This is something I can’t figure out, because my understanding is that no matter what OS you install, unless you bought your Mac with cash, your serial number and credit card are now connected…and will always be spilling data about you.
Thanks for any advice…I’m wondering if it’s worth it to install a new OS.
What data?
It’s possible there’s something in the firmware or BIOS that transmits some things to Apple; I do not know for sure, but maybe someone else will show up here who knows details about this. Even if that is so, Apple gets significantly less data because anything built into macOS won’t be running.
It’s more likely hidden chips on the motherboard or in other circuits are sending data back to China. I, like you, doubt Apple is doing anything beyond the software level.
Why though? They are designing the most complex part of the computer, the M* chip, so they definitely have the technical and production capability to do whatever they want with the hardware. I’m not saying they do though but they could if they wanted to. That being said however they do it, they would still have to transmit whatever data being captured with interroperable means, i.e over the Internet (being over BT relayed to another device, WiFi, Ethernet, etc) which then in turn could be spotted with any network traffic analysis tool. A single instance of this would bring their entire goodwill and thus probably business to the ground though.
So… I’m not saying one has any reason to worry but also claiming they don’t do anything beyond software is strange to me.
My reasoning goes: they have no reason to. They’re not making commodity hardware; they’re making machines with an integrated OS, large parts of which are closed source. Why go through the cost and effort of doing something in hardware when you can do it more inexpensively and more flexibly in software? They do not support, nor do they expect, anyone to run anything but OSX (or iOS) on their computers. I doubt that they consider the folks hacking Linux onto their hardware to be worth worrying about: that’s a very short long tail, and almost certainly not worth the extra cost of doing it on-chip.
China does it because they’re selling commodity chips used in a variety of machines, running a variety of OSes, over which they have no control. They do it because there’s no other way for them to get telemetry from Apple computers, because they don’t control the software.
Can you think of a reason why Apple would need to do it in hardware, given that it’s hugely more expensive?
I can think of plenty of reasons, e.g. NSA, or any US institution interested in intelligence gathering, paying for it.
I can though, at the same time, imagine that Apple itself would still NOT want to do it, neither in software or hardware, because once discovered (not when) their economical value would crater.
The market value of Apple is totally different from alternatives, e.g. Chinese companies, as you mention, but also Microsoft or Google. Yes, they ALL sell vertical integration of software and hardware BUT everybody expects Google or Meta to “steal” your data. Most people expect Chinese companies to do the same. Most people understand that Microsoft do it because it’s profitable so they follow their footstep.
Everybody who knows this is buying Apple for the prestige AND because they are “different”. Namely you are “hip” by buying from them because they are NOT Google subsidizing hardware for privacy, Xioami or anything Android because it’s the same but “cheap” or Microsoft because it’s what one uses at work.
So… if tomorrow Apple is not “cool” anymore, that’s actually a very big deal for the bottom line IMHO.
They might be tempted to do so, regardless of how genuine the “culture” of the corporation is, but even if one were to care solely for money, their image is deeply intertwine now with the notion that at least if you buy some fancy Apple device they’ll work and nothing with leak.
That’s why economical, not technical, bet on how I have a hard time imagining a hardware backdoor.
But why would the do it in hardware when they can do it in software? Again, the number of people running Asahi Linux is minuscule.
I dunno about such an exposure tanking their stock. Sure, some privacy advocates would be disappointed, but most Apple users would shrug it off. I doubt a significant percent of people using Apple products are doing it because of privacy concerns. And what are those people going to do? Switch to Microsoft? If they were ever going to switch for privacy reasons, or had any willingness to switch to Linux, they probably already would have. But it’s all speculation, because getting statistics on this would be almost impossible. My opinion is, it might make a temporary blip in their stock price, but there’d be no enduring impact on their bottom line. Adding hidden telemetry to their chips, however, would add significant cost to every chip.
Because software is easier to analyze than hardware?