope it isn&#x27;t anymore.

&gt; I don&#x27;t think the general public would understand end-to-end encrypted backups.I imagine you&#x27;re right; it would still be nice for individuals and organizations to have the _option_ though.

Mega has an Alexa rank of 372 and over 50 million Android installs. They&#x27;re a good example of how end-to-end encryption can be popular among the general public when executed properly, and they&#x27;ve even released the source code for their clients.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.alexa.com&#x2F;siteinfo&#x2F;mega.nz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.alexa.com&#x2F;siteinfo&#x2F;mega.nz</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=mega.privacy.android.app" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=mega.privacy.a...</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;meganz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;meganz</a>

You ever read the reviews for the MEGA app? Everyone complains that there&#x27;s no password reset feature. MEGA is fully encrypted so you literally can&#x27;t reset your password. It says this when you first crate an account and get a recovery key.I don&#x27;t think the general public would understand end-to-end encrypted backups. It would probably hurt their company if all backups were totally unrecoverable.

This is a HUGE problem.Well, you can choose not to use iCloud for that reason (as some of us do).A bigger problem is that Apple deliberately locks up iDevices so it&#x27;s hard to get your data off them using only local means, particularly if you don&#x27;t also want to buy an Apple laptop just to do it.

Not only this, but your iMessage E2E is protected in flight by a key that gets stored in your backup. So anyone recording your iMessages can retroactively decrypt them if they get your backup.

Nope only local iCloud backups are encrypted, which is why I never backup to the cloud.But this makes me wonder if they have our local boxes totally owned already which is why the local encrypt feature would not hamper investigations?

Surely in the context of &quot;End to End backups&quot; the user is the &quot;End&quot; on both ends. The servers shouldn&#x27;t have the keys. They can be as compromised as they want, but the most they should be able to see is when, how much and where from you&#x27;re backing up data, but not the actual data.

End to End encryption doesn&#x27;t work very well when the government nationalizes the servers with the end data and the keys to decrypt it.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;07&#x2F;17&#x2F;apples-icloud-user-data-in-china-is-now-handled-by-a-state-owned-mobile-operator&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;07&#x2F;17&#x2F;apples-icloud-user-data-in...</a>

So here&#x27;s the thing... Apple is able to recover your backups even if you forget your password. Therefore they can decrypt it without your password.

If it rains it gets wet outside. But if it&#x27;s wet outside does not mean it&#x27;s rained. This is an example of a recurring case where snakeoil and dishonest companies use this seemingly obvious logic puzzle, because people in general are bad at logic.To answer your question directly. TLS encryption from your phone to apple&#x27;s servers means they terminate encryption at the other end when they receive your data. This means &quot;they decrypt the information that was in transit&quot;. Then they explicitly apply another encryption to the received and decrypted data before storing it on disk. Since these are two separate steps, you have no protection what-so-ever since apple will have a registry of all decryption keys for the disk backups that they&#x27;ll happily use for whatever reason when they want to get hold of your data.The only thing their disk encryption protects against is if someone were to walk away with the physical disks. It protects squat against the threats customers actually care about (unauthorized access to the data by someone other than the customer owning that data).And seeing as they run on AWS, physical security means that the only way metal leaves the data center is if it&#x27;s in millimeter sized shredded metal grain. So the threat model of concern here is exactly what apple has decided not to provide customers any protection against.

&quot;Encrypted&quot; is a weasel word. There are many examples of &quot;it&#x27;s encrypted&quot; even when encrypted refers to 8192-bit keys, where the system is not secure. Examples abound.So claims of &quot;encryption&quot; are meaningless.Instead, claims of &quot;only X, Y and Z could access to this&quot; are meaningful.&quot;Could&quot; is a strong word because it includes unforeseen circumstances such as writs and court orders.

I don’t understand. Am I just tired or misreading? The table on this page clearly shows backups are encrypted in transit and at rest...
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303</a>

On MacOS, iTunes&#x2F;Finder stores (optionally) encrypted backups at<pre><code> ~&#x2F;Library&#x2F;Application Support&#x2F;MobileSync&#x2F;Backup
</code></pre>
I was thinking of creating a symlink to Dropbox, for instance and having my cloud backup there. I don&#x27;t know if the backups are incremental which could be a storage problem, but that can be managed through some scripting.Since we hold the key it&#x27;s a blob nobody can get to without brute forcing it.

What the... I was under the impression that iCloud backups are end-to-end encrypted.  This is a HUGE problem.

You can set local auto backup over wifi in itunes right?

While Apple doesn&#x27;t force its users to use iCloud, they also don&#x27;t provide an alternative way to do full backups of iOS&#x2F;iPadOS devices over a network. Yes, you can plug an iPhone into a Mac, but that doesn&#x27;t scale.

But it is nice that you have the option to not backup with iCloud. They are not storing the information whether you like it or not as a lot of companies do.

This is disabled by default in iOS 13, to keep your messages secure (and because often times it doesn&#x27;t work properly). You have to go into iCloud settings to turn it on. And then if you aren&#x27;t using iCloud Backup, the key to your Messages backup is not stored by Apple, so they can&#x27;t read it anyway (see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303</a>).For some reason, I doubt Google would do that.

I also have iMessage configured to delete messages after 30 days. I wish WhatsApp has this feature, but it does not, so I just periodically clear the history manually (which you can do in WhatsApp as well as Signal).

This is also why you should never use cloud backups for iMessage or WhatsApp.

Do you have any evidence for that? Sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory to me.

That was a coordinated PR move between Apple and the government. The US administration went into heavy damage control mode with the large tech companies after the Snowden revelations about PRISM et c.

&quot;Apple is intentionally leaving iCloud data insecure&quot; ... if you&#x27;d done some research you would know that iCloud backups are not end-to-end encrypted. That means you have a choice: backup to iCloud for the convenience and give up some privacy, or turn off the iCloud backup.It would be nice if Apple was more forthcoming with that fact but there is some onus on the customer these days to understand what&#x27;s private and what is not.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303</a>iCloud backups are not on the list of end-to-end encrypted.

Just a reminder, Apple ceded control of its iCloud management in China to a state-controlled company, in addition began storing its encryption keys in China in order to &quot;comply with local regulations&quot;. So whether or not your backups are encrypted is almost a moot point, given that the government can submit a lawful demand for your data at any time..Apple will store some iCloud encryption keys in China, raising security concerns
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;26&#x2F;17052802&#x2F;apple-icloud-encryption-keys-storage-china" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;26&#x2F;17052802&#x2F;apple-icloud-enc...</a>

Yeah, the current privacy dystopia is obviously just evil apple and microsoft sticking it to noble google.

A good way to figure out whether this kind of claim is marketing bullshit, is to look for a PR claim that goes the other way: that Apple or whoever helps the FBI find uploaded images of child sexual abuse. If they are matching on your data, they can’t be encrypting it; if they’re encrypting it, they can’t be matching on it. It’s one or the other.And, well, Apple have confirmed that they‘re matching on your data[1]. So, guess what?[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scmagazine.com&#x2F;home&#x2F;security-news&#x2F;apple-scans-icloud-content-for-child-sexual-abuse-photos-privacy-chief-says&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scmagazine.com&#x2F;home&#x2F;security-news&#x2F;apple-scans-ic...</a>

I totally disagree. I work for Apple, and I can tell you that for everything you do privacy is involved. It’s not just marketing.

It&#x27;s mostly marketing bullshit.Apple and Microsoft both tried to build ad businesses, but when they weren&#x27;t as successful as Google, they turned lemons into lemonade by launching data privacy PR campaigns against Google.Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft quietly censor their products in China, surrender data to Chinese authorities, and now we find Apple is intentionally leaving iCloud data insecure.Presumably Google was under the same pressure from US law enforcement, but somehow Google delivered end-to-end encrypted Android backups in October, 2018. And Google did it without all of Apple&#x27;s self-congratulatory media hoopla.e2ee: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;security.googleblog.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;google-and-android-have-your-back-by.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;security.googleblog.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;google-and-android-h...</a>Third party security audit: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nccgroup.trust&#x2F;us&#x2F;our-research&#x2F;android-cloud-backuprestore&#x2F;?research=Public+Reports" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nccgroup.trust&#x2F;us&#x2F;our-research&#x2F;android-cloud-bac...</a>

Except that this is a backdoor that circumvents device protections for the vast majority of users.

&gt; Didn&#x27;t Apple publicly claimIIRC it said it wouldn&#x27;t bow down on implementing back doors to unlock protected devices and encrypted content on them, which is specific enough not to cover this case.Bowing down on implementing new security features doesn&#x27;t go against the promise to not bow down on the security of existing ones, as written. It can be argued to go against the spirit of the earlier public statement of course, but that doesn&#x27;t count for much in the eyes of a corporation being given a strong suggestion by a government agency.

Not true.Disclaimer: I work for Apple.

What Apple claims and do are two different things... just like politicians tend to do.

Reminds me of WhatsApp claiming it had encryption everywhere and then this [0] dropped. Except, in this case, I&#x27;m actually surprised. Didn&#x27;t Apple publicly claim that it wouldn&#x27;t bow down to any demands from the agencies?[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theinquirer.net&#x2F;inquirer&#x2F;news&#x2F;3061660&#x2F;whatsapp-is-storing-unencrypted-backup-data-on-google-drive" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theinquirer.net&#x2F;inquirer&#x2F;news&#x2F;3061660&#x2F;whatsapp-i...</a>

What happens when what is considered legal gets changed in the future?

There are plenty of more mundane misuses as well.  Ex-spouse stalking, slighted lawman with a grudge, technician with a weird fetish.  Sure there should be safeguards but they don&#x27;t always work as well as you&#x27;d hope.

You don&#x27;t even, for instance, torrent? Movies, music? (You don&#x27;t have to answer that. :P ) Ever pirate apps, even just to try before you buy?The point is, if someone from the law is interested in you, or suspects you of some grander illegal thing, a lot of us do illegal things that might just be a little less grand, and a lot of us have the digital equivalent of a broken taillight.

Privacy? Who needs it, amirite?I mean, I&#x27;m not up to anything illegal, and I don&#x27;t actually care about people seeing my stuff, BUT... the concept as a whole of &quot;government should have access to everything all the time, regardless of reasoning&quot; does not sit well with me.

Just to be clear, if you do local backups to iTunes, you can encrypt those backups with a key you control

Shame on the FBI. Unfortunately the average Apple user won&#x27;t understand or care about the implications. This is why I don&#x27;t use ICloud or any cloud products. Apple are not nearly as bad as Google though.I stopped using GDrive about a year ago and I aim to be Google-free for 2020. I don&#x27;t use Gmail for anything important any more.

&quot;Surely not Android...do you live without a smartphone (serious question, not judging)?&quot;That&#x27;s a very judgmental way to ask that question if you&#x27;re trying to not be judging.My phone hardware would fall under the Android classification, but I run LineageOS.I wish I had more options, but we&#x27;re stuck in a hellish duopoly for the time being.

&gt;Headlines like this vindicate my decision to never purchase an Apple product.What else can you buy? Surely not Android...do you live without a smartphone (serious question, not judging)?

Please define your terms.Why do I have to use a phone in its place? Apple products aren&#x27;t a basic human necessity. I like to think I can just use a phone for the sake of wanting a phone, not to replace the void that not being an Apple consumer leaves in my soul, or something.What exactly do you mean by &quot;basic aspects of modern life&quot;?I have a desktop PC, a laptop, a work laptop, a LineageOS (Android-based) phone, and a VR headset for gaming. Anything I want out of modern tech, I either already have or doesn&#x27;t exist yet.

And which phone do you use in its place to participate in basic aspects of modern life?

End-to-end backup encryption is hard. Apple had faced criticism from cryptographers for failing to implement it.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.cryptographyengineering.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;05&#x2F;icloud-who-holds-key&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.cryptographyengineering.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;04&#x2F;05&#x2F;icloud-w...</a>The fact that they started working on the problem then abandoned it after the FBI complained is disappointing, especially to Apple consumers. But all it means is the status quo marches on.Headlines like this vindicate my decision to never purchase an Apple product.

Yes<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;security.googleblog.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;google-and-android-have-your-back-by.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;security.googleblog.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;10&#x2F;google-and-android-h...</a>

android does end to end backups out of the box?

Eh, maybe, maybe not. What guarantees are there that the backups actually get deleted? Storage is cheap these days...

Second step: Delete old backups<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT204247#backups" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT204247#backups</a>

Yep, this is what I do. I have a Synology NAS which I backup my Mac to using Time machine. Works like a charm, and everything is actually encrypted.

On the contrary, Apple has very decent device security. See their Platform Security guide: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;manuals.info.apple.com&#x2F;MANUALS&#x2F;1000&#x2F;MA1902&#x2F;en_US&#x2F;apple-platform-security-guide.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;manuals.info.apple.com&#x2F;MANUALS&#x2F;1000&#x2F;MA1902&#x2F;en_US&#x2F;app...</a>. Some of their online services are end-to-end encrypted with very smart designs (see iCloud Keychain page 82, Find My page 103).In contrast, iCloud Backup is pretty much an open door: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;legal&#x2F;transparency&#x2F;account.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;legal&#x2F;transparency&#x2F;account.html</a>

Makes me wonder why they only mention iCloud specifically, does that imply our local OS is already pwnd?

Easy fix: back up your iPhone locally on your computer instead of using iCloud: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT203977#computer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT203977#computer</a>The ambiguous position on true end-to-end encryption shows once again that Apple is in for the marketing (both to consumers—predatory and dangerous, and to engineering talent—dishonest). Same hypocrisy as on the China issue. Not that there is an easy solution when you are one of the biggest companies on the planet and that shareholders essentially expect you to grow forever while playing nice with everyone.

So what about all the privacy billboards, &#x27;What happens on your phone stays on your phone?&#x27;. New version: &#x27;What happens on your phone stays on your phone and unencrypted on the cloud&#x27;.

I will not be surprised if further reporting points a finger at the influence of China as well.Apple already conceded to hosting Chinese iCloud data on Chinese servers, and that news came out about 2 years ago... which is also the timeframe reported for this decision to forego end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups.I&#x27;m guessing here, but I think it&#x27;s safe to assume that China was not going to permit such encryption (for the same reason they insist on hosting the data) and thus to provide it for the U.S., Apple would have had to fork iCloud. Add in the political risk in the U.S. and you have a recipe for &quot;maybe not.&quot;

It is if you backup your device to your Mac or PC...or don&#x27;t back it up at all.

&gt; The messages also end to end but the backup contains the private key.Should this even be called E2E? I suppose it is, technically, but clearly not in spirit.

If you lose your device and buy a new one and restore your device with a back up, all your messages will be returned.There’s no way to accomplish this without having the private key in the backup.EDIT: When I say there is no way to accomplish this, I’m talking specifically about the process that exists today where the user doesn’t have to remember a password other than their iCloud password (which today, can also be reset).

Unsubscribing procedure seems however pretty acceptable&gt; Messages in iCloud also uses end-to-end encryption. If you have iCloud Backup turned on, your backup includes a copy of the key protecting your Messages. This ensures you can recover your Messages if you lose access to iCloud Keychain and your trusted devices. When you turn off iCloud Backup, a new key is generated on your device to protect future messages and isn&#x27;t stored by Apple.But wait does it mean that if you haven&#x27;t iCloud backup activated but use local backup you can actually sync message without storing private key... the wording here is important would be nice if someone clarify.

That definately isn&#x27;t meaningfully true, because MacOS devices without enclaves can function as iMessage clients.

The secure enclave is a feature to secure the device and the data on it from casual threats. Apple gets a bit evasive any time the subject of security shifts to their cloud services. (i.e. they will talk about how a particular feature is e2e encrypted but their security talking points seem to mostly end at the device)I think a better way to look at what they&#x27;re selling you is a device that provides you pretty-to-very good protection from casual hacking and theft. But in the event of a government knocking on their door for more information, they&#x27;ll quietly hand over what they can which probably is quite a bit more than the average consumer thinks it is. All bets are off as to what the full story is when the government&#x2F;jurisdiction involved is not the United States.

I thought iMessage private keys are somehow based on data in the &quot;secure enclave&quot; chip, and thus not able to be stored in the cloud. It&#x27;s my understanding that Apple could add new &quot;devices&quot; to listen in on future conversations, but it can&#x27;t read iMessage conversations in transit between existing devices.It can also read iCloud backups of conversation content, which are created by the client device after decrypting the message. But that&#x27;s not the same as storing the private key itself in the backup.Happy to have my understanding updated...

So does <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spideroak.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spideroak.com&#x2F;</a> (I have no affiliation)

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sync.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sync.com</a> provides end-to-end encrypted cloud storage options. Disclaimer I work there.

This hard line is too facile. If you are paranoid about malicious code updates, then making part of your stack open-source doesn’t matter. I could push an update to your OS that reads the keys out of your BitWarden.

E2e means next to nothing when using closed source software.Apple could (have) issue(d) an update with code to steal yr anything, without you knowing, so FBI-or-whatever does not &quot;complain&quot;.I currently use one e2e service, BitWarden as keychain, that ticks the boxes (e2e AND open source client).

My impression is that iMessage is indeed encrypted end-to-end in China, same as everywhere else.

&gt; 2) I have a strong suspicion that those &#x27;enter your Apple ID password because your account needs it&#x27; message really means &#x27;a government has requested your data and even though it&#x27;s encrypted, we will nag you about entering a password, and if you give it, you&#x27;re a free game&#x27;.Haha I hadn’t thought of that. If true, I must have every government requesting my data frequently as I constantly get bombarded to enter my iCloud password.

Regarding #1: iCloud in China is operated by a mainland Chinese company and subject to that company&#x27;s terms and conditions. So you can pretty much assume iCloud data is completely accessible by the government.Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT208351" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT208351</a>

You say vote responsibly but neither of the 2 parties will address this.The libertarian party surely would but most people don&#x27;t even know it exists, i would guess.

&gt;1) There is no way Apple would be allowed to sell iPhones in China, without China government having access to anything. So, I assume that Apple users in China have e2e encrypted exactly nothing.E2E works exactly the same in China. You can read more in my comments here:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20904857" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20904857</a>The same &quot;vulnerability&quot; of being able to respond to legal requests for iCloud data that exists in China exists everywhere else in the world.

The only thing in that list that would is of interest to a government are messages. Fortunately no-one really uses iMessage in China. People use WeChat and (you guessed it) the Chinese government has access to these.As for the End-to-End encryption of iMessage it is a bit overrated. Apple does the key management for you. So theoretically they could pretend that the key of your interlocutor recently changed (because new phone or something), it would just work transparently. So if a &quot;nefarious&quot; entity were to gain access to iMessage servers, they could use that technique to decrypt, &quot;on the fly&quot;, the messages of whoever they want to spy on, without the clients knowing that this even occurred.When you use &quot;WhatsApp&quot; you have the ability to get some kind of warning when the interlocutor&#x27;s key has been updated. It&#x27;s also possible to check each others&#x27; identity by scanning some kind of QR Code. But the app does not really put any emphasis on which accounts have been verified. Signal is about as bad as WhatsApp. My guess a government that wants to spy on your WhatsApp&#x2F;Signal messages probably could, because most people would notice the key change warning nor understand what it means.Only Apps which makes a big fuss about key management (Threema for example) are properly End to End encrypted, with no possibility for Big Gov to hack into servers and spy on you by adding their keys to conversations. But then they would probably just hack the OS on your phone at this stage. In fact that method, is probably better than messing around with iMessage&#x2F;WhatsApp servers. You bypass ALL forms E2E encryption, and you get access to everything else, with one swift hack. I bet the NSA and their Chinese equivalents have such hacks in reserve for very juicy targets they want to spy on.With the kind of unlimited budget the NSA has, it&#x27;s hard to imagine something they cannot hack. That is why big A-list targets like Bin Laden went totally off-grid for communication.

&gt; companies can&#x27;t protect us from a government we have put into power.But.. the electoral college.

Two things:1) There is no way Apple would be allowed to sell iPhones in China, without China government having access to anything. So, I assume that Apple users in China have e2e encrypted exactly nothing.2) I have a strong suspicion that those &#x27;enter your Apple ID password because your account needs it&#x27; message really means &#x27;a government has requested your data and even though it&#x27;s encrypted, we will nag you about entering a password, and if you give it, you&#x27;re a free game&#x27;.I don&#x27;t blame Apple for this, I&#x27;m sure they&#x27;re doing what they can, but when a government says &#x27;give us this data&#x27;, they can&#x27;t not comply. Vote responsibly - companies can&#x27;t protect us from a government we have put into power.

I might be mistaken but I thought Backblaze doesn&#x27;t backup external drives?

&gt; if you want real protection, do local backupsYes, this is unfortunately true and unfortunately complicated compared to iCloud backups.I backup locally to my mac (encrypted), then I have my mac do time machine backups to my Synology NAS (encrypted) and then I have my NAS backup to BackBlaze (encrypted). I do that to satisfy the two pronged backup strategy: local (fast) and remote (slow, but useful in catastrophic local situations such as fire, flood, theft, etc).

One thing to keep in mind with iMessage. Even if you back up locally the receiving party is probably using iCloud. So not sure how much it will really help.

The first list is stuff that is encrypted. Farther down the page is stuff that is end to end encrypted. It’s pretty misleading.

Right? I&#x27;m so confused now. That link appears to be opposite of the article.

Have they updated that page? Backups are the very first thing on the list.

So do you need to decrypt the backup of your iMessages to get to the private key inside of it, or can apple see your private iMessage keys in the backup without needing to decrypt anything?

Apple has a list for that: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT202303</a>These are end to end:Home dataHealth data (requires iOS 12 or later)iCloud Keychain (includes all of your saved accounts and passwords)Payment informationQuickType Keyboard learned vocabulary (requires iOS 11 or later)Screen TimeSiri informationWi-Fi passwordsThe messages also end to end but the backup contains the private key.The moral of the story is that if you want real protection, do local backups.

Sounds like another reason iOS is no longer the choice for security...

For me, not being able to back up chats is a feature. It even warns you if you download an attachment (e.g. an image) to local storage.

Signal prohibits backing up chats on iOS. So there’s no question of information leaking from a backup when there’s no way to create it.

Which is exactly why I use Signal exclusively.

Just back up on your pc and select encrypt and not use iCloud, but that is a huge hassle

To be fair to Apple, if you believe Apples privacy policy, being able to access it, theyliky won’t access it and sell your data to advertising Agencies.

I seem to recall when Jennifer Lawrence (a famous actress you may have heard of) had her icloud storage hacked and leaked all over the internet, there was a bit of a murmur online and even offline about it.

Exactly. The general public is never going to say “I demand end to end encryption and complete privacy” because they don’t know how all the tech works. But they’re surely going to expect that their private text messages are private and their private pictures are private. People expect privacy as a default and sharing as an option, and they rely on the “experts” (tech companies, lawmakers, etc) to help them.

General public are generally ignorant about risks in the tech they use. That doesn&#x27;t mean they don&#x27;t care about their privacy.There&#x27;s an assumption that laws and safeguards are in place so technology in general can be trusted and transacted on.In other words they trust in us &quot;the tech circle&quot; to police ourselves and assert security and privacy. It&#x27;s not circle jerk about privacy. It&#x27;s a duty we have by being in the frontlines.

&gt;There&#x27;s this popular conception that the average person doesn&#x27;t care about privacy, but I think that&#x27;s wrong. I just think that to really get a handle on what it means to be private in the modern digital age is too complicated for the average person.Cypherpunks tried to sound the alarm around the time email got popular and had similar difficulty then - the barrier to adoption was too high and laypersons didn&#x27;t really understand why they should care enough to overcome that barrier.See Wired coverage from 1993 as one example of this view from the techno-savvy thinking things should be one way but acknowledging that reality is much different.
 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;1993&#x2F;02&#x2F;crypto-rebels&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;1993&#x2F;02&#x2F;crypto-rebels&#x2F;</a>From the article Crypto Anarchy, he believes, is inevitable, despite the forces marshaled against it. &quot;I don&#x27;t see any chance that it will be done politically,&quot; says the Cypherpunk. &quot;[But] it will be done technologically. It&#x27;s already happening.&quot;Rather than some digital utopia where personal information is heavily protected and not linked, we have a generation of programmers working to persist tracking cookies across browsing sessions, whether anonymous or not and law enforcement leveraging a scraped database of three billion photos to identify people whether they choose to be identified or not.By following the electronic links we make, one can piece together a depressingly detailed profile of who we are: Our health records, phone bills, credit histories, arrest records, and electronic mail all connect our actions and expressions to our physical selves. Crypto presents the possibility of severing these links. It is possible to use cryptography to actually limit the degree to which one can track the trail of a transaction.Of course that didn&#x27;t happen beyond https everywhere for point-to-point encryption and regular leaks of consumer data proves once collected data is often not protected from public scrutiny, much less encrypted at rest, anonymized, etc. So even if you do protect your data perfectly there&#x27;s still a chance it&#x27;ll be discovered elsewhere. Rather than trying to create backdoors, government should be trying to enforce much more stringent regulations on use and protection of consumer data. However given the political zeitgeist I don&#x27;t really see that happening.

There&#x27;s this popular conception that the average person doesn&#x27;t care about privacy, but I think that&#x27;s wrong. I just think that to really get a handle on what it means to be private in the modern digital age is too complicated for the average person. People are concerned but feel overwhelmed by the technical details and don&#x27;t know where to start. You need to know the fundamentals of encryption, what a key is, backdoors, the difference between E2E and non-E2E, and so on. We, as the tech community, need to do a better job communicating and explaining.

&quot;Military Grade Encryption&quot;Immediate giveaway that its just PR...

Obviously there is. Otherwise it wouldn&#x27;t be advertised on billboards and television.Privacy is just like your personal health everyone wants a convenient solution but no company can honestly offer it. (Doesn&#x27;t stop then from pretending they do)

&gt; does anyone care?Actually yes. Some even have bought into VPN services without me recommending it and without any missionary ambitions from my part. Generally these are also not people using services of the largest offenders too much though.I would even say the majority in my circle cares about it. They just have no real clue how to mimimize data exposure. There certainly is an effect that influences consumption though.From the techies within my cirlce everybody cares, most to a pretty large degree.

Here in Germany there is a big TV ads campaign by Apple focusing on privacy.At least their marketers seem to believe that there is a large enough groundswell to justify a campaign.

Maybe they don&#x27;t care about privacy because they&#x27;re defining it as secrets that people have. Snowden&#x27;s description of privacy is much more powerful:&quot;And if we actually think about it, it doesn’t make sense. Because privacy isn’t about something to hide. Privacy is about something to protect. That’s who you are. That&#x27;s what you believe in. Privacy is the right to a self. Privacy is what gives you the ability to share with the world who you are on your own terms. For them to understand what you’re trying to be and to protect for yourself the parts of you you’re not sure about, that you’re still experimenting with.&quot;If we don’t have privacy, what we’re losing is the ability to make mistakes, we’re losing the ability to be ourselves. Privacy is the fountainhead of all other rights. Freedom of speech doesn’t have a lot of meaning if you can’t have a quiet space, a space within yourself, your mind, your community, your friends, your family, to decide what it is you actually want to say.&quot;Freedom of religion doesn’t mean that much if you can’t figure out what you actually believe without being influenced by the criticisms of outside direction and peer pressure. And it goes on and on.&quot;Privacy is baked into our language, our core concepts of government and self in every way. It’s why we call it &#x27;private property.&#x27; Without privacy you don’t have anything for yourself.&quot;

the youth are either ambivalent or just not the point of understanding, have you seen how much they freely share with each other on messaging, dating, and other apps? Now for the most part today&#x27;s schools lean pretty heavily towards indoctrination and with so many distractions at hand at their age they don&#x27;t see issues we see.As I posted before, then you get into the so called adult realm and many of them will trade away privacy if it gets them money off their coffee, coupons for grocery, or just to brag about their latest get away. it does not matter if its private or government channels, give them a reward and they want it.Privacy also tends to be highly associated with identity theft not realizing that not only is privacy important for reasons of protecting your stuff but your person and your interest also need protecting both from government and private parties.Also, some here seem to think they have more to lose than they do. It seems more about wanting to be part of a victim class as long as people and organizations they don&#x27;t like are punishedtl;dr no, most don&#x27;t care, give them a cookie and you can get their email and more

No there isn&#x27;t, despite repeated high profile hacks.I&#x27;ve spoken to many in security, selling E2E enablement for the enterprise, and even among CIOs, there is no urgency to implement this. You can imagine the indifference among the less tech savvy

&gt; &quot;ask whether or not they close the bathroom door (or the stall in a public restroom) when they&#x27;re taking a shit&quot;This is a pretty bad question and a hyperbole. Most people would want no one (including people who they are usually intimate with) to watch them defecate. And that is not the same thing as government snooping on its own citizens. Arguments for massive surveillance given by governments is not so much about invading the personal privacy of people than it is about protecting national &quot;security&quot; or preventing &quot;terrorism&quot;. For this reason, few people are going to get convinced if you equate the privacy to use the lavatory without anyone watching to the privacy of being able to communicate without the government monitoring you. The best argument against massive surveillance is the one that Snowden gave during a Reddit AMA:&gt; &quot;Some might say &quot;I don&#x27;t care if they violate my privacy; I&#x27;ve got
nothing to hide.&quot; Help them understand that they are misunderstanding
the fundamental nature of human rights. Nobody needs to justify why
they &quot;need&quot; a right: the burden of justification falls on the one
seeking to infringe upon the right. But even if they did, you can&#x27;t
give away the rights of others because they&#x27;re not useful to you. More
simply, the majority cannot vote away the natural rights of the
minority.&gt; &quot;But even if they could, help them think for a moment about what they&#x27;re
saying. Arguing that you don&#x27;t care about the right to privacy because
you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don&#x27;t care
about free speech because you have nothing to say.&gt; &quot;A free press benefits more than just those who read the paper.&quot;

Next time you encounter someone who claims they don&#x27;t care about privacy, ask whether or not they close the bathroom door (or the stall in a public restroom) when they&#x27;re taking a shit. And if they say yes, ask them why? What&#x27;s going on in there isn&#x27;t any big secret. It&#x27;s not like they&#x27;re in there plotting a terrorist attack. What are they hiding behind that door?It turns out most people _do_ care about privacy. You just have to frame it in relatable terms.I don&#x27;t want anyone else watching me take a dump because that&#x27;s private, and it&#x27;s not any of their business. Likewise, I don&#x27;t want other people knowing what articles I read on the internet, or what music I listen to, or reading the contents of my business plan, or scoping out my dick pics, or any of a thousand other things, because those things are also private and they aren&#x27;t anyone else&#x27;s business unless I choose to share them.Restrooms have doors, and most people close them for privacy. Data has a privacy door, too, and it&#x27;s called encryption.

Beyond HN and tech circles, is there any detectable groundswell of demand for privacy? When you talk with friends &amp; family about privacy, does anyone care?When average people care about privacy, the large players will respond. Until then, pressure from the state can be accommodated without irking customers, so Big Tech will play along.

Surprise! The &quot;we value your privacy&quot; statement is a lie, as with any other US company.

&gt; Yes, but the key is stored in your iCloud backup if you use it. As soon as you disable iCloud backups it will roll the key for iMessage and they will be effectively E2E encrypted.Assuming this is true, you still don&#x27;t know what people on the other end will do, meaning it is never actually E2E encrypted.

Yes, but the key is stored in your iCloud backup if you use it. As soon as you disable iCloud backups it will roll the key for iMessage and they will be effectively E2E encrypted.When Messages in iCloud is enabled, iMessage, Business Chat, text (SMS), and MMS messages are removed from the user’s existing iCloud Backup, and are instead stored in an end-to-end encrypted CloudKit container for Messages. The user’s iCloud Backup retains a key to that container. If the user subsequently disables iCloud Backup, that container’s key is rolled, the new key is stored only in iCloud Keychain (inaccessible to Apple and any third parties), and new data written to the container can’t be decrypted with the old container key.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;guide&#x2F;security&#x2F;icloud-backup-contents-sec2c21e7f49&#x2F;web" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;guide&#x2F;security&#x2F;icloud-backup-conte...</a>

Are the iMessages in an iCloud backup encrypted or not? As of now. It seems actually unclear.

As a big fan of the Mac and iPhone this is incredibly disappointing. I always assumed the privacy situation with Apple was candy-coated but I didn&#x27;t think they were this spineless.

It sounds like an awesome idea, and I’ve considered ordering a pine phone for the same reason.I don’t know why anyone would down vote your comment. On “hacker news” it’s no longer considered cool to hack together your own tech?When did HN become a corporate bootlicking dump?

Between things like this, and the shenanigans Google pulls (with Android, the store, developers, and other things), I&#x27;m quickly going in a different direction.My ultimate plan is to build my own phone; yes, I&#x27;ll still be stuck with a carrier (I use t-mobile, and I haven&#x27;t had a problem with them over 10+ years I&#x27;ve used them), and the hardware won&#x27;t be completely &quot;open source&quot;, but the software and OS will at least be what I make of it myself.In the meantime, I&#x27;ll be playing with one of the Pine64 phones; hopefully it will give me most if not all of everything I want and need, and maybe I can help with bug testing or perhaps software development? At any rate, it won&#x27;t be Apple or Google.There are times that I have when I sometimes think to myself that going back to simple email on a text screen, and not much else, would be a better thing than what the web has become. Maybe go back to BBS&#x27;s over ssh or something? &quot;Dial In&quot; using my TRS-80 Model 100 &quot;laptop&quot; and move out to the boonies...

Is Apple’s privacy white paper dealing with fats on iCloud just an eyewash now?&gt; Instead of protecting all of iCloud with end-to-end encryption, Apple has shifted to focus on protecting some of the most sensitive user information, such as saved passwords and health data.&gt; But backed-up contact information and texts from iMessage, WhatsApp and other encrypted services remain available to Apple employees and authorities.Way to confuse laypeople with promises of security and data privacy. If Apple had concerns about users losing the key, why not implement it similar to two factor authentication on Apple IDs where Apple also provides the recovery codes (and additionally disallow any other mechanism of recovery)?

I know you&#x27;re being cheeky and pedantic, but that&#x27;s exactly the spin the title was trying to go for in order to get clicks. While not &quot;technically&quot; wrong, it&#x27;s still pretty dishonest imo.

In fairness, the title does not say that Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups because FBI complained :P

I disagree. I read &quot;after&quot; in the headline to succinctly imply that there are reasonable grounds to suspect a causal link between these events, while acknowledging that such a link has not been admitted by Apple (otherwise it would be &quot;in response to&quot;).It&#x27;s true this kind of wording is often used in low quality journalism to float the idea of a causal link when there is no good reason to suspect one, but this is not one of those cases.

&gt; However, a former Apple employee said it was possible the encryption project was dropped for other reasons, such as concern that more customers would find themselves locked out of their data more often.This. It&#x27;s also the reason why photos are not E2E encrypted on iOS: Apple really doesn&#x27;t want to be in the position of saying &quot;sorry, you lost all your data&quot; or &quot;sorry, it&#x27;s sad that Grandma just died, but all of her photos are gone and there&#x27;s nothing you can do about it.&quot;

Another case of a headline not being supported by the story:“ Reuters could not determine why exactly Apple dropped the plan.“Legal killed it, for reasons you can imagine,” another former Apple employee said he was told, without any specific mention of why the plan was dropped or if the FBI was a factor in the decision.”And further on:
“ However, a former Apple employee said it was possible the encryption project was dropped for other reasons, such as concern that more customers would find themselves locked out of their data more often.”So 4 of the 6 sources were speculating (FBI), and one actively admits they don’t know the reason, but the lede says 6 sources confirmed this. Hmmm...

It shows up in Finder. Most of the iTunes functionality is still there but split up into more logical places.

It&#x27;s part of the Finder now. Same UI (and probably code) just doesn&#x27;t come as part of a monolithic application (but now part of a even more monolithic OS).

So now that iTunes is gone, how does one do a local iPhone backup?

Might be a good reason to look into storage as an appliance.  Personal NAS&#x27; (Synology, QNAP) are quite serviceable.

Ah I see the distinction in a few articles now. Thanks!

Device backups are handled by Finder in the post-iTunes world, at least on the Mac. I think iTunes is still a thing on Windows?

I believe this has been the case for sometime hasn’t it? I vaguely remember reporting indicating this was true during the San Bernardino case and that Apple handed over that backup. Either way I do remember reading the Apple law enforcement guidelines a year or two ago and this was the case. iCloud data is not secure from law enforcement.My project list has implementing a WiFi backup Windows&#x2F;iTunes VM for this specific case. Does anyone know how iOS backups will be handled on personal PCs once iTunes is discontinued?

It literally doesn&#x27;t matter. You are talking about their latest ad campaign.Apple internal is complete detached from the commercials you see. It&#x27;s about sales, not teaching users.

Apple has an opportunity to stand separate as a leader in user privacy first. But to do so means constantly standing up to government(s).

That meme should have been diminished earlier. People should understand while Google saves much data within itself, Apple shares it with advertising partners.By the way, People have come to hate Google all the way for some advertising and easily switch-able data collection. But one should at same time hesitate to vote to apple with their wallets, they are a monster company which patents rounded corners of phones and things like optional chaining in Swift. That just goes unnoticed in circles like HN. IMO apple has always been more evil than Google.

I&#x27;m always reminded of The Onion&#x27;s prophetic sketches:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA</a>

It&#x27;s true the butterfly keyboards have issues, but there&#x27;s no need to be dramatic about it.

&gt; The keyboards on their laptops are barely functionalThis must be some definition of &quot;barely functional&quot; I&#x27;m unfamiliar with.I&#x27;ve had a mid-2017 MBP since they were released. Yeah, I had to get the keyboard replaced when some keys failed after a year, but at least they did it for free. Actually, overall I prefer this keyboard to the 2013 I had previously. I think their failure rate is unacceptable, but they are certainly not &quot;barely functional&quot; by even the remotest interpretation of the phrase.

&gt;Wonder if this will help to kill a meme, aboyt how much Apple cares about users and what great values they have,Probably not. The keyboards on their laptops are barely functional but it doesn&#x27;t stop people from saying how great they are.

Not blindly. Outside of marketing material there have been more meaningful signs and signals indicating that they did care. Including principled people working there, threatening to quit if the FBI got its way on San Bernardino, etc. This is new.

Why the distinction on for-profit? There are plenty of non-profits you shouldn’t trust.Surely their tax status is orthogonal to their trustability.

&gt; would blindly believe marketing material from a for-profit corporationI am equally likely to believe or disbelieve marketing material from non-profits. Look at the malfeasance and lies from the Red Cross [1] -- or the sky-is-falling proclamations from the net neutrality crowd -- predictions of doom that never came to pass -- not to mention the lied-about motivations around net neutrality (the real motivation was about who pays for bandwidth.) [2][1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;red-cross-ceo-has-been-misleading-about-donations" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;red-cross-ceo-has-been-mi...</a>
[2]

&gt;While iPhone itself is pretty secure as a device phoneI simply don&#x27;t understand why people would blindly believe marketing material from a for-profit corporation. It&#x27;s a device running closed source software. There is no way to prove this claim. If anything, Apple has been caught in the past sending very very personal sensitive information [1].[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2019&#x2F;jul&#x2F;26&#x2F;apple-contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;2019&#x2F;jul&#x2F;26&#x2F;apple-con...</a>

Yeah, but what are the reasonable alternatives? Android, with its freewheeling stance on privacy and app permissions? Do they even let you disable location tracking any more?

There is a plausible argument that Apple needed to give a little in order to avoid the creation of laws against any encryption. And&#x2F;Or also avoid laws that required a backdoor to everything.I know I&#x27;m going to be called a fanboy or too generous to Apple, but given that the government has used every opportunity to call out Apple for not helping (when they have helped where they could) there is a line here that Apple is tip toeing around.I also do not think this as bad as you are making it out to be. Apple has always been clear what is fully E2E encrypted and what is not. This article is about something Apple planned to do and decided against. The reasons are what&#x27;s important and the article only speculates.

I don’t see how it’s a betrayal, as iCloud has never had E2EE, and Apple has never made any secret of this omission.Did we really think that Apple was just so incompetent they could run online file services for 20+ years and have almost a billion users, and not have encryption only because they hadn’t figured it out yet?

I have not bought into the meme and am not a huge Apple fan,  but I think you can continue to if you wish. &quot;Reuters could not determine why exactly Apple dropped the plan.&quot; It&#x27;s possible that Apple didn&#x27;t want the support costs of dealing with customers who lost&#x2F;forgot whatever secret was to be used for encryption, and thus would have been unable to use their backups.

Honestly I didn’t realize icloud backups were encrypted by a key Apple controls. I assumed they leveraged the same key sharing tech as iMessage ...I’m turning off iCloud backup — the only reason I have it on actually is to turn off the annoying backup nags. My photos are in iCloud, and so are my messages - I actually can’t think of anything valuable outside of those that I’d actually need iCloud backup for ...It doesn’t seem worth the risk

As someone who has bought into that meme I will admit this feels like a pretty huge betrayal by Apple. So, yes, I think if Apple sticks with this, their whole privacy stance is going in the toilet now. And a very dirty toilet it is.Beyond just the facts of not protecting data, there is also the deception. This is some really very, very, nasty stuff for Apple&#x27;s brand and the reputation of every person who works at Apple. I don&#x27;t know how to state it strongly enough.Huge Apple fan until today... see my comment history... this is devastating for them amongst the sliver of their users who pay attention to this stuff. And they should realize that even though we may be just a sliver, we can lead other customers away from them if we want to.

&gt;And it&#x27;s like that on purpose - there&#x27;s no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud.I really want the iOS Time Capsule Option. Even if it is expensive.

You don&#x27;t have to use iCloud backups - you can still backup to a computer and have that backup encrypted.

It is mere marketing, if it is meant to convince consumers of one thing while in practice it&#x27;s a different thing. The reasons why are irrelevant. Apple would prefer everyone just assumed iCloud backups were encrypted, and tries to keep quiet about it.

If unencrypted iCloud back ups is the price for us getting to keep fully encrypted devices, so be it

&gt;Most people, including technically knowledgable users here on HN, were unaware iCloud backups have always been unencrypted.iCloud backups are definitely encrypted. They just aren&#x27;t end-to-end encrypted.That should have been plainly obvious to any technically knowledgeable user because you don&#x27;t lose your data forever when you forget your Apple ID password. Or the fact that you can see your photos through a web browser on icloud.com

&gt; Apple has a balance to strike between the issues of encryption, privacy, and law enforcement [...]No, they do not. If Apple wants a reputation for privacy and respecting its customers, then it has to put them first. Don&#x27;t apologize for them making this user-hostile choice.We could be merely a generation away from the hell hole that is social credit. We can&#x27;t afford to keep ceding ground on privacy. We have to engender a sense of importance and urgency.I&#x27;ll be very mad at the rest of you lot that choose convenience over privacy, rights, and autonomy if 2030 sees our freedoms and liberties eroded further.Our collective choices matter, and that&#x27;s why I&#x27;m calling you out.

It&#x27;s one thing for them to not encrypt the backups, its another thing to go out of their way to include the iMessage private key in the backup, which completely undermines iMessage E2E for 99% of users.

&gt; Wonder if this will help to kill a meme, aboyt how much Apple cares about users and what great values they have, how they&#x27;re going to stand for the user, fight with governments, etc.In this instance, Apple decided to continue to not encrypt iCloud backups because, according to one source,&gt; […] the company did not want to risk being attacked by public officials for protecting criminals, sued for moving previously accessible data out of reach of government agencies or used as an excuse for new legislation against encryption. [0]Apple&#x27;s stance on privacy is more than mere marketing and more than a meme, but their legal team decided that encrypting formerly unencrypted backups, which had already been used as evidence in previous cases, is ill-advised.Most people, including technically knowledgable users here on HN, were unaware iCloud backups have always been unencrypted. Many of us concerned about privacy have avoided iCloud backups because they are subject to subpoena.I wish Apple would (have) offered encrypted iCloud backup as an option, and I understand why they chose not to. However, I disagree that their stance on privacy is mere marketing. Apple has a balance to strike between the issues of encryption, privacy, and law enforcement, and their products are not perfect for either users or law enforcement.That doesn&#x27;t mean Apple doesn&#x27;t care about its users and their privacy.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive&#x2F;exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...</a>

&gt; there&#x27;s no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud.Just plug your phone, click &quot;Backup up&quot;. You don&#x27;t even have to open iTunes anymore, just open &quot;Finder&quot; window. 
Can&#x27;t be easier than that.

Mega uses end-to-end encryption, and its clients are source-available. The hosting is fully managed, and there is no self-hosting option.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mega.nz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mega.nz</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;meganz" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;meganz</a>Seafile is end-to-end encrypted and open core. They offer a managed hosting option, and you can also self-host.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seafile.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seafile.com</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;haiwen&#x2F;seafile" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;haiwen&#x2F;seafile</a>Nextcloud is working on end-to-end encryption, but the feature is not yet stable. It is fully open source.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nextcloud.com&#x2F;endtoend" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nextcloud.com&#x2F;endtoend</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;nextcloud" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;nextcloud</a>

Do you have any personal recommendations on DIY iCloud alternatives?

&gt; there&#x27;s no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloudThis is false. You can back it up with Finder (since Catalina) or iTunes on Windows or previous macOS versions. You can even do wireless syncing over your local network.All of the infrastructure that Apple built out before iCloud still exists. You can sync your photos with the Photos app locally. It’ll one-click import everything and you can have it automatically clear out storage on your phone after the import has completed as well. You can then back up your computer however you want - locally, encrypted with Time Machine is an easy option.

Damn.I had somehow assumed that iCloud backups could not be accessed by Apple.So that pretty much kills the meme for me.

&gt; there&#x27;s no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloudExcept plugging it into a PC or Mac with iTunes, toggle a checkbox and set a password. No, it&#x27;s not effortless, but it&#x27;s not bad and it&#x27;s not difficult

In China, all your data belongs to China. That is simply the way it is if you choose to do business there. You might point fingers at Apple and other companies who operate there, but China is a huge market. The Chinese people know their data is all backdoored, so there is no coverup or obfuscation.

China allows them to sell Apple devices in China that alone makes me doubt the privacy of apple devices.

&gt; Wonder if this will help to kill a meme, about how much Apple cares about users and what great values they have, how they&#x27;re going to stand for the user, fight with governments, etc.I interpret this opinion as Black&#x2F;White thinking or all-or-nothing thinking: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Splitting_(psychology)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Splitting_(psychology)</a>

It&#x27;s less about Apple here and more about the government forcing their control. Apple, Microsoft, and many other companies have gone to congress to try and keep them from controlling encryption. At the end of the day they&#x27;re a company and they need a certain level of cooperation from the government to do business.THIS is why open source matters. The government can&#x27;t control people when money isn&#x27;t what motivates them.

&gt; there&#x27;s no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloudof course, there is. You can easily back it up to your computer, and then transfer it to anywhere else.

Wonder if this will help to kill a meme, about how much Apple cares about users and what great values they have, how they&#x27;re going to stand for the user, fight with governments, etc.While iPhone itself is pretty secure as a device phone (and Apple makes sure to remind you about that in each ad, public speaking, attacks on competitors, etc), as an ecosystem it&#x27;s not secure. And it&#x27;s like that on purpose - there&#x27;s no good and easy option to backup your phone other than iCloud.You have to be a tech person to know how to keep an iPhone secure. Average Joe buys iPhone and pays for iCloud. They Apple first $1k to get (on top of other things) a secure device, and then they Apple monthly fee to give Apple all their data and make insecure. Pretty genius business strategy.

They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management. They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had grown too deep. At this point, if they tried to give it another go, there would be trust issues: &quot;Am I investing in a phone ecosystem that&#x27;s going to be dead in a few years?&quot; Not to mention how much they&#x27;ve gone all-in on Android development.A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn&#x27;t be out of the question, but my gut tells me it would die a quiet death from thin margins and differentiators that aren&#x27;t big enough for people to get excited.

I&#x27;d argue that Android, without the Google stuff, is still the best option if you care about privacy and security.This is not accessible for average Joe, but I&#x27;m pretty certain the majority of readers here can use the tools to load an alternative ROM. That you can enable and use F-droid just fine. And are knowledgeable enough to know what apps to avoid.

&gt; A Surface Phone would be kind of cool.They&#x27;ve announced that they&#x27;ll release a Surface phone this year. But it&#x27;ll run Android.

&gt; On the other hand, it&#x27;s possible that because we have a smartphones duopoly, Apple only needs to maintain a position where people will say &quot;well at least it&#x27;s not as bad as Google&quot;. I&#x27;m upset about this personally, but I&#x27;m not ditching my iPhone. Of course, this does cement my decision to never pay for iCloud, for what that&#x27;s worth (much less, but not nothing).Agreed, and I am likely going away from Android and into iOS for my next phone. It&#x27;s still a setting you can change so it&#x27;s not forced into their cloud thankfully.I wish Microsoft hadn&#x27;t backed out. A Surface Phone would be kind of cool. I guess too much stigma about Microsoft has held them back from being competitive. I think they shoulda waited for their Microsoft Store to grow much more organically, then release the Windows Mobile phones.The other issue is Google&#x27;s agreements.

A company does care about things in that it has objectives.

The inconsistency in that is telling. 
Corporations demand the rights of persons, yet do not tend to shoulder the responsibilities that come with it [0]. Given how gigantic they are, the consequences are way too costly for the society.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2015&#x2F;02&#x2F;if-corporations-are-people-they-should-act-like-it&#x2F;385034&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2015&#x2F;02&#x2F;if-corp...</a>

As far as I know the consensus is still that iOS is more secure. Of course there are different definitions of that. Certainly Android is more ripe for abuse by apps downloaded from the store, for example; they can run freely in the background and do things like draw UX over other apps.Also, privacy != security. iOS is absolutely in a better position on privacy, even after this new development.

It could be signalling one is a far more attractive target to exploit, because e.g. harden shell, soft interior (M&amp;M architecture). Or maybe Apple patches quicker and gets them out quicker, so exploit lifetime is shorter. Just to be clear, I don&#x27;t know if that&#x27;s true, but it&#x27;s equally plausible explanation for the exploit price

Theoretically, maybe, I have no idea. Realistically, not at all, considering that even flagship Android phones tend to receive updates with an insane delay (except Pixel ones), not even talking about non-flagships or any android phones that have been released 2+ years ago.Last Android phone I have bought was Galaxy S8+, just a few months after the release. Had to wait about half a year (if not more) for the next major Android update after it had already dropped for Pixel devices.

Isn&#x27;t Android at this point a more secure OS? The price for zero days at least is signaling that.

&gt; aboyt how much Apple cares about usersNo company cares about anything. A company is not a person.Apple, because of its privacy-marketing, is incentivized to be the privacy player in the market. But only so far as consumers keep them honest about it.They got away with this loophole because it stayed under the radar; if it gets enough attention and enough customers show that it matters to them, it could change.On the other hand, it&#x27;s possible that because we have a smartphones duopoly, Apple only needs to maintain a position where people will say &quot;well at least it&#x27;s not as bad as Google&quot;. I&#x27;m upset about this personally, but I&#x27;m not ditching my iPhone. Of course, this does cement my decision to never pay for iCloud, for what that&#x27;s worth (much less, but not nothing).

Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained