Wait, Apple is sending URLs to Tencent?! reclaimthenet.org/apple-safari-i… 
Does anyone know how Tencent Safe Browsing works? I know Google uses some (weak) k-anonymity solution to provide *some* degree of privacy. How about Tencent?
Also, can we assume that only users configured in the Mainland China region are having their data sent to Tencent? That warning is pretty damn broad.
Googling for the privacy features of Tencent Safe Browsing not pulling up loads of hits, at least on US/English Google.
I’m working from memory here, but as I recall: Google had two versions of Safe Browsing. The first literally just uploaded every URL to Google’s servers in the clear, and allowed Google to drop a tracking cookie. 1/
The second (and current) version hashes the URL and drops some bits from the hash. Google then ships down a file containing a list of malicious URLs that match the truncated hash. Here Google only learns a list of possible matching URLs. 2/
So the first question is: which version is Apple using with Tencent. The second question is: how much can Tencent learn about your overall browsing history from a collection of truncated hashes?
“Safe browsing” was never safe. It was a calculated risk/reward tradeoff based on certain assumptions about the behavior of Google.
Replacing Google with Tencent requires a whole new set of calculations. Has Apple done them?
Replacing Google with Tencent requires a whole new set of calculations. Has Apple done them?
Whenever Apple announces some minor new privacy feature, they do it onstage with a hundred reporters clapping. But when they want to send all your browsing data to a server in China? You only find out by reading the fine print.
This whole thing is making me angry, so here are some pictures of my dogs eating whipped cream.
