Does Apple still use AWS for a significant portion of iCloud services? The reason I ask is to follow on with was there an outage of other AWS hosted stuff?
No, they migrated off of AWS back when there were suspicians of hacked servers years ago and moved to Google and then, after a short stint there, built their own server farms.
The users metadata info and encryption keys are stored on Apple owned servers (there is at least one country exception, perhaps two or soon to be). The encrypted files themselves are stored with third-party cloud companies with both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services specifically acknowledged by them. At one time Apple had mentioned Azure (Microsoft) as well. The wording of the cloud security document where the first two companies were mentioned isn’t entirely clear so Apple could certainly be using other cloud storage services even if not naming them directly.
Earlier this year there was an article here on AI claiming Apple had halved their reliance on Amazon over the past year or so. But just a few days earlier another publication ran a detailed article on how reliant Apple was on AWS and it was increasingly so. To be honest I would not be surprised to learn they are more reliant than ever on 3rd party servers considering Apple's rapid expanse into services and the expanded need for cloud streaming of news, music, media, and other service content and recent cancellations and delays on building their own data centers. The AI article was likely in relationship to potentially personally identifiable data, iCloud stuff, where Apple is the presumed caretaker and coordinator and moving more of it off AWS and over to Google instead and not overall cloud needs but who knows exactly where the truth lies outside of the parties themselves.
The only thing clear is that Apple does not have nearly enough server farms of their own to host all of your personal content plus what's needed for various Apple services so yes they depend on outside companies in coordination with data stored on their Apple-owned servers. Someday they may have enough capacity of their own, not today.
That's disturbing...
Why? If only encrypted data is stored on third party servers then I see the risk as being very low. Apple no doubt investigated the cost of storing everything on their own servers (time, materials and dollars) and judged it more prudent to utilise third party services in this manner. Spreading the load across multiple providers reduces the chance of a single provider's outage affecting all of Apple's customers; like it or not Google and Amazon need to be included in that mix because of their existing infrastructure - there just aren't that many hosting companies that can handle the storage requirements for a reasonable fraction of, what, 500 million active users?
Does Apple still use AWS for a significant portion of iCloud services? The reason I ask is to follow on with was there an outage of other AWS hosted stuff?
No, they migrated off of AWS back when there were suspicians of hacked servers years ago and moved to Google and then, after a short stint there, built their own server farms.
The users metadata info and encryption keys are stored on Apple owned servers (there is at least one country exception, perhaps two or soon to be). The encrypted files themselves are stored with third-party cloud companies with both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services specifically acknowledged by them. At one time Apple had mentioned Azure (Microsoft) as well. The wording of the cloud security document where the first two companies were mentioned isn’t entirely clear so Apple could certainly be using other cloud storage services even if not naming them directly.
Earlier this year there was an article here on AI claiming Apple had halved their reliance on Amazon over the past year or so. But just a few days earlier another publication ran a detailed article on how reliant Apple was on AWS and it was increasingly so. To be honest I would not be surprised to learn they are more reliant than ever on 3rd party servers considering Apple's rapid expanse into services and the expanded need for cloud streaming of news, music, media, and other service content and recent cancellations and delays on building their own data centers. The AI article was likely in relationship to potentially personally identifiable data, iCloud stuff, where Apple is the presumed caretaker and coordinator and moving more of it off AWS and over to Google instead and not overall cloud needs but who knows exactly where the truth lies outside of the parties themselves.
The only thing clear is that Apple does not have nearly enough server farms of their own to host all of your personal content plus what's needed for various Apple services so yes they depend on outside companies in coordination with data stored on their Apple-owned servers. Someday they may have enough capacity of their own, not today.
That's disturbing...
Why? If only encrypted data is stored on third party servers then I see the risk as being very low. Apple no doubt investigated the cost of storing everything on their own servers (time, materials and dollars) and judged it more prudent to utilise third party services in this manner. Spreading the load across multiple providers reduces the chance of a single provider's outage affecting all of Apple's customers; like it or not Google and Amazon need to be included in that mix because of their existing infrastructure - there just aren't that many hosting companies that can handle the storage requirements for a reasonable fraction of, what, 500 million active users?
Why? Because neither Amazon nor Google value security and privacy beyond mere marketing buzzwords.
And, n addition: When old security reports were published saying that there had been a possibility of backdoors implanted in AWS servers (which Apple used in the early days of iCloud) Tim responded by guaranteeing that that never happened. Yet, how could he guarantee anything on an Amazon server? He couldn't.
Does Apple still use AWS for a significant portion of iCloud services? The reason I ask is to follow on with was there an outage of other AWS hosted stuff?
No, they migrated off of AWS back when there were suspicians of hacked servers years ago and moved to Google and then, after a short stint there, built their own server farms.
The users metadata info and encryption keys are stored on Apple owned servers (there is at least one country exception, perhaps two or soon to be). The encrypted files themselves are stored with third-party cloud companies with both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services specifically acknowledged by them. At one time Apple had mentioned Azure (Microsoft) as well. The wording of the cloud security document where the first two companies were mentioned isn’t entirely clear so Apple could certainly be using other cloud storage services even if not naming them directly.
Earlier this year there was an article here on AI claiming Apple had halved their reliance on Amazon over the past year or so. But just a few days earlier another publication ran a detailed article on how reliant Apple was on AWS and it was increasingly so. To be honest I would not be surprised to learn they are more reliant than ever on 3rd party servers considering Apple's rapid expanse into services and the expanded need for cloud streaming of news, music, media, and other service content and recent cancellations and delays on building their own data centers. The AI article was likely in relationship to potentially personally identifiable data, iCloud stuff, where Apple is the presumed caretaker and coordinator and moving more of it off AWS and over to Google instead and not overall cloud needs but who knows exactly where the truth lies outside of the parties themselves.
The only thing clear is that Apple does not have nearly enough server farms of their own to host all of your personal content plus what's needed for various Apple services so yes they depend on outside companies in coordination with data stored on their Apple-owned servers. Someday they may have enough capacity of their own, not today.
That's disturbing...
Why? If only encrypted data is stored on third party servers then I see the risk as being very low. Apple no doubt investigated the cost of storing everything on their own servers (time, materials and dollars) and judged it more prudent to utilise third party services in this manner. Spreading the load across multiple providers reduces the chance of a single provider's outage affecting all of Apple's customers; like it or not Google and Amazon need to be included in that mix because of their existing infrastructure - there just aren't that many hosting companies that can handle the storage requirements for a reasonable fraction of, what, 500 million active users?
Why? Because neither Amazon nor Google value security and privacy beyond mere marketing buzzwords.
Then by extension Apple doesn't care beyond the buzzwords either. Gosh they're taking the data you entrusted to them and sending it all on to companies that don't care about the security of it or that it remain private?
Stop being silly and stop depending on some FUD-filled fan posts as your primary source of information. Those are more akin to DISinformation, and opinions not fact.
Does Apple still use AWS for a significant portion of iCloud services? The reason I ask is to follow on with was there an outage of other AWS hosted stuff?
No, they migrated off of AWS back when there were suspicians of hacked servers years ago and moved to Google and then, after a short stint there, built their own server farms.
The users metadata info and encryption keys are stored on Apple owned servers (there is at least one country exception, perhaps two or soon to be). The encrypted files themselves are stored with third-party cloud companies with both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services specifically acknowledged by them. At one time Apple had mentioned Azure (Microsoft) as well. The wording of the cloud security document where the first two companies were mentioned isn’t entirely clear so Apple could certainly be using other cloud storage services even if not naming them directly.
Earlier this year there was an article here on AI claiming Apple had halved their reliance on Amazon over the past year or so. But just a few days earlier another publication ran a detailed article on how reliant Apple was on AWS and it was increasingly so. To be honest I would not be surprised to learn they are more reliant than ever on 3rd party servers considering Apple's rapid expanse into services and the expanded need for cloud streaming of news, music, media, and other service content and recent cancellations and delays on building their own data centers. The AI article was likely in relationship to potentially personally identifiable data, iCloud stuff, where Apple is the presumed caretaker and coordinator and moving more of it off AWS and over to Google instead and not overall cloud needs but who knows exactly where the truth lies outside of the parties themselves.
The only thing clear is that Apple does not have nearly enough server farms of their own to host all of your personal content plus what's needed for various Apple services so yes they depend on outside companies in coordination with data stored on their Apple-owned servers. Someday they may have enough capacity of their own, not today.
That's disturbing...
Why? If only encrypted data is stored on third party servers then I see the risk as being very low. Apple no doubt investigated the cost of storing everything on their own servers (time, materials and dollars) and judged it more prudent to utilise third party services in this manner. Spreading the load across multiple providers reduces the chance of a single provider's outage affecting all of Apple's customers; like it or not Google and Amazon need to be included in that mix because of their existing infrastructure - there just aren't that many hosting companies that can handle the storage requirements for a reasonable fraction of, what, 500 million active users?
Why? Because neither Amazon nor Google value security and privacy beyond mere marketing buzzwords.
Then by extension Apple doesn't care beyond the buzzwords either. Gosh they're taking the data you entrusted to them and sending it all on to companies that don't care about the security of it or that it remain private?
Stop being silly and stop depending on some FUD-filled fan posts as your primary source of information. Those are more akin to DISinformation, and opinions not fact.
I stopped ever trusting Google when they got busted driving around scooping up everybody's WiFi data and then blamed it on a "rogue programmer" while refusing to delete it from their servers...
Does Apple still use AWS for a significant portion of iCloud services? The reason I ask is to follow on with was there an outage of other AWS hosted stuff?
No, they migrated off of AWS back when there were suspicians of hacked servers years ago and moved to Google and then, after a short stint there, built their own server farms.
The users metadata info and encryption keys are stored on Apple owned servers (there is at least one country exception, perhaps two or soon to be). The encrypted files themselves are stored with third-party cloud companies with both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services specifically acknowledged by them. At one time Apple had mentioned Azure (Microsoft) as well. The wording of the cloud security document where the first two companies were mentioned isn’t entirely clear so Apple could certainly be using other cloud storage services even if not naming them directly.
Earlier this year there was an article here on AI claiming Apple had halved their reliance on Amazon over the past year or so. But just a few days earlier another publication ran a detailed article on how reliant Apple was on AWS and it was increasingly so. To be honest I would not be surprised to learn they are more reliant than ever on 3rd party servers considering Apple's rapid expanse into services and the expanded need for cloud streaming of news, music, media, and other service content and recent cancellations and delays on building their own data centers. The AI article was likely in relationship to potentially personally identifiable data, iCloud stuff, where Apple is the presumed caretaker and coordinator and moving more of it off AWS and over to Google instead and not overall cloud needs but who knows exactly where the truth lies outside of the parties themselves.
The only thing clear is that Apple does not have nearly enough server farms of their own to host all of your personal content plus what's needed for various Apple services so yes they depend on outside companies in coordination with data stored on their Apple-owned servers. Someday they may have enough capacity of their own, not today.
That's disturbing...
Why? If only encrypted data is stored on third party servers then I see the risk as being very low. Apple no doubt investigated the cost of storing everything on their own servers (time, materials and dollars) and judged it more prudent to utilise third party services in this manner. Spreading the load across multiple providers reduces the chance of a single provider's outage affecting all of Apple's customers; like it or not Google and Amazon need to be included in that mix because of their existing infrastructure - there just aren't that many hosting companies that can handle the storage requirements for a reasonable fraction of, what, 500 million active users?
Why? Because neither Amazon nor Google value security and privacy beyond mere marketing buzzwords.
Then by extension Apple doesn't care beyond the buzzwords either. Gosh they're taking the data you entrusted to them and sending it all on to companies that don't care about the security of it or that it remain private?
Stop being silly and stop depending on some FUD-filled fan posts as your primary source of information. Those are more akin to DISinformation, and opinions not fact.
I stopped ever trusting Google when they got busted driving around scooping up everybody's WiFi data and then blamed it on a "rogue programmer" while refusing to delete it from their servers...
Not one of their prouder moments I agree.
TBF they weren't exactly "scooping up everybody's wi-fi data" since they were only in range of any particular ones for at best a few seconds, so not very likely there was anything of a private identifiable nature revealed. Their nosey techy neighbors would be more likely to snoop on their wifi since it was being publicly broadcast over an open unsecured network. They also did delete the collected data within a few weeks of acknowledging they had it too, tho it took awhile for the acknowledgment. Bad Google.
Do I believe Google as a company had planned to gather wi-fi data snippets while mapping? No I don't. At the same time I think upper management became aware of it some time before the the German authorities did so not exactly being honest when the powers at Google said they didn't know it happened.
Does Apple still use AWS for a significant portion of iCloud services? The reason I ask is to follow on with was there an outage of other AWS hosted stuff?
No, they migrated off of AWS back when there were suspicians of hacked servers years ago and moved to Google and then, after a short stint there, built their own server farms.
The users metadata info and encryption keys are stored on Apple owned servers (there is at least one country exception, perhaps two or soon to be). The encrypted files themselves are stored with third-party cloud companies with both Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services specifically acknowledged by them. At one time Apple had mentioned Azure (Microsoft) as well. The wording of the cloud security document where the first two companies were mentioned isn’t entirely clear so Apple could certainly be using other cloud storage services even if not naming them directly.
Earlier this year there was an article here on AI claiming Apple had halved their reliance on Amazon over the past year or so. But just a few days earlier another publication ran a detailed article on how reliant Apple was on AWS and it was increasingly so. To be honest I would not be surprised to learn they are more reliant than ever on 3rd party servers considering Apple's rapid expanse into services and the expanded need for cloud streaming of news, music, media, and other service content and recent cancellations and delays on building their own data centers. The AI article was likely in relationship to potentially personally identifiable data, iCloud stuff, where Apple is the presumed caretaker and coordinator and moving more of it off AWS and over to Google instead and not overall cloud needs but who knows exactly where the truth lies outside of the parties themselves.
The only thing clear is that Apple does not have nearly enough server farms of their own to host all of your personal content plus what's needed for various Apple services so yes they depend on outside companies in coordination with data stored on their Apple-owned servers. Someday they may have enough capacity of their own, not today.
That's disturbing...
Why? If only encrypted data is stored on third party servers then I see the risk as being very low. Apple no doubt investigated the cost of storing everything on their own servers (time, materials and dollars) and judged it more prudent to utilise third party services in this manner. Spreading the load across multiple providers reduces the chance of a single provider's outage affecting all of Apple's customers; like it or not Google and Amazon need to be included in that mix because of their existing infrastructure - there just aren't that many hosting companies that can handle the storage requirements for a reasonable fraction of, what, 500 million active users?
Why? Because neither Amazon nor Google value security and privacy beyond mere marketing buzzwords.
Then by extension Apple doesn't care beyond the buzzwords either. Gosh they're taking the data you entrusted to them and sending it all on to companies that don't care about the security of it or that it remain private?
Stop being silly and stop depending on some FUD-filled fan posts as your primary source of information. Those are more akin to DISinformation, and opinions not fact.
I stopped ever trusting Google when they got busted driving around scooping up everybody's WiFi data and then blamed it on a "rogue programmer" while refusing to delete it from their servers...
Not one of their prouder moments I agree.
TBF they weren't exactly "scooping up everybody's wi-fi data" since they were only in range of any particular ones for at best a few seconds, so not very likely there was anything of a private identifiable nature revealed. Their nosey techy neighbors would be more likely to snoop on their wifi since it was being publicly broadcast over an open unsecured network. They also did delete the collected data within a few weeks of acknowledging they had it too, tho it took awhile for the acknowledgment. Bad Google.
Do I believe Google as a company had planned to gather wi-fi data snippets while mapping? No I don't. At the same time I think upper management became aware of it some time before the the German authorities did so not exactly being honest when the powers at Google said they didn't know it happened.
For me, more than the actual incident, it showed a level of callousness about user data and their privacy. It's the attitude that bothered me more than anything.
Comments
And, n addition: When old security reports were published saying that there had been a possibility of backdoors implanted in AWS servers (which Apple used in the early days of iCloud) Tim responded by guaranteeing that that never happened. Yet, how could he guarantee anything on an Amazon server? He couldn't.
Stop being silly and stop depending on some FUD-filled fan posts as your primary source of information. Those are more akin to DISinformation, and opinions not fact.
https://cloud.google.com/security/infrastructure/design/
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/gsuite.google.com/en//files/google-apps-security-and-compliance-whitepaper.pdfTBF they weren't exactly "scooping up everybody's wi-fi data" since they were only in range of any particular ones for at best a few seconds, so not very likely there was anything of a private identifiable nature revealed. Their nosey techy neighbors would be more likely to snoop on their wifi since it was being publicly broadcast over an open unsecured network. They also did delete the collected data within a few weeks of acknowledging they had it too, tho it took awhile for the acknowledgment. Bad Google.
Do I believe Google as a company had planned to gather wi-fi data snippets while mapping? No I don't. At the same time I think upper management became aware of it some time before the the German authorities did so not exactly being honest when the powers at Google said they didn't know it happened.