Top all-time · #775
Jeffrey Paul
Personal blog · sneak.berlin · on HN as sneaksecurityprogramming
Jeffrey Paul's personal blog at sneak.berlin covers security and programming. Since 2017, 83 different Hacker News readers have linked it 240 times, most often “Your Computer Isn't Yours”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 1 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Jeffrey Paul's posts as evidence that macOS and Apple collect data, such as hashes of opened executables and network traffic. Commenters cite them as sources for their own privacy arguments.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- One commenter calls a post a good summary of the situation.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The personal website of Jeffrey Paul.
Most-linked posts?
- Your Computer Isn't Yours27 people · 35 mentions · first linked 2020-11-13
- macOS 11.2 Network Privacy9 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2021-02-03
- Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent7 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2023-01-15
- Macs with T2, M1 chips cannot be restored to factory state without Apple7 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-12-04
- Apple OSes are insecure by design to aid surveillance6 people · 22 mentions · first linked 2023-10-05
- Stop Emailing Like a Rube6 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2020-11-02
- On Communicating Accurately with Americans (2019)4 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2020-02-02
- The Case Against Microsoft and GitHub4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-03-08
- Your Money Isn't Yours3 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2019-11-26
- If Zoom Is Wrong, So Is Apple3 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-06-04
What Hacker News says?
Recently my close friend who still uses FB tried to send someone a link to a public tweet made by the president’s daughter. FB messenger censored the private message and refused to send it, claiming it was against “community standards”. These sorts of logged-forever, censored platforms are absolutely chilling speech, person-to-person, even in DMs, and you wouldn’t even know when it happens to messages sent to you. h…
Comment linking /20200421/normalcy-bias/
on “Social Cooling (2017)”Submitted Your Computer Isn't Yours as a story · 1514 points
HN discussionI like this piece to summarize situation: https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
Comment linking /20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
on “macOS unable to open any non-Apple application”Submitted Discord is not an acceptable choice for free software projects as a story · 532 points
HN discussionI wrote this essay about Apple’s anti-consumer practices in 2019: https://sneak.berlin/20190330/apple-is-not-trying-to-screw-y... It seems especially relevant given today’s news.
Comment linking /20190330/apple-is-not-trying-to-screw-you/
on “U.S. sues Apple, accusing it of maintaining an iPhone monopoly”Submitted Stupid Unix Tricks as a story · 427 points
HN discussionIn the past I have used the BitMarket subreddit for the purpose. I also have a standing open offer of personal proxy for creating accounts for people for personal, non-shady use: https://sneak.berlin/20200215/privacy-proxy-offer/
Comment linking /20200215/privacy-proxy-offer/
on “Terraria on Stadia cancelled after developer's Google account gets locked”Submitted Starlink Is a Big Deal as a story · 345 points
HN discussionSo, the company that got bribed by a shitcoin promoter to backdoor the keybase app so it can abuse your secret keybase identity keys to place permanent, non-removable shitcoin ads on your profile[1] (and then immediately denied that it was a backdoor and also lied about implementing the ability for users to remove the ads keybase got paid to place[2]) is now joining up with the company that has shipped sketchy backd…
Comment linking /20190929/keybase-backdoor/
on “Zoom Acquires Keybase”Submitted Keybase iOS Has a Backdoor? as a story · 154 points
HN discussionThe time for GitHub is over. I have moved all of my repositories away from there that do not depend on GitHub-only integrated services, and am migrating my DNS and domains/hosting off of those integrated services this week. You should too. If you work there, you should quit. https://sneak.berlin/20200307/the-case-against-microsoft-and... VS Code has had to fork to remove the unethical spyware portions within it plac…
Comment linking /20200307/the-case-against-microsoft-and-github/
on “NPM Is Joining GitHub”Submitted Macs with T2, M1 chips cannot be restored to factory state without Apple as a story · 114 points
HN discussionI think this is just a special case of “online communication”. It’s illegal for the phone company to arbitrarily suspend your service for what (legal things) you say over the phone. It’s legal for Twitter or Amazon or Etsy or Twitch or Discord or YouTube. I recently got suspended by Twitter after using it daily for 12 years and in addition to not being able to send new tweets or DMs (or do data backup/takeout), I al…
Comment linking /20200421/normalcy-bias/
on “Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products”Submitted Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent as a story · 97 points
HN discussionPeople are forgetting here that MacOS is already scanning all your unknown files (not only images) and sending hashes into the cloud. https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
Comment linking /20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
on “Apple’s Mistake”Submitted Apple Is Still Tracking You Without Consent as a story · 90 points
HN discussionDid you not read your own links before posting them lol? > Mind you, this is definitionally a conspiracy theory; please don’t let the connotations of that phrase bias you, but please feel free to read this (and everything else on the internet) as critically as you wish. https://sneak.berlin/20231005/apple-operating-system-surveil... I will admit that this sentence was easy to miss, hidden deeply at the start of the…
Comment linking /20231005/apple-operating-system-surveillance/
on “Orion, our first true augmented reality glasses”Submitted Goodbye, Twitter as a story · 87 points
HN discussion> There is always a comment saying Apple is much worse than people think compared to Facebook or Google. But there are never any Sources I'm not sure about much worse . It may depend on your own threat model. But here you go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41184153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40006508 https://sneak.berlin/20231005/apple-operating-system-su…
Comment linking /20231005/apple-operating-system-surveillance/
on “Orion, our first true augmented reality glasses”Submitted Quora Doesn’t Know What a Contract Is as a story · 73 points
HN discussionI saw your blogpost [1] mentioning how the iPhone 12 is likely your last. Have you given any thought since then to what your next smartphone would be? Or if you still use smartphone at all? [1] https://sneak.berlin/20210202/macos-11.2-network-privacy/
Comment linking /20210202/macos-11.2-network-privacy/
on “An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology”Submitted Apple OSes are insecure by design to aid surveillance as a story · 33 points
HN discussionThe world has changed. May not be completely accurate yet, but fits 2021 like a glove: https://sneak.berlin/20210202/macos-11.2-network-privacy/ https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
Comment linking /20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
on “Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow”Submitted Your Computer Is Not Yours as a story · 28 points
HN discussionYeah, you’re right. Apple’s approach to privacy is like one of those fairytale genies. On paper, and in many technical aspects, class-leading, but useless because anyone powerful and/or determined enough to hurt you will be able to use the backdoors that they willingly provide. End to end encryption? Sure, but we’re sending your location and metadata in unencrypted packets. Don’t want governments to surveil your ima…
Comment linking /20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/
on “Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac”Submitted If Zoom Is Wrong, So Is Apple as a story · 28 points
HN discussionI recently wrote a step by step article about this, for people who might not know how, such as family members, et al. I chose ProtonMail (despite also being a FastMail customer) because I’m a bit concerned about the new Australian encryption key escrow mandate (which I assume affects FastMail) and I like ProtonMail’s “don’t store plaintext” approach, even if it does need special client software. https://sneak.berlin…
Comment linking /20201029/stop-emailing-like-a-rube/
on “Google users locked out after 15 years' use”Submitted How Not to Run a Vulnerability Disclosure Program as a story · 25 points
HN discussionLast year Apple reacted after the outcry about MacOS tracking[1] so there is some hope. That was not a deliberate product and probably more of an unintended behavior though. I'm really hoping this was just a team at Apple that got blinded by all the cool cryptography they came up with to solve a problem and that the higher ups will react if we screech loudly enough. [1]: https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-i…
Comment linking /20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
on “An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning”Submitted The Case Against Microsoft and GitHub as a story · 20 points
HN discussion
