And that’s the answer about RSS renaissance. If you have to explain it, there is zero chance of massive adoption.

Apple isn't hashing complete files—they're doing block-level deduplication on encrypted data. They likely split files into chunks (probably 4MB or 16MB blocks, similar to Dropbox) and hash each block independently. When I changed 1 byte in the middle of the file, only the block containing that byte needed to be uploaded. The other 95+ blocks were already on Apple's servers and were deduplicated.

This means Apple's servers maintain an index of which specific encrypted blocks each user possesses, even though they can't decrypt the content. Even with end-to-end encryption, the server knows the "fingerprint" of every 4-16MB chunk of your data. Research has shown that block-level deduplication enables "deduplication attacks" where you can determine if a user has a specific file without breaking encryption by uploading a known file and see if it deduplicates → user has that file and this works even with E2EE because block patterns are observable server-side.

Well-known files (popular software, movies, documents) have predictable block signatures. Even encrypted, these patterns could potentially be identified. "Does user X have file Y?" becomes answerable through deduplication probing without actually decrypting anything.

I'm not claiming Apple is actively exploiting this or that the encryption is broken. The crypto is probably solid. But users aren't informed that block-level metadata is retained and that this metadata can leak information about content despite E2EE. "Permanent deletion" doesn't remove these block fingerprints.

I still plan to complete the 30-day retention test to see if Apple ever purges deleted blocks, but the block-level deduplication revelation suggests they keep this metadata indefinitely for system efficiency. For truly private storage, encryption alone isn't enough—you need encryption that prevents deduplication metadata from forming in the first place.

Confirmation Test: Created a 100MB file with random data: dd if=/dev/urandom of=randomfile.dat bs=1m count=100 Uploaded to iCloud: took 2-3 minutes, Activity Monitor showed 122MB sent (correct) Deleted the file from iCloud Drive "Permanently deleted" from Recently Deleted and emptied any files from Data recovery. Re-uploaded the identical file: completed in 1 second Activity Monitor: essentially zero data sent

Apple kept the encrypted blocks even after "permanent deletion."

The month-long test (in progress): I'm keeping the random file and will attempt to re-upload it after 30+ days to see if Apple purges data on any schedule, or retains it indefinitely.

Why this matters: ADP is marketed as giving users exclusive control over their data "Delete" and "Permanent Delete" options imply data removal Upload progress bars show fake "uploading" status for deduplication operations Users cannot verify what data Apple retains. To attempt permanent deletion, you must disable ADP web access

What's unclear: Does this apply to Health data, Passwords, and other ADP-protected content? How long does Apple retain "deleted" encrypted blocks? Can users ever truly remove their data?

I'm not claiming the encryption is weak—it's probably fine. But Apple's lack of transparency about data retention and deduplication with ADP is concerning. "Permanent delete" should mean permanent delete. Has anyone else noticed this behavior? I'll update this post after completing the 30-day retention test.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46746877

Points: 20

# Comments: 6

Most??? I can’t find Arturia, Korg, Reason Rack Plugin, FabFilter, Native Instruments, Softube and those are just from the top of my head.

I know people desperately want to believe that Linux is "there", but it really isn't. And will probably never be. It’s still too confusing for the average user (many distros, many desktop environments, Wayland vs X, systemd vs init, snap vs flatpak).

But this doesn’t change the fact that she shouldn’t share anything personal on social media. Consider social media the new "streets". A street with dim lights or an alley that you go at 3am and shout something or showing your images/videos to strangers there. This is exactly what you should keep in mind before you share anything personal on social media.

And either way, who wants to be an unpaid Meta employee that provides any kind of content for free?

There is no anonymity, there is always someone you have to trust in the chain of WAN networking (DNS,ISP,VPN). If you want anonymity and privacy, you selfhost (examining the code is also a prerequisite). There is no other way to do it.

Problem solved.

I use Brave or Ungoogled Chromium. What do they do better? Pretty much everything.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45789789

Points: 1

# Comments: 2

I don’t think that there is going back for Apple, the company is already too enshittified to get back to a company with a vision. They got drowned by AI, the releases and features are subpar to competition. I do care about detail when I’m buying premium products and Apple just doesn’t cut it any more.

I find it unacceptable that people pay that kind of money for iPhones and iPads etc and have to deal with bugs, bubbles, readability issues with a theme that looks like a terrible 2011 android skin. And that’s a trillion dollar company.

Staying on 18, till iPhone dies.