I own 3 YubiKeys that I have for personal use. There’s one that I keep connected to the USB hub on the desk in my study, another that I keep in my work bag, and a third that I keep in the safe at my mum’s house. Source: I Won’t Buy A YubiKey - Kev Quirk
When I read stories like this one, I’m reminded of how bad I am at managing my security posture. I depend on 1Password (less and less) and (more and more) on Apple’s Keychain. Will passkeys suppress the need for YubiKeys?
I’m dropping this here. It’s a matter of time. Mark my words.

Today, you can choose not to drive a Tesla if you don’t want Elon Musk, Inc. knowing everywhere you go.
Tomorrow, you might have to limit where you live because you won’t live in a Google Home and reconsider having 20/20 vision again in exchange for the artificial lens company seeing everything you see.
Privacy is not something you can “vote with your wallet” on. We either protect it as a human right or we lose it altogether.
👀🤔
The Password-Less Future Looks Bright and Secure
For the first in years, I just bought something from eBay. Man, this website design sucks and seems to date back to the early web. Is there anyone who cares about design at eBay? Anyway, they do care about security, though. Upon logging in with my password this morning, there was a popup asking me if I wanted to get rid of my password. I thought it was the eBay website that was about to turn on the Touch ID but instead asked me to confirm the passkey creation. It took me a confirmation with my finger on the Touch ID sensor on my M1 MacBook, and voilà, no more password required! That’s super cool.
While waiting for iCloud Private Relay...
I’m using NextDNS.io for a better web experience… not the same but it does a great job of making the web more privacy friendly and a lot faster too. Too bad that we will have to wait for iOS 15.1 or later for iCloud Private Relay. Each year there are features that get dropped from the initial release… remember iMessage in the cloud, anyone?
Joke of the day: “We believe that personalized ads and user privacy can coexist.”. 😂😂😂
Are Facetime Links Enough to compete against Zoom or Teams?
Benjamin Mayo on FaceTime 15 in the landscape of collaboration tools like Zoom and Teams:
FaceTime is more like an add-on of Messages, competing against WhatsApp and traditional phone calls if anything. You also see this in how each service handles identity; Zoom and Teams have abstracted user accounts, whereas on FaceTime you connect by sharing your personal phone number or email address — information that you only want to give out to close friends. Source: FaceTime in iOS 15 — Benjamin Mayo
Surprisingly, to use FaceTime, you need to give very personal information like your phone number of your email address… while other competing platform has abstracted that account information a long time ago. FaceTime links represent a step in the right direction, as sharing a link is enough for others to get onboard. Time will tell if this proves to be enough in the enterprise.
Is your iPhone really yours?
But the thread running through everything was that if you buy an Apple device, it’s yours. And it’s you. And if you buy, well, anything else, you’re just a slab of meat holding a slab of glass through which the internet will manipulate and extract data from you any way it wants. So, yeah, the garden’s walls may be high, but Apple says that’s only to keep you safe.
— David PierceSource: Apple defends the walled garden - Protocol — The people, power and politics of tech
Many would argue the since you cannot install apps from outside the App Store, your iPhone isn’t really yours. Others would argue that since you don’t have a choice but go to Apple to get “your” iPhone repaired, your iPhone isn’t really yours. what is “your” take on this?
I was over-simplifying quite a bit
After publishing my essay on what I was hoping Apple would do in response to the developers community, Matt Birchler wrote a small response regarding my assertion about payments processing platform being a limited feature in the grand scheme of things. It appears I was wrong. Thanks to Matt blog post, I have a better view of what goes behind the scene here.
That being said, Apple’s payment processing service within the App Store serves Apple’s purposes and is the one that is very narrow, very focused. It’s a good thing. I’m not sure Apple has to compete against this industry. Allowing third-party payment processing services would need to focus on the minimum in order to protect privacy or help guarantee that privacy is in good hands. It’s an attainable goal.
I’m Closing my Telegram Account — Here is why
First:
Apple is very efficient at pursuing their business model, which is based on selling overpriced, obsolete hardware to customers locked in their ecosystem," Durov wrote. “Every time I have to use an iPhone to test our iOS app I feel like I’m thrown back into the Middle Ages. The iPhone’s 60Hz displays can’t compete with the 120Hz displays of modern Android phones that support much smoother animations.
And:
Durov added that the worst part about Apple’s technology is not “clunkier devices or outdated hardware,” but that users who have an iPhone are a “digital slave of Apple.”
”You are only allowed to use apps that Apple lets you install via their App Store, and you can only use Apple’s iCloud to natively back up your data,” he said.
“It’s no wonder that Apple’s totalitarian approach is so appreciated by the Communist Party of China, which – thanks to Apple – now has complete control over the apps and data of all of its citizens who rely on iPhones.”
Source: Telegram founder says iPhone users are digital slaves | AppleInsider.
Mr. Durov can go to hell. Typical talk from an Android guy. Nobody his forcing him to develop for the iPhone. Nobody. He is a digital slave of Apple himself. I can’t stand this attitude and I’m voting with my digital means: closing my Telegram account.
For those who likes newsletters, I’ve got one too! It’a about Apple, photography, privacy and climate change, in that order! https://numericcitizen.substack.com/p/2021-02