this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2024
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Privacy

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How to end-to-end encrypt your iCloud (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Apparently Apple can end-to-end encrypt your iCloud, but it’s opt in because they still want to profit off your data >_<

To enable this, go to Settings -> iCloud -> Advanced Data Protection

You need to have all the devices under your apple account to be fully updated, and you’ll need to remember a 28-key passphrase for recovery

I hate how big tech treats privacy as an afterthought. This should have been the default. But oh well. Spread the world people.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 7 months ago (2 children)

If they'd make this the default a lot of leas tech-savvy people would regularly lose their data because regular account recovery mechanisms don't work with E2EE enabled. The vast majority of people don't even use password managers and yes, people forget their passwords and yes, the same thing happens with a 28-digit recovery phrase. No, many won't remember where they put it when they wrote it down. Many won't even understand what this phrase means, even when the setup process directly explains it to them.

But we can obviously also be all negative about why this isn't enabled by default and make assumptions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

There is also the possibility that some governments would crack down on encryption much more than they already do if E2EE was on by default.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Orrr it's because a lot of people don't care about E2EE and just want their files to be backed up. Can we stop demonizing every single IT company ever for anything they do?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, you’re right. We exist in a bubble. The average person is not very tech literate. I would never not E2EE my backups, but the majority of the public don’t care. It matters far more that they can recover their data if they forget their password.

I love hating on big tech, but in this instance, making E2EE the default may make people very angry when they cant just reset their password when they forget it. I’m just happy the option exists where I can toggle it on.

Hopefully one day the public will care enough about security and privacy. And hopefully the public will be using password managers so they never lose their encrypted data. Until that day, encryption kind of has to be opt-in for the general public and available for people who have basic tech skills.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Thank you. I noticed afterwards that this was lemmy.ml, an instance I steer clear of 🙊

Anyway, I remember how I once had to break news to a person who had either voluntarily or involuntarily set up BitLocker on their work computer and didn't know how to access their data anymore, and I had to tell them "sorry, you're out of luck" (now that I'm thinking, maybe there was a recovery code backed up in OneDrive?..) It's for the best to leave it opt-in for now.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

No

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Be Ware, if you have a device that cant be updated anymore, like an old iPhone or iPad, Apple forces you to delete that device from you account in order to proceed with the encription, losing synchronization with iCloud on those devices.

So Apple chooses when a device stops getting software updates and that makes the device unfit to keep being synchronized with the cloud in a secure manner

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

It would have to be super old. My 2015 and ‘16 iOS devices were fine. The only thing I had to remove was my 2010 white MacBook (which I just keep around to run home media anyway).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes, IIRC when they rolled this feature out it was an automatic upgrade to On, except if you had devices on your account that were too old to support it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

It’s not automatically on, but after the update it pops up on your screen telling you it is now available and asking if you want to opt in or not.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago

Easy, encrypt your data before uploading it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

And done thanks for the reminder

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Switch from iCloud to Mega, that's how

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Keeping your data from Malus is harder than expected

Proprietary end-to-end encryption is a joke. Where is that key stored? Who has access to the key? What guarantees do you have that Malus doesn't copy your key to their cloud?

Remember when worldwide all macs were slow because one of their servers had an issue?

Using a proprietary system for security and or privacy is for the feels only.

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What guarantees do you have that Malus doesn't copy your key to their cloud?

I remember when I used a Samsung Galaxy as by daily driver a couple years back. I enabled full disk encryption and thought okay great, now that's done. I noticed a very small, brief popup on my screen that lasted a few seconds, and it was a notice that my key had been sent to Samsung servers. Apparently you have to disable that option that's hurried deep in the settings somewhere no one would think to look, and change your password again. If I hadn't caught that brief notification at the bottom of the screen (not the normal location for notifications), I'd never have known.

The encryption password is also a max of 15 characters.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yep, you can't trust it. Same as WhatsApp backups on Google Cloud. The key is uploaded to Google too. That's why people can restore the backup on their new phone without manually backing up the private key somewhere. Of course that means Google has access to all their WhatsApp history.

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Inserted with a keystroke running this script on linux with X11

#!/usr/bin/env nix-shell
#!nix-shell -i bash --packages xautomation xclip

sleep 0.2
(echo '
spoiler Anti Commercial AI thingy [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) Inserted with a keystroke running this script on linux with X11 ```bash' cat "$0" echo '``` :::') | xclip -selection clipboard xte "keydown Control_L" "key V" "keyup Control_L"

:::