Seeing an absurd number of messages in my iCloud backup lead me to investigate the internals of the Apple Messages local database. I documented my attempts to clean up some bad records.
I'm planning my escape from iCloud. Any recommendations for storage that dont mine data or use it for machine learning? Affordable is also great! #iCloud#ethical#cloudstorage#privacy#blockstorage? Please boost to give me more response as I think there are more mastodonians with the same question.
"Apple was secretly sharing data with law enforcement agencies and left a security backdoor [in iPhones] that may have been exploited by the Chinese government for political repression."
How to protect your privacy on iPhone
Turn on "Advanced Data Protection"
Turn off iCloud services for apps that don't need it like Mail and Calendar
Turn off Location Services for apps that don't need it
Chrome Beta 118 on macOS 13.5+ can now access iCloud Keychain passkeys! This means we'll be able to create and auth with the same passkeys as Safari! 🎉
According to the Chrome roadmap, Version 118 is set to become the Stable release in the beginning of October:
#TodayILearned that #macOS#Spotlight will not index #iCloud Drive documents unless they are fully downloaded—unless you are searching for keywords stored in their extended attributes.
This is a surprisingly big oversight. The more you use #iCloudDrive to store your documents (which Apple somewhat encourages you to do), the more likely you won’t be able to find them by searching for their content with Spotlight.
Even with Advanced Data Protection activated on #iCloud,
Apple can still access your iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. The encryption applies in transit and on their servers, but it's not end-to-end. Apple holds the keys.
Interesting: I noticed that iCloud Drive normalises file names to their canonical decomposition.
For instance, if you create a file on one machine with a precombined 'ä' character in its name (UTF-8: C3 A4), on another machine it will show up with an 'a' character followed by the combining diaeresis character (61 CC 88).
Surprising. Could cause problems if you use various other ways in addition to iCloud to copy files back and forth. Be careful out there.
I recently tried to share a calendar tied to an iCloud account with someone who doesn’t use Apple products. They weren’t able to subscribe. We didn’t dive into full-on troubleshoot and solution mode.
Is there some voodoo that needs to happen?
Create calendar
Share calendar (results in email with link)
Recipient follows link…
They received an error saying they couldn’t subscribe to the calendar.
I feel like I was able to do this before without problem.
My kingdom for a way to completely totally forever deactivate, remove, and obliterate the very existence of #iCloud anything in iOS for all time on my phone. I don’t use it, I don’t want it, and I can’t find a way to stop #Apple from notifying me that I need to go to Settings and type in passcode to enable that which I don’t want.
It is a sad commentary for #iCloud and #Apple and its #cloudservice when I store a couple images in iCloud files on my #iPhone, then go to my #Mac to use them and discover they aren't there. The Mac has no way of telling #Finder, "Hey, stupid. Refresh. Look for my new files that I need NOW!"
No button. No clickable icon. No menu item.
So what did I do?
On the iPhone, I moved (copied) the image files to #Dropbox. The files instantly up/downloaded to my Mac. Literally, less than 5 seconds.
How much am I paying Apple for 2 TB of storage? Well, too embarrassing; look it up. What I am paying for Dropbox is zilch, nothing, nada, bupkis.
iMessage quantum security arrives with iOS 17.4 - @9to5Mac
This would have been the perfect article to remind people that all of this E2EE doesn’t matter if you backup your iMessages in iCloud, where they will be backed up clear-text to Apple/NSA, unless both parties turn on Advanced Data Protection
🖼️ Privacy-Focused Google Photos Alternative 'Ente' is Now Open-Source
➥ It's FOSS
「 The developers have completely open-sourced their server source code for everyone to access.
Doing that also resulted in merging all of Ente's code into a single repository that can be cloned to develop robust alternatives to the likes of Google Photos and Apple icloud 」
Reisetauglich: Geteilte iCloud-Fotomediathek vereint gemeinsam aufgenommene Fotos
Die geteilte iCloud-Fotomediathek wurde mit iOS 16.1 eingeführt. Auch ich habe die «Geteilte Fotomediathek» lange missachtet, bzw. nicht genutzt. Aktuell, vor den Sommerferien, sei dieser Hinweis zu dieser Funktion gegeben. In den Einstellungen → Fotos des iPhones gibt es die Einrichtung vorzunehme…
I've gotten a few "<Kid>'s Apple ID was used to sign in to iCloud on a new device" emails today that have me mildly concerned. I've logged in to the kid's iCloud account and verified that I don't see any unknown devices there. But while I'm used to sometimes seeing these spuriously when picking up a device that hasn't been used in a while, "out of the blue when everyone in the house is definitely asleep" is a new one for me. Anyone know how to debug this? #macos#icloud#infosec
Context: APA's PsycNET is chronically inaccessible to me. To diagnose this, I need to figure out the scope of the problem. (Want more context? See my replies to either one of the polls.)
Is #APA's #PsycNET chronically inaccessible to you?
(It usually blocks me for "trying to access ...using a different IP". No other journal article sites have issues with my IP or block me. Just APA's.)
If you often experience what I do, then PsycNET may be unprepared for shared IPs on #privacyConscious campus networks and services (e.g., #Apple's #iCloud Private Relay).
Hat tip to @elduvelle for asking me to poll this site.