Honestly, I cant possibly trust Apple to always do the right thing. A corner stone of digital privacy and security is being in control of your systems and data which Apple takes away from its customers. When I buy and use Apple products - I have to have faith in Apple to do nothing wrong with my data or send me a malicious update that compromises my system.
For a user who doesn't have the foggiest idea about technology, to whom the whole thing is "magic," why isn't this rational? Do you closely examine the safety of chemicals in all of your cleaning products, household items, clothes, your car, and the devices in your home? For most people, probably no more than in a cursory sense, as it's not normally one's area of expertise.
We have to "outsource" many aspects of daily life to experts.
Paying for their email service - I use Fastmail.
You've effectively outsourced your email security to Fastmail. How is that any different?
I was not calling Using Apple stuff irrational. I use an iPhone myself. I was just saying that I still don't "trust" it because Apple can go rogue if they want to and I can't do anything about it. If it was an open source eco system, there would be more eyes on the product that even if I personally don't read the source code entirely, some non-apple person does and Apple would be wary of the public eye.
"Do you closely examine the safety of chemicals.."
No, but they need to list the ingredients, get it certified by authorities, and labs can freely test for the ingredients without the company's input. Software is just not the same as chemicals.
True, trusting FastMail is no different than trusting Apple. I didnt mean to say that FastMail was magically more secure. Just that they have no incentive to sell me out. I could've used any company for this. Just trying to not put all eggs in one basket. It is certainly a better choice than Google which creepily builds a profile of me to make money.
I don’t mean to be short, but your views demonstrate completely the bizarre myopia of the “hacker community” (for lack of a better term.)
Everyday users experience massive troubles with security issues, and incur painful losses, at the hands of criminals and black hats! I have no awareness of a major corporation “going rogue” and deliberately harming their users, ever.
The incentive structure is the opposite: companies generally try to help their customers.
That’s not to say they don’t fuck up, particularly when the incentive structure gets “skewed.”
To see that there is actually an inverse correlation between personal control of software and security, just observe the crypto currency space.
The losses suffered by users from bugs, security failures, and hacking are comically large.
"I don’t mean to be short, but your views demonstrate completely the bizarre myopia of the “hacker community” (for lack of a better term.)
Everyday users experience massive troubles with security issues, and incur painful losses, at the hands of criminals and black hats! I have no awareness of a major corporation “going rogue” and deliberately harming their users, ever."
English is not my first language, and I was ambiguous in what I wrote. By "Apple could go rogue", I meant that Apple could change their policies on user privacy and muck around with making money of user data. True that it is bad PR, and reversal of their current state, but what if there is a leadership change and the new ones think it is a goldmine waiting to be opened?
After all, we have seen Apple do exact things they said they wont. Big iPhones, mini ipad, give up on user privacy to the government in China...
"The incentive structure is the opposite: companies generally try to help their customers."
I think that's a bit too abstract. Companies try to help customers as long as it is in their business interest.
What do I wish would exist?
A hardware company in the class of Apple that stays with hardware, and a company like RedHat that builds mobile Linux OS with a GNU app store, where users can buy apps from the developers straight and install it themselves. That way no one is in complete control. Phones are pretty powerful these days to start using the features we have developed for laptops..
For a user who doesn't have the foggiest idea about technology, to whom the whole thing is "magic," why isn't this rational? Do you closely examine the safety of chemicals in all of your cleaning products, household items, clothes, your car, and the devices in your home? For most people, probably no more than in a cursory sense, as it's not normally one's area of expertise.
We have to "outsource" many aspects of daily life to experts.
Paying for their email service - I use Fastmail.
You've effectively outsourced your email security to Fastmail. How is that any different?