iPhone apps no better for privacy than Android, Oxford study finds:
"Overall, we find that neither platform is clearly better than the other for privacy across the dimensions we studied," say the academic paper entitled "Are iPhones Really Better for Privacy?" and presented by researchers from the University of Oxford.
If this sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because an Irish team earlier this year came to similar conclusions about the privacy of the Android and iOS core operating systems, apps notwithstanding. Meanwhile, an American researcher in 2020 found that the security of iOS apps was roughly equal to that of Android apps.
[...] The researchers analyzed the code, permissions and network traffic of 12,000 randomly selected free apps from each platform that had been updated or released in 2018 or later. Each app was run on a real device, either a first-generation iPhone SE running iOS 14.2 or a Google Nexus 5 running Android 7 Nougat.
They found that nearly all (89%) of the Android apps contained at least one tracking library, which was almost always Google Play Services. The numbers weren't much lower on iOS, where 79% of apps had at least one tracking library, most likely Apple's own SKADNetwork, which tracks which ads a user clicks on.
However, 62% of iOS apps also ran Google's AdMob ad tracking library, followed by 54% of iOS apps (and 58% of Android apps) running Google Firebase. Facebook trackers were in 28% of Android apps and 26% of iOS ones.
[...] Almost all tracking companies observed were based in the U.S. About 9.5% of iOS apps and 5% of Android ones used Chinese-based trackers; 7.5% of iOS apps and 2% of Android ones used Indian trackers.
Plenty more details in the article itself.
Journal Reference:
Konrad Kollnig, Anastasia Shuba, Reuben Binns, et al. Are iPhones Really Better for Privacy? Comparative Study of iOS and Android Apps, (DOI: http://arxiv.org/abs/2109.13722)
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 15 2021, @03:01AM (1 child)
You are still tethered to AT&T and Verizon. If you don't get run over by a garbage truck, you'll get run over by a septic tank truck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 15 2021, @11:39AM
If the phone were secure, could the service provider defeat it?
Your service provider could sell your location from their towers, but the phone should be encrypting the traffic so it's all OTT to them?
Despite assurances, it appears near impossible to control what is on the app store, but you should be able to control your own apps.
(It is interesting that these assurances are the main justification for the monopoly of the app store.)
Aside from the question of how secure a phone is with apps, what about without?
What if your don't load any apps, and just use the vanilla phone as shipped from apple, etc.
It is a bit draconian use case, but is the base Apple more secure than an Android?
The Apple faithful would like to think that the business model of A versus G would nudge things in that direction.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Friday October 15 2021, @03:43AM (2 children)
There's probably some sort of incentive for app developers to do this, like 3% of the ad revenue gained in the process or something.
Developing software isn't free, of course, but part of me wishes that so much of our capitalist society these days wasn't clearly designed around screwing over the consumer.
"You know, Burke, I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them fucking each other over for a goddamn percentage." -"Aliens"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 15 2021, @02:13PM
There really should be a disclosure of how much they're making on ads and personal data sales with profit sharing for the user. It's pretty ridiculous that nobody gets to know how much the data is going for and where it's going.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 16 2021, @11:50AM
I wish software were more straightforward free trade.
You want it, you pay me for it, and it's yours. None of this "free" or "$5" shit subsidized by a bunch of effing tracking for ad sales. Just a straight up purchase and you leave me alone afterward. Maybe at most let me know if there is an updated version available.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 15 2021, @08:38PM
So while Apple claims to be pro-privacy, it has done two majorly bad things for privacy:
* It has pioneered the walled garden: The locked down bootloaders, signed applications and censoring app-store. Sure, others are doing this too thesedays, but apple has led the way. The amount of liberty seized by apple from individual humans has been terrible. Remember the think different ad ? They have become what they pretended to smash...
* Its inscruitable hardware, particularly its power status (is this device on ? does it transmit ? can one even remove the battery ?) means one can't ever be sure that the device isn't phoning home. And with the introduction of the little tracking buttons, iphones are now conspiring to scan for neighbouring devices even when nominally powered down (!) and without network connectivity (!!).
There should be an international movement for smartphone free Tuesdays, where these things stay at home, or at least in a faraday cage sleeve only to be removed in case of emergency.
(Score: 2) by corey on Friday October 15 2021, @10:43PM (1 child)
That feature to turn off Tracking “Allow apps to request to track”? That caused Facebook to scream and writhe in pain. Did that factor into the researcher’s research? I didn’t read the article yet.
I’ve never clicked any ads. Never will.
(Score: 2) by helel on Saturday October 16 2021, @02:43PM
The Ad ID helps Facebook, google, or whoever track your activity between different applications. By disabling it it's harder for the to say confidently "corey who posts on SN is the same coreygamehandle who players candy crush on the loo."
So yes, it did factor into their research. The feature is just ... Less impressive than most people think it is.