I don’t think anyone believes apple is good for privacy and they are certainly not good for freedom.
How is this a problem when the hardware address is dumped once packets are out onto the web? Are you worried your router knows it’s you? Outside your subnet, on the internet, your Mac address is not part of the packet.
that’s wrong. the device exposed the real mac address on port 5353 (udp) which is apple’s “bonjour” service, which acts as a service discovery/zeroconf network tool.
that means that other devices in the same network can know your real mac address, this makes it very easy for say ISPs to track you across networks if you use friends networks, open wifi networks in coffee shops etc.
It’s like the “Incognito” puppet comic, except the person holding the puppet is the router, and the puppet is a little Raspberry Pi that snatches your MAC address
Still within a subnet. If you connect to an internet cafe Wifi, you should be more worried about your dns traffic for identifying you.
DNS tracking can be mitigated with Oblivious DoH, DNSCrypt or even a VPN.
And so on and so on. If you want to be tracked, you can be tracked, regardless of a mac address, or the hoops a user jump through to create the illusion of privacy. I can think of lots of unconventional ways to track a naive user.
Sooo what was the bug? That it didn’t randomise MACs when connecting?
yeah, there was a feature that was supposed to do it, but they never implemented the feature properly, which made it literally useless, and it was discovered just now, 3 years later
It randomized the MAC address for the device it connected to, but sent its real MAC address to every other device on the network.
So it wasn’t useless, it was just… Mostly useless.
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This is a real win-win for Apple.
- 3 years ago, they got to brag about implementing a privacy feature.
- And now, they get to brag about patching a newly discovered privacy bug in record time!
The target market has eaten this up like pigs at a trough too. From r/privacy of all places:
- “I’m not going to drop everything and sell all of my Apple products over something so minor especially since this issue never directly effected me.”
- “Redditors love to hate on Apple so much. As an Apple customer this really isn’t a big issue”
- “At least they took the time to fix it which is something a lot of companies wouldn’t do.”
Maybe you’re right, but to me it’s still worth it to point out those issues
I agree, and thank you for pointing them out 😊 I think everybody should hold big tech responsible, whether they like/use the products, or whether they don’t.
I consider it important to remain critical, even of the stuff I love
I can’t even with these people. Sitting duckz/suckersz doesn’t even begin to accurately convey
