EFF Flew a Plane over Apple's Headquarters

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/why-eff-flew-plane-over-apples-headquarters

by rastafang • 5 years ago

248 97 5 years ago

eff.org

prox• 5 years ago

Great way to protest. If they go through I will never have any Apple product again, that’s for sure.

nbzs• 5 years ago

I am already on traditional phone and my iPhone is used only for banking apps in adequate scenario.

Moved my company away from macOS to ARCH. Personally I don't have to wait to see the results of an systemic marketing and pr over product people approach.

Just read today Tim internal memo on The Verge.

Quote: There was much to celebrate, from our remarkable new product line-up to our values driven work around climate change, racial equity, and privacy.

Thanks. I am out of this.

politelemon3• 5 years ago

I've mentioned in another comment as well, whether they go through or not isn't relevant nor will it make this problem actually disappear. The cat is already out of the bag (and has been) in terms of showing what giving up privacy to a closed company will do. If not today, then another day, another egregious action will occur. It's a story as old as time, yet we collectively never learn. By next time though, a carefully coordinated PR message may be part of the 'deployment'.

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

The cat is already out of the bag (and has been) in terms of showing what giving up privacy to a closed company will do. If not today, then another day, another egregious action will occur.

I think we differ in our thoughts about what should be done about this, but you’re not wrong here.

maltalex2• 5 years ago

tl;dr the plane displayed the message “Apple, don’t scan our phones!”

There, saved you a click.

nbzso2• 5 years ago

Thanks. Such an unexciting topic. Right? Apple and privacy. Who cares? Nobody.

What about MXX ultra-mega processors, they are life saving and worth reading million articles with rumors and speculations.

maltalex2• 5 years ago

The original headline was “Why EFF Flew a Plane Over Apple's Headquarters”. I was trying to save the readers a click, not make a statement on its importance.

teddyh• 5 years ago

Why EFF did this is to get journalists to get a story to write about the issue. Nobody involved cared whether anyone at Apple saw it.

FabHK2• 5 years ago

Exactly, and for around $1000 they got good bang for the buck. A reasonable expense for lots of publicity about an important issue.

blitzar9• 5 years ago

EFF did this is to get journalists to get a story to write about the issue.

Except exactly 0 articles were written outside of them writing an article about it themselves. Where is the 'lots of publicity'? They generate just as much when they write and article about anything in general.

marcodiego• 5 years ago

Exactly. Most people who deeply agree with eff probably wouldn't even use an iDevice.

mcherm• 5 years ago

Actually, for those who have a strong concern about user privacy, there have been strong reasons to use Apple. Just a few years ago (2016) Apple spent an enormous amount of money and reputation going to court against the US government arguing that guarding the privacy of their users even from the FBI was vital even in a case involving terrorism.

But this on-device scanning proposes to undermine that.

blitzar9• 5 years ago

You think they use a Google tracking device instead?

mbesto• 5 years ago

Yes. People forget that non-profits have marketing budgets too.

blitzar9• 5 years ago

Oh how far the once noble EFF have fallen.

At least my donations are being used so they can have some fun doing shit tier youtube clickbait 'stunts'. I am looking forward to the 'its just a prank bro' series.

anothernewdude2• 5 years ago

Yeah, they should get back to raising awareness of electronic freedom issues.

blitzar9• 5 years ago

Oddly 'rasing awareness' doesnt appear in what they define as their role.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.

I would rather see them fly in with a lawsuit on durring apples keynote than fly a plane overhead for a photo op.

anothernewdude2• 5 years ago

given the 0-days, it's not just apple scanning your phones

vzaliva2• 5 years ago

I wonder how they got FAA permission to fly a private plane low over densly populated ara.

webmobdev• 5 years ago

I thought this type of advertising was quite common in the US?

syshum• 5 years ago

Authoritarians are often surprised to find out that people do actually have some limited freedoms left in the US.

When they see people exercising those freedoms they are often alarmed and quickly write their politicians to ensure those freedoms are curbed.

the parent is clearly one of those authoritarians.

WarOnPrivacy4• 5 years ago

It was, a few generations ago. That and blimps. I've seen little of either, over the last 20 years.

mwint2• 5 years ago

There’s surprisingly little regulation for GA aircraft. Curious what rule you think they were breaking?

chinathrow• 5 years ago

There's a minimum flight altitudes over populated areas of 1000ft in the US.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.119

corin_• 5 years ago

Do a search for either skywriting or air/sky tours, for a major city like NYC or SF, and you'll find companies offering planes and helicopters pretty low across the city for personal or promotional reasons. Not even that expensive, at least on the non-premium tours. Though a pretty nasty business in my opinion, both for wasting fuel on private flights and for making noise over lots of people in the city who get no benefit from having machines rumbling above their heads.

Unless you're talking about specifically thinking it looks too low in the photos, in which case I would assume it's just a case of their doing a good job planning the positions for two different flights to get great photos of one from the other that are framed well around the Apple locations.

_moof4• 5 years ago

I used to train pilots for a living. Just eyeballing it from the photos but that looks like 1000' AGL to me. Plus, that building is in San Jose's airspace, which means that aircraft was in contact with and radar-identified by San Jose ATC; the FAA therefore has a radar tape for that aircraft including altitude squawks. So unless that pilot is a complete idiot, there's no way in hell they busted 91.119.

vzaliva2• 5 years ago

It is funny how my original comment was downvoted to -1. The fact it has generated multiple thoughtful, polite, and informative responses shows that the question was not without the merit.

I think the fact it was downvoted was because some people precieved it as criticism of EFF. This is not true. I support EFF and personally do not use iPhone as a matter of principle. I was just curios about FAA regulations since I do not see many low-flying private airplaines over the Bay Area and asked an honest technical question.

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

Upvoted to help balance you out :)

caslon• 5 years ago

Unless the images are reversed, the writing would be backwards for anyone actually at the headquarters.

_Microft• 5 years ago

The first image is not reversed but maybe it was taken exactly for the purpose of being publicized with the Apple building being visible in the background.

https://www.google.de/maps/@37.3365725,-122.013226,437m/data...

frankfrankfrank2• 5 years ago

As stated, they probably made several approaches, some with the message facing the evil building, others for the documentation of the event in the images you see.

WarOnPrivacy4• 5 years ago

Great. Thinking about the building and now Cash's "Earning Ring of Hires" is my new head pest.

amelius• 5 years ago

This is how Amazon workers should unionize.

schleck82• 5 years ago

they would have pinkerton shoot down the plane

mvanbaak• 5 years ago

'During Apple’s event, a plane circled the company’s headquarters carrying an impossible-to-miss message'

They do know that: - The event was all pre-recorded - Nobody was there to see it. People were either at home or inside watching the keynote.

They should have picked a better time to spend the money.

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

As @teddyh pointed out:

Why EFF did this is to get journalists to get a story to write about the issue. Nobody involved cared whether anyone at Apple saw it.

blitzar9• 5 years ago

Can you direct me to a single article about this? (no the link for this thread, from their own website does not count)

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

Every time I read about what the EFF is doing I get the sense that their priorities are clear, they’re fighting a good fight and in my case they’re generally acting in line with the values/beliefs I hold around the areas they get involved with.

It’s cool when you find an organisation whose actions line up with your view of the world like that, and appears to be pretty effective too.

Someone else commented about the cost of this “stunt”, but I can’t see it costing a huge amount to pull off in the big scheme of things, and it does make for some excellent visuals which as someone else pointed out, may give some journalists a “hook” into the story.

I don’t donate much (monthly recurring) but I’m pretty happy with what I see coming out of the EFF and am happy to support them.

By the way, if anyone is on the fence about donating, check out their site as you can get some “cool”[1] EFF swag in return for your donation too:

https://supporters.eff.org/donate/

[1] No guarantees implied or given about how “cool” others will think your swag actually is.

politelemon3• 5 years ago

I've taken the opposite view ever since EFF has started wasting time on protests, appeals and letters on this specific issue. Instead of treating this company with the same scrutiny it treats other companies with (point out what's wrong, offer alternatives, chase legislation) it's instead spending time on these stunts as someone called it.

At this point, the cat is out of the bag, and has been out of the bag for several years, it's just hitting 'close to home' now. Withdrawals and delays that are effected as a result of these will not make any difference.

This isn't a good fight but a form of denial and while I've been a regular supporter of theirs for several years, I now question where their priorities lie.

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

I’ve seen the word “stunts” (plural) used a few times in the comments but what other things has the EFF done recently that would qualify as a stunt?

This particular thing was very clearly and deliberately a “stunt” but to me it feels more like the exception than the norm for the sort of thing EFF typically does?

Admittedly I’m fairly new to EFF so have only really been paying attention to them for a year or two.

atatatat• 5 years ago

I now question where their priorities lie.

Informing and legally fighting for the user — seemingly the "informing the user" will be more cost effective in the Apple case.

They have billions of dollars for legal costs...

someguydave• 5 years ago

some political groups value activism and appearance over substantial gains

mhb• 5 years ago

The Institute for Justice has a similar/related set of objectives: https://ij.org/

tzs• 5 years ago

Are they pretty effective?

Most proposals they object to are trying to solve real problems. I almost never see the EFF propose better ways to solve those problems. They just raise objections to everyone else's proposed solutions.

And those objections are often just low effort implausible slippery slope arguments. It is pretty easy to make a slippery slope argument for pretty much anything that has it leading to a dystopian nightmare.

Legislators and policy makers tend to pay more attention to people with solutions, even bad solutions, than to people who just object to everything, especially when those objections are low quality.

mschuster91• 5 years ago

I almost never see the EFF propose better ways to solve those problems. They just raise objections to everyone else's proposed solutions.

That's not their job though, providing solutions and listening to citizen and NGO feedback is the job of the politicians.

elif• 5 years ago

1) free software is viable. The alternatives to practically everything exist technologically.

2) can you provide an example of a 'slippery slope' that did not come to fruition? Rhetorical devices and hyperbole are exactly how you make abstract technical concerns feel real to an average 65 year old congressperson

cat199• 5 years ago

Most proposals they object to are trying to solve real problems. I almost never see the EFF propose better ways to solve those problems.

To start, if the problem is 'doing something wrong' vs 'status quo', simply stopping the 'doing something wrong' is a proposal

Nevermind the many concrete recommendations which do occur- support for net neutrality is one clear example i can recall from memory, I'm sure they are others.

Also:

https://www.eff.org/cases

has clear examples of cases impacting policy which eff have been involved in

and:

https://www.eff.org/pages/tools

has some very important tools for internet privacy, some of which which have made a huge impact

CivBase• 5 years ago

I almost never see the EFF propose better ways to solve those problems.

Why does their need to be a better solution in the case of the Apple CSAM phone scanning debacle? The solution is to just not do it.

If Apple is so worried about illegal material being uploaded to iCloud, they can just modify their iCloud encryption logic to give themselves access and scan the material on their own servers when it's uploaded. They have access to the unencrypted content either way, so it's fundamentally no less private. Actually, it's more private because at least Apple wouldn't be giving themselves access to content on my private property.

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

Are they pretty effective?

One particular area where I get the impression they have a specific measurable impact is in their legal support on certain cases:

https://www.eff.org/legal-victories

Then there is (for example) their practical solution of how to help increase HTTPS adoption with their excellent software tool, CertBot, which helps automate LetsEncrypt certificates:

https://certbot.eff.org

I’d note that it seems to be exceptionally rare for a politically active organisation to be able to both campaign on issues at a high level AND produce technically viable and relevant software tools. Those are two wildly different areas of expertise, and yet they do this, with a clear overarching narrative.

In terms of proposing more specific solutions to problems they protest against, I don’t have a strong view on whether you’re right to emphasise this or not. Maybe there is more they could do here. But in terms of the larger question of “are EFF effective?” I’d say they are demonstrably having a positive impact.

Is it enough? I don’t know. How do you measure it… Can they do better? Almost certainly.

Invictus0• 5 years ago

"You guys are protesting incorrectly" is among the most useless things you could write. It's Kaepernick all over again but for the tech crowd.

HelixEndeavor3• 5 years ago

In recent years slippery slopes have proven more and more to be real...

fsflover2• 5 years ago

Are they pretty effective

Charity Navigator gives them 4 out of 4 stars: https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/043091431.

gambler• 5 years ago

Every time I read about what the EFF is doing I get the sense that their priorities are clear, they’re fighting a good fight and in my case they’re generally acting in line with the values/beliefs I hold around the areas they get involved with.

I no longer feel this way. They got heavily partisan in the last few years and their statements on online censorship are weak and incoherent.

Why is their website on censorship (https://onlinecensorship.org/) abandoned and only contains examples from one side of the political spectrum?

Why are their lawyers participating in pro-censorship industry panels?

Where was EFF when New York Post's reporting on Hunter Biden laptop was censored by Twitter and Facebook? That was completely unprecedented, probably the biggest case of big tech censorship ever. (And yes, that reporting was accurate, contrary to what many here probably have heard: https://rumble.com/vmteq5-new-proof-emerges-about-the-hunter... .)

Where is EFF when YouTube relentlessly deletes educational videos, congressional testimonies and interviews with doctors when they say something "prohibited" about Covid-related topics?

HelixEndeavor3• 5 years ago

Sucks that people here are downvoting you for speaking the truth. Seems the HN userbase has its own ingrained biases.

bananamerica2• 5 years ago

You seem to have written an internet top comment that is not only positive and hopeful, but also devoid of cynicism. Please remove yourself from the building and leave your badge at the reception. As a security measure, you will be followed to your car. Don't come back ever again. Thanks!

tailspin201910• 5 years ago

Sorry about that. Won’t do it again.

EDIT: Ah the sad irony of you being downvoted for this comment... I guess the balance has been restored! Sigh...

globular-toast• 5 years ago

Off topic, but that HQ building genuinely looks like something from a dystopian sci-fi film.

fmajid• 5 years ago

https://v.fandom.com/wiki/Mothership_(TOS)

schleck82• 5 years ago

'The Circle'

axiosgunnar• 5 years ago

So this is where my donation dollars go? To burn fossil fuel for a photo where Photoshop would suffice?

MMS21• 5 years ago

Planes make up a small percentage of fossil fuel emissions, in fact, rice production is closely behind it in pollution statistics.

Doctor_Fegg• 5 years ago

That's the same argument as "we don't need to bother about our own consumption because China has coal-fired power stations".

frankfrankfrank2• 5 years ago

That is a very myopic perspective. You are using a computer and internet that uses electricity that is produced using fossil fuels and all its components are produced directly of fossil fuels/oil and/or only able to be extracted from the earth by the use of fossil fuels.

You live in a house/home that was produced by the use of fossil fuels. Likely every single thing all around you wherever you are right this second is made of or with fossil fuels.

Plastics, the building, soaps, lotions, the table and chair, the lamps and lightbulbs, the cables, the microwave and oven/stove, the carpet/flooring, your clothing, any makeup you use, the toilet paper, deodorant, all your food (even produce), the packaging of your food, the preservatives that are used to feed you in your city that is so far away from food sources, … and on and on and on. … ALL use and made with fossil fuels.

UltraViolence• 5 years ago

The only thing that will prevent Apple from introducing on-device scanning is people voting with their feet.

Nothing else will persuade them to stop this madness.

EFF Flew a Plane over Apple's Headquarters

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