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Steve Jobs Is Watching You: Apple Seeking to Patent Spyware
Essentially, Apple's patent provides for a device to investigate a user's identity, ostensibly to determine if and when that user is "unauthorized," or, in other words, stolen. More specifically, the technology would allow Apple to record the voice of the device's user, take a photo of the device's user's current location or even detect and record the heartbeat of the device's user. Once an unauthorized user is identified, Apple could wipe the device and remotely store the user's "sensitive data." Apple's patent application suggests it may use the technology not just to limit "unauthorized" uses of its phones but also shut down the phone if and when it has been stolen.
However, Apple's new technology would do much more. This patented device enables Apple to secretly collect, store and potentially use sensitive biometric information about you. This is dangerous in two ways: First, it is far more than what is needed just to protect you against a lost or stolen phone. It's extremely privacy-invasive and it puts you at great risk if Apple's data on you are compromised. But it's not only the biometric data that are a concern. Second, Apple's technology includes various types of usage monitoring — also very privacy-invasive. This patented process could be used to retaliate against you if you jailbreak or tinker with your device in ways that Apple views as "unauthorized" even if it is perfectly legal under copyright law.
Here's a sample of the kinds of information Apple plans to collect:
- The system can take a picture of the user's face, "without a flash, any noise, or any indication that a picture is being taken to prevent the current user from knowing he is being photographed";
- The system can record the user's voice, whether or not a phone call is even being made;
- The system can determine the user's unique individual heartbeat "signature";
- To determine if the device has been hacked, the device can watch for "a sudden increase in memory usage of the electronic device";
- The user's "Internet activity can be monitored or any communication packets that are served to the electronic device can be recorded"; and
- The device can take a photograph of the surrounding location to determine where it is being used.
In other words, Apple will know who you are, where you are, and what you are doing and saying and even how fast your heart is beating. In some embodiments of Apple's "invention," this information "can be gathered every time the electronic device is turned on, unlocked, or used." When an "unauthorized use" is detected, Apple can contact a "responsible party." A "responsible party" may be the device's owner, it may also be "proper authorities or the police."
Apple does not explain what it will do with all of this collected information on its users, how long it will maintain this information, how it will use this information, or if it will share this information with other third parties. We know based on long experience that if Apple collects this information, law enforcement will come for it, and may even order Apple to turn it on for reasons other than simply returning a lost phone to its owner.
This patent is downright creepy and invasive — certainly far more than would be needed to respond to the possible loss of a phone. Spyware, and its new cousin traitorware, will hurt customers and companies alike — Apple should shelve this idea before it backfires on both it and its customers.
84 Comments so far
Show AllAfter reading this, who in the world would ever buy an Apple product??????
After reading this, who in the world would ever buy an Apple product??????
Nearly everyone!
Do you think most people pay any attention to this stuff??? Hell no, being perceived as "cool" is far more important.
If people payed attention do you think we would be in this fascist, soft-police state that we call Murka?
Considering 98% of US voters vote for Dems and Repugs, they don't value privacy, so expect Apple's sales to be impacted.
I wouldn't and I know it will hit pcs soon.
It really bugs me. I don't even view porn - I'm a woman with no interest. I'm sure there are a lot of other people it will bug too much to have that in their house.
How friggen Orwellian.
no comment
Not me, and I'll send this to everyone I can.
I loved Apple products till I read this. I find it very interesting from a legal standpoint that Apple thinks they own the product after I buy it. Can I sue them after they take unauthorized photos of me? What kind of thinking is this? Or is it just Dollar Signs in Eyeballs? This belongs in the "Going TOO Far" department.
I wonder how long Steve Jobs has been a fascist.
apple has always been closed and proprietary, both in terms of software AND hardware.
Those early apple thingies from the 80s, if you tried to open them up and replace or change something had so much exposed high voltage coils in them they could easily kill you.
like always all you have to do is use a Linux phone. and of course a Linux computer.
If you don't you are just an idiot.
Ah.., looking trendy comes with a price...contributing to slave labor and Orwellian society.
Pretty ironic - remember that iconic early Apple ad with the guy running up the aisle of a huge auditorium and smashing a theater-sized telescreen with some sort of Big Brother ranting away on it?
And then through the 1990's how "Wired" magazine would rave and fawn over the capitalist PC, software, dot-com and telecom exces - calling them latter-day "anarchists"?
So what is the name of this technology and is it currently in use? in iPhones? or is it merely being contemplated??
(I do not intend to ever purchase, nor could I afford, anything beginning with a lower case "i". I've always been 'a PC person' anyway, not a fan of Apple/Mac, devices or philosophy.)
The software is out there. A school loaned laptops out to kids and took over 55000 pictures of them sometimes - undressed through their lap top, it likely recorded more than just pics though. That was in the news recently and it came back that the school had not broken the law.
I just posted a comment about the Fox/Saudi connection about being cable-free. For this article I am proud to say that I am also cell phone-free. This is pure Fascism all the way around. I always new Apple was always a sleaze-slinger and the sheeple camping out for three days to buy the latest piece of disposable dreck are clueless assholes.
Of course law enforcement will come for it. Very forward thinking of Steve Jobs. Storing all that data for ready use by our masters will cost money though...And thus is born the revenue stream of the future; For-profit citizen monitoring.
I believe I see an upcoming niche in the market for suppositories made of Semtex.
We have to buy Apple products because people who buy apple are "cool" while people who buy pcs are "geeky nerds". I know this is true because I saw it on TV.
Interesting to find someone sharing a name with me.
I can't see as I am all that thrilled about spyware.
Something needs to be done about reigning in the power (and the greed) of large corporations. They do not have Constitutional restrictions that exist in government.
I knew there was plenty of fishy things going on with those iPods out there. I've been downloading MP3s and/or recording music to MP3s throughout the last 12 years. I'm glad that more CD players can play MP3s that I burn to CD and I'm doing the same thing with divx movies to DVD+-R and DVD+-R DL. I can even put MP3s on a USB flash drive and play it in the car. I know it's not right technically speaking but I would rather stay a proud crook instead of another victim to spyware and Big Brother.
Sir, it's just another example of getting punished for actually taking the independent road over the "fixed" road. You're not a crook. You're a hero.
A hero, who likes bad quality audio.
Technically true about mp3 vs CD quality and divx vs DVD quality but it's usually hard to tell them apart. I believe divx has caught up to coming close to HD too. In case you haven't noticed, purchasing MP3s online has become the norm and I wouldn't be surprised to find the same thing happening to video what with Divx Video on Demand also going DRM. I used to think that with storage getting bigger and cheaper that people would eventually go WAV on CDs with uncompressed video to follow but I was wrong.
I still listen to music on these things called "LP records", or even "casette tapes".
What are those? : )
Most inventions today seem to have a military use. If you look closely many are 'tested by U.S. Military"
Although I'm no fan of Microsoft or various mediocre laptops I've made do with over the years, I've never taken a bite of the Apple franchise.
(Unless you count the free basic QuickTime player.)
True Believers insist that the superior design and manufacture of Apple products makes for an exhilarating and rewarding user experience, and is worth the price.
I've been tempted, but I don't like the cultish vibe.
The latter has most recently been reinforced by my brother-in-law, a highly educated prep school principal; over the years, he's simply scavenged surplus PCs from the schools he's worked for-- good enough for "family" use, in his opinion.
But he bought himself an iPhone, and I don't think it's left his hand since-- unless it's in his pocket playing music. He wasn't exactly a raconteur before this, but during get-togethers he sits there either "checking" things privately, or joins the conversation by jumping on any excuse to... check his iPhone some more to ostensibly edify the rest of us.
All in all, very obnoxious and mildly creepy.
Steve Jobs must have seen him coming.
"But he bought himself an iPhone, and I don't think it's left his hand since-- ... "
This is a totally obnoxious behavior that so many people exhibit now, glued to their electronic toys. It is impossible to have a conversation anymore without being ignored for their attraction, or addiction, to their new electronic gadgets.
I have rather "plain jane" nokia cell phone that I will be dumping as soon as my contract is up. I'm an old guy, 60. The home phone is more than enough for me; I don't need to be any more accessible than that. Additionally, as soon as the contract is up I'll be dumping my "Verizon FiOS" TV, Internet and Telephone package. The service is terrible and way too expensive. I'll save $1896.00 (!!!!) a year, more than enough to pay my property taxes and nsurance on my tiny townhouse. There are plenty of Wi-Fi hotspots around for free internet access. Television is a wasteland that does nothing more than suck your brains out through your eyes and ears.
As long as we're commiserating: I honestly thought I'd finally get cable TV after I moved from an apartment to this little house a few years ago.
Then the switch to digital broadcasting was announced, and I held off because I just don't watch that much TV, and/or didn't want to feel I had to "get my money's worth" from 200 crap cable channels.
I just about "break even" with the Digital Wonderland using "rabbit-ears"-type antennas on my sets; reception is iffy, there are one or two extra PBS channels, and a shitload of useless Christian and low-rent shopping channels.
My sister warned me off FIOS, not that I was particularly interested.
But not a day goes by that I don't get mail from either Verizon FIOS or Comcast (local cable cabal), not to mention the bursts of Verizon telephone solicitations. I AM getting my money's worth out of CallerID, I guess... thanks to Verizon. (scratches head).
Just from carrying this waste of paper to the trashcan reveals that it's all the high-def bread and circuses of blockbuster movies and sports, sports, sports. O, Brave New World!...
PS: Still another tangent that's been discussed at CD. My dr sent me for blood work and an x-ray last week, and although I "like" this hospital I couldn't take the mandatory big-screen CNN broadcast in every waiting area. I obeyed the big handwritten "do not adjust TV" signs, but the unavoidable stream of homogenized dreck truly creeped me out.
There is a simple gadget you can buy called "TV B-Gone". It is a small key-fob sized IR remote control will surrepititiously turn off (or on) any TV.
https://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_tvbg_main.php
Thanks for the tip, Cat.
"It is impossible to have a conversation anymore without being ignored for their attraction, or addiction, to their new electronic gadgets." –(dkshaw)
–No doubt this is true. Welcome to the world of the 'post human.'
But the darker truth here is that even without the now omnipresent intervention of electronic gadgetry, it is impossible to have a conversation irregardless; it may soon even be illegal. The negation of the 'other' proceeds forthwith, as it does in Afghanistan or Iraq. People of the human world are 'disappeared,' whether by Predator drone or ipod.
Perhaps it is fortunate that there are no 'real' politics in America. For what, indeed, could one talk about, when speech, if not conversation itself– that is not strictly instrumental in nature– is all but forbidden?
The other afternoon at the local YMCA, near the hospital where I work, an actual 'conversation' broke about between two women on the stair masters besides me; although literally everyone close enough to audibly hear the voices were wired into iPods, and could not actually 'hear' the conversation, it was met with hard stares and obvious opprobrium, as if this was a clear breach of etiquette. It goes without saying that what was actually being discussed, 'the content' of the conversation, did not matter at all, since no one heard it; it was just enough to 'see' the gestures of conversation to condemn it.
In San Francisco, perhaps the most 'wired' city in the world, incidents such as these are as common as the air we breathe.They never fail to disquiet.
Entombed in the silence and isolation of their technologies, fascism swarms all around...emanating from within. The human act of public conversation is now seen as a 'subversion' of the trans- human diktat, (perhaps soon even a crime) an invasion of a mandated right to utter privacy.
Curiously, I am beginning to think that 'spyware' is not really an invasion of privacy, a privacy that no longer existed anyway, but the creation of a 'meta privacy,' or a new type of ultimate privatization.
Not at all surprising, as in America, there is no public realm, only the fascism of the surfaces, as communicated by the image, and the image alone.
–Kim.
"Curiously, I am beginning to think that 'spyware' is not really an invasion of privacy, a privacy that no longer existed anyway, but the creation of a 'meta privacy,' or a new type of ultimate privatization."
Kim, I don't know if you have been working on tackling ongoing spyware for the last decade like I have but you are correct. Spyware has everything to do with getting people lulled into a false sense of security. Privatization from there on out is child's play. I have worked with IT programming and have had to find ways to prevent as many new forms of spyware from invading the computer systems at work from time to time.
Hello Max,
No, neither my husband or I have ever worked in anything more technical than medicine. We are simply computer 'end users.'
The sentence you cited from my posting was just a thought that surfaced derived and projected from observation. I am glad you have leant your expertise to elaborate on what I had sensed. Many thanks.
When I am at the YMCA gym, the thought struck me that at first, all the folks wired into the 'silence' or privacy of their iPods, are really the new 'community' or the new 'public.' What looks like 'privacy' is really anything but, despite the enforced isolation; the people without the iPods are really the only one's who commune with what is left of privacy. There is a paradox here which I do not, as yet, understand.
I do know, I feel for certain, that 'communication,' as we have known it, is being modified or obviated, if not eviscerated, to the point where it is no longer necessary, in the 'old ways' based on organism.
The same goes for thinking. Not a novel observation, by any means. Everything is being pared down to pure instrumentality.
In a city like San Francisco it sometimes feels that the most highly educated people either don't think or don't want to think, or really, in truth, see no need to think.
The corollary observation here is that in America, the 'evolving' forms of fascism, appear as anything but. This is why they are so successful, for they seem almost 'occult.'
...neither my husband or I have ever worked in anything more technical than medicine....
Practicing medicine isn't technical??
I guess civil engineering (what I do) isn't "technical" either. Only stuff having to do with either digital electronics or the un-natural arcane languages to progrm the gadgets is "technical."
As long as humans can have any control over it, it will never be 100% technical. The degree to which a profession is technical can vary from profession to profession. Also, keep in mind that while computer programming and telecommunications networking were always fully technical, other fields of study have only become more technical over time. I would assume that doctors practicing medicine today would have to have some basic computer literacy as opposed to 20 years ago. That is what I assume Kim was implying when she replied to MP.
"As long as humans can have any control over it, it will never be 100% technical."
–(Stanley1979)
Thanks Stanley! You made my point better than I ever could.
Good medical practitioners, at least in my opinion, resist the mandate to make medical practice more instrumental by dehumanizing it and 'streamlining' it into pure technology.
What many in our field have found increasingly disconcerting, is that the patients, especially the younger American ones, are those resisting the now, all but vestigial trace elements, of the older, 'human' medicine. It makes them uncomfortable.
This ties in with my observations at the gym from previous postings
You two clearly operate under exactly the rather restricted "modern" definition of "technical" I was talking about - and by doing so, you proved my point!
"Technical" simply means "of or pertaining to the complexities of an intellectual discipline". It does NOT mean "application of electronic gadgets and computers". It always seemed to me that medicine is plenty "technical" even when nothing more complicated than a stethoscope is used - or it better be.
"It always seemed to me that medicine is plenty "technical" even when nothing more complicated than a stethoscope is used - or it better be."
Medicine used to be more than pills and stethoscopes. Before modern medicine, doctors used to take natural cures into consideration. Unfortunately, those seductive Big Pharma commercials driving and seducing patients into bugging their doctors to give them those poisons, doctors being tied to Big Insurance whose insurance policies offer discounts on those poisons but no coverage for natural cures because they expected more business, and the spoils of capitalism have ruined the good name of medicine.
There certainly are better alternatives (diet, exercise, cognitive therapy, or at least cheaper generics that work at least as well) to almost all of those direct-to-patient advertized drugs. Such advertizing ought to be outlawed.
But All modern drugs are not "poison".
And many "natural cures" (notably "homeopathic" stuff) are basically quackery.
"And many "natural cures" (notably "homeopathic" stuff) are basically quackery."
To be fair, those cures don't get the same level of looking into as the advertised drugs on the market. It doesn't make them quackery just because scientists simply refused to be fair and open about their testing.
Not to Kim:
"irregardless" is not a word, regardless of what anyone might otherwise think.
I understand that 'irregardless' is not a word, but more like an informal colloquialism that is widely used.
Since this format on which we all post is strictly speaking, an 'informal' one, I feel its usage is not strictly a cardinal sin, as it would be in more exigently grammatical venues where the appropriate care should be exercised.
Thank you for your concern. 'Irrespective,' would be correct. English is not our first language, but we appreciate that you reminded us of our error.
-Kim & Vashkar
Excellent, and rather disturbing observations, reminicent of a Linh Dinh essay.
I'm intrigued by "TV B-Gone", except that I'd probably feel guilty if some poor flunky had to hassle with troubleshooting the problem, etc.
Unless it's become so popular that they'd just whirl around and say, "OK, who's got the 'TV B-Gone'?"
But speaking of "iPod"-type portable music players: it took me forever to get one (not an iPod), and I mostly use it in the house because I've always been a "headphones" listener anyway.
I've considered using it to ward off CNN in the hospital waiting rooms next time, but feel like a dinosaur because I don't like that isolated "bubble" feeling-- especially if I'm in a waiting room expecting my name to be called.
Even when commuting, I only use it as a last resort when I'm trapped near excruciatingly banal or loud conversation.
In recent years, I notice more and more how evil hides in plain sight. And privacy has become public.
When I used my TV B-gone, I mostly worried about being discovered and then beaten up by the bar patrons. But in some situations the annoying TV can be tuned off and no one ever notices. TV in some restaurant dining areas are especially annoying.
VASHKAR: Great post! I believe Harold Pinter, were he alive today, would salute your prose, particularly the keen articulation of the surreal scene set by persons so plugged into their personal electronic devices as to find actual company an annoying rarity.
Also, great conversation (and many evocative points raised) between WJM & Rfloh.
Thanks to all.
i totally agree. i rather enjoy being "unplugged." i have no internet or phone at home, nor do i have a tv. (i do have a cell phone, however, although i do entertain the thought of dumping it) it allows me to think more freely and (gasp!) read books. hmmm...like 1984. it's frightening how things are moving in that direction, ableit slower than Big Brother may have hoped.
My new motto is "the hippies were right." Kill your TV.
I'm generally with you on the need to be unplugged more often than not and I can't tell you how much my wife and I enjoyed years of watching almost no television. That doesn't necessarily mean that going 100% unplugged will necessarily work. Few would go 100% unplugged and even if everyone were to hop on that bandwagon, the corporations would find ways to privatize what the majority of the people are hooked to.
It's not technology itself that causes trouble. It's how people allow it to control them that makes the difference. If everyone is interested on hot button social issues instead of economic issues or stopping the military industrial complex, then bread and circuses it will be.
The problem that exists is it may already be too late for people to wake up and change horses. Maybe I'm wrong but the majority could go unplugged and Corporate America would still find ways to just as easily control us.
I don't own ANYTHING Apple, and I won't. That decision was made about 15 years ago when I was running a mac on my Amiga in a window. It ran just fine, seeing as how the hardware was almost the same, and I learned a bit about system 7.5. HATED it.
"An unexpected error has occurred". What the hell do you tell me when one you DO expect happens? I tried upgrading the system, and it got all the way through 14 freaking floppies, couldn't find a file on the last one, and told me that it couldn't find a file, so everything is just as it was before I started this process (over 2 HOURS later).
They haven't really gotten any better since, either, from what I've seen and heard from my Mac loving sister. Their "new" OS is built entirely on top of a system they don't own and didn't write anything for. it's open source, but they don't ever seem to contribute anything back to the community, which is one of the core principles of the open source community. They are now and have ALWAYS acted in poor faith.
So Jobs wants to spy on everyone? Screw him. He has NO right to infringe on other people's rights to use his third world destroying hardware as the LAW sees fit. I hope he kills off the entire goddamned company, to be honest. I DON'T like Apple, and I will never pay a dime to own ANYTHING they made. I don't care if it's given to me. I sincerely hope that he tries this and gets a major class action lawsuit against him and the GD company. Somehow I don't think that even die hard Apple users want to be told how they can and cannot use their PAID FOR items.
God, I HATE this kind of crap. Corporations need to be reigned in and HARD. This is just the tip of the freaking iceberg. Those of you who hate gov't above all will be selling your asses to big business and think nothing of it, as long as it's not the gov't. Too bad you fail to see that the gov't is the ONLY hope you have of protection against scum like this. You can vote for a gov't official, you CAN'T for ANY officer in ANY corporation that wants every penny of yours they can steal.
"They haven't really gotten any better since, either, from what I've seen and heard from my Mac loving sister. Their "new" OS is built entirely on top of a system they don't own and didn't write anything for. it's open source, but they don't ever seem to contribute anything back to the community, which is one of the core principles of the open source community. They are now and have ALWAYS acted in poor faith."
I'm hardly a fan of Apple, but this is incorrect. Apple's OS nowadays, the core at least, is based on FreeBSD, yes. But they didn't steal it. They got the permission of the FreeBSD foundation to use the code. They in turn have contributed code back to FreeBSD; also, some regular FreeBSD contributors work for Apple. IIRC, they also haven an internship program with the FreeBSD foundation, ie FreeBSD hackers / contributors get internships with Apple. AFAICT, the long term goal appears to be slowly to merge the 2 OSs. It is hardly a case of Apple simply stealing the code.