Category: Technology

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Apple, Just Stop!

There’s no shame in acquiescing to your customers.

You’re on a slippery slope with your CSAM scanning. Lots of folks are justifiably concerned that this particular system could be misused.

This concern could easily translate into losses for your stockholders. While I recognize that a substantial part of your revenue is dependent on China, creating a system that so obviously could scan a persons phone for an oppressive regime isn’t going to help.

Our own government is and has demonstrated that no government is above spying on its citizens. Please don’t make it any easier for them.

I personally have already pulled my personal photos off of iCloud.

I’d imagine that you’re seeing a lot of other people doing the same thing. Take a look at your network activity. How much network traffic is outbound? How many photos are marked for deletion?

The real tell for you will be how many people don’t update to your latest operating systems.

We won’t know that until you release the new offerings in September – October but I suspect that a lot of people have switched off automatic updates. I know I have,

The problem isn’t that you’re trying to prevent Child pornography. That’s a good thing, the problem is that you’re opening the door to scanning anything stored in what is supposed to be private storage.

If we’re paying for cloud services, I believe that you should be treating those cloud accounts like safety deposit boxes. What’s in them is none of your business. Unless you’re presented with a warrant, nobody, including the hosting entity should be looking at what is stored in them.

The problem Apple, is that you’ve gone further. By your own description you’re programming our phones to scan at least some of the data they contain. How long before you’re scanning all the data?

How long will it be before you’re looking for images of confederate flags, or a proud gun owner’s collection of guns, or “hate speech”, Anti-Vaccine comments, “Transphobic” remarks, any nude photos, or rude comments about The President or Vice President?

For the first time in more than 2 decades. I’m looking at Windows computers. I’m searching around for dumb cell phones, and considering things like not having an iPad or an Apple Watch. I’m considering eliminating Apple cloud services from my life entirely as well.

I can turn off iMessage. I could force all text communication to go over SMS only. I’ve not decided on that quite yet because so many of my text communications are innocuous and mundane.

It’s not even that I have anything to hide. It’s the principal that my communications could become subject to anyone’s approval.

What is next? Will Apple employ banks of people who censor conversations, becoming like FaceBook, Twitter, and Google?

Where is the Apple that just a few years ago told the FBI, “No we will not unlock a terrorists phone?” Remember that Apple? The Apple that I was proud of, the Apple that would not yield to government pressure?

Just Stop, before it’s too late. You still have time, no-op the code.

There’s a quote some thing like; Scientists contemplate can we do a thing? Scientists often fail to ask themselves SHOULD we do a thing.

Apple, it’s time that you ask, “Should we do a thing?”

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This may force me to get a dumb phone…

Apple recently released information about enabling child protection features. 

I’m ALL IN for stopping Child Porn.

When I was running my small business sorting out people’s computer problems, part of the contract stated:

In the course of performing repairs, should child pornography, “snuff” pornography, evidence of non-consensual torture, or murder, (Video, Photos,) of any kind be discovered, all work will be terminated. In accordance with law enforcement directives your computer and your contact information will be immediately turned over to appropriate law enforcement. Initial that you have read and understand :_____

There were only a very few people who got to that paragraph and decided against my repairing their computer.

More often than not, folks would ask questions like, “I have some pictures of my child as a newborn or in their first bath, will those be a problem,” or “I may have some photos of me and my spouse ummm, having sex. Will those be a problem,” The answer to both questions was always, “No, that’s not a problem. I won’t go looking for photos while I’m working on your machine, but sometimes if I’m recovering files I’ll stumble on something.”

Generally people would laugh and I’d assure them it was best to think of me like their lawyer or doctor. Nothing innocent I ever came across would leave my possession and any drives I used to backup their data while I was re-installing their OS or whatever were cleansed with a military grade wipe program as soon as their data was back on their computer safely.

There was one guy who flat out told me that his computer was loaded with some seriously evil stuff. He saw the look on my face and produced his badge. “I’m a crime scene photographer,” he explained. He was kind enough to give me moment to call and verify the badge number. Thankfully in his case I was pulling back some documents that had been corrupted, and I didn’t have to worry about crime scene photos.

There was only one guy, a priest, who I enacted that paragraph with. He had his computer turned over to law enforcement. (In truth, had his computer not been full to the brim with horrific porn, I’d have missed it altogether.)

The common thread here is that I didn’t go looking for stuff. It’s really none of my business. In my business privacy was something that I respected and honoring privacy was what got me referrals.

For a moment think of what information you’re handing over to a 20 year old at The Geek Squad counter. Did that make your hair stand up? It probably should have. Which is not to imply that The Geek Squad is a bad group of folks… How much of your private business do you want shared? Even if it’s only in the back room of a Best Buy. 

“Hey Bill, take a look at this guy’s wife! She’s super HOT!”

Uh yeah, you get the picture.

So I’m super AGAINST Child Pornography, But at the same time I’m really about Privacy.

There’s the conflict.

Apple is planning on having your device scan for specific images that are currently identified in a database. It looks like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children may be providing some or all of the HASH (Think of these as numeric fingerprints of an image) which makes sense.

As we all know, if you look for naked pictures of anyone you’ll find the same 20-50 images repeated on site after site. The same is probably more true for Child Porn. 

That area is so… Wrong, that I’m betting it’s a fairly limited number of unique images. I can’t imagine there are more than a few thousand “Producers” of such material worldwide. Although there are apparently millions of “Consumers” of this kind a material. It’s the consumers that drive the trade, not the pervert who gets their jollies abusing children. 

I say that without doing any research, and I may be terribly naive about it. Honestly, I don’t want to research the actual numbers, the thought turns my stomach. And the last thing I want to do is cleanse my computer of God only knows what kind of viruses those sites would try to put on my system. I also don’t want to have to explain to the FBI why I’d suddenly taken an interest in those sites. 

Let me maintain what’s left of my shredded innocence, okay?

Anyhow, since Apple is going to be running this on our local machines what is that going to do to our battery life? That’s the first thing that popped through my head. The next thing that popped through my head is the myriad ways technology like this could be misused. They’ve said that they’ll be looking at photos sent via messages too. To me this begs the question of how long will it be until Apple is scanning our message text for so called “Questionable Material”. 

Instead of looking for Child Porn, what would happen if say the DOJ demanded Apple look for specific people? How about a specific location? Maybe a specific phrase? How about specific websites in your browser history? What about looking for a specific item, that you might have taken a picture of?

Apple’s explanation of the HASH algorithm indicates the proposed system wouldn’t be applicable at this time for that kind of specificity. But AI augmented recognition could eventually be used to do something like that. On that point, we’re not looking at the next decade, we’re looking at a handful of years at best.

The current algorithm could be used on your browser history right now. It could just as easily look for politically questionable sites and target you.

China and any other totalitarian state must be orgasmic over the possibilities.

What then?

In a society of picture happy people, how might such a system be turned into a weapon against you?

You realize that if you have your photos syncing to iCloud that the conduit works both ways. If I take a picture with my phone, it goes to iCloud and is available on all my devices. Likewise, if I put photos into iCloud’s web interface those photos can appear on all my devices.

What kind of chaos could one create by uploading child porn to someone’s iCloud account?

Imagine this scenario. A nasty divorce, the aggrieved spouse has the password to their partner’s iCloud account and in a fit of pique uploads child porn. Oooops! Now the divorce is on the fast track because one of the partners is in jail.

Imagine the possibilities with politicians. This brings an all new meaning to the term “Mud Slinging”. Although Hunter Biden’s laptop apparently didn’t raise any eyebrows at the DOJ. 

This smells like a proverbial “Slippery Slope” and it worries the hell out of me.

The President has asked? Demanded? That big technology be brought to bear on White Extremist groups. But he hasn’t actually defined what that means. My definition of White Supremacy is very different from the few groups the president has called out.

Is this another case of White Supremacists are, “What I say they are at any particular moment,” if so, then Apple is going toward support of a totalitarian state and that is something I can’t support.

I can turn off iCloud. I can make my phone as dumb as a stone. I can isolate my devices in such a way that they can compute HASHes all day long but they’ll not be able to send their data anywhere. Or I can go completely dark. The internet is super nice to have, but if it becomes a tool that I’m handing to an authoritarian government that demands my submission…

Then I can do without it.

I realize this sounds very conspiracy theory, but when Jews who lived through the Holocaust, and Russians who escaped communism, or folks from Cuba, or escapees from Venezuela,  start saying, “This is how it began in my country.” I listen up!

I defer to their experience.

Our government has grown large enough that it is self sustaining without the consent of the people. That makes it, and the people enmeshed in it, dangerous. Like a beast in the forest, the government will strike at a threat to defend itself. It’s possible for the people asking questions and demanding answers, to become a threat. How did The President put it? An Existential Threat.

There are many other ways to communicate. Surprisingly there are methods of encryption that are difficult enough to be unbreakable for a reasonable length of (ALL Encryption can and will be broken if enough effort is put into the task,) time which do not require computational power to create.

However, those methods might require actually seeing someone in person. Meeting in a bar or restaurant is probably going to be unavailable in the near future. With the implementation of COVID passports, even if you’re not carrying a phone that’s broadcasting your location, your COVID passport being scanned at the door to some venue will provide tracking. So I can imagine folks going back to the old Soviet Era spy tactic of a dead drop.

8/12/2021 – I actually started writing this a couple of days ago.

Since I began writing this, there have been a number of voices raising the alarm. Apple has tried to explain what they’re doing and reassure everyone that they will not ever -absolutely never – double pinky swear, use this technology to do anything but scan for child porn.

I’d like to believe them. But as much as we’ve all been misled, lied to, and told that what we’ve seen with our own eyes didn’t happen, over the past 5 years. I find that I can’t believe Apple any more than I believe anyone else.

Remember when Google’s motto was, “Don’t be evil,” yeah, we all know how that turned out. It looks like Apple is heading down the same path.

As of this morning I’ve turned off automatic updates on all of my devices. I’ve backed up all of my photos to a flat file system OUTSIDE of Apple’s applications. 

If the price of IOS 15, or the new MacOS, is that I have to submit to Apple being able (in theory) to spy on me, then the price is too high.

What I’ve got right now is working just fine.

We can only hope that millions of other people are doing the same thing and that at the next WWDC in Spring, Mr Cook won’t be able to tout those impressive IOS and MacOS adoption numbers. When he’s describing IOS and MacOS numbers that look like Android and Windows update metrics, maybe he’ll get the message.

Hell, I’d love to see every single owner of Apple products turn them all off for a day. You know, maybe Sept 1, 2021. Call it A DAY WITHOUT APPLE.

Call it a protest, let Apple see just how many people are annoyed by this incursion into our privacy. What do you suppose their reaction would be if a couple of million users just signed off for the day?

Who knows? It might get their attention and remind them that Apple’s stock prices are linked to their customer satisfaction.

Now I’m off to consider if terminating Apple One+ is in my best interest or if I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Oh, and even if I’m not uploading my photos to iCloud, my phone has a lot of memory… I can still directly connect my phone to my computer and move those photos to my computer. Sure it’s not as slick or convenient but I can still use my phone as a camera even if I feel it necessary to make my phone dumb as a stone.

As an aside, unlocked 4G flip phones are $35 on Amazon. Just food for thought.

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Chasing Gremlins

There are many benefits to technology.

Most of us have various bits of tech in our homes, it may be just our computer, or our phones. Some of us have a bit more technology in our homes, and there be gremlins hiding there.

Most of the time the gremlins are dormant and only awaken when we do something causing us to trip over them. For example, we move something around, or try to add a new device. Usually these instances result in a minor irritation but are easily resolved.

I’ve been chasing gremlins for the past week and a half, and I have a lot of devices to chase the little devils through.

About a week or two ago, Edison was having a problem. In the course of 4 hours they flipped the power on & off at least 6 times. I’d just get the clocks reset and bang! The power was off again. Sometimes the power would stutter on for a moment then go off again.

Technology really doesn’t like that!

All the gremlins awoke and have been running through system after system, creating odd and completely random effects. Devices appearing and disappearing from the network, devices working fine one moment and then refusing to execute a command they’d just completed. Or suddenly executing a command that they’d received an hour ago because they suddenly remembered it (Kinda like Joe Biden…)

Fortunately, unlike in the case of Joe, (switching off humans is generally a bad idea,) I can switch devices off and if necessary reinitialize them.

Over the past two days, I’ve begun to feel like The Exorcist. Get thee back Demon!!

Or like a poor bastard that pissed off a Techno-Madge in Babylon 5.

Then I remembered I AM a Techno-Madge and these gremlins will be purged!

There are 30 devices online at my home at any given moment. I’ve purged 25 of these devices thus far. the remaining 5 are sitting in techno-limbo as I type. They’re being reset to factory default and one by one I’ll add them to the network as they wake up mindless from their reset.

After that, the gremlins should be at least flushed from my systems for the time being.

Gremlins will always make a reappearance. Sometimes they’re artifacts of small little bugs that are no consequence in a particular device. The problem is that they can be cumulative. When you have enough devices added to the same network, these little insignificant bugs combine and mutate, (no, we’re not to Maximum Overdrive or SkyNet yet,) the mutation is more of an interaction between devices.

Mr Scott said it best, “The more you complicate the plumbing, the easier to stop up the works.”

We’re living it. All of our devices are “smart” each of them has memory, when they’re network connected the router and some switches remember the state of each of the devices.

Sometimes, just turning the device off and restarting it isn’t enough. That’s because the router will often reconnect the device(s) in the same way when you turn them back on again and then you’re right back where you started.

The systems are trying to be helpful but they’re actually just more frustrating.

I had to completely reinitialize the Nest Thermostat and the Nest Protect smoke alarms. That was fun, “Gee thanks Google, I knew no good would come of you purchasing Nest, you jackasses could complicate a wet dream.”

Did you know that if you plug a HomePod mini into your computer it will flash Orange? How about that the HomePod mini has around 2.6 gigabytes of software running inside it?

Did you know that your printer is a smart little bugger and it tries to remember it’s setup so hard that it actually fights you when you’re trying to send it back to factory default?

Don’t even ask about network attached storage devices. They can be really contrary. It’s with good reason, they’re trying to protect your data so many of them will require signs, countersigns, along with various incantations and sigils.

The most frustrating part of this particular adventure has been certain smart lightbulbs (I’m looking at you office lamp,) several of these machines have told me they’ve reset, but lied. The office light was the worst offender 5 times straight, “Yep, I’ve reset,” but then, “No, you can’t configure me because I’m already set up.”

“Uh huh, and how did that go for you little light bulb?” (Lightbulb contritely dims)

Don’t get me wrong, I like having a “Smart House”, privacy issues notwithstanding. Yeah, all these smart devices can and do phone their creators regularly. God only knows what information they’re sending.

I thought, and this is demonstrating perhaps white racist language, when I purchased a machine I was that machine’s master.

Yeah, what of it? Am I going to hear from the robot-rights association?

Alright the last devices appear to have returned to their pristine factory reset zombie state…

I’m off to give them a purpose again.

(Wanders off)

“Come on my little slaves, let’s put you back to work.“

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Time for the Geeky

For years, (at least 10) I’ve been using Apple TimeCapsules for my router and basic backup needs. The main TimeCapsule which has been in continuous operation for 5 – 6 years was finally starting to show its age.

Don’t get me wrong, it still works but it was starting to drop WiFi connections at odd moments and for no apparent reason. I started digging around and found that the maximum number of WiFi connections a TimeCapsule could handle was 40. What wasn’t completely clear was did the TimeCapsule have enough horsepower to handle 40 wireless and some unknown number of wired clients or was it 40 total?

I did a quick count of the number of devices talking to the TimeCapsule on average. Try 30 devices talking on WiFi normally. (The joys of a smart home!) If all the possible devices that wanted internet access Wired & Wireless were online we were talking 50 total.

Hmmm. A few quick experiments later and I found that low usage WiFi devices were being knocked off the net being replaced by higher demand devices. Things like Xbox, Apple TV, and DVD players would replace things like the thermostat, or the weather station display unit.

These low demand devices would generally come back after the high demand items got turned off, but sometimes they’d have to be reset to reconnect to the network.

I don’t know if it was processing, sheer number of clients, or just plain old tired, what was obvious was two things. 1) The number of clients was only going to increase, & 2) I really needed new router.

I looked at Eero’s, Orbi’s, and Netgear. The problem I had with each of these was that you had to have an account with Google, Amazon, or Netgear and I didn’t really like that idea. I wanted a router that did it’s job and wasn’t phoning home to tell wherever home was, about my porn habits, or anything else I was doing or shopping for. So an account being necessary to use a router I purchased, was out of the question.

Maybe I’m paranoid, maybe I’m not.

After some searching I found the Amplifi Alien.

I did some more research and found that you don’t have to have an account to use it. It’s a mesh router. Meaning it has the ability to seamlessly broadcast to other routers or to a satellite Alien (repeater).

The unit supports WiFi 6 so my phone and more recent devices are happy, it supports standard 2.4 and 5 GHz, with unification of everything under one SSID (Network Name). My Apple TimeCapsules always had a problem with that, and I had to maintain two different network names to provide for the 2.4 GHz only devices.

The router doesn’t have a dedicated backhaul wireless channel, but it does have the ability to use a hardline to handle the backhaul communications.

This is a pricey router, but no more than a 3 TB TimeCapsule was.

The unit is configured from an app on your phone.

I had it up and running in about 10 minutes. 5 Minutes was spent trying to figure out a way to put this machine out where it can be seen instead of hiding in my wiring closet. It’s beautiful.

Wow! This thing is FAST!

Suddenly, all my devices are connected and stable. Since Apple has gotten out of the Router Business I knew I was going to have to replace my router with something non-Apple eventually. I hadn’t planned on doing it right now.

That being said, I’m pleased as punch with this machine. I’m getting full fiber optic speeds out of my ISP. My WiFi coverage is much better than it was. I’ve got zero dead zones in the house or garage, and the signal extends well into the street as well as covering my entire yard.

SUPER! No more weird pauses in music or podcasts while I’m working in the yard.

I’ve also got up to 120 WiFi clients and because of the mesh technology I’ve got the ability to actually have more than 120 by adding another Alien at the other end of the house. The mesh tech, sends clients to whichever router is closer, so presumably with many of the client devices staying in one location I could have 1/2 on one router and 1/2 on the other.

Right now, I’ve only got the one router and it covers my needs very well. But it’s nice to have some expansion room, thinking longer term.

Devices are only going to get smarter. Speakers, lights, TVs, locks, alarm systems, garage door openers, and on & on. Even my HAM radio has the ability to use the internet over WiFi.

I was surprised to discover that there were so many machines in my home that were chatting away. I knew they were there, I’d obviously connected them to the network but I’d never really started counting them until recently.

In my immediate future, I suspect there is going to be a smart ceiling fan, a smart garage door opener, some video surveillance cameras, and maybe even a smart door lock.

I could actually see moving everything to WiFi. I’m not sure I will, but I like the concept of not having to run actual cable if/when I move to a new house.

Thus far… A week into owning this puppy, I’m giving it a big thumbs up. It seems to like the Synology RAID. Now to see how it reacts to multiple network drives…

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Not Sure if this is better… or worse.

I’ve been noticing over the last few months more and more “Cookie Notifications”.

Hell, even I post a cookie notification on this site.

I don’t collect or indeed look at the metrics provided by these cookies but the blog application collects them. I don’t monetize the readership of this blog, I’ve thought about it, but decided against it .

While I could use the money, ultimately it’s more important to be able to speak my mind without worrying about someone having leverage to force me to take down or apologize for a post.

I posted the cookie notification because you, the reader, have the right to know that information is being collected about you.

That being said, I’ve noticed while reviewing the various cookie policies of sites that I visit, a shocking amount of information is being collected.

The most egregious site thus far, is a site of an adult nature that I’ve enjoyed for many years. This adult site posted their cookie policy sometime in the past few weeks, (Hey, I enjoy the site, but don’t live on it.)

Reviewing their policy presented me with over 100 “Affiliate” companies all of whom set tracking cookies, share information about my interests, have access to my location as listed on site, and pretty much anything and everything I’ve provided about me. Given the nature of the site, the immense sharing of information is troubling.

On the one hand, they’ve probably always been sharing this information, such is the nature of monetization. On the other hand knowing what they’re sharing, and the breathtaking length of companies they’re sharing information with, gives me considerable pause.

Any reasonable adult knows (or should know) that sites of an “Adult” nature are risky by nature, these sites are “The Wild West” and often beyond the reach, or notice of law enforcement. These sites come & go without warning. If you’re a “Free” user they’re going to sell some of your information. After all, they’re in it to make money.

As a reasonable adult, we each must make a value choice. Do we really want to see what’s on the site versus how much we’re willing to “pay” to see it.

That thought leads me to question if these sites will make the next logical move. A move where paid membership affords you privacy from tracking and monetization. If the site is making money from memberships do they need to also share the member’s data?

I’d actually pay a membership fee, if I knew that I’d be excluded from having my peculiarities broadcast to hundreds of unknown advertising agencies attempting to target me with their wares.

Essentially, if you’re using a paid VPN service that’s what you’re doing when you’re surfing the web but not logged into Bing, Google, Yahoo, or whatever. Most of the people I know, use a “Burner” email address for questionable sites.

I wonder about all the information that’s already out there on us all as individuals. The genie is pretty much out of the bottle. Will I forever be followed by an ad showing ‘Fat bottomed Blow Up Slut doll’ because once in 2000 while operating my computer intoxicated, I thought it was interesting to click on that particular genre of ad?

This line of thought has also led me to wonder about my overall membership, free or otherwise on the small number of sites that I frequent.

Much as I’ve enjoyed the site I visited last night, do I really need to visit it, or any sites? I really appreciate their upfront attitude and transparency. For me that is a definite check in the “Plus” column. But as someone who tries to keep a low internet profile, (this blog not withstanding,) how much do I want to share?

Brietbart is an interesting case study in persistence. Almost every time I go to their site I’m being asked to accept tracking and cookies. Every single time I tell them they’re not allowed to sell my information and confirm that choice. But they keep asking, I suspect they’re hoping that one day I’ll just cave in and say “Accept All”. That is somewhat ironic because they’re always ‘banging on’ about freedom and privacy. Them constantly asking the way they do is also degrading the user experience and I find myself less inclined to visit their site at all.

Generally, the same is true, for me, of all websites. I’ve noticed that when I’m confronted with yet another “Cookie / Privacy notice” I’m more prone to not click beyond the notice, instead I’ll close the page.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

If people get tired of answering questions about cookies and tracking, perhaps they’ll stop relying on the internet for all their information… I doubt it.

I can say that since I’ve put the cookie notice up on this site, the traffic through the site has decreased. That data is gleaned not from cookies, but from a count of incoming ip addresses the site maintains over a 24 hour period.

From my perspective, the usability of the internet is degraded. It’s like getting gas at some gas stations or making a purchase with my debit card. I don’t think it’s reasonable to be asked if I want a car wash, to donate to this or that cause, do I want a receipt, or be shouted at with advertisements from a blaring screen, or whatever… I just want to get on with my day.

The internet is becoming another case of answer 50 questions get the simplest things done.

In that regard… I’m leaning more to closing accounts I don’t absolutely need and moving back to good old fashioned printed books and reference manuals.

I’ve been using cash for purchases a lot more lately. It’s really nice, transactions the way they’re supposed to be.

Some would say that’s a sign of paranoia.

For me, it’s about not wanting to be bothered.

When I was much younger, I worked at Radio Shack. We didn’t use a cash register, we wrote out orders on a receipt book and had only a cash drawer. We were supposed to ask each and every customer for their name and mailing address. Many customers, young and old refused to provide this information. It’s amazing to me how much has changed and in such a short time.