Security — ldstephens

EU provisionally agrees on law that would force Apple to allow alternative app stores and sideloading

March 25, 2022

The pros and cons of iOS sideloading

European lawmakers have provisionally agreed upon a new law that would force Apple to allow user access to third-party app stores and permit the sideloading of apps on iPhones and iPads, among other sweeping changes designed to make the digital sector fairer and more competitive.

[…]

The wording of the legislation has yet to be finalized, but once the language is in place, the European Parliament and the Council will need to approve it. The regulation must be implemented within six months after its entry into force. Digital competition chief Margrethe Vestager said today that she expected the DMA to come into force “sometime in October.”

Should the Digital Markets Act go on to become law, Apple will have to make major changes to its ‌iPhone‌ and ‌iPad‌ platform to accommodate the requirement to allow for non-App Store apps. Apple said it was “concerned that some provisions of the DMA will create unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities for our users.”

Apple is also facing similar legislation in the United States, with U.S. House lawmakers in June introducing antitrust bills that would result in major changes to the tech industry if passed.

The pros and cons of iOS sideloading

🖇 Kashmir Hill: I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move

February 16, 2022

After talking to people freaked out by Apple 'AirTag detected near you' alerts, I decided to test out the location trackers currently on the market.

By planting them on my husband and his belongings.

With his permission. https://t.co/I6yyIzoWZW pic.twitter.com/yMntEL1H2x
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) February 11, 2022

Kashmir Hill, writing for The New York Times

When my colleague and I reported on this, experts we spoke with were of two minds about Apple’s attempts to prevent nefarious use, with some saying the alerts were inadequate and others praising the company for unearthing a larger problem: widespread surreptitious tracking, usually done with devices that don’t notify a person of their presence.

I decided to examine both claims by planting three AirTags, three Tiles, and a GPS tracker on my husband and his belongings to see how precisely they revealed his movements and which ones he discovered.

If you enjoyed the above story by Kashmir you may also enjoy this one Life Without the Tech Giants, Goodbye Big Five. The story is a couple of years old but it’s just as pertinent today as it was when she wrote it.

This is a story of how, over six weeks, I cut them out of my own life and tried to prevent them from knowing about me or monetizing me in any way—not just by putting my iPhone in a drawer for a week or only buying local, but by really, truly blocking these companies from accessing me and vice versa. I wanted to find out how hard it would be—or if I could even do it—given that these tech giants dominate the internet in so many invisible ways that it’s hard to even know them all.

It’s not just logging off of Facebook; it’s logging off the countless websites that use Facebook to log in. It’s not just using DuckDuckGo instead of Google search; it’s abandoning my email, switching browsers, giving up a smartphone, and living life without mapping apps. It’s not just refusing to buy toilet paper on Amazon.com; it’s being blocked from reading giant swaths of the internet that are hosted on Amazon servers, giving up websites and apps that I didn’t previously know were connected to the biggest internet giant of them all.

People have done thought experiments before about which of the “frightful five” it would be hardest to live without, but I thought it would be more illuminating, if painful, to do an actual experiment: I would try to block a tech giant each week, to tell the tale of life without it. At the end of those five weeks, I’d try to block all of them at once. God help me.

#Privacy #Security #Linked

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