Nannies and Spyware

[mhardy6647]

Can't say I blame you (and I am -- to put it mildly -- not a fan of the Apple "ecosystem").

 

[anmpr1]

I decided to throw in the towel on Windows and get a MacBook Pro.

Windows has become pretty much a platform for obtrusive Microsoft ads. Whenever I open something on the system I get a pop up telling me how much better it would be if I used this or that other MS product--at low introductory subscription rates. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to miss Ballmer. Sure, he ran the outfit on the borderline of RICO, but at least he could Monkey Boy. Can Nadella dance? I don't think so.

I hadn't been to a mall in years, but had to take the family truckster in for service. Mall was nearby so waifu and I took a walk. My impression was that malls are mostly a thing of the past, or a venue for criminal gangs. But the day after Christmas all was low key. No one doing much of anything, yet the Apple store was packed. That was where all the action seemed to be.

Not my thing for sure. But for whatever reason the A Team was assigning numbers to be waited on. Customers queued and ready to spend. I stopped outside the entrance a few seconds in order to ponder the significance of it--strangely I didn't see any PCs (or whatever Apple calls their version of the PC). Just white tables lined with phones. And other small gadgets.

Speaking of... the guy that now owns Denon is taking Apple to court over their wrist watch that tells your pulse. He owns a medical device company that does the same thing (according to him) and he's arguing patent infringement.

 

[pierre]

I decided to throw in the towel on Windows and get a MacBook Pro.

Welcome to Apple ecosystem:

MacOS is talking back home a lot … and stopping it is very hard.

You should activate (at least):
- advanced data protection: your data are encrypted and apple does not have the keys or do not use iCloud
- disk encryption
- add a vpn (proton for ex)
- add security keys (physical or via an Authenticator app)
- long password I know I know
- activate the firewall
- install Lulu (https://objective-see.org/products/lulu.html) and most software from objective see
- if you use safari, then you should filter it (AdGuard or similar)

I can make a longer list if you want, we have one at work that I believe is shareable.

MacOS is not much better than windows … switching to Linux is an improvement security wise but makes a lot of other stuff more complicated.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Some things worth knowing to make the switch easier.

I'm Switching To Mac After a Lifetime of Windows

For my entire life, I've been not only a Windows user but a MacOS hater. I've loved Mac hardware but I could never get past the annoying limitations of their software. All of that changed when I bought the new M1 MacBook Pro. The M1 MacBook Pro is the first laptop I've ever used that actually...

fstoppers.com

Read the comments on this as useful info in those as well.

This is a worthwhile video to someone switching.

You'll probably want to reverse the scrolling as the Mac is backwards. Remember if you use CTRL-C or Ctrl-V or similar keyboard shortcuts they do work on a Mac, but you have to use the Mac Command key in place of Ctrl.

Mac touchpads are pretty good, but they use a different acceleration algorithm for the mouse, and to me it is plain inferior to windows. So if you use a mouse it may always feel a bit different. I personally also find Macs aren't as fluid for some multi-tasking uses. They can do it, but it isn't as intuitive as Windows or Linux desktops according to my experience. I'd suggest Vivaldi for a browser.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Windows has become pretty much a platform for obtrusive Microsoft ads. Whenever I open something on the system I get a pop up telling me how much better it would be if I used this or that other MS product--at low introductory subscription rates. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to miss Ballmer. Sure, he ran the outfit on the borderline of RICO, but at least he could Monkey Boy. Can Nadella dance? I don't think so.

I hadn't been to a mall in years, but had to take the family truckster in for service. Mall was nearby so waifu and I took a walk. My impression was that malls are mostly a thing of the past, or a venue for criminal gangs. But the day after Christmas all was low key. No one doing much of anything, yet the Apple store was packed. That was where all the action seemed to be.

Not my thing for sure. But for whatever reason the A Team was assigning numbers to be waited on. Customers queued and ready to spend. I stopped outside the entrance a few seconds in order to ponder the significance of it--strangely I didn't see any PCs (or whatever Apple calls their version of the PC). Just white tables lined with phones. And other small gadgets.

Speaking of... the guy that now owns Denon is taking Apple to court over their wrist watch that tells your pulse. He owns a medical device company that does the same thing (according to him) and he's arguing patent infringement.

You can turn off those notifications in Win11. You can find articles telling you how quite easily. It did seem incredibly busy before I did that. Ads and notifications every time you did something locally. Once I turned them off things were much nicer. I loath that the default is for them to be on. Upon first setup of an account they should offer you the option. Of course if they did the ads would be skipped by almost everyone. That should be a clue people don't want that.

 

[Blumlein 88]

- install Lulu (https://objective-see.org/products/lulu.html) and most software from objective see
-

I've seen LuLu suggested by others. I've not tried it yet. Does it become something of an endeavor of its own, or will it pretty much stay out of the way once you set it up?

 

[Ron Texas]

Just leave it to the ASR crew. All I have to do is mention an OS and there is a response. Privacy was one reason for buying a MAC. The other was my Windows notebook was very slow running Adobe Lightroom Classic. My new Mac has the most basic M3 Pro but it runs Lightroom as fast as a Dell Inspiron I had around here for a while which had an i7-13700h and a RTX4060 in it.

This isn't my first Mac, but it's been a long time since the last one. There's a learning curve because everything is in a different place. A couple of apps I used are either not available for Mac or are not free. In some cases the Mac has built in solutions, but they are rather different.

 

[JustJones]

Windows has become pretty much a platform for obtrusive Microsoft ads. Whenever I open something on the system I get a pop up telling me how much better it would be if I used this or that other MS product--at low introductory subscription rates. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm starting to miss Ballmer. Sure, he ran the outfit on the borderline of RICO, but at least he could Monkey Boy. Can Nadella dance? I don't think so.

I hadn't been to a mall in years, but had to take the family truckster in for service. Mall was nearby so waifu and I took a walk. My impression was that malls are mostly a thing of the past, or a venue for criminal gangs. But the day after Christmas all was low key. No one doing much of anything, yet the Apple store was packed. That was where all the action seemed to be.

Not my thing for sure. But for whatever reason the A Team was assigning numbers to be waited on. Customers queued and ready to spend. I stopped outside the entrance a few seconds in order to ponder the significance of it--strangely I didn't see any PCs (or whatever Apple calls their version of the PC). Just white tables lined with phones. And other small gadgets.

Speaking of... the guy that now owns Denon is taking Apple to court over their wrist watch that tells your pulse. He owns a medical device company that does the same thing (according to him) and he's arguing patent infringement.

Probably buying the watches, can't get them after today.

 

[Ron Texas]

Probably buying the watches, can't get them after today.

I had no trouble getting served at the Apple Store today. I live really near one. Parking was a bit tricky. The watch issue will work itself out. Apple is appealing the decision.

It looks like the most time consuming task will be reformatting several external drives to expat.

 

[pseudoid]

There are "nannies" and then there are "Nannies": Like some gumshoe, run-of-the-mill lawyer and then there is that Harvard-graduate.
I am beginning to find it comical when those who depend on [Harvard-level] phones, complaining about nannies inside their cars and desktops.
Car companies don't have the brains to make sense of that data; though crash-data-recorders used to do the Watusi around privacy... until EVs.
We can point out little irritants to our privacy, but siphoning of user data has just become a pandemic crisis, since the introduction of AI.

Bear with me while I sum-up how extensive these user-data breaches are: Just in the past decade, one *State* has been linked to hacks of hundreds of millions of customer records from MarriottInternational, the credit-agency Equifax, and the health-insurer Anthem/ElevanceHealth. [Remember these are just 3 bigger *State*-sponsored hacking examples of recent vintage] Include the 20million [?] personnel files on current/former government workers/families from an OPM hack but that [nameless, but not Russian] *State*-actor has denied responsibility for each.
The ironic part is that these troves of billions of private/personal information bits were thought to be too vast for humanoids to make sense of and to determine 'patterns' from.

Knock, Knock? Who is there?
AI! AI Who?
AI the Pattern master.

No Joke, here!
Elevated fears that this *State*-sponsored espionage of IP-code - powering AI - has the feds, cyber-security analysts, the FBI, and other Western Inteligence agencies, as well AI chip designers/suppliers stressed and distressed.
Former NationalSecurityAgency' GeneralCounsel GlennGerstell recently said:

"[*State*] can harness AI to build a dossier on viturally every American, with details ranging from their health records to credit cards and from passport numbers to the names and addresses of their parents and children."

It is getting chilly everywhere.
You can guess which *State* I am referring to.

 

[somebodyelse]

Sounds like what a certain data centre in Utah is assumed to be doing to the population of every other country, with some 'accidental' overlap into their own. Odds are Cheltenham are up to much the same. Pot, meet kettle.

 

[Ron Texas]

@pseudoid I think it's a free for all for companies making any kind of connected device. This is regulated in Europe, but not in the US. Some parts of the EU regulation are not compatible with US first amendment protections.

Crash data recorders in cars are now government mandated. The excuse for that is vehicles with antilock brakes don't leave skid marks making it more difficult to determine the speed of the vehicle when brakes were applied. Originally, the automakers installed the recorders to use as a defense in products liability lawsuits. At least these buggers don't phone home.

I'm getting used to the Mac. Many things I used free third party apps for are built in to MacOS. That's fortunate because the Mac versions are not free. Some seldom used functions I'm not going to try and duplicate on the Mac. Rather I will use one of the several Windows machines I have around here.

One of my reasons for getting a new computer was to have better performance in Lightroom Classic. An AI noise reduction function which took 6 minutes on an Intel Evo notebook now takes 40 seconds.

 

[pseudoid]

Pot, meet kettle.

Orange, meet apple?

I had aimed to NOT enter the political fray between 'democratic' vs. 'authoritarian' States.
I was rather wishing to provide a perspective from our consumerism embedded within our privacy/freedom concerns.

How does a normal consumer protect their privacy - from browser-trackers to AI-invasion - while demanding the convenience of what tech provides for relative ease?
>>We have become quite tolerant of such privacy/freedom breaches and have relented to trading them for convenience' sake.

Do we (as consumers) give up the conveniences of what the 21st Century technology offers us?
>>At least, to feel like we are NOT always being tracked, hacked, watched and/or monitored, as some other *States impose on their citizenry.

Who is the apple now?

 

[Ron Texas]

In some cases there is no real return to the consumer in exchange for the data collected unless you think targeted advertising is a benefit.

 

[audio_tony]

unless you think targeted advertising is a benefit.

It's always useful to be targeted with something you have already bought. NOT!

Unless 'they' listen to your conversations (which I've heard does allegedly happen...) there is no way 'they' could pre-empt any prospective purchase, which makes targeted advertising totally irrelevant.

However 'they' don't seem to have realised this yet....

 

[somebodyelse]

I had aimed to NOT enter the political fray between 'democratic' vs. 'authoritarian' States.

That's not how it read to me with repeated use of '*State*' and quote from NSA GC. If that wasn't the intention we can move on.

From the consumer side @Ron Texas mentions the transatlantic divide on the legality of 'surveillance capitalism,' at least in part because some of the European population remembers life in a dictatorship, but enforcement is severely lacking. Some states in the US seem to be heading towards similar legislation, but will probably face pushback from well funded lobbyists. Can't really go much further on that side without straying too far into politics. Without laws and enforcement all you can do it put up with some inconvenience if you want to limit the tracking, but most people won't until things get way too creepy. They don't realise how dependent they've become until their account gets blocked for some reason (like your child thinking taking a photo of their bare bottom is funny, triggering a zero tolerance policy, to take one recent example that hit the news.)

 

[billou5767]

if you think of all : you dont sleep anymore

microsoft / google scan all your file ine the clood reason a pedophylia or terrrorisme

your connected tv can duplicate your screen and send it to ...we dont know

you tv remote : in the manuel its write : no speak : all is listen

what do you think is alexa ? is listen send to data center and come back ..

wireless led : why they comunicate so much with usa server or china ? why they gave so many firmware update a so big 5 (5 minutes at full speed with china product for lamp led )

and google IME : complete processor in ALL processor intel / amd 100% solo : no need proc , internet have ALL inside your processor why

Intel Management Engine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ron Texas]

All I can say is that I am really enjoying my new Mac. Unless it gets stolen or dropped in the ocean (not remote possibilities unfortunately) I should get at least 3 years out of this notebook. Since the expensive XPS 13 I bought 2 years ago only lasted 14 months before it died, that a lot for me. My barely one year old LG Gram 16 was so wonky I had to reset it this week. It was ok until I switched from Windows Hello sign on to the classic password sign in. On the next reboot I was greeted with a screen asking for a MS account sign in so they can go on a data gathering frenzy. Fortunately, I know how to bypass that problem. Microsoft is sure getting aggressive about wanting that sign in. The machine is being used to stream audio and playback MP4 and MKV video files plus some miscellaneous chores which I have not decided how I will handle on the Mac yet. Right now I'm transferring gobs of raw image files to a just reformatted Mac AFPS drive.

Switching from Win to Mac does take a lot of effort. Things are not in the same place and some things are done very differently. It appears easier to find answers to Mac support questions with a Web search. Maybe that's because there are far fewer variations of Mac's than PC's.

Just a little something which the reviewers gloss over. The thunderbolt (USB C) ports are close together. I had to trim some plastic off an HDMI cable to get a USB C to A adaptor to fit.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Don't know which USB C to A adapters you are using. I've had some that were kind of fat. These work great, give real USB 3 speeds and are pretty skinny. Been using them for about 2 years. Also plug in better than some I've used.

https://www.amazon.com/Syntech-Adapter-Thunderbolt-Compatible-MacBook/dp/B07CVX3516?th=1

 

[ta240]

Smart TV's are content aware. If you use an app they keep track of it. In some cases it's not just the app but the programing in detail. If you use your ISP's DNS service they record everything and sell it.

Our TV has google on it and every few weeks it pops up with a little thing trying to get us to connect to the internet and use a google account because google really wants to know what we watch. We use a Roku instead and on their app for their channel of shows and movies with commercials, it has a row of "your favorite actors". I was scrolling through that and thought 'I've never watched a rockuchannel movie or show with that person and it hit me 'duh, they are collecting data on everything we have ever watched through any Roku on our account. Shouldn't be a surprise since way back when Janet Jackson had the wardrobe malfunction Tivo said it was the most replayed ever so they were watching what people watched and how we watch it.

Even beyond this, one evening my wife commented that she needed some white board markers; the next morning an app on my phone had an ad for white board markers. She had searched them on her computer and since my phone has the same IP address on the wifi, they sent me an add for them.
And even more fun, the sites you visit can see a fair amount of data about your computer setup and they can use that to 'fingerprint' your computer to identify it again.

I haven't even agreed to trade a discount with any of these companies for collecting my information.