Google already has too much private information and now Apple wants to patent the right to spy on you
iPhone 4, sending back private information to the mother ship (picture Apple Computer)
Commentary by Eva Galperin, EFF
Your digital camera may embed metadata into photographs with the camera’s serial number or your location.
Your printer may be incorporating a secret code on every page it prints which could be used to identify the printer and potentially the person who used it.
If Apple puts a particularly creepy patent it has recently applied for into use, you can look forward to a day when your iPhone may record your voice, take a picture of your location, record your heartbeat, and send that information back to the mothership.
This is traitorware: devices that act behind your back to betray your privacy.
Perhaps the most notable example of traitorware was the Sony rootkit. In 2005 Sony BMG produced CD’s which clandestinely installed a rootkit onto PC’s that provided administrative-level access to the users’ computer. The copy-protected music CD’s would surreptitiously install its DRM technology onto PC’s.
Ostensibly, Sony was trying prevent consumers from making multiple copies of their CD’s, but the software also rendered the CD incompatible with many CD-ROM players in PC’s, CD players in cars, and DVD players. Additionally, the software left a back door open on all infected PC’s which would give Sony, or any hacker familiar with the rootkit, control over the PC.
If a consumer should have the temerity to find the rootkit and try to remove the offending drivers, the software would execute code designed to disable the CD drive and trash the PC.
Traitorware is sometimes included in products with less obviously malicious intent.
Printer dots were added to certain color laser printers as a forensics tool for law enforcement, where it could help authenticate documents or identify forgeries.
Apple’s scary-sounding patent for the iPhone is meant to help locate and disable the phone if it is lost of stolen.
Don’t let these good intentions fool you—software that hides itself from you while it gives your personal data away to a third party is dangerous and dishonest.
As the Sony BMG rootkit demonstrates, it may even leave your device wide open to attacks from third parties.
Traitorware is not some science-fiction vision of the future.
It is the present. Indeed, the Sony rootkit dates back to 2005.
Apple’s patent application indicates that we are likely to see more traitorware on the horizon.
The EFF believes that your software and devices should not be a tool for gathering your personal data without your explicit consent.
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JC
When I download an app for my iPhone4 and it asks to use my current location, I *always* say no. There was an article on, maybe the Huffington Post about this a week or two ago, said that Google phone app makers are less regulated as to these types of programs, while the app makers for iPhone are more regulated. They said free apps are more likely to send your info, mostly for marketing etc.
Still, my info. I want to choose who gets it, though I realize in today’s world this is not always an option.
When in doubt, opt out.
Fransen
I thoroughly agree about the problems with some companies. I bought a VERY expensive Sony all-in-one computer because I thought it top of the line, particularly for art and photography. However, I am also a very political animal and frequently chat with others about the state of the world. When I attempted to play a sound clip of part of a speech of some politician, I could not play it to my friends. After hours of trying to tweak settings, I finally called Sony.
Well Sony informed me there were no settings that would work because they had modified the sound card so that it would not play over the Internet, because they own a music label. There was no indication in the specs that Sony was deficient in this common computer ability.
I have tried other drivers and got it to work for an hour or so, then it reverts back. Do I have a Sony rootkit? I don’t know but I warn everyone against buying Sony. Imagine musicians, you would not be able to play snippets of your newest would be hit to your distributor or colleague.
Stephen Pate
That is totally weird. If you search on Google for your computer and DRM there is probably a workaround.
Sony are losing ground – they used to control games, television, home theatre, Columbia pictures and music. All their holdings are in decline.
Fransen
@sdpate yes there is a work around of sorts, a USB Sound card from Creative Sound Blaster for $80 but after spending $1500 on the ‘puter why should I have to spend more?