Episode 144 - Are Apple privacy services worth it?
Added 2023-09-15 12:42:00 +0000 UTCHide My Email
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210425
How Google Account shares your data
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/12921417?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-long-your-data-is-shared
Apple Private Relay
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102602
Google VPN
https://one.google.com/about/vpn/howitworks
Comments
I don't think Proton's Secure Core is similar to Apple's Private Relay. As far as I understand it, Proton's implementation is just multi-hop VPN setup, something other VPN providers can also do. The exclusivity of ProtonVPN's setup is that Secure Core forces one of the hops to go through Proton's own infrastructure. I could be wrong on this, but that's how I understood this. With other multi-hop implementations, you could choose whichever servers. With Apple's Private Relay, there is no user choice. Relays are chosen automatically, with entry node offered by Apple and exit offered by a partner company. None of this provides any meaningful protection against court orders, since all hops/relays are under one jurisdiction or one corporate entity. Even in separate entities in separate jurisdictions, coordination between law enforcement can still compel data disclosure - as seen in the case of the French climate activist.
The Hated One
2023-10-05 18:44:15 +0000 UTChttps://protonvpn.com/support/secure-core-vpn/
No Name
2023-09-22 01:22:16 +0000 UTCGreat stuff in this episode. One thing to point (and one question later). The Proton issue with the French climate activist had to do with Proton Mail and not VPN. The issues was that that it was claimed that French police were after a climate activist, but according to Proton (though they might have been climate activists) the authority were after them because of destruction of property. Either way, they log IP addresses when using ProtonMail and be given the metadata, but never the content. Sure, it’s shit that they can do this. The VPN service is different under Swiss Law. Swiss Law forbids the keeping of any logs under VPN. They cannot be compelled to log data via a court order. So the NSA can’t compelled to give them any data on their VPN use. So, one advantage of ProtonVPN is their Secure Core, which seems to act in a somewhat similar fashion to the Private Relay. The idea as you may know is that the VPN is routed first to a secure server (an entry node) under Proton’s control and then routed to a second server (an exit node). I’d be curious your opinion about this and about ProtonVPN, especially Secure Core, maybe in a podcast? https://protonvpn.com/blog/no-logs-audit/ https://protonvpn.com/blog/transparency-report/
No Name
2023-09-22 00:40:19 +0000 UTC
