How private is Apple's Private Relay, really?

You're forced to use Cloudflare. Don't they track ... everything?

37 points · 10 comments · view on lemmy.world

10 Comments

LWD@lemm.ee · 28 pts · 2y (8 replies)
[ removed ]
LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2y

Just wanted to chip in and say, what a great comment! 👌

turkalino@lemmy.yachts · 6 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Ah, so it's just corporate Tor. Mega gross.

LWD@lemm.ee · 7 pts · 2y

deleted by creator

WetBeardHairs@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 2y (4 replies)

My main concern is that cloudflare knows what content it is serving and it is certainly fingerprinting your browser. So regardless of how you request the data, cloudflare knows.

histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 2y

yea but cloudflares probably gonna know anyway cause they serve a large portion of the Internet anyway

LWD@lemm.ee · 3 pts · 2y
[ removed ]
IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y

Hate to break it to you but all the major CDN providers do the exact same things. My employer runs multiple websites mainly for US and European users. We use Akamai for both CDN and WAF services. For any CDN and/or WAF to operate properly it needs access to unencrypted content. Part of Akamais WAF tools includes what they call Bot Manager, which can identify traffic coming from over 1000 known bots and can also classify unknown ones. Part of how it works is by browser fingerprinting as well as TLS session fingerprinting and other proprietary fingerprinting.

So any time you visit a large website you’re likely being fingerprinted and otherwise analyzed by the CDN and security tools used by those sites.

LWD@lemm.ee · 1 pts · 2y

deleted by creator

1984@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 2y

I see Apple in the name, so how private? Wide open.

dan42O@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 2y

Damn i should’ve read into this a bit more. Didn’t see they used cloudflare

KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 2y

Request: Your IP > Apple (1st) relay node > 3rd party (2nd) relay node > Website

Response: Your IP < Apple (1st) relay node < 3rd party (2nd) relay node < Website

Whoever has access to both relay nodes, can easily track you end-to-end.

As for Apple, they claim the 1st relay node is owned by them, and 2nd relay node is owned by 3rd party. (Source: https://www.apple.com/icloud/docs/iCloud_Private_Relay_Overview_Dec2021.pdf)

In theory, it should not be a privacy concern because -

  • Website will see the request coming from 2nd relay node's IP.
  • 2nd relay node will see the request is coming from Apple (1st) relay node's IP.
  • So, only Apple knows your IP.